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Cyberpunk 2077 - Review Thread

Should we lock this thread?

  • Yes

    Votes: 196 23.8%
  • No

    Votes: 628 76.2%

  • Total voters
    824

ikbalCO

Member
i am expecting the scores to bump up to 93 ~ 94 territory after european outlet start uploading their review.

europe is not that purist like usa


love it when a reviewer does not play the game.

god, these people earn money by this for christ sake. at least play the game lady. there are a lot of people would do anything to do your job for a living.

what a disgrace.
 
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I didn't say the game in the example doesn't cater to men's taste more than women, I said the creator doesn't SET OUT specifically targeting a gender when they develop their game, they make the game they want to make, the game they think will be great and the gender of the player doesn't enter the equation during the creative process. They also don't lean into the bias during the creative process and say "ok, I'm going to guess 90% of my players will be male, so we should put lots of specifically masculine stuff in there!", I would have serious doubts any credible AAA game director has ever done that. In marketing, that's exactly what you do, but not in the creative process. In the creative process, you put the content in there which you think will make the game the best it can be according to your vision, regardless of what demographics that ends up catering to when all is said and done. The marketing is where you lean into the demographics and target your audience appropriately.

I'm saying that gender doesn't enter the equation in the creative process, not that games are or should trying to appeal to everyone or appeal as broadly as possibly, which is what you seem to think I'm saying, judging by your post.

No, there is nothing wrong with focusing on an audience, but I think you are misunderstanding completely what I'm saying, so I'll leave it at this and we can just agree to disagree.
No, I think we get where each other is coming from, and you do make good points, so I'm sorry if I was a little flippant.

The only thing I would say is that while you are right, that an individual creator wouldn't think about target audiences, just wanting to get a story or piece if art out into the world, the bigger the media is ,and the more money and creators are involved, such as the output of a major game studio, then so demographic tastes and, as you say, marketing team influences will be more often involved in that creative process.

When you have hundreds of people and millions of dollars of investment involved in the creative process, minimising risks and ensuring there is a large enough audience that will buy the game and be well catered to will be a major influence in that mass marketed products making, so not really analogous to the more traditional and personal creative process you're describing.

Put it this way, while I fully agree that marketing would indeed be the ones focusing on targeting specific demographics, thus by extension would be the ones who care about catering to things like gendered taste trends, the head of CDPR's marketing team is obviously going to have had far more input and influence over the games development and content than all but the most senior writing and design staff, especially with the people holding the purse strings and making major content decisions.
 
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Dampf

Member
RT on vs off (first screen is always on):


5cde0457-f3ca-5fef-a202-07a1e90a8e64
5546291d-4dfa-5029-b0a5-71bf94663084


e8849057-63c2-5de1-8a2c-195430cb9722


29641e93-d26c-542a-97d0-e220344dbe35


39227480-b15b-5f1d-8a2d-1c87e8fdd326


d0b5b0db-b8e0-5489-964c-d313f47d0dca
3bfb403f-3afe-5161-a5e0-0f9ec42dd872
bea35145-eb2f-5a36-8408-d8207be3e78c


source (dtf.ru, in Russian)
Looks amazing with RT. Daylight is only accounted by the GI with Raytracing. In these scenes, daylight is coming in through doors from next to the vending machine and behind the player in the first comparison, illuminating the scene nicely. AO is also a lot better.

RT GI takes this game to the next level.
 
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No, I think we get where each other is coming from, and you do make good points, so I'm sorry if I 2as a little flippant.

The only thing I would say is that while you are right, that an individual creator wouldn't think about target audiences, just wanting to get a story or piece if art out into the world, the bigger the media is ,and the more money and creators are involved, such as the output of a major game studio, then so demographic tastes and, as you say, marketing team influences will be involved in that creative process.

When you have hundreds of people and millions of dollars of investment involved in the creative process, minimising risks and ensuring there is a large enough audience that will by the game and be well catered to, will be a major influence in that mass marketed products making, and not really analogous to the more traditional and personal creative process your describing.

Put it this way, while I fully agree that marketing would indeed be the ones focusing on targeting specific demographics, thus by extension would be the ones who care about catering to things like gendered taste trends, the head of CDPR's marketing team is obviously going to have had far more input and influence over the games development and content than all but the most senior writing and design staff, especially with the people holding the purse strings and making major content decisions.

That, I do certainly agree with, that marketing and higher ups will often put influence on the creative vision due to target demographics, but for the most part, I think this actually hurts the quality of the product rather than providing a better experience through focusing on demographics, wouldn't you agree?

This is one of the reasons why I love PlayStation exclusives so much, as I feel that most of them have a great degree of creative freedom, especially evident through not having to shoehorn MTX into their narrative games, as Ubisoft does (though I'm sure they don't have total freedom).
 
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Ricky_Bee

Banned
Move on from the Gamespot review people, it’s fine to not engage with all aspects of a game before reviewing it.

Showing some vague sense of enthusiasm for... for profit entertainment software... might result in a more useful review for the vast majority of likely viewers though.

‘I hate men, Capitalism, the entire history of human society and especially my Dad why didn’t he take me to pony club.’

‘Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.’
 

Dampf

Member
The first scene arguably looks better without RTX in a stylized way. The rest is not even a competition, RTX in this game will look amazing and the difference in motion will be huge!
I wonder if you can close the door behind the player, which would result into the light changing to look closer to the RTX off pic. That would be incredible and dynamic.
 
The first scene arguably looks better without RTX in a stylized way. The rest is not even a competition, RTX in this game will look amazing and the difference in motion will be huge!

I agree with that, but look at the glorious ray traced dildo in the very first image. The way it glistens in the light is absolutely beautiful... the power of ray tracing, ay?
 

Sion86

Neo Member
I'll be honest I watched his video but after I watched Yongyeas and there seemed to be a difference with regard to how each perceived the updated review patch. Yong said it fixed a lot of bugs where as Layman said the opposite. But Yong I think did a new save which was the difference.



Indeed I don't have a beef with her taking issue with representation and her perception of (that's her perogative), but she didn't explore the crafting systems or get deep into the mechanics or anything...that's due diligence if you're a reviewer. Honestly, I think Gamespot probably really need to consider having someone do a second review post-release on that because it's an embarrassment. Should have had the guy who did the preview review the game honestly.
Sounds like when Giant Bomb let Abby lead the Disco Elysium quick look and she didn't understand the CRPG genre at all..

Called the game writing mysoginist and racist and then detailed that the character she made was essentially a Grug brain moron with low intelligence and little to no speaking skills.
 

Raonak

Banned
I'm curious about the game, but kinda burnt out on openworld atm after spiderman (and GOT before that)

the world seems really neat through.
might give it a week for two for bugs to settle down.
 

nightmare-slain

Gold Member
Can someone explain me why first one in non RT version looks like photography darkroom? Posters alone are huge sources of not red light. There is also big white neon on wall at the end of corridor. That lighting just don't make sense to me at all.
all the light sources except the one at the far end are reddish hues. red, pink, purple. 3 of the posters are purple. 1 white and 1 green/blue/white. so it's not that surprising the entire scene looks like a darkroom.

honestly i don't get why the RTX on scene is so bright. there's not any white-ish light sources. the posters do emit a lot of light not enough to light the entire scene. the most vibrant are the neon lights above the posters.
 
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nightmare-slain

Gold Member
By comparison to the GTAs before it I thought GTAV was relatively parody-lite.
i agree. III, VC, SA were the best for it. IV was good and V had a decent amount of it but nowhere as good.

GTA6 is going to lose all parody and extremes that GTA5 had, going by these loonies in the review and social media sphere, innit?

real life is actually a joke now so it'd be hard for Rockstar to take parody it. it's probably one reason why we've heard nothing about GTA VI yet. not saying it's the only reason but i bet the writers are having a hard time beating the shit we see IRL.

another example of the real world going beyond fiction is the TV show Black Mirror. the last season wasn't that great it felt like they were struggling to come up with ideas and i think they'd be challenged to write episodes that unnerve people after 2020. seems like we won't be getting another season any time soon.
 
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That, I do certainly agree with, that marketing and higher ups will often put influence on the creative vision due to target demographics, but for the most part, I think this actually hurts the quality of the product rather than providing a better experience through focusing on demographics, wouldn't you agree?

This is one of the reasons why I love PlayStation exclusives so much, as I feel that most of them have a great degree of creative freedom, especially evident through not having to shoehorn MTX into their narrative games, as Ubisoft does (though I'm sure they don't have total freedom).
I do indeed agree, which is why 99% of my gaming time is spent with Nintendo and Sony exclusives or indie games, because you absolutely can tell when corporate interference has been at play behind the scenes in games.

I do however think that creator driven, rather than corporate/marketing driven games tend to be more divisive and likely to cater to specific niche audiences more often, even if that niche is a massive one, like with regards to gendered taste trends, even if that wasn't an active intent by the creator(s).

That's part of what I objected to originally, with regards to the criticsm of CP2077 catering to men more than women.

CDPR games are great because they're creator driven, and thus more likely to be a work of art with a particular vision and story to tell, that may well be more appealing to men (or women, or the French, or fantasy nerds, or whomever), but just because that's the case, it's not a reason to mark it down or criticise it.

By extension, I think the same is true for TLOU2, which was made explicitly to appeal to a female and politically far left audience, prominently focusing on elements and ideas that I personally found unappealing.

However the fact that it doesn't cater to my tastes or politics does not mean I feel it should, or doesn't deserve the praise, awards and rave reviews it has received. It just doesn't cater to my 'demographic', and that's fine. Hell, to the people that love it, catering to my tastes would likely make it worse for them, and I'm not egotistical enough to think my tastes are more important to be catered to than others.
 
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Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
I'm not seeing perks that would push me to make different builds.

I mean stuff like increasing rifle damage by 9% is just worthless to me
Might be nigh on mandatory on high difficulty though....any reviews been played on max difficulty?

Jesus that GameSpot review is a dumpster fire of massive proportions, my brain is still hurting from it.
 
I do indeed agree, which is why 99% of my gaming time is spent with Nintendo and Sony exclusives or indie games, because you absolutely can tell when corporate interference has been at play behind the scenes in games.

I do however think that creator driven, rather than corporate/marketing driven games tend to be more divisive and likely to cater to specific niche audiences more often, even if that niche is a massive one, like with regards to gendered taste trends, even if that wasn't an active intent by the creator(s).

That's part of what I objected to originally, with regards to the criticsm of CP2077 catering to men more than women.

CDPR games are great because they're creator driven, and thus more likely to be a work of art with a particular vision and story to tell, that may well be more appealing to men (or women, or the French, or fantasy nerds, or whomever), but just because that's the case, it's not a reason to mark it down or criticise it.

By extension, I think the same is true for TLOU2, which was made explicitly to appeal to a female and politically far left audience, prominently focusing on elements and ideas that I personally found unappealing.

However the fact that it doesn't cater to my tastes or politics does not mean I feel it should, or doesn't deserve the praise, awards and rave reviews it has received. It just doesn't cater to my 'demographic', and that's fine. Hell, to the people that love it, catering to my tastes would likely make it worse for them, and I'm not egotistical enough to think my tastes are more important to be catered to than others.

I pretty much agree with everything you say here, though I admittedly loved TLOU2 (like, in my favourite games ever list) and I'm neither feminine nor politically far left, so I suppose I must be one of the outliers if that is indeed the primary demographic playing the game :messenger_grinning_squinting:
 

Vire

Member
GiantBombs slights were exactly what I was worried about in the pre release footage so it’s disappointing to hear that the full game is like that.

The dialogue being corny and the immaturity of things. I was hoping for more ghost in the shell/blade runner (a more thoughtful approach). Instead I got the zaniness and satire of a gta game dick jokes included. But I guess we’ll see. Not in a huge rush to play
 

John2290

Member
I'm pretty annoyed that 13 hours was extended onto the release, this is the second time they've lied now and I've cleared no less than five days because of this. I wish they'd stick to their shit and stop lying. Not that those days were esspecially important, they weren't but it really sits badly with me that I either have to get things back on track on Wednesday, wait until Friday evening to play it or be tired as fuck with a midnight release. I'm too old too be waiting up until 6am but fuck it, I'll figure it out.
 

Ricky_Bee

Banned
I'm talking about AAA narrative-driven/focused games, not long established, regularly releasing multiplayer shooters or sports games. I'm not sure what the other part of your message is referring to, tbh.

‘2/3rds’ of people picked the dude in Assassins Creed Odyssey.

83% the dude in Mass Effect 2 although that was a while ago now.

And I mean... here is some racist shitstain at Kotaku ‘calling out’ Baldur’s Gate III players for being born a race and sex she doesn’t approve of


Video game companies know who buys and plays their games. They used to be relatively open about it, and about how they would pander to the tastes of the people who pay their rent. They aren’t any more.
 

zwiggelbig

Member
That drama is entertaining to some extend, but it becomes stale by now.

any reviews that tackle the following topics?

- difficulty
- gunplay/melee combat
- console performance
- role-playing capabilities
- gun customisation/crafting/"alchemy" in general?

I'm not in the mood digging through dozens of clickbait pseudo outrage bullshit articles, just to find one that talks about the gameplay in this videogame.

I found sams review pretty good
 

TJC

Member
Be interesting to see performance on next gen via B/C. if the Pro version has less resolution than the One X it could see the PS5 run smoother if they do have the 60fps option. We've seen that already since launch with B/C. Either way console versions are gonna be spooky until the official upgrade patches.
 

MMaRsu

Member
The whole dildos nonsense -- I've lived through lots of dildo-riddled games, like GTAs, Saints Rows, even Second Life. There's nothing funny or edgy about that. It's just in the way. Noone needs that shit. It's unclear how the game designers arrived at the conclusion that that brings anything to the table; I would pose that it doesn't. Yet that stuff still pops up here and there. That's what annoys me.

Like, do the game designers expect me to run around town, beating up hobos with dildos, giggling like an idiot? No. Who does that?


If there is a sex shop with dildos I dony think its too crazy

As long as ur not running around slapping ppl with dildos
 

MMaRsu

Member
If you think a single patch is going to fix all of these issues then you haven't been paying attention to AAA games over the past 7 years. Most of these unfinished products takes months and months to have their problems worked out. Cyberpunk will be no different. Finish the game next time before shipping it. Absolutely ridiculous for a game that has been worked on as long as this one has.

At some point you just have to ship the game man. Financials have to make sense.
 
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