Cyberpunk 2077 PC Review – Worth Buying?

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About This Sports Courier Game Review: TSC Gaming Ent. host Fred Richani reviews Cyberpunk 2077 on PC following the latest patch to kick off 2022! Does CD Projekt Red redeem itself after a disastrous Cyberpunk 2077 launch? Is it worth playing as V alongside Johnny Silverhand voiced by Keanu Reeves? What’s the deal with the Arasakas?! Find out!

Cyberpunk 2077 Synopsis: Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be?

Patch 1.5 Updates Include:

Apartments: Apartments can be rented (with a one-time fee) when encountered in Night City or through the EZ Estates website when accessed through the computer in V’s Megabuilding H10 apartment. They become available after completing the Playing for Time quest. It’s possible to rent all apartments at the same time.

• Northside, Watson (€$5,000)
• Japantown, Westbrook (€$15,000)
• The Glen, Heywood (€$40,000)
• Corpo Plaza, City Center (€$55,000)

Quests

• Added a few secrets in Night City to be discovered by players. Due to some technical challenges, this change is not available on the previous generation of consoles.
• Extended romances with Panam, Kerry, River and Judy by adding new messages and interactions.
• Added interactions in the homes of love interests, including sleeping in bed with a given partner.
• Players are now able to reject non-essential holocalls. There will be a prompt on the screen allowing them to accept or reject a holocall. If they reject the call, they will receive a text message instead.
• Enhanced Night City nightlife by making music in clubs a bit louder.

Written Review

What’s up, everybody? This is Fred Richani of TSC here to give you my thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077 on PC, CD Projekt Red’s open-world action RPG. CDPR is the company behind the critically acclaimed Witcher 3, and they recently released a massive update adding a number of new features and bug fixes, well over a year after the game’s heavily criticized release. So how does the game fare right now? Let’s dive in.

Without giving too much away, Cyberpunk 2077 lets you play as a male or female version of the main character, V, and choose one of three paths: a Corpo who becomes a snitch or a rat, a Nomad who roams around, or a Street Kid who hangs with the worst of them. For my original playthrough I went Corpo; for our next-gen review coming soon, I chose Street Kid. Any of these paths will alter some dialogue, but the general narrative remains: you have the opportunity of a lifetime. Pull off this heist and you’re rich. Note: things don’t go as smoothly as they seem. Eventually you are linked, literally and figuratively, to a rock star turned terrorist, Johnny Silverhand, played by the incredible Keanu Reeves, who hates the man, specifically the man Arasaka. Take a shot every time he says Arasaka.

Keep in mind, when you first start, you’re not immediately going to encounter Johnny Silverhand. You’ll spend at least a couple of hours doing the main missions and maybe some tutorials, and then you get to the saga with Johnny, which is when things get really interesting and turned up a notch. How do you take down the man? Will they take you down? What’s Johnny’s endgame? Can V survive all of this? That all remains to be seen.

If that story sounds interesting to you, I concur. In fact, if it wasn’t for the story and the fantastic voice acting, I wouldn’t have stuck with this game, because there are still some issues even a year or two later. Night City looks fantastic and has a very unique aesthetic. It’s definitely busier than your typical open world and almost feels like a real city. It can also be a real challenge getting around with all the technical issues. While PC didn’t have as many issues as consoles, I found the gameplay clunky at best, especially the gunplay. There’s a lot of dialogue, which is cool, except there were several times a glitch would almost break my game. The infamous Ripperdoc glitch early in the game, where I couldn’t advance the story, seems to be resolved now, but at the time it was pretty annoying. Even now, fast travel sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, requiring a restart. Sometimes there are weird flashing things on characters that aren’t part of the actual aesthetic. And later in the game, without giving too much away, you’re supposed to get a call from an important character, only to not get it without skipping time or restarting. Yes, over a year later you still have some of that BS. You also have weird voice levels for V that you sometimes have to adjust manually, and the frame rate rarely, if ever, maintains 60 fps, even with a freaking 3090 video card. And no, I don’t have these issues with other games that came out around the same time as Cyberpunk or today.

You could say I was like a frustrated parent with this game. I love the story, and the characters are super unique and cool-looking, but mechanically and technically, it could be better, to say the least. With the recent update, driving and walking do feel smoother. Gunplay is still a little clunky and not at the level of a great first-person shooter by any means. If you play Destiny 2 like me and then go shoot in Cyberpunk, you’ll see a difference, and not in a good way. With the update, you can rent apartments and get new romantic scenarios, partners and outfits. Nice. Other aspects still intact are the hacking, which is one of my favorite parts, the skill tree system, which is decent, and the necessary but kind of annoying braindance function that lets you explore memories to uncover clues from the past. You can also customize your character’s wardrobe, which is nice, but it doesn’t mean much if you’re mostly in first person, in my opinion.

So is this game truly worth buying on PC? Let’s get to the verdict. Content, I give Cyberpunk 2077 a 9. This is where it shines: so many memorable, interesting characters, like Johnny Silverhand, Panam Palmer, Rogue, Dexter DeShawn and the Arasakas, and the vibrant yet dark Night City. You really feel like you’re in a live-action Netflix or HBO series, and sometimes I get lost just staring at the views. Technical issues aside, I’d strongly recommend taking your time with the story, learning about these characters and doing as many side missions as possible before beating the main game, not just to level up but to learn more about Night City. Also, Samurai and the rest of the Cyberpunk soundtrack absolutely rule.

Gameplay, I give Cyberpunk a 6. Not bad, but not great, and definitely not earth-shattering as hyped, though depending on how you play you can still have a lot of fun. Looking back, I really wish I’d leveled up my hacking skills, because distracting and short-circuiting enemies can be more fun than shooting them in the face. Graphically, I give it a 7. I really want to go higher because it does look nice, but the technical issues brought it down a few notches. The cutscenes and dialogue moments look fantastic most of the time; it’s when you’re moving around a lot and in combat that things get clunky, slow and awkward. For a game not to consistently run at 60 frames per second over a year later on a high-powered PC like mine is kind of crazy. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s somewhat disappointing for sure.

Overall, TSC gives Cyberpunk 2077 on PC a 7 out of 10. The current version isn’t a bad game at all, but it’s not as smooth and seamless as it should be nearly two years later. Where it truly shines is the story and characters, who make this an incredibly memorable and at times emotional experience. There’s great potential here for DLC, a sequel and even a future TV series; that’s how much I love these characters. The problem isn’t the writing, the acting or the scenarios, though I know that’s subjective. It’s the mechanics and the technical side. I think CDPR got it as right as they could up to this point, but it’s pretty damn clear this game would have been even better with at least an extra year of development. That said, if you can get it for less than full price, say $29.99 or even $40, definitely go for it. Even with all my issues, I still find myself coming back for more, whether playing alternate endings, finding new romantic scenarios or just raising hell with my boy Johnny Silverhand. We’ll also be doing a review of the next-gen version on Xbox Series X, so stay tuned. Until next time, everybody, as always, enjoy the games.