I am very happy to give the thumbs up on this game on steam. While I feel really bad for everyone on console, the PC version was doing really well for me. I started playing from 1.06 on and I have been ever since mesmerized with the game, dumping over 320 hours in it since 15.01. and thoroughly enjoying the experience, the city, the story, the character builds and the branching choices and opportunities.

The Good:

1. The Story and quests - the story is beautifully crafted, believable and wonderfully cyberpunk. Be it in the main story, or the side quests, all of the dialogue is polished and thoroughly enjoyable. The game has 3 different starts (nomad, street kid, corpo-rat), 4 different gender-specific romance options and 2 additional ones (each and every single one coming with a beautifully crafted and believable story) and 5 different endings to explore that shouldn't be rushed and explored over multiple playthroughs. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, do the Bill Jablonsky quest. You will not be disappointed.

2. The overall city life experience - I felt that the city is believable and it was so much fun stumbling upon all kinds of events all over the districts. Sometimes the janky driving can actually deprive you from finding some real cool art, loot, character lines, etc. that the developers have so lovingly and cleverly put in the game. While I would agree that there are things missing (wasting money in casinos, slots, etc. - there are such locations in the game), I personally never cared about these activities.

3. The combat - the first person experience is amazing. It is difficult enough to keep you occupied, but also not too punishing, especially as you start learning how to use your chosen build's strengths properly. As I have tested it myself from start to finish over these 320 hours, every build is viable and works - from full on get in their faces to picking enemies from distance with snipers and hacks - it is all very enjoyable. Admittedly, some Weapon/perk combinations work better than others, but as this is an RPG, it has to cater to multiple playstyles and playthroughs - and I can tell you, it does.

4. Weapons - this deserves a separate point, as there are no useless weapons in the game and cater to every possible option a player might desire - close combat to long distance sniping. Every weapon can be accommodated in a build and a specific playstyle. Get in their face with bats, katanas, mantis blades or guerilla arms; get in close range with shotguns, pistols, the monowire; be a true soldier behind cover utilizing submachine guns or assault rifles; or just go the sneaky long range sniper route and combine them with silenced weapons to take out enemies from stealth. The variety is great, and the additional weapon variations (power for ricochets, tech for wall penetration and charging for more damage, and smart for no brain aiming while negating enemy's armor) work well towards creating the character that you want.

5. The Music - damn if it isn't damn near perfect, it thoroughly deserves the double damn in this sentence (which became a triple damn, and in the brackets, a quadruple damn and with this damn... quintuple...). I listen to some of the tracks almost every day because they are so amazing. Some are good for pumping up, some are chill but they will satisfy fans of almost every genre - from techno and pop to throat-bursting metal. And of course, you can choose which radio station to play based on your mood!

All those 5 points are more than enough to create a good open world game to explore and feel sufficiently engaged for many, many hours.

The BAD:

1. Bugs - let's just get this out of the way and be done with it. Even as of v1.12, there are multiple issues that, at least on PC, thankfully don't take that much out of the experience.

2. Missed opportunities - the building blocks for multiple random activities are present, but not implemented, pretty much like in a live service game - ergo, we may or may not see it. There is the opportunity for gambling (casinos, pachinko), playing various mini-games, and various others, but they are simply not implemented. It's clear that the devs thought of adding it, but it was pushed back in the development cycle in favor of more important things.

3. The driving - janky at best and you may be stuck in traffic way too often. While the devs really tried to add realism by having heavy traffic between 6 and 9 and 16 and 19, sometimes it clogs up the engine and creates way too many roadblocks (including cars stuck in one place for no reason). While you can roleplay and say that that guy's car just broke down, if you are in a quest that requires driving or chasing enemies... that is way too irritating. Most of the time the best vehicle you can use is a motorcycle to avoid said problems.

4. The police system - it is clearly rudimentary, pushed back in the development process and not properly implemented, simply teleporting police officers in your vicinity, including in closed rooms. Nope. Bad development work on this one. Just nope!

5. The 3 different starts - nomad, street kid and corpo could have had more impact than just 1 measly side quest at a certain point of the game. I really hoped for more quests based on it, and not just random lines in dialogue that sometimes amount to nothing. Based on dialogue alone, corpo is the best starting option, as that life path really allows you to deal with multiple problems.

Conclusion:

I had and still am having a blast with this game, over 300 hours in. I always want to double or triple my cash investment in game hours, and in Cyberpunk 2077 I can see myself dumping over 600 hours exploring, testing various character builds, and even more with the free DLCs that are coming. I can only hope the game will get better and better from now on. Once again, I am very sorry for my friends on console, but... I have a PC, I bought the game on PC and I need to judge it as I experienced it on PC, which started from a 7/10 on patch 1.06 and is now sitting on a since patch 1.11. I am positive that with the right additions and DLCs, CDPR will get this game into 10/10 status.

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