josh reynolds

I love Cyberpunk 2077 so far, despite its issues. I am a rabid consumer of side content in open world RPGs and I really enjoyed all the side content so far. From very dark subplots to sillier ones there are lots of wonderful, detailed little stories to unpack - some of which actually affect the main plot in unexpected ways. This game is really a lot of fun to play and the setting is one to simply get lost in. The real issue on everyone's mind is, of course, the operational state of the game. I've been playing it on the Xbox Series X and though I have experienced some glitches overall it has played well and looks quite good despite running in backward compatibility mode (Read: Emulator - the native Next-Gen version is still awaiting a release date.) This is a genre game - Cyberpunk this time rather than the fantasy setting for Witcher 3 (which is still one of my favorite games of all time). I understand some of the criticisms about the writing; it's dark, nihilistic, almost random. These are markers for this kind genre. Noir, Horror, Westerns, Fantasy – all genres have their characteristics. So, I would humbly submit that some of the writing/plot criticisms from some reviewers may be due to just not liking the genre and its milieu. I have experienced quite a few bugs but nothing so far that couldn't be remedied by reloading a save-game from a few minutes ago. Between my pathological quick-save habit and the games nearly as obsessive auto-save mechanism that has rarely cost me more than 10-20 minutes. Admittedly, working around glitches has in a way become part of how I play it. Fortunately, load times on the Xbox Series X are incredibly quick, so this issue doesn't gnaw on me the way it would for someone one who was waiting a several minutes between load screens. Arguably, CD Project Red should not have released the title for Xbox One and PS 4 at all. That was a serious tactical blunder. Developing a release schedule years in advance carries these risks and Cyberpunk 2077 is hardly the first - nor the last - title to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis in this way. My experience is slightly flawed but the flaws are overwhelmingly overshadowed by how great the experience is so far. But bear in mind I’ve been gaming for nearly 40 years; I remember writing my own custom .bat and .sys files on individual boot disks for each game. Dealing with some mess on a new title is normal to me; I admit it; I'm old. I will say I think the gamer community as a whole has a cultural sensitivity to disappointment; a sensitivity that can under some circumstances feed upon itself and become exponentially larger and more hostile than perhaps is really warranted. The thing to remember about gamers, however, is that this very sensitivity is rooted in a deep love for games and genuine, unbridled excitement for new and innovative gaming experiences. If you bought it and it doesn't run at all you should be upset. If you had an experience like mine that's legit, too. There is a bit too much eagerness to call it a total failure. Flaws must be fixed, certainly, but we shouldn't discard ALL the wonderful work here because CDPR pushed (and/or was pushed) too hard to release something with the inertia of so much hype and anticipation behind it. They are people. People make mistakes. But as a community of gamers, remember we're all on the same side - even a developer who (pretty badly) screwed up a product launch.