Jason Liang
Arcane
The disappointment, the lies, the lifeless open world,
Night City doesn't feel lifeless. It feels somewhat like Westworld - perhaps not a sandbox filled with realistic human beings, but filled with passable hosts simulating human behavior for storytelling purposes, or perhaps Sims. It is no worse than Bloodlines' LA, and certainly has improvements on it.
Nothing significant about the game has fundamentally improved since the release - the story still remains the same, I still don't give a fuck about Jackie or his girlfriend or his mom, or any of the so-called life paths because ultimately none of them mattered.
Agree that the story and structure of the game is a huge flaw of the game. But the lifepaths actually matter quite a lot, at least in my game Streetkid comes up in many missions and changes quite a few of them. For example, as soon as I got to act 2, there was a side job, "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel" that I could do with no combat due to Streetkid and gain enough xp to reach level 20. Otherwise the fight is pretty difficult for that point in the game.
I won't deny the game has some gorgeous visuals from time to time, but even that's wasted when you can barely experience any of it truly - it's just like a postcard with a pretty picture on it, it might be nice, but it's just a postcard and away it goes to the pile or some forgotten corner of the house.
The city is no less immersive than GTA Vs San Andreas. Driving around, especially on a chopper, feels immersive enough to me, especially with easter eggs in plenty of places to reward curiosity and exploration.
Opti-camo for invisibility and Reinforced Ankles for double jump/ hover/ power jump both dramatically change traversal and combat tactics. Smart link enables smart weapons while ballistics enables ricochet. Body cyberware provides automatic healing, while other cyberware provide immunity to the different damage types. Choosing between Berserk, Sandevistan or Cyberdeck completely changes how V approaches combat. The four different arm weapons are all useful in their own way and fun.What I find the worst offense about this game is that for all it's a cyberpunk game, you can barely get any proper cybernetics for yourself - sure, you get 3 or was it 4 types of arms that you can interchange, but that's it, everything else just falls into some slots, boosting your stats or whatever. Fuckers didn't bother exploring anything about cybernetics.