I get the points all of you made regarding Noah's review. But as his title states, he asks: What kind of game did CP 2077 turn out to be? – and that's what he discusses:
It is not a political game, although it tries to be. It is not a RPG, although it tries to be. It is not a crime simulator, although it tries to be. It's the kind of game that tries too much and therefore fails a little bit at everything.
Whether it's based on Pondsmith's work is not relevant to his point. Just as RDR2 tries to be a Western game and makes it, CP 2077 tries to be a Cyberpunk game and doesn't make it...
Oh I fully understand his points, but I can't take them seriously.
This is as much of an RPG as Mass Effect, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Deus Ex or The Witcher 3.
It has nothing in common with RDR2 or GTA which again he insists on comparing it to, besides being set in an open world and having NPC's roaming the open world.
This is not a sandbox game and to be treated as such is like comparing Spider-Man to The Witcher 3.
He literally did everything he could to make a ridiculous character that acts erratically and then continues on to prove his point that the character is shallow and not enough to carry the narrative - ultimately making fun of the relationship with Panam because, as depicted, his character is purely satiric and ruined his immersion.
Also the points about gameplay, I find the shooting satisfying and the map traversal fun and open with a lot of verticality, so his point about the game not really having anything going for it in terms of gameplay is quite moot.
The melee combat is similar to Dying Light and the shooting and movement to Apex Legends, what's a major problem with this is the AI reactivity, the NPC melee animations that home in on the hits and the general user input problems like tying key binds together to do multiple tasks (like double tapping directions or double tapping crouch to dodge, wtf?!).
I suspect that all of that can be refined, it's CDPR's first tackle in the FPS department, I think they've done a decent job.
Also the political themes are there in the background waiting to be discovered, that was the whole point, the erosion of societal norms and abuse of an individual's freedoms, the oversexualized and crude marketing, the corrupt system that revolves around control and influence and the corrupt police that is at the whims of the politicians and gang members - all of that covered by a veneer of mundaneness that creates a faux superficiality to it.
The game touches many subjects yet it doesn't try to become any of them, each story arc has a narrative trying to draw attention towards our loss of critical thinking and the manipulative media, loss of identity and humanity, increasing need of friendships and belonging, revenge and redemption etc.
It, indeed, could have been more fleshed out in any of those aspects but to claim that they're superficial or without any meaning is fallacious and clearly shows that not much thought went into analyzing any of it.
He even mentions that there's no choice or consequence other than the rooftop decision which is completely false and I expected a lot more from someone like him who bases his essays on his ability to analyze a subject matter concretely and thoroughly.
Like I've mentioned before, the fact that he completely misses the point of Cyberpunk 2077 being based on Cyberpunk 2020 lore created by and in collaboration with Mike Pondsmith is the very basic form of research and analysis that is completely missing from this and he continues on a tangent where he insists that Cyberpunk takes inspiration from the works it so blatantly ''rips off'', when it, instead, actually pays homage to them in the spirit of the Table Top Game which does the same thing.
Cyberpunk 2020, RED and 2077 lore in general is a swan song for the genre dressed up in an outrageous fashion, sporting a bombastic ego with dark undertones that explores the morals of a decaying society.
He touches on none of that but instead, him thinking it's an original work, goes on to criticize CDPR's blatant plagiarism of the themes presented in the media he must have consumed instead of seeing the bigger picture and realizing what's actually in front of him.
The fact that we have a thread close to 18.000 posts and spanning nearly 1000 pages discussing the themes and the endings is a clear indicator that there is a lot of substance to be digested in Cyberpunk 2077, there's nuance and he seemingly cannot perceive any deeper than the first couple of layers that obfuscate the core of the themes presented - as such coming to a false conclusion that depicts the lack of research on his part.
Talking for an hour and a half using big words and long phrases is all well and good as long as the core of the subject matter you're presenting is thoroughly analyzed from multiple angles and try your best to form an unbiased opinion, as he used to present his work as a formal essay and an analysis rather than a personal essay and a criticism - the latter of which is fine as long as it's constructive and in good faith.
It simply comes off as crude (especially the later part where he starts yelling nonsensical stuff in the microphone) and uninspired or lacking any sense of originality in the wake of the shitstorm that followed Cyberpunk 2077's launch.
I simply expected a lot more from Noah, that is all, I don't want him to agree with me, I want him to cover and analyze what's clearly there while he's pretending that it's missing.
This is what I expected from him: