I first played Cyberpunk 2077 on my Personal Computer at the time of its launch back in 2020. Apparently, I have never gotten past the prologue in my 3-4 previous play attempts ever since then. I finally did though recently as I plan to maximize my time with the game. I like that terminology now when it comes to participating in the activity of playing a video game: "maximize" my time with a game. Not "finish" a game but maximizing it. If you have been gaming as extensive amount of video games as I have, "finishing" a game is a complicated concept. I know a lot of people think these days that checking off all "task unlockers" - achievements, trophies, call them what you may - is the tell when a game has been "completed", even though these things usually ask you to do the most menial, meaningless things while playing those games. Even after say, you have completed all the contents of a game, it doesn't mean that a game is "finished". The shmup genre is an example of this. Narrative heavy games can be replayable too, given some time. While some games are replayable or they offer options to continue playing them, they sometimes feel like they overstay their welcome. Fallout 4 is an example of this: After I completed the main storyline in that game, I have yet to attend to all of the remaining quests available plus the game's downloadable contents. I have lost interest after a certain point, yet I feel like I need to further maximize my time with the game. My video games, to me, are not mere things to be "finished". They are there to provide me with the content I want on demand. When the time is right and the mood blossoms, I may indulge and thus maximize my time spent with them.
Back to Cyberpunk 2077. Now that I have completed the game's very long prologue, I finally got introduced to... Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand. This is the beauty (or horror in this case) of avoiding spoilers and gameplay videos of others playing games that I am interested in. I had no idea that Keanu is being featured heavily into the gameplay of this game. If I remember correctly, when he showed up to promote this game for developer CD PROJEKT RED, I thought it was just one of those cheesy celebrity endorsements, that this Silverhand character would not even be a huge part of the game. Well, it's unfortunate that he is at the very core of this game's story but of course, things could change because I am still early in the game. I am going to admit though that I was so close to quitting the game. After all these years, I was finally able to get into the game and now this horribly acted character with the exact likeness of the current version of Keanu shows up. These days, he just looks disheveled and for some reason, seemingly stinky, and perhaps he tastes bad too... It's the horrible long hair and unkempt facial hair I am telling you. To make it worse, they also add some horrific looking armpit hair to his in-game model. They didn't even bother fur shading it. You see, Keanu may be popular due to his role in the Matrix movies that cemented him into the pantheon of cinematic legends, but he has never been a good... actor? To me, Keanu has always been just an eye candy (until lately of course). Very hot in Johnny Mnemonic. That's it. Yes, his heavy participation is close to ruining the game for me. I am doing my best though to keep going because despite the bad writing, questionable driving, and blasé combat mechanics of this game, there's the entertaining high-concept techno mumbo-jumbos and truly spectacular, well optimized path tracing graphics that lends itself to some incredible set pieces to be had here. Please don't ruin this game for me, Keanu Reeves.
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