Thanks, I was specifically referring to story quests, not side quests. I can pursue, let’s say, “Judy and Evelyn” storyline as long as I want and not advance to Act 3 until I go do the other Act 2 story quests, right?
Right. There is one Main story quest and that is the one started by the Japanese guy. There are other major story quests, such as the ones for the main characters (Judy, Panam, Johnny, etc) that are multichapter deals. You can pursue and complete those without advancing the Main story. I think one or two story lines are level locked and some are locked behind other quests/stories but none will advance the Main story aside from the Japanese guy’s mission line.
It’s not you. Car driving is terrible.
It really is. A few of the higher end cars are better, and bikes are better at getting through the city, but driving really needs an overhaul. There’s a Coyote (?) you can buy out in the desert that was my favorite all-arounder for speed, traction and durability at least until you possibly get some later mission-earned vehicles.
Spoiler
Namely, Johnny’s old Porsche
I’m most of the way through Act 2, I believe, doing sidequests whenever I feel like it.
I do have a motorcycle now and it is the best way to get around the city.
With my drivers updated on my graphics card, the framerate has been better. I rarely get stutters now.
Apparently, the next big patch is supposed to address driving, among other things.
I got the talking gun. This was a quest I’d heard about and made sure to find time to go out and do.
It levels with me, so it is actually a bit more powerful than the handgun I was using.
I’m surprised this was so hard to get right. The cars need more pickup and better braking. I’d accept some unrealistic braking just to be able to stop suddenly.
I wish the map in the corner had a zoom-out or full zoom-control available. I kind of need it zoomed out a bit sometimes.
Just an update, I purchased it tonight. I was sent a personal code from GoG (they do that on occasion) and it was a decent discount (20% off) and that combined with the big patch coming soon in 1.2 I bought it. I’ll wait for that patch to get rolled out before I dive in though.
They say the next patch is coming in the second-half of March so, hopefully, you will not have to wait more than a week or 10-days for it (given how companies do this they are likely to take every second of “second-half of March” but you never know).
Preliminary half-baked thoughts about the game world are that carjacking from or murdering a hapless citizen ought to result in anything from a nonexistent or half-hearted to a quick and lethal response depending on the level of Maxtec/Trauma Team/similar protection the victim or a nearby bystander is paying for.
However, if you make too much of a nuisance of yourself, the NCPD can simply electronically post a bounty on your head so that every wannabe John Wick in town will take a shot at you, just like you can gun down random mercenaries that have a police record without repercussions. That said, after you have a fair bit of street cred and as long as you are not too much a psycho, the cabal really running Night City seems to take an interest in you for their own reasons, which explains how you are relatively miraculously shielded from the gangs, politicians, and even megacorporations that would otherwise squash you like a bug.
Let’s talk about stealing cars. When did any of you even learn you could do it? I don’t remember the game mentioning it and they almost always provide you one vehicle. The only time in the game I did not have a vehicle was when I turned down Jackie’s motorcycle and my car was not yet fixed be Delamain. I got a text to go buy one, but had to basically walk.
So how did I learn you can steal a car? I thought I saw my car and opened the door, only to realize that it was occupied and I was “gta-style jacking them”. No police came or anything.
There is legit no reason to steal a car in this game because you can call your car the same way you can call your horse in Witcher 3. In GTA V, you can not do this, so it makes sense to grab whatever looks coolest and is nearest you and drive it.
It’s just another hilarious aspect of this game. You can steal cars, but you could go hours without realizing this was even a thing.
I just stopped playing the game and never finished the main quest. The missions all seemed the same and I found Keanu Reeves’ character incredible annoying. Any time he popped up, I’d turn the sound off until his freshman nihilism rant was over. ETA: the game couldn’t hold my interest during a pandemic.
I played it on PC. I thought it was ok. It wasn’t so broken that I couldn’t finish, most “game breaking” bugs cleared up with a restart. Might play it again in a year or so when they get everything ironed out. Definitely feels like trying to finish up a game in the middle of a pandemic while working at home was not a good idea. It would have been better for them to delay 6 months to a year than what they put out. Definitely did not feel “next gen” by practically any metric. RDR2 blows it away.
During the introduction, when you and Jackie are driving to Watson, isn’t there a cutscene where a group of goons apparently jack the wrong car and immediately get cut down by machine-gun fire from a Maxtec helicopter? Jackie comments about how criminals need to watch out for them, or something like that.
It’s probable the crime-and-punishment system was left in an unfinished state. To be consistent, like I said, many cars you should be able to steal without even picking up a wanted level, while— as in the Street Kid intro— trying to steal the wrong corporate exec’s expensive car earns you an immediate Maxtec+NCPD shoot-to-kill response.
That was all deliberate 
In-game, V. can [at least pretend to] listen to him, or else tell him to shut the fuck up.
I still wonder what happened to the second tactical thermonuclear warhead Johnny stole— unless I misunderstood, in one of his rants he tells you he stole two of them, and he only used one on Arasaka Tower.
He drones on and on. I’d love a mod that removes him from the game. The writing is so bad.
The more I play, the more I think they should have gone the “Elder Scrolls route”.
-
Let us head out into the open world much more quickly.
-
Teach us the basics as they occur, not send us through a 6-hour intro.
The advantage is that they ended up with great sidequests and an OK, but kind of complicated, main narrative. I mean, I am emotionally invested a little bit, but I got more out of a 45 minute long sidequest than I have from the main game the entire time.
I think they had so many mechanisms to teach us that they felt the entire Jackie-phase of the game was needed upfront. It wasn’t bad, but self-contained sidequests are much better.
I do, however, think Keanu Reeves is great in this game and since my main character is female, I commend the female voice actress as well.
In one of the endings,
if you cooperate with Arasaka, which, nb, Johnny definitely tells you definitely not to do, Johnny gets deleted (or something like that)
As for Johnny’s character, I agree with @Mahaloth that the acting is good, and that you have to try to imagine the type of crapsack world that produced such a character. Johnny does have a bit of a backstory where he fought in some shady Vietnam-type wars, became a rock star, etc., and otherwise experienced some shit before he decided to set off a nuke in the city center.
If you play a bit and read the data shards, you quickly realize [nearly] everyone is an abominable scumbag and anyone remotely idealistic quickly ends up in a shallow grave in the desert or in an alley under some trash bags. And V. is no different, starting out as a war-criminal corpo asshole, an effective but dime-a-dozen street tough, or a loser kicked out of a Mad Max gang; in each case some type of amoral nihilist or opportunist (but who, intriguingly, is admired and respected by people who know her). It’s a standard cyberpunk theme where there are no good guys.
Johnny’s an asshole and I appreciate that the game never really makes excuses for his behavior. But as you progress, and depending on your dialogue choices, Johnny does come around a bit.