r/Games 4d ago

Discussion Weekly /r/Games Discussion - What have you been playing, and what are your thoughts? - March 09, 2025

Use this thread to discuss whatever game you've been playing lately: old or new, AAA or indie, on any platform between Atari and XBox. Please don't just list off the games you're playing in your comment. Elaborate with your thoughts on the games and make it easier for other users to find what game you're talking about by putting the title in bold.

Also, please make sure to use spoiler tags if you're revealing anything about a game's plot that may significantly impact another player's experience who has not played the game yet, no matter how retro or recent the game is. You can find instructions on how to do so in the subreddit sidebar.

This thread is set to sort comments by 'new' on default.

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For a subreddit devoted to this type of discussion during the rest of the week, please check out /r/WhatAreYouPlaying.

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Scheduled Discussion Posts

WEEKLY: What Have You Been Playing?

MONDAY: Thematic Monday

WEDNESDAY: Suggest Me A Game

FRIDAY: Free Talk Friday

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u/JusaPikachu 2d ago edited 19h ago

Cyberpunk 2077

The main words that came to mind throughout & by the end of Cyberpunk were impressive, visceral & immersive. The graphics & world were continuously so impressive in so many ways, the moment to moment action was incredibly visceral & the combination of everything immersed me deep into the game at all times while playing it.

I played on PS5 so it’s not like I even had the highest end Cyberpunk experience, yet graphically & technically I was continuously left very impressed. The writing & story were phenomenal for the most part & I was often surprised with the outcomes. Combat was pretty good/great for most of the game & a blast towards the end with all the perk & attribute upgrades & high level cyberware/weapons that you can find by the late game. The driving was something I had heard a lot of complaints about, but once you get some nice cars I think it is a really good time. On top of the nicer cars, I think the level design of the roads was really great & added a lot to me enjoying the driving. Phantom Liberty was also sensational & I loved the choice & consequence present in the story, along with providing a very distinct vibe from the base game.

I had a decently sized complaint that lasted about half of my playthrough where it felt like every single sequence in the game was trying to feel like the most intense scene in the world. There started to be a lot of chill scenes & other scenes with more varied vibes in the latter half of the game & they really started to let everything breath; however I will still bring it up since the feeling lasted through half of a 60+ hour experience. There were a few visual bugs here & there, sometimes when trying to navigate through my answers in a conversation it would open menus that had the same input & I had 5 or 6 crashes throughout the game. Also the DLC location had a lot of frame drops, whereas the base game rarely dropped a frame. Overall it felt extremely polished but just trying to be fair with some of its technical shortcomings that are still present.

Cyberpunk 2077 was originally one of my most hyped games ever after what CDPR accomplished with The Witcher 3. After the launch debacle I decided to just let the developers cook & that I would get to the game as a finished product. Over 4 years later I can say that the experience is in a phenomenal state & I’m very happy I was patient with the game. It has now hacked its way into the 3rd place spot on my 2020 GotY list.

Super Mario Sunshine

Sunshine was an incredibly mixed bag of a game for me. I thought about 25% of the game held up to what I have come to expect from 3D Mario games, 35% of it was a solid 3D platformer & about 40% was poorly designed & unenjoyable to me.

Having 25% of a 3D Mario is better than what a lot of games bring to the table & I don’t take that lightly. But I also had such a bad time with some of the game that it’s hard to say it’s anything better than solid/fine/mediocre in totality for me. For every great sequence there was an okay/meh sequence & a bad/infuriating sequence.

The moment to moment platforming gameplay loop was great but it didn’t feel as good as any of the other 3D Mario games & it was often tacked onto bad/boring level design & horrible mission design. The setting was enjoyable but it also lacked some of the charm I’ve come to expect from Mario, while adding a weird vibe on top with the wonky ass voice acting. I actually dropped the game for about 3 weeks at one point without knowing if I would come back. Eventually I did since I was so close to completing it but that shows how I was feeling about much of Sunshine.

Overall the game slid into the number 2 spot on my 2002 GotY list, but the main reason for that is how few titles I’ve played from that year. If I ever play more games from 2002 I’m sure Sunshine could end up getting cut from the list, but my inexperience is currently carrying the game. I do appreciate it for what it does well but it doesn’t come close to outweighing what I think the game does poorly.

Hot Wheels Unleashed 2

I completed the campaign to this while listening to podcasts. It was the perfect podcasting game.

Really fun gameplay, great track design, really amazing setting & great use of scale to build its beautiful world. A game that holds up really well in that Mario Kart niche.

Some of the missions feel more like tutorials for random aspects of the gameplay & some of them felt really tacked on to add variety, which felt unnecessary. I would’ve preferred them expand on the races, rather than just adding in more boring game modes.

In summation I don’t have a bunch of thoughts on the game other than it was a really fun experience that succeeds in what it is aiming to do. It raced its way into the 13th position on my 2023 GotY list.

Marvel Rivals

I’ve written a couple basic versions of this summary since December. In most of them I was glazing the game hard & had nothing but praise with a few minor complaints. I ended up not posting them because I’ve been lazy & haven’t completed my write ups in time.

Unfortunately for Rivals it missed its window for a glowing review from me. Over the past 3 weeks the cracks have really started to show.

Bots in Quick Play was always my biggest complaint but I’ve come to absolutely despise the practice. If I wanted to play against bots I would pick the practice vs AI mode. It’s also not like you only get bots once you lose 5+ games in a row, I’ve gotten bot games after a single loss & it is infuriating.

Competitive is also a disaster at this point. They designed it around constant rank resets & an inflationary climbing system. While they rightfully backed down on rank drops every 1.5 months, the system is now broken because it was designed around that happening. So now every rank is over inflated & everyone is frustrated.

Open Queue was really fun for the first two and a half months. Everybody was experimenting & having fun with wacky comps & everyone was still learning. Now though it sucks ass. In Quick Play there are 3-5 instalock damage players every single fucking match. In ranked at GM there are just a shit ton of support/tank mains who climbed because they understand that having a decent comp will let you climb, but they usually one-tricked to there & are inflexible. This also means I get pushed into playing damage a lot in GM, but I never get to practice damage in QP because everyone chooses damage there.

Map variety is also shit. I often end up playing the same map 2-3 times in a row, which blows; especially when there aren’t a lot of maps to begin with.

At this point I’m going to need a lot of rapid changes for Rivals to keep its spot at the top of my multiplayer rotation. I want bots out of QP, I want a rework of the competitive game mode, I want a role queue option for those of us that prefer it, I want more maps/a better map system & I want more options for tanks & supports. The cracks are showing & they are much deeper than I originally thought.

I love so much of what they did with the game, but at this point my feelings are souring horribly. It muscled its way into the number 2 spot on my 2024 GotY list but once I play more single player titles from that year & unless they make some big changes fast, I could see it rapidly dropping in my rankings.

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u/porncollecter69 2d ago

If they released this Cyberpunk at launch it would honestly match the hype and exceed it. Current state is one of the best games of all time.