"I have something to say: it's better to burn out than to fade away" –The Kurgan

At a glance, you'd probably never guess The Kurgan was insightful. An imposing brute of a man with a short temper and a sadistic streak a mile wide, he was nonetheless prescient enough to sum up the essence of a pen-and-paper game Mike Pondsmith wouldn't come up with for two whole years after MacLeod claimed The Prize; and CD Projekt Red wouldn't adapt for the PC for another three decades and change. Truly, a man before his time...

There it is, though: that one sentence is basically the entire premise of 2020's flawed masterpiece of a 1st person action game with RPG sprinkles. The entire game is built on the difference between living and just getting by; squeezing every last drop out of a moment and merely watching it unfold; between being a spectator and leaving your mark on the world – no matter the cost... And, in this humble pig's opinion, it is a premise Cyberpunk 2077 brings off in spades.

Male, female, or pronoun of choice – you play V: a gun-for-hire who gets dealt the once-in-a-lifetime chance of Making It Big in the cutthroat world of Night City.

Creating your character starts at the – you guessed it: character creator; and while Cyberpunk's isn't the most robust or inventive one I've ever seen, it gives you plenty of forehead-height/eye-color/tattoo leeway to make someone distinct and visually appealing.

My only gripe with it is its lack of innovation. Dragon's Dogma (a 2012 action-RPG) would calculate your character's weight based on height and body mass and then determine how fast they could run and how high they could jump. It would have been neat for Cyberpunk to, at least, change your character's muscle mass based on your Body attribute, or something. As it stands, statistics and body type are completely unrelated, which I think is a pity.

After you create your punk-to-be, you get to pick their origin from one of three possible starts:

• 1) an outcast Nomad (a badlands wanderer that used to roam with a pack of like-minded gear-heads);

• 2) a double-crossed Corp (a multinational's Bright Young Thing whose Trouble At Work gets 'em evicted from the lap of luxury); or

• 3) a Streetkid (former gangbanger back to their old stomping grounds from a stint in distant Atlanta).

  Much like the game that patented the approach ( Dragon Age: Origins ), each start is good for some unique dialogue throughout the game, a brief quest later, and a short crash-course on the game world before the linear preludes converge at the beginning of the Main Plot. Then you are thrown into your first Gig with your friend Jackie, given an apartment, a car, an up-and-comer's rep and a thread to follow (Jackie has a Big Job lined up for the both of you). And that's where, for the most part, the hand-holding stops and the open world begins.

And what a world it is...

In the past, open world games fell into one of three camps:

• 1) Cardboard Cutouts (your GTAs, Saints Rows or Mercenaries: World In Flames-es; seemingly vast, but with hardly any detail and little spontaneous ability to step indoors);

• 2) Bethesda's Vistas of Boredom (vast open spaces full of recycled assets and visual "sameness" undercut by loading screens every time you went into a cave); and

• 3) Microcosms of Interestingness, as seen – for example – in the delightful DeusEx: Mankind Divided's futuristic Prague (smallish worlds with more attention to detail and intricate level design).

  It wasn't until Witcher 3, in 2015, that we got a taste of what a true, open world game could feel like, but not even that wonderful intermediary can hold a candle to how vast and content-packed Cyberpunk's Night City truly is.

Between the overwhelming amount of visual detail on screen, the behavior of the procedurally generated, meandering crowds, the countless nooks, alleys and rooftops to explore (generously littered with Things To Find); the sudden weather changes and random little events liberally scattered throughout (a cop doing some Off-Duty Viewing in his squad car, a suspect breaking out of custody and legging it with hands still cuffed behind his back, a pimp laying down the law to his stable, or a random, homeless person free-styling that day's woes to no-one in particular); Night City is a wonderful experience and a real programming marvel (and I encourage anyone who thinks otherwise to start their own AAA gaming studio, spend 4 years developing a game and see how their result stacks up).

It's been said that Cyberpunk 2077 is at its best during its scripted sections and boring in between, but I beg to disagree. To me, the game is more detailed, perhaps, while scripted, but never better than when you are just exploring the vast open world.

Is it flawless? No. There's glitches in them thar hills, my friend... Like cars that spawn floating or partly submerged in concrete; NPCs with "extreme yoga syndrome" who trigger their leaning-against-the-wall animation with no wall behind them; cars that spawn going 60 in parking lots, creating hilarious, spontaneous demolition derbies, and many others. But – of course there are. Casual critics may not realize this, but making complex things is – diificult. For all of its glitching, however, Cyberpunk's game world deserves top billing in the credits as a first-rate, technical achievement: a vast, highly-detailed, interactive world with a grand total of one loading time (when you first turn on the game).

Your access to said world is meted out by your progress through the Main Plot, but it's not as much of a limitation as it may seem. For example, before you get started on the Big Job Jackie lined up for you, you are "limited" to Little China and (if I remember correctly) parts of Watson and Northside, but even those three suburbs of NC are enough to get you up to level 20 (out of 50) if you're thorough enough, and span as many hours. You can leave Jackie hanging out in front of your block for as long as you want to.

Once you progress through the Main Plot, more of NC opens up for exploration and, by the time you and Jackie pull-off the Big Job, you can pretty much go where you like.

The Main Plot is a wonderful, nostalgic throwback to Never Fade Away – the introductory campaign Mike Pondsmith included in the original Cyberpunk 2020 source book, which described rockerboy Johnny Silverhand's desperate attempt to pry his ladyfriend Alt from Arasaka Corporation's clutches. Except in 2077, instead of playing Johnny, you get to deal with the messy, messy aftermath of his attempt. Without going into detail, the plot is very well done, with characters that have belieavable motivations, are easy to like (or dislike), logical progress with just enough Player Agency thrown in, and a conclusion that – while not rosy – is perfect for the world that Mike Pondsmith envisioned.

Outside of the plot, what you do in the game mostly revolves around exploration, looting and fighting.

Exploration is done on foot or by driving, and while the former is fine, the latter falls victim to developers' tendency to slave PC/keyboard controls to whatever set up exists for console controllers. In short, cars are very twitchy and difficult to handle at speed – often to a ridiculous degree; while motorcycles (oddly enough) handle– Great. If, like me, you enjoy a Good Ride, this game will spoil you (a 600 pound bike with 170 HP that magically tops out at 180 MpH? Yes, please!) Although their handling varies wildly, all vehicles are beautifully designed.

Things To Do clock in at about 100 hours per playthrough and come in 5 flavors:

• 1) Things To Find – usually a body with stuff and a side of backstory;

• 2) NCPD jobs – either a shootout, or a shootout with a Main Boss (who usually drops a unique blueprint or item);

• 3) Sidejobs – brief distractions which range from hanging out with an interesting character to doing a fully-scripted paid gig;

• 4) Gigs – paid jobs given by NC fixers with a bit more exposition to 'em; and

• 5) Main Plot missions – which tend to be most heavily scripted, but also the most linear of the bunch.

  In terms of writing and design, the quests are expertly put together – with one glaring exception: a contrived mess of a Sidejob called "Sinnerman" which tries to railroad you into a vapid "discourse" about – religion (In 2077? Really? It's hardly relevant now...) Not only does the Sidejob feel out of place in a game about a distant, transhumanist future, but it also reads like it was put together by someone's annoying, 10-year-old nephew hoping to write Things That Really Matter. Thankfully, the game is gracious enough to let you skip "Sinnerman" by putting up with some chat, one obnoxiously scripted car chase, and then shooting your target and running from the police.

Speaking of shooting – it is excellent, with distinct classes of guns and melee weapons that have a satisfying heft to them and are all designed for specific types of engagement (though some can pretty much handle anything that comes their way). Weapons are customizable through mods, muzzle attachments, scopes and crafting upgrades and their design, sounds and animations are all spot-on (though I still miss my Sternmeyers and Avantes from pen-and-paper days).

Counterpoint to shooting (or stabbing, or clubbing) is hacking: using your cyberdeck (basically a computer in your head) to spontaneously hack anything that also suffers from CPU-noggin, or has circuitry onboard. Hacking gives you decent latitude to get through the game without hurting anyone with non-lethal hacks (that'll simply knock an opponent out) and covert ones (that'll distract them or, say, make them blind for a bit). It's a nice enough way to involve netrunning into the game, but only at a journeyman level: while you'll meet people who can take entire cities offline, it's clear they are in a league of their own.

Investing heavily into your Tech attribute can open up Crafting for your character, letting you construct increasingly more complex (and powerful) blueprints. It's a nice addition, but doesn't really get too in-depth. You could finish the whole game without crafting a single item, if you wanted, and it wouldn't make much of a difference.

Putting the "cyber" into "punk", there is also a mixed-bag of cyberware which, again, while not bad is not nearly as inventive as Mike Pondsmith's decades-long catalogue. A few neat implants aside (like the recoil-dampener, Sandevistan and Berserk, or second heart), all of the cutting edge technology basically boils down to 1) jumping higher 2) absorbing/negating damage or 3) having a weapon in your arm. While the implants make for a varied enough list, I wish more imaginative examples had made it into the game.

Those aside, there's an extensive roster of clothes and vehicles, some collectibles you pick up automatically while progressing through the Main Plot (and which reside in your apartment), and a few apartments to purchase (of which only the original feels "lived-in", because – as of patch 1.6 – pets are non-transferrable between apartments).

Also as of 1.6, the majority of game-breaking (or even mildly annoying) bugs have been ironed out. If, like me, you were into CP from release, it was up and down there for a while: a mess at launch (lower framerate to 20 or crash the game next time you peer into a mirror); great at 1.2 (play for hours without any problems whatsoever); weird around 1.31 (somehow performing worse than before?); mixed at 1.5 (yay for new content! – not so much for changing how all clothing mods work); and – finally – fine at 1.6 (no major issues, plus – I gots me an iguana). Right now, some oversights still rear their head, but – for the most part – the game works like it's supposed to.

Honestly, gripes aside, my only real complaint with this game are its technical specs: Cyberpunk 2077 is to this generation of games what Crysis was to PCs in 2007 – a giant, greedy resource hog. To properly enjoy it (i.e. with good performance and no crashes) I've had to: 1) upgrade my graphics card; 2) buy a dedicated SSD 3) install Windows 10 on it (which I did very reluctantly and only after putting up with the atrocious DX12/Win10 port on Win7 for the better part of a year).

That's akin to buying a new toaster and being told to re-wire your house or it won't work. Not really something I wanted to do, but also a backhanded compliment for how good the game is (I've only compromised myself this way once before: 10 years ago, I installed Origin to see how Mass Effect ended; it was worth it, but still felt like blackmail, of sorts).

(Oh – for those of you who don't want to install Windows 10 because of privacy concerns – do what I did: give it its own partition and no network connection. No spyware I know of can bridge that gap.)

Overall, though it got saddled with a poor launch and oodles of bugs, at its heart Cyberpunk 2077 has always been a Great Game. Now, after 2 years of patches, you can finally see it for what it was all along: a DeusEx-like romp through a giant cityscape, with characters you'll care about, a great narrative with dollops of Meaningful Choice, and some first-rate action gameplay. And while it's a shame CD Projekt Red is giving up on it so soon (no matter how good its one planned expansion is, I don't think it will be enough for Night CIty to live up to its potential); this "brief", 100-hour ride is well worth your time. If you want to experience, first-hand, what it would feel like to reach for the sun knowing full-well you'll get charred in the process, this here's the game for you, choom.

For my own part, I intend to play the game through One More Time before the expansion drops next year (which is what I've said six times since the game came out). This time, I'm thinking "brooding nomad who likes to resolve things with His Bare Hands." I hope you'll join me on my jaunt to Night City. It might not be a long one, but – man – it sure is fun while it lasts...

Pig Recommends:

-Blade Runner (1982 movie) – for its undeniable sci-fi classic status, a great adaptaion of a so-so story (I love Philip K. Dick, but he was very much a product of his time – and it showed a little too much for my liking in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"); and part one of Mike Pondsmith's inspiration for Cyberpunk 2013 (which, in turn, became Cyberpunk 2020; which- you get the idea), ;

-William Gibson's trilogies – the Sprawl (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) for that original flavor (and part two of Mike's source material); the Bridge (Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties) for Berry and Chevette; Blue Ant (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History) for a more contemporary detour; and Jackpot (Peripheral, Agency, and – once it's published – Jackpot) for a glimpse beyond;

-the (increasingly anachronistic) pen-and-paper Cyberpunk 2020 source books (maybe not all 25 of 'em, but some – like the Chromebooks, Solo of Fortunes, Tales from the Forlorn Hope, Near Orbit or Maximum Metal) make a decent read even if you're no longer into real-life RPGs;

-DeusEx – 1, 2, Mankind Divided and Human Revolution for great gameplay, decent writing and (in the case of Adam Jensen) a truly likeable protagonist;

-Syndicate (1 and 2) and Satellite Reign – for seeing how the other half lives, from the POV of a corpo drone controller; the Syndicates will feel a little dated, but their mix of fast-paced tactics, great design and art style still holds up; Satellite Reign, on the other hand, rocks (especially in Co-op);

-Ghost in the Shell (manga, movies and animated series) – the original book and movie, Stand Alone Complex, SAC: 2nd Gig, Solid State Society, SAC: 2045, Arise and The New Movie (not so much Innocence or the 2017 live action weirdness), for Masamune Shirow's periodic re-telling of Section 9 hijinks; each has its upsides and downsides (mostly when Mr. Shirow waxes metaphysical), but the characters are likeable and some of the scenarios are really well thought-out; plus – it's got Tachikomas;

-Appleseed (manga, movies) – the four original books, Ex Machina and Alpha, for (again) Masamune Shirow's periodic re-telling of an inherently good core idea (this time with Deunan and Briareos);

-Dex – a tiny, Flashback-like, indie gem which is like Mini-Punk 2077 with a weirder ending and charming, 2D pixel art;

-The Surge (1 and 2) – futuristic kinda-Soulslikes (told you wily Pig might surprise you!) where – instead of collecting weapons and armor – you strip parts of Power Armor from your opponents and wear them; 1 is a little claustrophobic, 2 has the better (in my opinion) plot and gives you a bit more breathing room (for the most part, happens out of doors);

Honorable (non-cyberpunk) Mentions:

-Dragon Age: Origins – a great (if grim) fantasy tale about good vs. evil which is the only game to date to introduce several unique beginnings and account for them all no matter which one you play; suffers from typical BioWare tropes, but also has some very solid performances, some great twists, and a decent expansion (meaning Awakening; none of the other story DLCs were any good);

-Dragon's Dogma – a 3rd person action RPG with an intriguing setting only slightly marred by increasingly incomprehensible (though So Very Japanese) plot twists; has some really great ideas and is one of the few games that will let you break the world – and then live in it;

and (of course)

-The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – because Pig can be Geralt's wingman anytime;