Why, despite the hype, Cyberpunk failed to make my day: PETER HOSKIN reviews Cyberpunk and Immortals – Fenyx Rising
Cyberpunk (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £49.99)
Verdict: Expectation mismanagement
Here it is. The game of the year. Not in the sense of being the best game of the year, but rather in the sense that Cyberpunk 2077 is the most anticipated, talked-about and uncontainably huge release of 2020.
The hype has been meticulously cultivated by its developers for almost a decade.
Cyberpunk 2077 is the most anticipated, talked-about and uncontainably huge release of 2020. Pictured: Keanu Reeves as one of the characters Johnny Silverhand
They even got Keanu Reeves to lend his oh-so-dreamy features to one of the characters.
But now that Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out, I find myself a little disappointed. So much of it is overfamiliar.
This, surprisingly, isn’t true of the game’s setting.
Although Night City looks like yet another Blade Runner knockoff, all decrepit blocks and neon lights, it is presented in such detail that it feels unprecedented.
The people that populate its sleaze-ridden streets — including Reeves’ unhinged, part-android rocker, Johnny Silverhand — are brilliantly voiced and animated.
But now that Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out, I find myself a little disappointed. So much of it is overfamiliar. Cyberpunk 2077 presented itself as a revolution. It’s more a reiteration.
Instead, the overfamiliarity comes in what you do: the same shooting, sneaking, levelling-up and light moral quandaries as in a thousand older games.
Cyberpunk 2077 presented itself as a revolution. It’s more a reiteration.
Perhaps that will change with the expansions that are planned for the game next year.
This world certainly has potential. But in the meantime, punk is dormant.
Immortals: Fenyx Rising (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £59.99)
Verdict: Homage’s Odyssey
Rating: 
Who knew that the Greek gods were such a hoot? Or at least they are in Immortals: Fenyx Rising, a candy-coloured adventure that is far more sprightly than its cumbersome name suggests.
It took me a while to warm to its cartoonish spin on ancient mythology, however, in large part because the gameplay is tremendously — and specifically — derivative.
As Fenyx, a mortal stranded in Olympian realms, you hurry across a landscape full of monsters; scale cliffs before your stamina runs out; and solve puzzles in special, self-contained areas.
Which is exactly what the main character Link does in the 2017 masterpiece The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. You start to wonder: can royalties be paid in drachmae?
And yet, Fenyx Rising wore away at my cynicism with its poise and charm. There’s just something about the Looney Tunes way in which defeated monsters go rocketing off your blade. As Homer once wrote, lolz.