9 ms·

I'm not saying it's all bad. The art style is amazing, the sound track is awesome. The lips sync, facial expressions and body movement are pretty damn good. Yes

I'm not saying it's all bad. The art style is amazing, the sound track is awesome. The lips sync, facial expressions and body movement are pretty damn good. Yes there some nice side missions and the main story line is ok I guess but it's not really cyberpunk or really engaging. They advertised it as a cyber punk open world RPG and promised so many things and then literally changed the marketing of the game to an action shooter after the game came out...

ineedasername 6y ago
* it's not really cyberpunk* Having read a bunch of great (and not so great) cyberpunk fiction from the 80's & 90's, that's actually a theme that really shines through here for me. Crazy cybernetics & brain/computer interfaces, hacking, drugs, weird AI doing things like running a transport/security company with some splinter groups that have existential crisis... I really get that original cyberpunk vibe.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Your main character says not all cops are bastards. Strong punk energy. eyeroll It's extremely a game that is pastiche of cyberpunk, diving neither into the cyber nor punk beyond skinning things. Where's the Ghost in the Shell examination of the self? Where's the dive into what it means to have modifiable bodies? Where's the anti-establishment story (oh wait, the game opens with praise of the cops by multiple characters, including V). For a game that wants to be cyberpunk, it sure relies on a lot of stereotypes about people and what they can be. To me, it reads a lot like a Boomer/GenX take on what they remember cyberpunk being (NEON AND CHROME) and not an actual understanding of the genre (exploration of what it means to be a human in a corporate, transhuman world.) If you want to play an actual cyberpunk game, check out Umurangi Generation or Shadowrun: Dragonfall. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake that came out this year is more cyberpunk than Cyberpunk. That said, the game is a serviceable noire and shooter with some extremely always on aesthetic choices which aren't really my taste but they might be other's tastes.
  - nkohari 6y ago
    Eh, this comes across as hipsterism. I know it's trendy to hate on the game right now, but c'mon. How much of the game have you played? The entire main quest is about transhumanism and corporate control. Cyberpsychosis and the Maelstrom are used as a means for examining the results of the overuse of body modification. Just like the Cyberpunk RPG, it was very heavily inspired by Gibson's work, and I mean that in a good way.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      I think that cyber psychos are a really tired way to translate an old tabletop game mechanic into a story beat. What's more interesting -- amputees and disabled folks go BERSERK when they get treatment, or what if we escaped the bounds of the human form. Why does this game have such an extremely boring view of what humanity could be if you had access to mods. Gender, race, body type, even the configuration of limbs and the like seem like they should be things of the past in 2077. Instead we have a tired Japanese stereotype, a Haitian gang, and some pretty boring ideas about the human condition. Gibson himself offered the critique that the game looked like GTA papered over with 80s retrofuturism. I think it's totally reasonable to critique the game as not really doing anything interesting in the genre or even doing anything more than appropriating genre tropes.
      - tomc1985 6y ago
        Step into the shoes of almost any past futurist and you'll find that humanity usually took the boring, predictable route, technologically. There is an inherent cynicism in the setting that needs to shine through as a fundamental part of the genre's identity. Also, it's only 57 years in the future. You're not going to advance that much in that time. Personally I think the aesthetic seems a little too trapped in 80s retrofuturism -- I guess I agree with Gibson there -- but that was always the interpretation of cyberpunk and scifi that I liked the most so it gets a pass. There is plenty of whimsical, optimistic visions into the future, and while I think a setting that explores "high tech, low life" in that context would be cool to see, it'd feel a lot closer to Star Wars than "cyberpunk".
- pdkl95 6y ago
  It has the vibe (aesthetics), like most modern "cyberpunk" works. The tech, hacking, drugs, and weird AI were mostly the setting for the main themes of corporate power and how technology enabled new forms of control/manipulation. When an article compared William Gibson's visions to Second Life, he rejected the notion explicitly[1]: But as Gully Jimson says, in The Horse's Mouth, "It wasn't the vision I had." Neither is Second Life. Chia and her buds build their treehouses in corporate ghost sites. That's the difference. Interstitial. Gotta be interstitial. I've only seen the first few hours of Cyberpunk 2077, but so far it has the potential for some of the social/political themes. The "Corpo" prelude depicting a corporation abusing its power to "repo" parts of someone's body was a good start, but so far the game hasn't returned to that theme, instead focusing more on the tech/combat. Unfortunately, the trend over the last few decades in cyberpunk has steadily shifted towards aesthetics. The only true counterexample I know of (and by far the best cyberpunk movie ever made is Sleep Dealer (2008). Its aesthetics suffered due to a very tiny budget, but it was shockingly prescient in its depiction of the "gig economy" and drone violence. [1] http://williamgibsonblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/#8519138918500252617 http://williamgibsonblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/#8519138918500... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZr8A_9VZBw&disable_polymer=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZr8A_9VZBw&disable_polymer=...
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    Don't worry, after a few twists and turns the story becomes very, very cyberpunky. But there's a large gap until that happens. I think of it as an 8-hour long tutorial.
enraged_camel 6y ago
The game has a different take on the cyberpunk universe and I think that is okay. Personally, it's a great game. I find myself caring about the characters and the outcomes of my actions. Despite technology being everywhere, everything feels so human.

ineedasername 6y ago

* it's not really cyberpunk* Having read a bunch of great (and not so great) cyberpunk fiction from the 80's & 90's, that's actually a theme that really shines through here for me. Crazy cybernetics & brain/computer interfaces, hacking, drugs, weird AI doing things like running a transport/security company with some splinter groups that have existential crisis... I really get that original cyberpunk vibe.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Your main character says not all cops are bastards. Strong punk energy. eyeroll It's extremely a game that is pastiche of cyberpunk, diving neither into the cyber nor punk beyond skinning things. Where's the Ghost in the Shell examination of the self? Where's the dive into what it means to have modifiable bodies? Where's the anti-establishment story (oh wait, the game opens with praise of the cops by multiple characters, including V). For a game that wants to be cyberpunk, it sure relies on a lot of stereotypes about people and what they can be. To me, it reads a lot like a Boomer/GenX take on what they remember cyberpunk being (NEON AND CHROME) and not an actual understanding of the genre (exploration of what it means to be a human in a corporate, transhuman world.) If you want to play an actual cyberpunk game, check out Umurangi Generation or Shadowrun: Dragonfall. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake that came out this year is more cyberpunk than Cyberpunk. That said, the game is a serviceable noire and shooter with some extremely always on aesthetic choices which aren't really my taste but they might be other's tastes.
- nkohari 6y ago
  Eh, this comes across as hipsterism. I know it's trendy to hate on the game right now, but c'mon. How much of the game have you played? The entire main quest is about transhumanism and corporate control. Cyberpsychosis and the Maelstrom are used as a means for examining the results of the overuse of body modification. Just like the Cyberpunk RPG, it was very heavily inspired by Gibson's work, and I mean that in a good way.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    I think that cyber psychos are a really tired way to translate an old tabletop game mechanic into a story beat. What's more interesting -- amputees and disabled folks go BERSERK when they get treatment, or what if we escaped the bounds of the human form. Why does this game have such an extremely boring view of what humanity could be if you had access to mods. Gender, race, body type, even the configuration of limbs and the like seem like they should be things of the past in 2077. Instead we have a tired Japanese stereotype, a Haitian gang, and some pretty boring ideas about the human condition. Gibson himself offered the critique that the game looked like GTA papered over with 80s retrofuturism. I think it's totally reasonable to critique the game as not really doing anything interesting in the genre or even doing anything more than appropriating genre tropes.
    - tomc1985 6y ago
      Step into the shoes of almost any past futurist and you'll find that humanity usually took the boring, predictable route, technologically. There is an inherent cynicism in the setting that needs to shine through as a fundamental part of the genre's identity. Also, it's only 57 years in the future. You're not going to advance that much in that time. Personally I think the aesthetic seems a little too trapped in 80s retrofuturism -- I guess I agree with Gibson there -- but that was always the interpretation of cyberpunk and scifi that I liked the most so it gets a pass. There is plenty of whimsical, optimistic visions into the future, and while I think a setting that explores "high tech, low life" in that context would be cool to see, it'd feel a lot closer to Star Wars than "cyberpunk".
pdkl95 6y ago
It has the vibe (aesthetics), like most modern "cyberpunk" works. The tech, hacking, drugs, and weird AI were mostly the setting for the main themes of corporate power and how technology enabled new forms of control/manipulation. When an article compared William Gibson's visions to Second Life, he rejected the notion explicitly[1]: But as Gully Jimson says, in The Horse's Mouth, "It wasn't the vision I had." Neither is Second Life. Chia and her buds build their treehouses in corporate ghost sites. That's the difference. Interstitial. Gotta be interstitial. I've only seen the first few hours of Cyberpunk 2077, but so far it has the potential for some of the social/political themes. The "Corpo" prelude depicting a corporation abusing its power to "repo" parts of someone's body was a good start, but so far the game hasn't returned to that theme, instead focusing more on the tech/combat. Unfortunately, the trend over the last few decades in cyberpunk has steadily shifted towards aesthetics. The only true counterexample I know of (and by far the best cyberpunk movie ever made is Sleep Dealer (2008). Its aesthetics suffered due to a very tiny budget, but it was shockingly prescient in its depiction of the "gig economy" and drone violence. [1] http://williamgibsonblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/#8519138918500252617 http://williamgibsonblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/#8519138918500... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZr8A_9VZBw&disable_polymer=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZr8A_9VZBw&disable_polymer=...
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Don't worry, after a few twists and turns the story becomes very, very cyberpunky. But there's a large gap until that happens. I think of it as an 8-hour long tutorial.

enraged_camel 6y ago

The game has a different take on the cyberpunk universe and I think that is okay. Personally, it's a great game. I find myself caring about the characters and the outcomes of my actions. Despite technology being everywhere, everything feels so human.