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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 cy

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".
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      That makes sense. Something like Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix really gets wild with what posthumanism can look like. Cyberpunk taken to the next 200 years. That said, media like ghost in the shell and altered carbon (the novels) gesture in this direction. Altered carbon, for instance, has people who have modded their bodies with animal features. GitS goes hard on the ship of Theseus metaphors and has lots of mods that don't fit a standard human shape. Not to mention plenty of discussions of gender and gender roles in a society where you can just choose whatever body you want.
      - tomc1985 6y ago
        A bit into the game, Cyberpunk starts to resemble Altered Carbon in some ways. I'm not super far into it, and I don't want to spoil anything, but it definitely has some things to say about transhumanism and at one point I felt like it was sharing some vocabulary with AC. You are right in that I think the universe could explore those themes more thoroughly, but then maybe it will and I'm just not there yet
  - nkohari 6y ago
    I'm a HUGE fan of Gibson's books, but let's be honest: he's 72 years old, and might not be the best judge of modern video games. He was also involved in (and wrote the screenplay for) the Johnny Mnemonic movie, which was one of the blandest attempts at mainstreaming cyberpunk ever. The Japanese stereotypes and Haitian gangs are lifted straight off the pages of Neuromancer and Count Zero. I dig the retrofuturist 80s vibe, but then I love retrofuturism in general so that's not surprising. In the end, CP2077 is a AAA video game. It has to appeal to the general population, so yeah, it's probably not going to be the most experimental take on the genre. As mainstream cyberpunk attempts go, can we at least agree it's heads-and-shoulders better than Netflix's Altered Carbon? :)
jevgeni 6y ago
Cyberpunk never was cyber + punk.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  It literally was explicitly that. Gibson and others started writing in this genre, which then took it's name from CYBERPUNK by Bruce Bethke a short story that was named to elicit a feeling of technology and punk attitudes. The common idiom high tech, low life is another way of describing the genre and also succinctly suggests that the genre is, in fact, cyber + punk. Happy to provide references, but a quick internet search clearly shows that what you've suggested is factually incorrect.
  - jevgeni 6y ago
    I know all that. You're just misusing the word "punk" as a free variable.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      I'm using it as intended -- that stories in cyberpunk universes focus on anti establishment themes and lowlifes.
      - jevgeni 6y ago
        Clearly Ghost in The Shell was famously anti-establishment and Kusanagi a definitive low life... Not transhumanism, identity or sexuality.
arugulum 6y ago
>Your main character says not all cops are bastards. IIRC this comment was made when you're on a quest and partnered with probably the one good cop on the force, who was also suspended for doing his job. The quest started based on the incompetence of the police leading to him needing to ask V for help to pursue the case. And the comment was made in reference to this one guy you're trying to help out. Meanwhile the next quest V will matter-of-factly state that the cops can't be trusted to handle so-and-so issue. So please don't take lines out of their context.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Some additional context-- you have to engage in a system where you get paid to kill people for the police. And then there's this, https://twitter.com/TurboBurpo/status/1338945708200656896?s=19 https://twitter.com/TurboBurpo/status/1338945708200656896?s=... Remember that Night City evolved out of LA and imagine that description applied to the LAPD.
  - arugulum 6y ago
    That tweet looks to be deleted, so I don't know what you're referencing. But back to the point: you work with all sorts of terrible people in the game. That's sort of one conclusion of the Cyberpunk genre: every level of society is rotten has decayed even as technology progressed. The police are no better (and no worse) than any other faction of human traffickers, politicians, crime syndicates, drug dealers, fixers - everyone is simply looking out for their own interests. You regularly get gigs with orders to kidnap or kill people with no questions asked. So it seems unnatural for you to single out the police as being the one faction where it is unforgivable for the game to have you side with at any point.
ineedasername 6y ago
There's a very strong "cops can be dicks" theme in literally the first opening scene. There's a very strong theme of cops being a tool of corporate interests. On what to means to have a modifiable body, there too from the beginning the game puts it right in front of you where it causes a sort of body dysmorphic disorder that can drive people crazy. There's even a series of side quests that deal directly with this.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  The dialog in that scene says, effectively, he must have done something to deserve it. To me it showed police violence and then immediately tried to justify it. I took away a very different message from that scene. But that's the beauty of critique, I think we can both look at the same work and draw different messages from it.

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".
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    That makes sense. Something like Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix really gets wild with what posthumanism can look like. Cyberpunk taken to the next 200 years. That said, media like ghost in the shell and altered carbon (the novels) gesture in this direction. Altered carbon, for instance, has people who have modded their bodies with animal features. GitS goes hard on the ship of Theseus metaphors and has lots of mods that don't fit a standard human shape. Not to mention plenty of discussions of gender and gender roles in a society where you can just choose whatever body you want.
    - tomc1985 6y ago
      A bit into the game, Cyberpunk starts to resemble Altered Carbon in some ways. I'm not super far into it, and I don't want to spoil anything, but it definitely has some things to say about transhumanism and at one point I felt like it was sharing some vocabulary with AC. You are right in that I think the universe could explore those themes more thoroughly, but then maybe it will and I'm just not there yet
- nkohari 6y ago
  I'm a HUGE fan of Gibson's books, but let's be honest: he's 72 years old, and might not be the best judge of modern video games. He was also involved in (and wrote the screenplay for) the Johnny Mnemonic movie, which was one of the blandest attempts at mainstreaming cyberpunk ever. The Japanese stereotypes and Haitian gangs are lifted straight off the pages of Neuromancer and Count Zero. I dig the retrofuturist 80s vibe, but then I love retrofuturism in general so that's not surprising. In the end, CP2077 is a AAA video game. It has to appeal to the general population, so yeah, it's probably not going to be the most experimental take on the genre. As mainstream cyberpunk attempts go, can we at least agree it's heads-and-shoulders better than Netflix's Altered Carbon? :)

jevgeni 6y ago

Cyberpunk never was cyber + punk.

Pfhreak 6y ago
It literally was explicitly that. Gibson and others started writing in this genre, which then took it's name from CYBERPUNK by Bruce Bethke a short story that was named to elicit a feeling of technology and punk attitudes. The common idiom high tech, low life is another way of describing the genre and also succinctly suggests that the genre is, in fact, cyber + punk. Happy to provide references, but a quick internet search clearly shows that what you've suggested is factually incorrect.
- jevgeni 6y ago
  I know all that. You're just misusing the word "punk" as a free variable.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    I'm using it as intended -- that stories in cyberpunk universes focus on anti establishment themes and lowlifes.
    - jevgeni 6y ago
      Clearly Ghost in The Shell was famously anti-establishment and Kusanagi a definitive low life... Not transhumanism, identity or sexuality.

arugulum 6y ago

>Your main character says not all cops are bastards. IIRC this comment was made when you're on a quest and partnered with probably the one good cop on the force, who was also suspended for doing his job. The quest started based on the incompetence of the police leading to him needing to ask V for help to pursue the case. And the comment was made in reference to this one guy you're trying to help out. Meanwhile the next quest V will matter-of-factly state that the cops can't be trusted to handle so-and-so issue. So please don't take lines out of their context.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Some additional context-- you have to engage in a system where you get paid to kill people for the police. And then there's this, https://twitter.com/TurboBurpo/status/1338945708200656896?s=19 https://twitter.com/TurboBurpo/status/1338945708200656896?s=... Remember that Night City evolved out of LA and imagine that description applied to the LAPD.
- arugulum 6y ago
  That tweet looks to be deleted, so I don't know what you're referencing. But back to the point: you work with all sorts of terrible people in the game. That's sort of one conclusion of the Cyberpunk genre: every level of society is rotten has decayed even as technology progressed. The police are no better (and no worse) than any other faction of human traffickers, politicians, crime syndicates, drug dealers, fixers - everyone is simply looking out for their own interests. You regularly get gigs with orders to kidnap or kill people with no questions asked. So it seems unnatural for you to single out the police as being the one faction where it is unforgivable for the game to have you side with at any point.

ineedasername 6y ago

There's a very strong "cops can be dicks" theme in literally the first opening scene. There's a very strong theme of cops being a tool of corporate interests. On what to means to have a modifiable body, there too from the beginning the game puts it right in front of you where it causes a sort of body dysmorphic disorder that can drive people crazy. There's even a series of side quests that deal directly with this.

Pfhreak 6y ago
The dialog in that scene says, effectively, he must have done something to deserve it. To me it showed police violence and then immediately tried to justify it. I took away a very different message from that scene. But that's the beauty of critique, I think we can both look at the same work and draw different messages from it.