8 ms·

In 'Cyberpunk 2077,' the Only Truly Punk Move Is Not to Play

49 points by mwcampbell 6y ago

Razengan 6y ago
Is anyone else weary of dystopian sci-fi? I'd love to see a setting where technology has made the world a practical utopia, and people generally don't have to be wary of each other. It would be tricky to introduce interesting conflict and challenges into such a setting, yes. There are some anime/manga like that, for example Aria [0], which is basically Venice on Mars and the main characters are aspiring gondoliers, with the story centered on their training or daily life etc. But you could have a utopian human society and have the conflict come from an alien species or some kind of cosmic cataclysm. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria_(manga) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria_(manga)
- pixelbash 6y ago
  The Culture series by Iain M. Banks is like this, but perhaps set a little far into the future to be easily translated into games or movies.
- phone8675309 6y ago
  The closest thing I can think of to a practical, popular example of this was the television series "The Good Place" - nominally about the experience of a person who was incorrectly sent to heaven and their internal discomfort with being in paradise.
- villasv 6y ago
  Ergo Proxy is somewhat that. The success of the utopia is questionable (kinda the starting point of the story), but the plot is more akin to existential-crisis drama. I'd bet you know about Psycho Pass, it also shakily satisfies your description. [0] https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_Proxy https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_Proxy
  - gerikson 6y ago
    Psycho Pass is a straight-up dystopia, in my view.
- marzell 6y ago
  I think what has made dystopian sci-fi compelling in the past, is that it points out the flaws of our ideals, and resonates with many of us in an acknowledgement that perfection is impossible, even if we shift society to give more of an appearance of perfection, there's always a significant cost. Yes, these ideas are played out, and there's tons of bad examples of media that just replays these ideas without bringing anything novel to the table. But I still find the idea of a 'realistic' dystopian sci-fi more potentially compelling than a sugarcoated 'impossible' utopia because I fundamentally believe it can't exist. I cannot conceive of a real utopia in practice, and what someone else may call a utopia I would surely call some sort of nightmare. Refer to Brave New World as a good example of exactly this dynamic.
  - Razengan 6y ago
    > what someone else may call a utopia I would surely call some sort of nightmare. The very definition of a utopia (colloquially, regardless of where the word actually came from) is a state where nobody feels like its a nightmare. Where everybody has basic comforts and the freedom to do what they want (as long as it doesn't harm anyone) and decide their future and has safety nets against misfortune. You can still have plenty of interesting trials and tribulations in such a setting (competing in sports, getting good at art, exploring the cosmos) and I'm sure that if done right it will be a refreshing change from the usual tired old trope of "Everything's fucked! And will always be fucked!"
- rubycon22 6y ago
  It's plausible to believe that we'll make all kinds of technological advancements, solve world hunger and such kinds of scarcity, go to Mars, or whatever. However, it's unlikely that humans will ever overcome their greatest enemy, themselves. Such a utopian fantasy is still hard to take in for most people, while it's much easier to imagine things going to shit and degenerating to a cyberpunk dystopia. Humans make the technology and so technology will never be the answer to solving human nature.
  - Razengan 6y ago
    > However, it's unlikely that humans will ever overcome their greatest enemy, themselves. I believe in nurture > nature, and I see it in the differences between different human settlements (cultures, nations) and in attitudes over time. In some places you're more likely to get robbed, in others you're more likely to get help. In some cities you're more likely to see casual litter, in other places more people cleaning up after themselves. For every decade you go back in time there will be more and more classes of people who had a much harder time of fitting into society, along with the lack of many other freedoms that we take for granted now. Once nobody has to constantly struggle for basic comforts, I think humanity will be able to chill the fuck out.
    - rubycon22 6y ago
      I think that's very wishful thinking. Firstly, we're assuming that this will happen: >"Once nobody has to constantly struggle for basic comforts," It's definitely possible. Humans have an immense amount of potential for good. But I don't believe the people in power, with the influence to enact meaningful change, will ever let this fly. Simply because of the reason that they greatly benefit from the current state of the world. People in this class have most of the capital and generate money from their existing wealth while doing basically nothing of value. They need us commoners to consume, consume, and consume. They need us to work and labor away, as cogs in the machine that makes them profit, so that they will not have to work like us. Yes, automation will come. But who will own the factories and machines? Exactly. But even then, there will still be many things that they require laborers for. And in the future, the common people will be fighting each other over the privilege of serving this owner class at the continued threat of destitution. Just like how it's always been...
- micheljansen 6y ago
  Utopias by themselves are typically rather boring, so you either end up with the drama coming from interpersonal friction (think soap opera) or from some external antagonist, making the story about that conflict instead. Contrast that with dystopian fiction, where the things that make it a dystopia are also often what makes the story interesting.
- fossuser 6y ago
  There are a few that come to mind, but nothing I can think of as super recent. - After Life, Simon Funk: https://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/ https://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/ - Most of Ted Chiang, but particularly Liking What You See: A Documentary: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vSPLnvgBqIgJ:https://canvas.wayne.edu/courses/102861/files/3959556/download%3Fdownload_frd%3D1+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vSPLnv... - Also Ted Chiang: The Lifecycle of Software Objects (not really pessimistic or optimistic, just thoughtful) - Her (Movie), melancholy but ultimately hopeful - HPMOR (Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality): http://www.hpmor.com http://www.hpmor.com - True Names, Vernor Vinge: http://www.scotswolf.com/TRUENAMES.pdf http://www.scotswolf.com/TRUENAMES.pdf - Permutation City, Greg Egan (accurately predicts AWS 20yrs early along with a host of other super interesting ideas) - Star Trek TNG is the classic example of optimistic Sci-Fi, but the more recent Enterprise is also good. - The San Junipero Black Mirror episode - I wouldn't call The Expanse optimistic, but it's probably the best sci-fi show on today. --- For some contrarian anti-recommendations which can be just as useful: - I thought the culture series was bad, in plot/characters/writing - I found it tedious and kind of dumb. - I disliked the three body problem for similar reasons.
- rusk 6y ago
  Brave new world is a utopia - that it’s dystopian is something that is left to the reader to infer. Which is ultimately the point - if a modern human found themselves in such a world, could they be happy?
- tialaramex 6y ago
  In terms of written fiction, Greg Egan's Amalgam setting has all the space-capable denizens of our outer galaxy effectively in a vast sprawling Utopia. Figuring out what to do with yourself in that circumstance is the story driver. The Neil Gaiman run of Miracleman is about the Utopia constructed by Miracleman during the Alan Moore run of Utopia. Presumably the next series is about how that goes tragically wrong, but it has never been published. But the Golden Age (Gaiman run) is pretty interesting. People living in a Utopia are still people.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    > Alan Moore run of Utopia s/Utopia/Miracleman/
- gerikson 6y ago
  The backstory of Ken MacLeod's "The Cassini Division" involves an Earth with a practical socialist utopia, but the main action involves the unceasing war against the uploaded capitalist class who have taken over Jupiter...
phone8675309 6y ago
There is nothing sadder or more impotent than corporate (cyber-)punk. The irony of the save file corruption issue being tied to "too much crafting" given the DIY ethos of punk is palpable.
- nickthegreek 6y ago
  its probably more to do with dupe glitching than too much crafting.
- antiterra 6y ago
  Punk’s vehicle, message and consumption have been at odds with one another since before the Sex Pistols. That this game blends marketing hype & consumerism with the creative guidance of the Cyberpunk tabletop creator fits in quite well.
Barrin92 6y ago
The game tries so hard to be cool — to come off as crass and edgy, to talk tough and play like some kind of anti-capitalist anarchy generator. But you lean too hard into that act and it will always come off more like a desperate pose than anything honest It's so true honestly. The game has the intellectual depth of a Che-shirt or that Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial. What the game reminds me of is Mark Fisher's point about how we've lost the ability to imagine new futures, because Cyberpunk is the opposite of a futuristic game. Cyberpunk's notion of sexuality in the future is basically bolting a penis or vagina onto the opposite sex, everyone's driving around in retro-looking cars or motorcycles, nothing about it is actually novel other than the surface level aesthetic they've put on it, which has been virtually unchanged for four decades. The author is right that the most actual cyberpunk aspect of the game is in fact the development and sale of the game itself, like some sort of unwitting piece of performance art.
- rusk 6y ago
  > The game has the intellectual depth of a Che-shirt It’s a GAME ...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
eric_b 6y ago
Is this what passes for "gaming press" these days? Cyberpunk is not supposed to be some watershed philosophical masterwork. It's a game, bro. And from everyone I've talked to it sounds like it's really fun if you have the hardware to run it, bugs and all.
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  Maybe the gaming press wants games to be philosophical/political works because it gives them something to write about.
  - villasv 6y ago
    There's the word punk in the title. Why not analyze the game relating to the punk culture (including its philosophy and politics)? There's enough space on the Internet for "is this game fun?" reviews and "is this game epistemologically sound?" reviews.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      The people who whine about games not being taken seriously as an art turn around and whine about how it’s just a game whenever actual, even faintly critical critiques of the art get published.
      - bigbubba 6y ago
        Are you sure it's precisely the same individuals arguing these contradictory positions, or might it be different people?
        majormajor 6y ago
        Probably not, but then, this whole thread was started by someone asking if NPR is what passes as "Gaming Press" these days, which... well... no?? Probably obviously not? Likely to be coming at it from a different angle?
fossuser 6y ago
The game is a little more nuanced than this write up would have you believe. You can tell the Silverhand character that he's a whiny narcissist with over-simplified views that blames everyone for his own problems. I'd argue Silverhand and Yorinobu are not the heroes, but it ultimately depends on how you play and what decisions you make. You can also make fairly pragmatic decisions to do what makes the most sense in context. I wouldn't call it 'optimistic' sci-fi since the world is pretty gritty, but the techno-futurism, ability for people to upgrade themselves is pretty interesting, and achieving immortality for everyone is pretty optimistic even in that gritty backdrop. It's worth playing to check it out, I'd ignore most of this over-intellectualized writing about it and just play it for yourself if you want to.
- dkersten 6y ago
  The Silverhand character does grow somewhat towards the end. I actually started liking him before I got to the credits.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Yeah it's interesting since he becomes a blend of himself and V's personality. I liked the story and world ultimately, I think people just like to have 'contrarian' takes on something popular as a way to signal how smart they are. Probably too harshly worded, but it's a recurring thing I've noticed.
    - dkersten 6y ago
      Well, I do think the game has some very big problems (aside from the bugs; see my other comments), but most of the story is very well written in my opinion and the characters are great. There were some moments that really hit me hard in the feels. There were some little details (ringing Jackie's phone for example) that were just fantastic. I'm upset with CDPR management for lying and for not giving the dev team the time needed to finish it properly, but I'm not upset that I bought the game. I got my moneys worth and had a good time with it (yes, the game did crash regularly and have lots of annoying bugs, but I was mostly able to ignore it and continue anyway -- on PS4 too!) I didn't think I'd like Silverhand at all, I haven't really seen any Keanu movies since The Matrix so had zero buy in with him being in the game, and at the start he was such a dry character. However, as it went on and as V and he interacted more, he grew on me and I guess V did too, so the V/Silverhand blend at the end became something I actually cared about.
standardUser 6y ago
Two years from now, a heavily patched and modded version of this game will be everything and more than 2077 ever promised to be. That's been the origin of all of my greatest action RPG experiences (Skyrim, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Dragon Age origins).
alkonaut 6y ago
Bugs aside, I’m not sure it’s right to consider any plot in video games too thin. If you played a Doom game you know that even the silliest pretense for shooting and blowing things up is good enough. It’s not a movie script. Yes, you might hold an RPG to a slightly higher standard than an action game in this regard, but I still think the premise of CP2077 (Or GTA) is more than enough to fill an interesting game. I don’t need to “buy” the story if the mechanics are good enough and gameplay is enjoyable. If they could spend another 1000 hours on improving the writing or expanding the game with the poor writing, I’d take the latter every day.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  > I don’t need to “buy” the story if the mechanics are good enough and gameplay is enjoyable. If they could spend another 1000 hours on improving the writing or expanding the game with the poor writing, I’d take the latter every day. That said, you should understand that what you've shared here is your opinion and isn't a ground truth for videogames. Humans play games for many, many reasons and for some they'd much rather have a smaller experience with excellent writing.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    Of course, and I could enjoy a tiny game with good writing too. My argument is simply that poor writing/story alone isn’t grounds for calling any game terrible, and not only that, it can even be excellent without it. This review seems to imply that the poor writing means the game can’t be good.
Red29 6y ago
Honestly, I found Cyberpunk really underwhelming and basically stopped playing. Apart from 1 or 2 moments (spider bot is cool,hotel theft job alright.) It's just very run and gun. And uniteresting. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I'd love it to be a mix of syndicate (if you know that game), Detroit, and something like a point and click game. Something with a ton of interaction and only a bit of fighting.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  I've been in very few fights so far, and most of my "gameplay" has been hiding and slowly netrunning my way through buildings, taking out enemies via hacks. Of course, I occasionally screw up and end up lobbing grenades until I stop getting shot at, but so it goes.
- nickthegreek 6y ago
  I barely ever run and gun. I squat and hack. But no matter what method you use, it seems you will quickly overpower everything due to AI/balancing issues. still enjoying it immensely though.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  The only reason I was interested in this game was immersion of a rich world. I'm not sure what that means, but I think it was something like, sit at an ultra cool street cafe, and watch what happens in night city. To let the world come to me if I was only willing to listen and watch. A world where there is mystery and intrigue, but not fed to you. A world where you buy a coffee, later look at your bank statement, find that he's copied your bank credentials, and stealing from his customers in small withdrawals. Only to learn he's a small time side hustler with a thing for nutcracker dolls.
  - Red29 6y ago
    Netrunner (the card game) is what drew me to it. I don't think the interactions in the game are interesting. The AI awful. I don't find the game play interesting - but I like 'old man' games (Detroit I loved for examples). Just an opinion
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
I am all for good writing, but what standard it being held to? Cyberpunk has a better plot than 90% of holiwood movies
keiferski 6y ago
The sheer amount of hatred being thrown at this game is really something odd. It feels artificial, especially when practically every media outlet has the same vitriolic tone. I don’t play games much anymore, but I did pick Cyberpunk 2077 up (via Stadia) and I’ve found it to be a blast. Certainly not perfect, but absolutely a world worth exploring. My favorite part are the details; there are tons of little stories and narratives in the items you pick up during each mission. The constant barrage of negativity surrounding it make no sense to me.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  I mean, when was the last time a major release performed so poorly that it got delisted from the PlayStation store? The game’s vitriolic reaction only really came about as a direct followup to possibly one of the most hyped up games this year.
  - eatingCake 6y ago
    I thought it got delisted because CDPR said they'd refund people and Sony said we-dont-do-that-here and went nuclear?
    - Dobbs 6y ago
      This is definitely how I read the situation when it was announced.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    I don’t really follow the gaming press and couldn’t tell you what generation of PlayStation / X-Box / etc. we’re on, so I’m unfamiliar with how previous buggy games were received. My experience is that it’s a fun game with some minor problems. If you like cyberpunk books or media, you’ll love it. The writing team put a lot of effort into crafting a backstory of the world. Overall it reminds me of the original Neuromancer novel; moments of sheer brilliance mixed with moments of tacky, embarrassingly bad writing. That specific quality is part of the genre’s history, to me, and I think a lot of the criticism toward 2077 is from people who haven’t read much of the previous books.
m3kw9 6y ago
Trying to drag games into some corporate wokeness is definitely a punk move.
- mwcampbell 6y ago
  Notice though that the game is only distributed on platforms controlled by large corporations. So it's kind of like going to a movie theater to watch a big budget movie where the villain is an evil corporation (e.g. the 2004 Manchurian Candidate remake). That's why I liked the OP's line that the only punk move is not to play, and why I submitted this story even though I'm not into gaming.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jermaustin1 6y ago
I didn't follow the game as it was getting developed, but I have heard the launch was not great. I picked it up on Google Stadia since my PC definitely isn't up to the task, and it has been an OK game. It is no Red Dead Redemption 2, or Fallout, and the story feels pretty weak so far, but the game play is enjoyable. I likely wont finish the story, but will continue to futz around in game for a while when I'm bored.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 6y ago
I keep reading an often repeated defense of the game: That there is a diamond hidden under all the bugs and rough edges. I played through the whole game and got probably lucky when it came to bugs because I did not experience that many game breaking ones (though DID encounter them which taught me to save very very frequently) and I am lucky to have a high end PC so while performance was really terrible I still managed to get ~60fps on highest settings, most of the time. It is not, it is not amazing even without the bugs. I have a strong suspicion that the people who praise or defend it so tenaciously played only the longer prologue, which lasts a few hours depending on your speed, maybe a few hours further. The quality of that part is way better than the rest and from that point on the quality will continue to drop the closer one gets to the finale. The game has massive problems that are just not related to bugs, it just tries so many things and does all of them mediocre. Many redundant and useless game mechanics. UI navigation is terrible, there are game design problems. The open world is hollow and lifeless and the behaviour of random NPCs does not even reach GTA 3 level in some ways, to put that into perspective. There is nothing to discover or explore in the open world part (except pretty screenshots sometimes) and every interaction in it (that is: outside of story missions) with characters works through audio calls and text messages. I am not saying that it is absolutely terrible without the bugs, there is some fun to be had when everything works, but removing the bugs would lift it up to "pretty ok" at best, and I do regret the time investment and purchase. Seeing the opinions split into these two extreme opinions "amazing" and "absolutely terrible" just feels weird.
ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago
Play or not to play, that's the real question. :]
antisthenes 6y ago
What irks me most about CDPR's games, including the Witcher series is that even during the most mundane playthrough, our main character ends up being a non-apologetic mass-murderer. As a teenager, I probably would have been fine with it as some sort of power-trip, but as an adult, it strikes me as very one-dimensional and a boring way to play. I'm not sure which case is more unforgivable here. Geralt, the Witcher protagonist, in the books at least, makes it a personal point not to meddle in human affairs as much as possible, and to keep it strictly business for the most part - e.g. killing horrible monsters for coin. In the game, our actions couldn't stray further from this principle. From what I've seen in Cyberpunk's gameplay, we are no less than a mass-murderer as well. And despite most of our kills being gang members and thugs, I'm still not sure it's entirely justifiable. I've seen people indiscriminately kill civilians and cops by running them over with cars, and suffer no real consequences in further gameplay. Hence it's quite hilarious to me when people compare Cyberpunk to Deus Ex or another stealth shooter. They must be out of their mind. The games are nothing alike. The shallowness and one-dimensionality of Cyberpunk makes it much closer to GTA/Borderlands than a revolutionary stealth/rpg game. People were expecting a revolutionary game in the way Witcher 3 was when it came out. And that, Cyberpunk certainly isn't.
mijoharas 6y ago
So, the first thing I just want to say, is I hadn't seen text.npr.org, and I absolutely love it! the simplicity is a breath of fresh air. I'm going to donate to NPR simply on the strength of that! About the article, it's well written. I'm still likely to play the game, but will wait until I get a PS5 and once they've polished some of the bugs. Unfortunately, lack of character depth doesn't sound like a thing they're gonna patch...
iJohnDoe 6y ago
I play on Xbox One. It’s been fun and I’ve enjoyed the game. I purposely avoided all reviews and hype. I only knew it was the game to buy this year. I think if the game was more like Alan Wake it would have been better as far story telling goes. Alan Wake is awesome by the way. Without any expectations, when playing I thought the narrative choices were a bit shallow. Maybe they get better as the game progresses. Hatred, negativity, and piling on is easy to do. If we enjoy something then we just enjoy it. Stopping and making a point to share that enjoyment doesn’t probably happen as often. Also, remember there were many articles about a year or so ago about the toxic world game developers have to live in. Tons of expectations and tons of viscous attacks. Why would anyone expect anything different in this situation.

49 points by mwcampbell 6y ago

Is anyone else weary of dystopian sci-fi? I'd love to see a setting where technology has made the world a practical utopia, and people generally don't have to be wary of each other. It would be tricky to introduce interesting conflict and challenges into such a setting, yes. There are some anime/manga like that, for example Aria [0], which is basically Venice on Mars and the main characters are aspiring gondoliers, with the story centered on their training or daily life etc. But you could have a utopian human society and have the conflict come from an alien species or some kind of cosmic cataclysm. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria_(manga) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria_(manga)

pixelbash 6y ago
The Culture series by Iain M. Banks is like this, but perhaps set a little far into the future to be easily translated into games or movies.
phone8675309 6y ago
The closest thing I can think of to a practical, popular example of this was the television series "The Good Place" - nominally about the experience of a person who was incorrectly sent to heaven and their internal discomfort with being in paradise.
villasv 6y ago
Ergo Proxy is somewhat that. The success of the utopia is questionable (kinda the starting point of the story), but the plot is more akin to existential-crisis drama. I'd bet you know about Psycho Pass, it also shakily satisfies your description. [0] https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_Proxy https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_Proxy
- gerikson 6y ago
  Psycho Pass is a straight-up dystopia, in my view.
marzell 6y ago
I think what has made dystopian sci-fi compelling in the past, is that it points out the flaws of our ideals, and resonates with many of us in an acknowledgement that perfection is impossible, even if we shift society to give more of an appearance of perfection, there's always a significant cost. Yes, these ideas are played out, and there's tons of bad examples of media that just replays these ideas without bringing anything novel to the table. But I still find the idea of a 'realistic' dystopian sci-fi more potentially compelling than a sugarcoated 'impossible' utopia because I fundamentally believe it can't exist. I cannot conceive of a real utopia in practice, and what someone else may call a utopia I would surely call some sort of nightmare. Refer to Brave New World as a good example of exactly this dynamic.
- Razengan 6y ago
  > what someone else may call a utopia I would surely call some sort of nightmare. The very definition of a utopia (colloquially, regardless of where the word actually came from) is a state where nobody feels like its a nightmare. Where everybody has basic comforts and the freedom to do what they want (as long as it doesn't harm anyone) and decide their future and has safety nets against misfortune. You can still have plenty of interesting trials and tribulations in such a setting (competing in sports, getting good at art, exploring the cosmos) and I'm sure that if done right it will be a refreshing change from the usual tired old trope of "Everything's fucked! And will always be fucked!"
rubycon22 6y ago
It's plausible to believe that we'll make all kinds of technological advancements, solve world hunger and such kinds of scarcity, go to Mars, or whatever. However, it's unlikely that humans will ever overcome their greatest enemy, themselves. Such a utopian fantasy is still hard to take in for most people, while it's much easier to imagine things going to shit and degenerating to a cyberpunk dystopia. Humans make the technology and so technology will never be the answer to solving human nature.
- Razengan 6y ago
  > However, it's unlikely that humans will ever overcome their greatest enemy, themselves. I believe in nurture > nature, and I see it in the differences between different human settlements (cultures, nations) and in attitudes over time. In some places you're more likely to get robbed, in others you're more likely to get help. In some cities you're more likely to see casual litter, in other places more people cleaning up after themselves. For every decade you go back in time there will be more and more classes of people who had a much harder time of fitting into society, along with the lack of many other freedoms that we take for granted now. Once nobody has to constantly struggle for basic comforts, I think humanity will be able to chill the fuck out.
  - rubycon22 6y ago
    I think that's very wishful thinking. Firstly, we're assuming that this will happen: >"Once nobody has to constantly struggle for basic comforts," It's definitely possible. Humans have an immense amount of potential for good. But I don't believe the people in power, with the influence to enact meaningful change, will ever let this fly. Simply because of the reason that they greatly benefit from the current state of the world. People in this class have most of the capital and generate money from their existing wealth while doing basically nothing of value. They need us commoners to consume, consume, and consume. They need us to work and labor away, as cogs in the machine that makes them profit, so that they will not have to work like us. Yes, automation will come. But who will own the factories and machines? Exactly. But even then, there will still be many things that they require laborers for. And in the future, the common people will be fighting each other over the privilege of serving this owner class at the continued threat of destitution. Just like how it's always been...
micheljansen 6y ago
Utopias by themselves are typically rather boring, so you either end up with the drama coming from interpersonal friction (think soap opera) or from some external antagonist, making the story about that conflict instead. Contrast that with dystopian fiction, where the things that make it a dystopia are also often what makes the story interesting.
fossuser 6y ago
There are a few that come to mind, but nothing I can think of as super recent. - After Life, Simon Funk: https://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/ https://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/ - Most of Ted Chiang, but particularly Liking What You See: A Documentary: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vSPLnvgBqIgJ:https://canvas.wayne.edu/courses/102861/files/3959556/download%3Fdownload_frd%3D1+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vSPLnv... - Also Ted Chiang: The Lifecycle of Software Objects (not really pessimistic or optimistic, just thoughtful) - Her (Movie), melancholy but ultimately hopeful - HPMOR (Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality): http://www.hpmor.com http://www.hpmor.com - True Names, Vernor Vinge: http://www.scotswolf.com/TRUENAMES.pdf http://www.scotswolf.com/TRUENAMES.pdf - Permutation City, Greg Egan (accurately predicts AWS 20yrs early along with a host of other super interesting ideas) - Star Trek TNG is the classic example of optimistic Sci-Fi, but the more recent Enterprise is also good. - The San Junipero Black Mirror episode - I wouldn't call The Expanse optimistic, but it's probably the best sci-fi show on today. --- For some contrarian anti-recommendations which can be just as useful: - I thought the culture series was bad, in plot/characters/writing - I found it tedious and kind of dumb. - I disliked the three body problem for similar reasons.
rusk 6y ago
Brave new world is a utopia - that it’s dystopian is something that is left to the reader to infer. Which is ultimately the point - if a modern human found themselves in such a world, could they be happy?
tialaramex 6y ago
In terms of written fiction, Greg Egan's Amalgam setting has all the space-capable denizens of our outer galaxy effectively in a vast sprawling Utopia. Figuring out what to do with yourself in that circumstance is the story driver. The Neil Gaiman run of Miracleman is about the Utopia constructed by Miracleman during the Alan Moore run of Utopia. Presumably the next series is about how that goes tragically wrong, but it has never been published. But the Golden Age (Gaiman run) is pretty interesting. People living in a Utopia are still people.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  > Alan Moore run of Utopia s/Utopia/Miracleman/
gerikson 6y ago
The backstory of Ken MacLeod's "The Cassini Division" involves an Earth with a practical socialist utopia, but the main action involves the unceasing war against the uploaded capitalist class who have taken over Jupiter...

phone8675309 6y ago

There is nothing sadder or more impotent than corporate (cyber-)punk. The irony of the save file corruption issue being tied to "too much crafting" given the DIY ethos of punk is palpable.

nickthegreek 6y ago
its probably more to do with dupe glitching than too much crafting.
antiterra 6y ago
Punk’s vehicle, message and consumption have been at odds with one another since before the Sex Pistols. That this game blends marketing hype & consumerism with the creative guidance of the Cyberpunk tabletop creator fits in quite well.

Barrin92 6y ago

The game tries so hard to be cool — to come off as crass and edgy, to talk tough and play like some kind of anti-capitalist anarchy generator. But you lean too hard into that act and it will always come off more like a desperate pose than anything honest It's so true honestly. The game has the intellectual depth of a Che-shirt or that Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial. What the game reminds me of is Mark Fisher's point about how we've lost the ability to imagine new futures, because Cyberpunk is the opposite of a futuristic game. Cyberpunk's notion of sexuality in the future is basically bolting a penis or vagina onto the opposite sex, everyone's driving around in retro-looking cars or motorcycles, nothing about it is actually novel other than the surface level aesthetic they've put on it, which has been virtually unchanged for four decades. The author is right that the most actual cyberpunk aspect of the game is in fact the development and sale of the game itself, like some sort of unwitting piece of performance art.

rusk 6y ago
> The game has the intellectual depth of a Che-shirt It’s a GAME ...
deleted 6y ago
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eric_b 6y ago

Is this what passes for "gaming press" these days? Cyberpunk is not supposed to be some watershed philosophical masterwork. It's a game, bro. And from everyone I've talked to it sounds like it's really fun if you have the hardware to run it, bugs and all.

BitwiseFool 6y ago
Maybe the gaming press wants games to be philosophical/political works because it gives them something to write about.
- villasv 6y ago
  There's the word punk in the title. Why not analyze the game relating to the punk culture (including its philosophy and politics)? There's enough space on the Internet for "is this game fun?" reviews and "is this game epistemologically sound?" reviews.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    The people who whine about games not being taken seriously as an art turn around and whine about how it’s just a game whenever actual, even faintly critical critiques of the art get published.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Are you sure it's precisely the same individuals arguing these contradictory positions, or might it be different people?
      - majormajor 6y ago
        Probably not, but then, this whole thread was started by someone asking if NPR is what passes as "Gaming Press" these days, which... well... no?? Probably obviously not? Likely to be coming at it from a different angle?

fossuser 6y ago

The game is a little more nuanced than this write up would have you believe. You can tell the Silverhand character that he's a whiny narcissist with over-simplified views that blames everyone for his own problems. I'd argue Silverhand and Yorinobu are not the heroes, but it ultimately depends on how you play and what decisions you make. You can also make fairly pragmatic decisions to do what makes the most sense in context. I wouldn't call it 'optimistic' sci-fi since the world is pretty gritty, but the techno-futurism, ability for people to upgrade themselves is pretty interesting, and achieving immortality for everyone is pretty optimistic even in that gritty backdrop. It's worth playing to check it out, I'd ignore most of this over-intellectualized writing about it and just play it for yourself if you want to.

dkersten 6y ago
The Silverhand character does grow somewhat towards the end. I actually started liking him before I got to the credits.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah it's interesting since he becomes a blend of himself and V's personality. I liked the story and world ultimately, I think people just like to have 'contrarian' takes on something popular as a way to signal how smart they are. Probably too harshly worded, but it's a recurring thing I've noticed.
  - dkersten 6y ago
    Well, I do think the game has some very big problems (aside from the bugs; see my other comments), but most of the story is very well written in my opinion and the characters are great. There were some moments that really hit me hard in the feels. There were some little details (ringing Jackie's phone for example) that were just fantastic. I'm upset with CDPR management for lying and for not giving the dev team the time needed to finish it properly, but I'm not upset that I bought the game. I got my moneys worth and had a good time with it (yes, the game did crash regularly and have lots of annoying bugs, but I was mostly able to ignore it and continue anyway -- on PS4 too!) I didn't think I'd like Silverhand at all, I haven't really seen any Keanu movies since The Matrix so had zero buy in with him being in the game, and at the start he was such a dry character. However, as it went on and as V and he interacted more, he grew on me and I guess V did too, so the V/Silverhand blend at the end became something I actually cared about.

standardUser 6y ago

Two years from now, a heavily patched and modded version of this game will be everything and more than 2077 ever promised to be. That's been the origin of all of my greatest action RPG experiences (Skyrim, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Dragon Age origins).

alkonaut 6y ago

Bugs aside, I’m not sure it’s right to consider any plot in video games too thin. If you played a Doom game you know that even the silliest pretense for shooting and blowing things up is good enough. It’s not a movie script. Yes, you might hold an RPG to a slightly higher standard than an action game in this regard, but I still think the premise of CP2077 (Or GTA) is more than enough to fill an interesting game. I don’t need to “buy” the story if the mechanics are good enough and gameplay is enjoyable. If they could spend another 1000 hours on improving the writing or expanding the game with the poor writing, I’d take the latter every day.

Pfhreak 6y ago
> I don’t need to “buy” the story if the mechanics are good enough and gameplay is enjoyable. If they could spend another 1000 hours on improving the writing or expanding the game with the poor writing, I’d take the latter every day. That said, you should understand that what you've shared here is your opinion and isn't a ground truth for videogames. Humans play games for many, many reasons and for some they'd much rather have a smaller experience with excellent writing.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  Of course, and I could enjoy a tiny game with good writing too. My argument is simply that poor writing/story alone isn’t grounds for calling any game terrible, and not only that, it can even be excellent without it. This review seems to imply that the poor writing means the game can’t be good.

Red29 6y ago

Honestly, I found Cyberpunk really underwhelming and basically stopped playing. Apart from 1 or 2 moments (spider bot is cool,hotel theft job alright.) It's just very run and gun. And uniteresting. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I'd love it to be a mix of syndicate (if you know that game), Detroit, and something like a point and click game. Something with a ton of interaction and only a bit of fighting.

vorpalhex 6y ago
I've been in very few fights so far, and most of my "gameplay" has been hiding and slowly netrunning my way through buildings, taking out enemies via hacks. Of course, I occasionally screw up and end up lobbing grenades until I stop getting shot at, but so it goes.
nickthegreek 6y ago
I barely ever run and gun. I squat and hack. But no matter what method you use, it seems you will quickly overpower everything due to AI/balancing issues. still enjoying it immensely though.
SubiculumCode 6y ago
The only reason I was interested in this game was immersion of a rich world. I'm not sure what that means, but I think it was something like, sit at an ultra cool street cafe, and watch what happens in night city. To let the world come to me if I was only willing to listen and watch. A world where there is mystery and intrigue, but not fed to you. A world where you buy a coffee, later look at your bank statement, find that he's copied your bank credentials, and stealing from his customers in small withdrawals. Only to learn he's a small time side hustler with a thing for nutcracker dolls.
- Red29 6y ago
  Netrunner (the card game) is what drew me to it. I don't think the interactions in the game are interesting. The AI awful. I don't find the game play interesting - but I like 'old man' games (Detroit I loved for examples). Just an opinion

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

I am all for good writing, but what standard it being held to? Cyberpunk has a better plot than 90% of holiwood movies

keiferski 6y ago

The sheer amount of hatred being thrown at this game is really something odd. It feels artificial, especially when practically every media outlet has the same vitriolic tone. I don’t play games much anymore, but I did pick Cyberpunk 2077 up (via Stadia) and I’ve found it to be a blast. Certainly not perfect, but absolutely a world worth exploring. My favorite part are the details; there are tons of little stories and narratives in the items you pick up during each mission. The constant barrage of negativity surrounding it make no sense to me.

bobthepanda 6y ago
I mean, when was the last time a major release performed so poorly that it got delisted from the PlayStation store? The game’s vitriolic reaction only really came about as a direct followup to possibly one of the most hyped up games this year.
- eatingCake 6y ago
  I thought it got delisted because CDPR said they'd refund people and Sony said we-dont-do-that-here and went nuclear?
  - Dobbs 6y ago
    This is definitely how I read the situation when it was announced.
- keiferski 6y ago
  I don’t really follow the gaming press and couldn’t tell you what generation of PlayStation / X-Box / etc. we’re on, so I’m unfamiliar with how previous buggy games were received. My experience is that it’s a fun game with some minor problems. If you like cyberpunk books or media, you’ll love it. The writing team put a lot of effort into crafting a backstory of the world. Overall it reminds me of the original Neuromancer novel; moments of sheer brilliance mixed with moments of tacky, embarrassingly bad writing. That specific quality is part of the genre’s history, to me, and I think a lot of the criticism toward 2077 is from people who haven’t read much of the previous books.

m3kw9 6y ago

Trying to drag games into some corporate wokeness is definitely a punk move.

mwcampbell 6y ago
Notice though that the game is only distributed on platforms controlled by large corporations. So it's kind of like going to a movie theater to watch a big budget movie where the villain is an evil corporation (e.g. the 2004 Manchurian Candidate remake). That's why I liked the OP's line that the only punk move is not to play, and why I submitted this story even though I'm not into gaming.

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jermaustin1 6y ago

I didn't follow the game as it was getting developed, but I have heard the launch was not great. I picked it up on Google Stadia since my PC definitely isn't up to the task, and it has been an OK game. It is no Red Dead Redemption 2, or Fallout, and the story feels pretty weak so far, but the game play is enjoyable. I likely wont finish the story, but will continue to futz around in game for a while when I'm bored.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 6y ago

I keep reading an often repeated defense of the game: That there is a diamond hidden under all the bugs and rough edges. I played through the whole game and got probably lucky when it came to bugs because I did not experience that many game breaking ones (though DID encounter them which taught me to save very very frequently) and I am lucky to have a high end PC so while performance was really terrible I still managed to get ~60fps on highest settings, most of the time. It is not, it is not amazing even without the bugs. I have a strong suspicion that the people who praise or defend it so tenaciously played only the longer prologue, which lasts a few hours depending on your speed, maybe a few hours further. The quality of that part is way better than the rest and from that point on the quality will continue to drop the closer one gets to the finale. The game has massive problems that are just not related to bugs, it just tries so many things and does all of them mediocre. Many redundant and useless game mechanics. UI navigation is terrible, there are game design problems. The open world is hollow and lifeless and the behaviour of random NPCs does not even reach GTA 3 level in some ways, to put that into perspective. There is nothing to discover or explore in the open world part (except pretty screenshots sometimes) and every interaction in it (that is: outside of story missions) with characters works through audio calls and text messages. I am not saying that it is absolutely terrible without the bugs, there is some fun to be had when everything works, but removing the bugs would lift it up to "pretty ok" at best, and I do regret the time investment and purchase. Seeing the opinions split into these two extreme opinions "amazing" and "absolutely terrible" just feels weird.

ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago

Play or not to play, that's the real question. :]

antisthenes 6y ago

What irks me most about CDPR's games, including the Witcher series is that even during the most mundane playthrough, our main character ends up being a non-apologetic mass-murderer. As a teenager, I probably would have been fine with it as some sort of power-trip, but as an adult, it strikes me as very one-dimensional and a boring way to play. I'm not sure which case is more unforgivable here. Geralt, the Witcher protagonist, in the books at least, makes it a personal point not to meddle in human affairs as much as possible, and to keep it strictly business for the most part - e.g. killing horrible monsters for coin. In the game, our actions couldn't stray further from this principle. From what I've seen in Cyberpunk's gameplay, we are no less than a mass-murderer as well. And despite most of our kills being gang members and thugs, I'm still not sure it's entirely justifiable. I've seen people indiscriminately kill civilians and cops by running them over with cars, and suffer no real consequences in further gameplay. Hence it's quite hilarious to me when people compare Cyberpunk to Deus Ex or another stealth shooter. They must be out of their mind. The games are nothing alike. The shallowness and one-dimensionality of Cyberpunk makes it much closer to GTA/Borderlands than a revolutionary stealth/rpg game. People were expecting a revolutionary game in the way Witcher 3 was when it came out. And that, Cyberpunk certainly isn't.

mijoharas 6y ago

So, the first thing I just want to say, is I hadn't seen text.npr.org, and I absolutely love it! the simplicity is a breath of fresh air. I'm going to donate to NPR simply on the strength of that! About the article, it's well written. I'm still likely to play the game, but will wait until I get a PS5 and once they've polished some of the bugs. Unfortunately, lack of character depth doesn't sound like a thing they're gonna patch...

iJohnDoe 6y ago

I play on Xbox One. It’s been fun and I’ve enjoyed the game. I purposely avoided all reviews and hype. I only knew it was the game to buy this year. I think if the game was more like Alan Wake it would have been better as far story telling goes. Alan Wake is awesome by the way. Without any expectations, when playing I thought the narrative choices were a bit shallow. Maybe they get better as the game progresses. Hatred, negativity, and piling on is easy to do. If we enjoy something then we just enjoy it. Stopping and making a point to share that enjoyment doesn’t probably happen as often. Also, remember there were many articles about a year or so ago about the toxic world game developers have to live in. Tons of expectations and tons of viscous attacks. Why would anyone expect anything different in this situation.