Cyberpunk 2077 Review thread - Umm....

[Phoenixmgs]

Generally speaking, the games have a virtual reality "internet" where all people have virtual avatars, and physically move around in visual representations of data. "Hacking" is presented as activating attack programs, to break through defensive software, and...well, hmm, I'm trying to think of a pop culture example that you might know, seeing as you said scifi isn't your jam. Did you ever see Lawnmower man? The virtual reality there. Uh, I dunno, shit, um, basically any time you've maybe seen something imply people literally.....TRON!! Yes, TRON, have you seen TRON? That would be what the game equivalent of cyberspace would look like.

You might want to keep an eye on Gamedec; a cyberpunk game where you play a game detective solving crimes in virtual MMO games.

 

[happyninja42]

You might want to keep an eye on Gamedec; a cyberpunk game where you play a game detective solving crimes in virtual MMO games.

Yeah I've seen some early LP's of that. Looks neat, though the top down, isometric, point and click style of navigation has never been my favorite type of game.

 

[Dreiko]

Can they hack you back? Defensive/Offensive ICE is a huge component of the Decking aspect of the game, so I'm curious if it goes both ways.

In the corpo playthrough you run into some super OP netrunner when you get fired from arasaka who just fucks you up entirely with a blink of their eyes, so while the basic combat hacking is more minor, plot-related hacking can be pretty severe. He like, deletes your neural link's firmware and you're left dizzy and disoriented because your organism was relying on the firmware to regulate your hormone levels and keep you healthy, it's kinda like being taken out of life support. So the hacking mileage can vary.

 

[happyninja42]

In the corpo playthrough you run into some super OP netrunner when you get fired from arasaka who just fucks you up entirely with a blink of their eyes, so while the basic combat hacking is more minor, plot-related hacking can be pretty severe. He like, deletes your neural link's firmware and you're left dizzy and disoriented because your organism was relying on the firmware to regulate your hormone levels and keep you healthy, it's kinda like being taken out of life support. So the hacking mileage can vary.

Yeah he disabled your life support related implants, I get that. My point was, that regardless of what it's doing, the way it's implemented in the game, as described above, was just a menu you pick from, assuming you have sufficient RAM apparently, and then you just select the action you want done, and wait for the progress bar to fill, and boom, action done. That's leagues different from the thing I'm wanting in the game. If it's something later in the game, cool, but I find it weird that there has been zero conversation about it in any of the coverage, if it's actually in the game. So I'm not super optimistic. It sounds more like they just minimized and simplified the hacking stuff, to be similar to Watchdogs it seems. Which, that's just not what I want out of a cyberspace content.

I get that there is more to the game, I understand, truly. But if this is the extent of the hacking/decking content, which literally had it's own rule books published in various iterations of the tabletop, because it was that unique, different and complex, then I will be very disappointed. Because it was often described as basically an entirely different world, and people would basically live their lives, almost exclusively in the digital. That the meat world, was the thing they wanted to escape, leading to some of the questions about transhumanism, AI sentience, etc. And that was the part of the entire genre that most appealed to me. Again, you say that it might be in the later game, and I hope so, but so far, it doesn't sound like it's actually what I'm looking for. I appreciate that maybe they didn't have the time/resources to flesh out a secondary game aspect, doesn't make it any less disappointing for me.

@CriticalGaming Ready Player One would be another example of what I'm talking about. LOOKS like RP1's Oasis, but you jack in like The Matrix. Actual implants and wires and shit.

 

[Dreiko]

Yeah he disabled your life support related implants, I get that. My point was, that regardless of what it's doing, the way it's implemented in the game, as described above, was just a menu you pick from, assuming you have sufficient RAM apparently, and then you just select the action you want done, and wait for the progress bar to fill, and boom, action done. That's leagues different from the thing I'm wanting in the game. If it's something later in the game, cool, but I find it weird that there has been zero conversation about it in any of the coverage, if it's actually in the game. So I'm not super optimistic. It sounds more like they just minimized and simplified the hacking stuff, to be similar to Watchdogs it seems. Which, that's just not what I want out of a cyberspace content.

I get that there is more to the game, I understand, truly. But if this is the extent of the hacking/decking content, which literally had it's own rule books published in various iterations of the tabletop, because it was that unique, different and complex, then I will be very disappointed. Because it was often described as basically an entirely different world, and people would basically live their lives, almost exclusively in the digital. That the meat world, was the thing they wanted to escape, leading to some of the questions about transhumanism, AI sentience, etc. And that was the part of the entire genre that most appealed to me. Again, you say that it might be in the later game, and I hope so, but so far, it doesn't sound like it's actually what I'm looking for. I appreciate that maybe they didn't have the time/resources to flesh out a secondary game aspect, doesn't make it any less disappointing for me.

@CriticalGaming Ready Player One would be another example of what I'm talking about. LOOKS like RP1's Oasis, but you jack in like The Matrix. Actual implants and wires and shit.

The way the world feels, I think they just have advanced technologically where there is no need to do the whole diving into people thing, because there's this demons thing which you just shoot off and they do it for you. It's kinda streamlined in a sense but there's a lot of meat to this, a whole perk tree devoted to it, and a bunch of lore surrounding it.


I just think that stuff comes later based on what I've' read. It's illegal to use the normal internet and everything is super controlled by the corporations so unless you get in with some power players first there's legit no way to get to the more cyberspace stuff.


Also, there's this second sort of hacking which is more like a minigame and not just you select your demon and shoot it off, which is used to open vaults. So there may be more stuff like that.


Ultimately, I think they're trying something new so I don't expect it to be exactly like anything done before, but it can have various elements of those other things.

 

[Houseman]

What I really want is a Snow Crash game, where I can play as a pizza delivery man where the failure for a late delivery is death.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Criticizing the character creator for not accounting for every possible gender option is about as moronic ad gamers can get. The game is not about gender politics and gender identity. Be glad that you have as many options as you do. You are not owed any of them. In fact, if this little exercise in stupidity has proven anything, is that if you try to cater to these people, they will simply demand even more. It's never enough and it never will be. And the sad part is that if the game didn't allow you to create a trans character at all, no one would have said a fuckin' thing. It wouldn't even register. The option put the game on the map and painted a target on its back. It just goes to show that you shouldn't listen to political activists when you're designing your game.

Yet if you take the supposed political activism out of this, what's to stop the option from being available for those who ask for it? I mean, it's a character creator - it has a dozen options for nail polish and funky eyes alone. Why draw a line in the sand when it comes to this aspect to being trans? And how is drawing this line any less politically charged than asking for the line to not be there?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yet if you take the supposed political activism out of this, what's to stop the option from being available for those who ask for it? I mean, it's a character creator - it has a dozen options for nail polish and funky eyes alone. Why draw a line in the sand when it comes to this aspect to being trans? And how is drawing this line any less politically charged than asking for the line to not be there?

I think it's a money and effort thing.

This is a 100 hour game that is fully voice acted. If you want every pronoun under the sun to be available that's a different line read that has to be done for every line in which the character is referenced by gender.

I do think it's silly that they assign gender based on voice instead of letting you pick gender and voice separately, but I fully expect that's something that could easily be changed in an update (or with a mod). Their priority right now is probably bug fixes and stability issues more than catering to a vocal minority though.

So I do expect that in a few months you'll be able to chose whether your character gets referred to as "he" or "she" regardless of body and voice decisions. I don't expect anything beyond that though because adding additional pronouns would involve additional line reads by the voice actors, and for a game that already has enough dialogue to fill multiple novels it's probably not something that's worth the time investment.

 

[Houseman]

This is a 100 hour game that is fully voice acted. If you want every pronoun under the sun to be available that's a different line read that has to be done for every line in which the character is referenced by gender.

I already solved this problem two pages ago:

Should have had voice synthesizer technology, where you can type in your pronouns, and the NPC's will attempt to say it in real-time.

You can even have that be a in-universe mechanic. Like some kind of "micro-aggression filter", where if someone misgenders you, a chip in your brain overwrites that with your preferred pronoun.

Hire me as your diversity consultant, I'm a minority.

 

[Gergar12]

Update the 1.04 patch made it 50% better, now it's playable, and the graphics look better on a PS4 Base/Slim.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I think it's a money and effort thing.

This is a 100 hour game that is fully voice acted. If you want every pronoun under the sun to be available that's a different line read that has to be done for every line in which the character is referenced by gender.

I do think it's silly that they assign gender based on voice instead of letting you pick gender and voice separately, but I fully expect that's something that could easily be changed in an update (or with a mod). Their priority right now is probably bug fixes and stability issues more than catering to a vocal minority though.

So I do expect that in a few months you'll be able to chose whether your character gets referred to as "he" or "she" regardless of body and voice decisions. I don't expect anything beyond that though because adding additional pronouns would involve additional line reads by the voice actors, and for a game that already has enough dialogue to fill multiple novels it's probably not something that's worth the time investment.

Are people asking for every pronoun under the sun though? Because from what little I've heard it seems to be an issue with 'he' and 'she' pronouns not being applicable to either certain body types and/or voice types. Which should be real easy to patch and not something to be mad over at people asking for that to be a thing.

Heck, even adding the 'they' pronoun shouldn't be that difficult, as I'm sure the word 'they' will have been recorded a whole bunch of times. And I'm sure they could isolate this and splice it in where it would need to be. I reckon a mod could fix this quite easily.

 

[Gordon_4]

Are people asking for every pronoun under the sun though? Because from what little I've heard it seems to be an issue with 'he' and 'she' pronouns not being applicable to either certain body types and/or voice types. Which should be real easy to patch and not something to be mad over at people asking for that to be a thing.

Heck, even adding the 'they' pronoun shouldn't be that difficult, as I'm sure the word 'they' will have been recorded a whole bunch of times. And I'm sure they could isolate this and splice it in where it would need to be. I reckon a mod could fix this quite easily.

If this game takes off, the mod community is going to be amazing.

 

[Casual Shinji]

If this game takes off, the mod community is going to be amazing.

It's already taken off I reckon - it's dominating Twitch like a m*therf*cker.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

So question to the more hardcore Cyberpunk genre fans in here.

Does the show Continuum count as Cyberpunk? Because technically Kira has cybernetic implants in the show

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Are people asking for every pronoun under the sun though? Because from what little I've heard it seems to be an issue with 'he' and 'she' pronouns not being applicable to either certain body types and/or voice types. Which should be real easy to patch and not something to be mad over at people asking for that to be a thing.

Heck, even adding the 'they' pronoun shouldn't be that difficult, as I'm sure the word 'they' will have been recorded a whole bunch of times. And I'm sure they could isolate this and splice it in where it would need to be. I reckon a mod could fix this quite easily.

I think that the same people who are upset about incorrect pronouns being used will be just as upset by their preferred pronouns not being an option.

And like I said, I fully agree that it's silly that the pronouns are assigned by voice, and I also think that it's an oversight that will be corrected in the future. I just don't think it's such a significant issue that they would focus on correcting it over the incredibly large amount of bug fixes they currently need.

Also, lets remember that this is a game from Poland, which is rated as having the worst LGBT rights among any member of the European union. The fact that they tried and overlooked some issues should be seen as "at least they tried, and they have a chance to still make it better" rather than in the accusatory way people are coming at them.

 

[Trunkage]

So question to the more hardcore Cyberpunk genre fans in here.

Does the show Continuum count as Cyberpunk? Because technically Kira has cybernetic implants in the show

The corporate congress sure is close. So is the ability for them to take control of the mods and make people do things.

 

[Gergar12]

A problem I have with this is the game is the loot, you get so much, and even legendary items can become useless quickly due to the leveling. The loot doesn't feel meaningful; it's not like fallout New Vegas where you get a great gun you could in theory keep it forever. It's like Oblivion.

Nevermind you can upgrade weapons by disassembling items, I literally just sold them to the junk vendor.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I think that the same people who are upset about incorrect pronouns being used will be just as upset by their preferred pronouns not being an option.

And like I said, I fully agree that it's silly that the pronouns are assigned by voice, and I also think that it's an oversight that will be corrected in the future. I just don't think it's such a significant issue that they would focus on correcting it over the incredibly large amount of bug fixes they currently need.

Also, lets remember that this is a game from Poland, which is rated as having the worst LGBT rights among any member of the European union. The fact that they tried and overlooked some issues should be seen as "at least they tried, and they have a chance to still make it better" rather than in the accusatory way people are coming at them.

Might not be too hard to fix or for some-one to mod it. Just change some flags in the code round or maybe even rename some sound files as it at a guess will be the same dialogue but with different voices for V and pronouns changed so you can switch the stuff round. Only issue would be gender restricted romance options where only one set of V lines were recorded for them?

The corporate congress sure is close. So is the ability for them to take control of the mods and make people do things.

True

 

[Dreiko]

So psn just got a 17gig patch which made a lot of things look nicer, like background items and whatnot, it was fine before but now it's even nicer.

I just did my first brain dive where I relieved the memories of a poor robber who got killed, then ran into some crazy evil cyborg dude, fun times.

A problem I have with this is the game is the loot, you get so much, and even legendary items can become useless quickly due to the leveling. The loot doesn't feel meaningful; it's not like fallout New Vegas where you get a great gun you could in theory keep it forever. It's like Oblivion.

Nevermind you can upgrade weapons by disassembling items, I literally just sold them to the junk vendor.

I think they want you to just use your favorite style of weapon and they've made all things work so they just kinda rain guns and katana down at you so you can test and find what you like and then yeah you just hold triangle to break em down for mats. It's more for a stylistic and fun thing and less of a diablo affair where loot is the main thing.

I like those sniper rifles you shoot through walls with, makes them rush you which is prime katana-ing time .

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Yeah he disabled your life support related implants, I get that. My point was, that regardless of what it's doing, the way it's implemented in the game, as described above, was just a menu you pick from, assuming you have sufficient RAM apparently, and then you just select the action you want done, and wait for the progress bar to fill, and boom, action done. That's leagues different from the thing I'm wanting in the game. If it's something later in the game, cool, but I find it weird that there has been zero conversation about it in any of the coverage, if it's actually in the game. So I'm not super optimistic. It sounds more like they just minimized and simplified the hacking stuff, to be similar to Watchdogs it seems. Which, that's just not what I want out of a cyberspace content.

I get that there is more to the game, I understand, truly. But if this is the extent of the hacking/decking content, which literally had it's own rule books published in various iterations of the tabletop, because it was that unique, different and complex, then I will be very disappointed. Because it was often described as basically an entirely different world, and people would basically live their lives, almost exclusively in the digital. That the meat world, was the thing they wanted to escape, leading to some of the questions about transhumanism, AI sentience, etc. And that was the part of the entire genre that most appealed to me. Again, you say that it might be in the later game, and I hope so, but so far, it doesn't sound like it's actually what I'm looking for. I appreciate that maybe they didn't have the time/resources to flesh out a secondary game aspect, doesn't make it any less disappointing for me.

That would be a shame if they missed out netrunning. It was always one of the things that got skipped over in the PnP because everyone had to sit there twiddling their thumbs while the netrunner did the cyberspace bit. A single player computer game seemed to be the ideal place to do it. I can see why V3 tried to turn it into something quicker and more integrated into regular gameplay. But yeah, if it's not there as an option it's a shame.