/games/ - Games

>>32458
It's genuinely impressive all it took was an anime and a few patches for people to 180 one of the worst video game launches of all time.

This is the first thing I saw about it since the anime was released. But I don't visit any gaming forums other than this.

>>32458
It's pretty crazy that people think the game is 'fixed' just because there's less bugs, to me that wasn't even really the problem with it, it was just shallow and repetitive.

But to be fair I haven't played Phantom Liberty and it's supposed to be good, meh.

>>32458
It still isn't fixed? Damn, that sucks.

the bugs are like the only redeeming thing about that shitheap unless you care about fancy graphics that require hardware most people can't afford. you can't patch out what is fundamentally an FPS with some dumbed down RPG mechanics. it's completely different from everything they were hyping the game on for fucking years about how it was supposed to be true to the tabletop. at least for me I had gotten the impression they were going for something like New Vegas or Bloodlines but instead what we got was another generic piece of consoomer cyberslop with some predictably shoehorned pseudo RPG mechanics because that's a thing you're supposed to do to give the illusion of the game having more depth.

this is highly cringe to be ranting about so self-sage

>>32463
Phantom liberty is pretty shit. For some reason the brilliant minds at CDPR thought that the exact thing a cyberpunk game needed was an Escape from New York ripoff where you hang out with a bunch of dour glowies. Just like how the base game had at most surface level critiques of hypercapitalism, because the game was obviously written by people who loved capitalism and were mainly regurgitating what they, as liberals and rightoids, thought to be leftist rhetoric because the setting demanded it, phantom liberty does barebones "critique" of America through an America-loving lens. I mean politics aside its pretty much just a b-movie action plot but without much of the camp or fun.

>Anyone notice a massive flood of Cyberpunk spam
Every patch creates more demand for the game and the media slop that cultivates this demand. Petty bourgeois content producers subsist entirely from cyberpunk

>>32480
>the game was obviously written by people who loved capitalism and were mainly regurgitating what they, as liberals and rightoids, thought to be leftist rhetoric because the setting demanded it
So that's why Silverhand is anti-capitalist? That explains it.

If No Man's Sky introduced the concept of the "redemption arc" for a massively marketed/overhyped bare-bones/incomplete game becoming "complete" over the course of years after release then Cyberpunk 2077 codified that concept for the entire industry, for better or worse. Many pundits would argue that this is about the developers caring about their game and "not giving up". In reality this just proves that money is king. As long as a corporation in big enough and makes enough money from hyping up an unfinished game on release, it gives them the incentive to release broken games so they can "fix" the game at a later date over the course of years while capitalizing on a "redemption arc" to keep a steady interest (whether good or bad the press coverage is does not matter, the game itself is still being mentioned) on it.

Many videos now circulate online of comparisons between Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077's gameplay and while entertaining they end up pushing gamer version of historical revisionism. Cyberpunk's gameplay on release was janky, bug-ridden, and as shallow as a puddle. The gameplay systems were incomplete, underdeveloped, and literally filler (some perks granted single digit bonuses to weapons that did damage in the hundreds). Large swathes of the map were empty. The graphics looked nothing like any of the promos. Ai was abysmal along with the cheap artificial difficulty system they brought back from the Witcher 3 (certain areas were either story gated or level gated so enemies in those areas would do instant kill damage even if you were a high-level/and yet would not give you barely any xp for defeating them until you reach a certain point in the story). It was a hot mess.

Its ironic people try to compare Cyberpunk to Starfield because its very much obvious that Bethesda will try to do the same thing CDPR has done. "Fix" a broken unfinished game over the course of years after racking in so much money with the initial launch and continued controversy of it, then barf out a bunch of corporate speak about how they "cared since the beginning" and "listened to the fans" all the while knowing the mass manipulation they did to keep their subpar product in the spotlight.

But on to the nu Cyberpunk 2077 itself. The 2.1 (not just the 2.0) update *with* Phantom Liberty is what the game should have been on launch. I would say Phantom Liberty is essential to the entire experience regardless of whether the player even plays the expansion's main story. This is because the content fills out the rest of the gameplay systems as well as adds important context to the main character themselves (both in a story sense ala the absolute scope of what they could do and go up against (fighting a literal army of Dogtown mercs which unironically dwarf the Arasaka heavies in the main endings, killing their leader, technically soloing an entire MaxTac squad, and facing off and winning against a blackwall AI) and a meta sense, increased level cap and abilities).

Cyberpunk's main story before PL was often described as "depressing" or "bittersweet" and some endings are, but now with PL, the endings (the ones were V isn't either dead via suicide or absorbed into Alt or stored as a engram) as incredibly hopeful, because you are telling me, that the dude (or dudet) that literally survived all these insane missions and won against so many powerful foes is just gonna croak from cyber cancer? Yeah sure. One of PL's own endings shows that the relic isn't a death sentence.

I would argue that the endings of the game are less "roleplaying" player choice driven endings but rather have more in common with Resident Evil ending variations or the original Dead Rising's. The point being that there is a "True" ending. In regards to Cyberpunk, the true ending would be the "secret" ending where you make Keanu Chungus like you so that you can launch a one person roguelike assault on Arasaka Tower. Why? Well, because this brings us back to the most overlooked part of this entire game:

The source material ie Cyberpunk 2020 the rpg.

One of my original criticisms about this game before the 2.0 update was how it seemed CDPR didn't really understand the source material, but just regurgitated it verbatim. You mostly helped the cops, couldn't target them with quickhacks, and pretty much was forced to be an upstanding citizen because of how borked the wanted system was. I still don't think they get it, but for some reason they kind of inadvertently got it right with what they added in. You can finally lay waste to the pigs. You can literally tell the NUSA president to get fucked. You can mentally break glowie Reed's entire world to pieces through your actions. Its fucking awesome because it actually feels like a cyberpunk thing to do which was severely lacking in the base game. Cyberpunk 2020 from its very introduction is all about the "punk" of the setting. The tone is all about fucking shit up, going over the top with everything. Its about not giving up no matter the odds. The intro literally quotes Johnny Silverhand:

<Always take it to the Edge. Its the Cyberpunk way.
Corny? Yes. But it hits the nail on the head in regards to the intended tone of the tabletop game. This is the dude that's in the MC's head. With the context of this, the secret ending is more of the actual canon ending for a setting like this. The party either gets wiped in a brutal beat down or epic last stand or they win, level up, either go on another even more over the top suicide mission or becoming npcs of the setting due to being so powerful themselves.

After three years, the game is actually in a solid "1.0" state which includes the dlc and sadly seems like that it will stay at that (only a 1.0 state) since CDPR said that they will not be adding any more content. But it was a fun janky ride and oddly enough photo mode was the one thing that actually saved the game on launch.

Halfway through a playthrough, and man this game is reactionary to the core. It's bending over backwards to excuse the cops and blame everything on lack of funding. Don't get me started on Johnny.
The crucification mission in particular had me rolling my eyes so hard it's a miracle (lol) they didn't pop out of the sockets. So much for making your own story: couldn't even hijack the event to send out your own message. No no, you HAVE to nail down the delusional excon. The reaction by self-proclaimed Christians to what is blatant blasphemy has been pretty fun, however.

>>32539
One of the original mechanics was not to risk errant shots because you'd hit bystanders. Don't build up the tabletop as some kind of transgressive opus, because it wasn't. (It was billion times better than this state funded schlob though.)

>>32563
That crucifixion mission is the cringiest thing I've ever seen in a game. I'm not trying to gatekeep Cyberpunk as a genre nor do I think it's some of world-changing artistic expression, but that mission exposes that the CDPR writers just fundamentally don't understand or agree with the source material at all.

>>32565
Yes, it screamed "Look! We are CHRISTIANS!!" The praying bit was a nice touch, admittedly.

>>32563
>It's bending over backwards to excuse the cops and blame everything on lack of funding.
How? There's so many bits in this game that expose the entire NCPD as blatantly and shamelessly corrupt as fuck and fundamentally unfixable. There's news stories about how the NCPD genocides the homeless. One of the side stories literally involves "the last good cop in the city" getting fucked over and kicked out for trying to do his job properly. Every other story based interaction you have with a cop either involves police brutality, psychotic shit, or just cops doing crime in broad daylight and getting away with it because they can. You even get to witness the NCPD commissioner outright colluding with gangs just to keep his stats up.

Of all of the criticisms you could level at the game, I wouldn't say pandering to cops is one of them.

>>32539
> Cyberpunk's main story before PL was often described as "depressing" or "bittersweet" and some endings are, but now with PL, the endings (the ones were V isn't either dead via suicide or absorbed into Alt or stored as a engram) as incredibly hopeful
Yet the game tries to sell you the "CIA spook" ending as sad, even though it's literally everything V wanted. They get the cozy job they wanted (or if you were an arasaka goon before, the desk job they were constantly sallivating to recover), they don't need to be a two-bit criminal anymore, a goal so fundamentally essential to V's character that it functions as the primary motivating factor which leads them to steal the fucking mcguffin implant in the first place. Instead we're supposed to feel sad because V can't go around mercilessly slaughtering people left and right for chump change because they're missing their magic implants. Welp I guess they wanted to be some goon for hire forever all along. Also isn't it fucking ridiculous how V can't even carry a gun around when they get mugged in an alley? What, do you need implants to point a gun? The songbird ending also fucking sucks, I said this somewhere before but CDPR can't write for shit: it's the second time they do this contrived "whoops turns out the mcguffin is fundamentally flawed in this very specific way that dynamites V's entire objective", I laughed when songbird was like "uhh we can use this shit only once for a ridiculous reason that sounds completely made up, sorry babes", like I didn't know CDPR was unserious enough to do it AGAIN. This game truly is reddit as hell. I deeply lament that the gorgeous map (or 1/3 of it at least) is wasted on this ridiculous nonsense

>>32801
>Yet the game tries to sell you the "CIA spook" ending as sad, even though it's literally everything V wanted.
It depends. Based on dialogue options it is never entirely made clear by the game's end whether V still wants to "become a legend", or has given up that goal and now just wants to survive. You can choose dialogue options during story missions that make both things true, and based on the ending you pick either of these things can also be true. The spook ending is the "give up being a legend in return for your life" ending, which is the exact opposite of the Rogue/Solo endings in the base game.

>The songbird ending also fucking sucks
If you just got cured at the end of that ending, it would be objectively the best PL ending with the best outcome and no reason to play any different one. Which is the main thing they were trying to avoid, as they don't like having an "objectively best" ending. You getting told on the last step before the moon rocket that actually Songbird fucked you over one last time is meant to add tension to the meeting with the spook you get moments later, which - if she didn't tell you that - would once again be from a character perspective pointless, because why would you ever give up Songbird to him after going through a literal airport massacre to get her there? Based on what she just told you, you now have a reason to seriously ponder giving her up.

The writing's job in this case is to set up the situation between you and the spook at the rocket gantry and, even though it's slightly hamfisted in doing so, it succeeds in allowing you a meaningful choice at the end: save her, or save yourself. The point is you have to choose.

My criticism of the choice that locks in helping either Songbird or the spook mostly comes from there not being enough character development between Songbird and V. There's a lot of talk about trust, but there is no possible way to trust based on the small amount of screen time that Songbird gets. My decision ended up being made on the "fuck spooks, fuck US govt" basis, as opposed to seriously picking between the two characters. I don't think you're really meant to pick the "save Songbird" ending at all based on the amount of work that the other ending got. Or at least not pick it first, given that it is only in "help Reed" ending (and as a result: via meta information) that you get to actually know more about Songbird at all.

>>32814
> Which is the main thing they were trying to avoid, as they don't like having an "objectively best" ending.
Exactly, it was written backwards and it shows.

> You getting told on the last step before the moon rocket that actually Songbird fucked you over one last time is meant to add tension to the meeting with the spook you get moments later
Yeah the game was hyping up the betrayal, keanu chungus is constantly like "hey choom this chick seems like a real whackadoodle are you sure you want to mess with her?" which makes the actual betrayal, the neuromatrix thingamajig only works once, kinda shitty. i think the worst part is that the more interesting aspects of songbird, that she's possessed by a bunch of magic cyberdemons, is completely underexplored in her own fucking ending. Utterly baffling decision. Like I really thought the betrayal was going to fully reveal that she was like 3 or 4 daemons in a trenchcoat or something insane like that, instead it's "uh babe sorry i call dibs on the magic potion". Just a very mediocre payoff, I swear I could write a better story than that, and I'm a total hack.

the same people who like cyberpunk 2077 are the same who like starfield - dull consoomers who buy whatever AAA slop gets shit out

>>32796
I've played more of the game since then, and you're right. A lot of what I saw in the earlier game was as I wrote: the game excuse NCPD actions as a product of lack of funding, lack of manpower (funding again), or bureaucratic meddling (corrupt or not). The narrative surrounding the NCPD is at odds with itself, as many other parts

>You even get to witness the NCPD commissioner outright colluding with gangs just to keep his stats up.
This to me reads more as skepsis towards "dem corrupt politicians keeping our boys in blue from doing the good job" then a critique of the police as institution. The argument seems to be: cops are good, just not in Night City.

>I wouldn't say pandering to cops is one of them.
You can shutdown an argument with another character, who correctly points out the coppers are useless, by handwaving the cops (again) lack of funding.

>>32864
>This to me reads more as skepsis towards "dem corrupt politicians keeping our boys in blue from doing the good job" then a critique of the police as institution.
Dunno, maybe it would be if the game actually showed the NCPD as an organisation in a good light literally ever, but that basically never happens. The most you get is dialogue choices like:

>You can shutdown an argument with another character, who correctly points out the coppers are useless, by handwaving the cops (again) lack of funding.
Which even the MC make sound like a cope by voice tone, and which also AFAIK you don't need to take, meaning it's there so you can RP as a corpo dumbass if you want. I don't think I am misremembering that it was a blue dialogue option, but correct me if I'm wrong I guess.

I think that the narrative is in this case meant to be at odds with itself, in that it is showing that even in a place like Night City where it is so painfully obvious that the cops are evil bastards, you still get morons defending it as "justified". A lot of the shit in the game is subtle like that (at least to me), where it pokes fun at shit people consider "acceptable" today by amping it up to 11 and then showing that even then there are still bootlickers who will bend over backwards to justify it.

I don't think either that it goes into much explicit analysis of why cops will always be corrupt as an institution, but then again does it need to? The NCPD is a militarised police that exists to protect the corpos and all the crimes that the corpos do - and as a result it is a "legal" gang itself. Or at least that's my view of it based on what I've seen in the game.

>>32887
>the game actually showed the NCPD as an organisation in a good light literally ever, but that basically never happens.
When a truck plows your vehicle into a pedestrian, 200 cops descend on your ass (and only your ass). There are cops everywhere, and they're generally portrayed as good beans who just want to do their job (the duo outside of dog town, and even the cops in the turtle mission).
Which is another thing: at 80 hours in, I've only had ONE instance where I got to kill cops (not counting Militech cowboys), which is the scene where the cops are beating on the CORPO. Every other instance, the game treats it like a breach of its divine law and give you a naughty star (e.g. intervening in a gang shootout started by the cops).

As for the dialogue options: it was a yellow choice, but you're forgetting that the other two options are milquetoast acceptance of the modus vivendi.

>does it need to?
Yes, having standards is good. In this case, it doesn't even reach your low bar of demonstrating that the NCPD are corporate jackboots - in fact, the two big ones (Arasaka and Militech) have their own jackboots who you CAN freely kill. It's nonsense!

This game is riddled with pseudo-intellectual trite like this all over the place. Most notable in its butchering of Heraclitus specifically and process philosophy more generally. Misquoting the former, and tying the latter to fucking mysticism. It REEKS of typical, juvenile obsession with Plato.

>>32889
>There are cops everywhere, and they're generally portrayed as good beans who just want to do their job (the duo outside of dog town, and even the cops in the turtle mission).
I'll counter by saying that the only thing stopping the dog town duo from going full police brutality is that they are outgunned, this is even what the woman cop's buddy says to her to get her to stop also. And then like 95% of storyline or gig interactions with a cop is either straight up a bad one or shitting on the NCPD:
- the cop woman that got a hit placed on her by a bunch of her cop buddies that you are then contracted to "hit" (but you can decide what actually happens to her, and even then it's basically never a good ending for her)
- the cop who contracts you to wipe evidence of him killing a woman in cold blood (you can kill him if you want)
- the former cop in your apartment complex who couldn't hack it any more after a ganger killed a kid in front of him just because he could and got off scot free because the NCPD answers to corps (so the other side of the coin of the turtle mission)
- the dumbass cops who wanted to sling dope and got caught up in dog town shit, and then you get contracted to bail them out
- the cops that are picking up stolen cars in broad daylight as a bribe, who then contract you for a theft (you may like this one, sorta robin hood actually)
etc. it's just a common theme. And this is before we get to things like datashards, tv news, etc. that talk more about all the evil shit that the NCPD is up to as an organisation.

There's nothing wrong with portraying individual cops as humans, they don't need to all be cartoonishly evil. I think it's a realistic dichotomy that there will be people who want to be cops who don't do it out of evil reasons, but rather because they got fooled into believing that the cops stand for something good. Then they either become bastards or drop out because that's how the organisation is designed to be. And this is what the NCPD reflects as well: as an organisation it is designed to uphold violence on behalf of the ruling powers by any means, and so it attracts two types of individuals: psychotic scumbags who will flourish there, or misguided idealists who will either eventually learn on their own skin that they have made a mistake and leave, or become a psycho themselves. And that I think is mostly true to life as well.

The game doesn't explicitly spell out any of the above of course, but if it did then it would be a game designed explicitly by communists no doubt. For something that liberal hands designed it is still not exactly following the mainstream "thought" (which as we all know is "just get rid of the bad apples and everything will be sweet"), which is… something.

>very other instance, the game treats it like a breach of its divine law and give you a naughty star (e.g. intervening in a gang shootout started by the cops).
I dunno, when I play the game I don't treat the star as necessarily a finger wag, more like the cost of doing business. Sometimes cops get mowed by some smart guns, such is life in cyberpunk lmao
They are so easy to get away from that it can hardly be even considered as a speedbump. If anything, the game should feature additional star systems for gangs (comparing cops to the gangs in gameplay terms would've been a statement in of itself), it's kind of too easy to just clear places indiscriminately when you become high enough level. You can even have a drawn out battle with the cops at max stars that is pretty winnable.

Now if the game made them invulnerable or it resulted in "mission failed, reload???", then yea I'd be in full agreement. But as it stands, by liberal standards this would be "on the fringe" if it talked about an actually existing cop force, as opposed to a "crapsack world broken mirror reflection of a cop".

>Most notable in its butchering of Heraclitus specifically and process philosophy more generally. Misquoting the former, and tying the latter to fucking mysticism. It REEKS of typical, juvenile obsession with Plato.
I was surprised that it had any elements of philosophical thought in it at all, even if most discussion on it was to be had through a vaguely religious/mystical lens, but one can sort of let it slide if understood through the lens that the schooling system in CP2077 has also broken down in the cities. The lore from the RPG books says that apparently the last properly functional schools can be found among Nomad clans, while everyone in the cities either gets no education or a corporate one brimming with ideology.

That said, I honestly think I will sooner see you in communism than see a AAA game that has a serious discussion of any philosophy, be it continental or even analytical. Instead, despite the game's main storyline revolving around the theme of where consciousness begins and ends, the longest chat you will ever have on it will be with a bunch of buddhist monks in a completely optional and very missable interaction. It's very hard to find someone who has any sort of opinion on it. Definitely a criticism I share, but also I didn't expect too much to begin with.

>>32898
Don't feel like continuing this discussion further. We agree more than we disagree, and our core critiques overlap (i.e. the game as subject to the bourgeois limitation).
Thanks for giving me an intelligent conversation in this fucking shithole.

I just cannot comprehend people saying the writing is "good" in any capacity. It's the most barebones and vapid Cyberpunk story imaginable, written by reactionaries who obviously do not understand the source material whatsoever (nothing changes in the game world from 2020 to 2077 because it's obvious that the writers had no clue how an advanced cyberpunk world could change in 57 years because THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SETTING OR GENRE AT ALL). Otherwise the story and dialogue itself feels like it was written by an edgy creative writing undergrad whose main influences are Tarantino and the "cool future" aesthetics of popular Cyberpunk media (the animes most of all). They just take the surface-level aesthetics of Cyberpunk storytelling and wrap it around the dullest story imaginable, where somehow the writers' main takeaways from the source material were that Cyberpunk is all about glory hounding, that the Blackwall can just be endlessly abused as a convenient scary MacGuffin, and washed up rockstars having mid-life crises lmao. I am not a professional writer by any means, but Cyberpunk is one of the few "acclaimed" rpgs where I outright feel I could write something better than this lukewarm, grade school level, reddit-pandering shit.

>>32916
Fair, and likewise

Boring story that's ruined by a voiced protagonist, and formulaic combat that only really accommodates using a sandevistan and being a "loud stealth" build or a full on mage assassin hacker bullshit build.
The lore is interesting, but that's entirely because of the original RPG.
The aesthetics were enough for me to finish the game. With the right mods, night city looks really cool and has a great vibe that changes from each part of the city. Unfortunately, there's nothing to do in between going from point a to point b other than to jerk off to the visuals.
And that romance options suck ass.

>>32933
>formulaic combat that only really accommodates using a sandevistan and being a "loud stealth" build or a full on mage assassin hacker bullshit build.

idk I just shot everything to death

>>32954
"I just killed a person until they died."

>>32962
you could shoot someone and not kill them

>>32933
>And that romance options suck ass.
based, give me better gay option.