Cyberpunk 2077 - PS5 and XSeries versions out now + major patch

[Wiper]

1 hour ago, Mentazm said:

 

how I hope the future to still be.

 

God, I hope not. Cyberpunk settings are dystopian sci-fi - capitalism run riot, humans sacrificed to the altar of the corporation. Tiny government with all the freedoms and horrors that entails.

 

(Which, incidentally, is why I enjoy it as a setting, and think it's as relevant now as it was in the 80s, as it's not as though capitalism and free market economics have ceased with the demise of Reagan and Thatcher to be forces driving us in... an interesting direction. It's also still a relatively rare genre, in and out of games - as already pointed out in response to RJ's list, that's actually a pretty small selection of games, covering half a decade as it does and dredging up some very minor releases. It definitely fades in comparison to, say, high fantasy, generic 'it's in space!' sci-fi, modern/near-future warfare, zombie and/or generic apocalyptic situations as settings of choice)

[RubberJohnny]

12 minutes ago, womblingfree said:

Im not sure what you have against the 80s.

 

It's not about the 80s specifically, it's about nostalgia, literally every post in this thread scan't come up with a reason they like it other than they grew up with it, and cyberpunk is a tiny part of the incredible amount of nostalgia-pandering the industry does - from franchise revivals, adaptations of 80s P&P games whose original media are dead, endless sequels, the entirety of Nintendos output, and nostalgia Kickstarters.

 

Look at E3 last year, it was "like this if you're a 90s kid!" - I don't think this amount of pandering or clinging to the past is good for the industry or will do anything other than stagnate the audience for non-mobile games.

[Wiper]

4 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

literally every post in this thread scan't come up with a reason they like it other than they grew up with i

 

*cough*

[ZOK]

*cough cough*

[womblingfree]

*Achoo*

[RubberJohnny]

Nope, Wiper I'll give (although that wasn't there when I was writing the post), you two did absolutely nothing to explain - ZOK was positively evasive, even after I'd asked him to sell it to me and womblingfree just spammed images to avoid talking.

 

Look, I can do that too:

[layten]

What the fucking hell is going on in this thread!?

[RubberJohnny]

People getting very defensive about things they're nostalgic about getting criticised.

[Talk Show Host]

35 minutes ago, Wiper said:

 

God, I hope not. Cyberpunk settings are dystopian sci-fi - capitalism run riot, humans sacrificed to the altar of the corporation. Tiny government with all the freedoms and horrors that entails.

 

 

So, basically, what we have now.

[b00dles]

Reasons above nostalgia;

(ooo, a list!)

I like the 'augs' and bionic shit, I find it a cool idea and quite relevant nowadays in terms of stuff like gene therapy things, over and above having bionic stuff would be cool

 

I like the 'jacking in' and the web with avatars stuff, maybe because I read about it back in the day but it's not nostalgia per se - if you like Tolkein or high fantasy because you read it as a yoof, is that crap because 'nostalgia'?

 

I like the aesthetic, I'm not some Neo wannabe or whatever but I think the neons and cityscapes etc more interesting than generic fantasy or generic Mass Effect (which I think is great but if we're comparing to other types of RPGs etc) space stuff

 

I think there's interesting stories to be told in that time and setting - I'm a big fan of noir and like Blade runner (OMG - nostalgia, obv! ) the detective stuff but set in a more future-y location other than 50's Humphrey Bogart more typicacl to the genre appeals more to me personally

 

Above all of this - which I admit is probably attributable to nostalgia, a lot of games from the 90's when it was even more 'in' like Shadowrun, maybe system shock or even Deus Ex where good but as a setting for games, I don't think they've had much of a chance to shine as it's not been really used since then - I'd like to see some more games set within Cyberpunk settings to see if they can 'do it properly' with modern tech.

 

I'm not saying I wouldn't enjoy something completely new and different either, there's a lot of other time periods that I think they should explore in games too but I really can't see that doing a cyberpunk game is purely for nostalgia reasons or due to a lack of vision or what have you. New IP is hard enough to get made/ funded as it is and as mentioned by others too, I think this is a setting that isn't nearly as milked as zombs/ shooty marine mans/ high fantasy or WWII

 

It's also pretty bloody broad as a setting if you ask me - there's common themes perhaps but I think you could have a 'cyberpunk' game that isn't necessarily just going to be Blade Runner without the license or what have you.

 

TL;DR I agree that new and different is even better than any preference for a (not really very) 'common' setting but I don't like cyberpunk because it reminds me of when I was a teenager or something.

[Talk Show Host]

1 hour ago, PC Master Race said:

What the fucking hell is going on in this thread!?

 

We are fighting about Cyberpunk 2077's setting, a game that was announced four years ago and will be released sometime in the next four years, when there is no official information out yet.

 

Pay attention man, Jesus.

 

Also RubberJohnny knows the list of cool RPG worlds but he's not sharing.

 

 

[ZOK]

11 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

Nope, Wiper I'll give (although that wasn't there when I was writing the post), you two did absolutely nothing to explain - ZOK was positively evasive, even after I'd asked him to sell it to me and womblingfree just spammed images to avoid talking.

 

I explained it perfectly!

 

I think the real problem is that you can't explain why it should be considered dated. You had a go, but you just gave a list of the themes that you found in the books that used those themes. Nothing wrong with them at all, it was a nice list really, but they don't define the genre in any way. Really what you put up was a selection of some of the cyberpunk jags that stemmed from Neuromancer and were picked up by many other writers - but not by every writer, and not even by Gibson himself.

 

And even if they did define the genre, exploring themes that others have explored does not make the theme dated. If you can explain why it's dated more cogently, I'll entertain it. Until then...

 

 

[revlob]

I want to live in a cyberpunk world because I could flatline RubberJohnny's meatform with a dataspike over the netspace.

[Talk Show Host]

Tea flew from nose.

[Benny]

Dismissing entire genres is stupid. It's not like making a cyberpunk game removes any of the other games being made that are not about cyberpunk.

[TehStu]

18 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

People getting very defensive about things they're nostalgic about getting criticised.

 

I didn't realize we had to detail why we're looking forward to it, lest our desire be ascribed to mere nostalgia. You seem to know me better than me.

[ZOK]

On 10 January 2013 at 1:53 PM, Moz said:

I'd like a neo-noir alternate-timeline world war 2 game set in Huddersfield in the year 2040.

 

A gem from Morris there! Where is he, haven't seen him in ages?

[RubberJohnny]

22 minutes ago, Benny said:

Dismissing entire genres is stupid. It's not like making a cyberpunk game removes any of the other games being made that are not about cyberpunk.

 

The genre is science fiction though - naming every generations sci-fi a "punk" subgenre is daft to begin with, and of course they age and go out of fashion - most of the time sci-fi is about reflection of the present anyway, a way of examining contemporary issues, and three-decades-ago issues aren't today's issues.

 

It's no coincidence the most timeless scifi is stuff like Orwell warning against authoritarianism and not E.E Doc Smith saying technological progress will continue at the pace of WW2, and we'll be smashing Galaxies into each other in a single generation.

 

19 minutes ago, TehStu said:

I didn't realize we had to detail why we're looking forward to it, lest our desire be ascribed to mere nostalgia. You seem to know me better than me.

 

??? You haven't posted in pages, why on earth would you think that was aimed at you?

[ZOK]

This whole 'nostalgia' argument is just silly anyway. Like I said, I have read Neuromancer every two years give or take since SPACE YEAR NINETEEN EIGHTIES, and it is as fresh today as it ever was. I don't think to myself 'wow, this takes me back!'

 

If Gibson parped it out today, it would be hailed as a modern masterpiece. Except by RubberJohnny, who would say it was dated, and that he stole all his ideas from Neal Stephenson. Of course, in that alternate timeline he'd be right.

[womblingfree]

43 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

Nope, Wiper I'll give (although that wasn't there when I was writing the post), you two did absolutely nothing to explain - ZOK was positively evasive, even after I'd asked him to sell it to me and womblingfree just spammed images to avoid talking.

 

Yes, I posted a comparison of two images to show how fresh Blade Runner looks, a picture of the cover of Time linked to an article pointing out the popularisation of cyberpunk in mainstream media circa 1993 and a gif of the early Kojima game Snatcher linking to an article detailing the history of cyberpunk games. Oh, and one picture taking the piss. Interspersed with that I've been engaging with your rather odd assertion that the aesthetic of cyberpunk only exists these days because of middle aged men wanting to play stuff that looks like the old days.

[SharkyOB]

This game is going to be amazing.  I'm fairly sure that's me taking into account CDPR's track record and the fact I think The Witcher 3 is amazing, but maybe it's the nostalgia talking, I just don't know anymore.

[Benny]

18 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

The genre is science fiction though - naming every generations sci-fi a "punk" subgenre is daft to begin with, and of course they age and go out of fashion - most of the time sci-fi is about reflection of the present anyway, a way of examining contemporary issues, and three-decades-ago issues aren't today's issues.

 

Who cares what the genre is anyway? Or indeed whether the concepts are "relevant" to contemporary issues. Using a particularly framing device to tell a story is possible no matter what era or fictional backdrop you wish to set it in, and it can be judged on its own merits.

[RubberJohnny]

6 minutes ago, womblingfree said:

Yes, I posted a comparison of two images to show how fresh Blade Runner looks, a picture of the cover of Time linked to an article pointing out the popularisation of cyberpunk in mainstream media circa 1993 and a gif of the early Kojima game Snatcher linking to an article detailing the history of cyberpunk games. Oh, and one picture taking the piss. Interspersed with that I've been engaging with your rather odd assertion that the aesthetic of cyberpunk only exists these days because of middle aged men wanting to play stuff that looks like the old days.

None of that really said why it appealed to you though, which was your argument - that you'd provided reasoning why it appealed other than "it was around when I was growing up".

 

4 minutes ago, Benny said:

Who cares what the genre is anyway? Or indeed whether the concepts are "relevant" to conteporary issues.

 

Ok, so you're shooting down your own argument?

[Wiper]

36 minutes ago, Talk Show Host said:

 

So, basically, what we have now.

 

Yes, but (somehow) even moreso

[womblingfree]

1 minute ago, RubberJohnny said:

None of that really said why it appealed to you though, which was your argument - that you'd provided reasoning why it appealed.

 

My argument is that 'it' isn't a single aesthetic but an entire wealth of literature, art, film and games, good and bad, going back decades and that writing it off as old hat when it's open to any interpretation the developers bring to it is daft. 

[Benny]

2 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

Ok, so you're shooting down your own argument?

 

No, that's why dismissing entire genres is stupid - you are dismissing a whole avenue of artistic expression based on how it fits into a genre, which is limiting.

[Wiper]

To be fair, every time a game comes out with 'zombie apocalypse' as its theme, I generally find it hard to take any interest. I'm also generally wary of steampunk settings, though as they dictate mood less than a zombie apocalypse, I'm generally willing to overlook it. Helped, of course, by a few standout titles over the years, notably The Chaos Engine and Steamworld Heist. 

 

A setting can just rub you the wrong way, it happens.

[deerokus]

Cyberpunk is pretty much documentary at this point.

[RubberJohnny]

9 minutes ago, Wiper said:

To be fair, every time a game comes out with 'zombie apocalypse' as its theme, I generally find it hard to take any interest. I'm also generally wary of steampunk settings, though as they dictate mood less than a zombie apocalypse, I'm generally willing to overlook it. Helped, of course, by a few standout titles over the years, notably The Chaos Engine and Steamworld Heist. 

 

A setting can just rub you the wrong way, it happens.

 

Yeah, if I'd have gone "not another futuristic military shooter" in the Call of Duty thread, people would have been chiming in with "I want WW2 back" and the like. Similarly there's people throughout this thread moaning about "elfs and orcs fantasy" without much fuss - check the first page! ZOK himself moans about Steampunk, the big hypocrite!

 

It's almost like people had a big adverse reaction to my pretty standard criticism because it was a genre they had ~nostalgia~ for, eh? Got ya!

[Wiper]

I imagine the fact that it's still - despite your protestations - a relatively niche genre help it too. Railing against genuinely common settings is typically received better than railing against ones that actually have a relatively slim presence.

 

(also, when I've commented 'not another bloody zombie game', or words to that effect, in the past I've received much the same response as you're getting, because it is an intentionally confrontational way of phrasing things. We reap what we sow)