#concerned ape please put a tutorial mode in this game

[that1phantomuser]

Coming clean.

I would like to formally apologize to the Stardew valley community, ConcernedApe, my Stardew valley animals, everyone in pelican town (except that abomination Clint), my friends, AND my family. I never meant for this to happen. I have wasted not only everyone's time but also MINE. I wasted my time, my sanity, and all hope for a better farm. I cannot explain enough how sorry I am for watering the fucking fruit trees. I am an idiot. I don't even know how to explain myself. However, To the asshole who told me to water my fruit trees: I will find you.

[zydrateacademy]

First Impressions / Review - Cyberpunk 2077

I have some screenshots but they’re mostly photo mode and the occasional interface showing off my gear. So this review will be pic-less for now. I got Cyberpunk off of Stimulus money so as far as I’m concerned, the government paid for this game which does negate some of the problems I’d normally have for dropping 80$ or so on a preorder. Use that information how you will. First, I want to address some technical issues. In the sense that I don’t have very many. I have a 1050 GTX, an i5 processor, and 16GB of Ram. That’s about as complex as my knowledge goes on that. I’ve had a few glitches like Jackie ghosting through a closed door, some vans were clipped into the parking lot, and some NPC’s being stuck in furniture. A lot of ghosting around, really. The odd frame drop but nothing game breaking, and I haven’t had any crashes except one on startup, right after updating my drivers. Just the one in ~21 hours of gameplay. I play on High (but not ultra) settings. So all in all, not a bad experience. Everyone’s computer is a unique butterfly so while you will see a lot of yelling on various communities, some of us are trucking along several hour sessions at a time and not having a problem. Let’s do a quick dive into the story, and there may be some spoilers here but it’s mostly for Act 1, which is reachable just a couple hours depending on how quickly you want to unlock the whole city (as you’re locked to one region until you complete a major heist). 

You play as V, of any variety of gender identity you wish (though you are stuck with he or she pronouns). Basically a futuristic mercenary that does any kind of work available, kind of giving me some vibes from Burn Notice. Arms deals, stealing fans, VIP extraction, and so on. Of course, nothing goes as plan and you more or less lose your entire initial team after a heist goes wrong in every way possible. You’re witness to a world changing shift in a power structure and are forced to insert a chip with the ‘soul’ of Johnny Silverhand, an angry and incredibly bitter man who staged a bombing decades before V enters the game. This becomes the driving force of the game as you work to remove him safely from your body before he replaces you entirely - Something that not even he can stop, really. I’ve only had my toes dipped in Cyberpunk as a genre but it seems pretty standard fare. The concepts of “do cybernetics eat your soul’ and the various debate of how much human makes a human, all that. You’re put right there in center force as you grapple with these questions, even though our avatar as V is more concerned with just curing themselves like it was any other terminal disease. Even in-universe, the idea of a soul-preserving microchip is still a relatively new invention, though still in development enough to be advertised and talked about in news circuits. So let’s approach my first problem. It takes several hours for the game to essentially ‘wake up’. For a long time, you’re stuck in several conversations and interactable cutscenes with very little gameplay except taking advantage of V’s chosen origin in dialog. A couple of firefights here and there but the initial region locks you in and there’s only so many world encounters to just run into. The game more or less railroads you into completing Act 1 with some haste, because it also unlocks the ability to get more cybernetics and even some actual, full on mechanics. Within that railroading, you’re witness to so. Much. God. Damn. Talking. Mercifully you can press or hold “c” to skip through some things if you already understand the gist, but the first several hours of the game can very much feel like a very pretty walking simulator. Thankfully this kind of goes away after Act 1. You suddenly get called by a variety of Fixers that preside over various regions and they toss you dozens of side-jobs to do and so far, I find them to be delightfully varied. As a stealther, I found great joy in having a VIP escort quest with the optional objective of not sounding any alarms. So I went and bought myself a silencer and happily snuck around some gang mates boxing in the middle of a building, retrieved my guy, and escorted him outside while leaving several enemies alive. It was a great achievement. These side-gigs can be as complicated or straightforward as you please, giving me some Dues Ex vibes. The tutorial introduces you to hacking so you can distract and destroy your enemies how you see fit, and I have found that most encounters are designed with alternate routes to deal with enemies. Others are less clear. During one gig, I opened a door and the entire bar went ape on me, so I shot my way through and earned two stars from the police. Turned into a massive shootout that led to a dropbox that had gang members in it that also shot at me. Playing on Easy is a saving grace, but as someone who typically likes sneaking around games when the option is available, I wish the game made it more clear if I'm in a "suspicious" type zone. I also have no idea which NPC's are counted as potential enemies (the scan early in the story tells you if they're in a gang or not), as perfectly normal NPC's in the aforementioned bar just began unloading on me. It was wild, and I survived and got paid but the mission giver telling me it was sloppy work. Thanks, lady. Another time I opened a gate and trained my silenced pistol on the guard only for her to slightly sidestep as the gate opening “alerted” her. So I missed the shot, she opened fire, and the entire structure came out to play. It was an intense gunfight in which I was victorious, but it felt hollow as my silenced approach just botched the entire encounter. It was difficult for me to figure out what the game’s general “loop” is. So far it gives me the Ubisoft vibe of “hit everything you run into”. I do like the idea of V being something of a vigilante, as random police encounters pretty much allow you to intervene and gun down gang members without them bothering you about it. I must admit, however, I wish there was more to actually DO in the game. So far it’s mostly just side-gig after side-gig. Escort guy here, steal a van there, eliminate all enemies here. Though again, I said before that some of this can be quite enjoyable under the right circumstances. Maddening in others. In a way, this is kind of the Rage 2 problem all over again, in the sense that people loved the general gunplay but there wasn’t actually a lot of gameplay beyond the decent combat mechanics. Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly no GTA5, but I hope some day it can become that with DLC’s that add actual activities.

A couple of quick asides. I despise the driving, as most vehicles seem to want to spin out very easily if you hold the turning key for a second too long. In some fashion, it forces you to drive like an actual sane person and mowing down civilians (even accidentally) adds a GTA-esque wanted level though it seems stupidly easy to avoid. Narratively, it makes sense as the authorities in this universe are incredibly corrupt and it basically amounts to “eh, they’re too far now, let’s not waste resources”. So, fair enough. Still, I hope to GOD there’s no mandatory story-based racing. Games have screwed me on that before, and I have not beaten most GTA games because of that. Secondly, I don’t think the origin choice does a lot. You get different dialog choices and being a Corpo did lead to one interesting turn when you just ‘knew’ a credit chip had a virus on it. So there is that, but ultimately the rest of the dialog is identical. You could chalk this up to V spending six months with Jackie and he, more or less, lets your V really swim in Night City culture but honestly ALL V choices feel like they’ve become the same person. I was originally a Corpo but it just feels like her past and culture didn’t seep in through most of the dialog. At the end of the day, V is always just some mercenary punk. The world is gorgeous, albeit not as alive as it may have been advertised in promotions. Random civilians just have canned dialog, a lot of it rude. However I’ve been hard pressed to find doubles or clones of anyone just walking around, but that may change once I get into the hundreds of hour counts. It’s a very pretty game and despite some of my qualms, I am enjoying the experience. There’s a photo mode which is wonderful to utilize when you run into an environment that just captures the imagination. I took a screenshot of Jackie’s wall of pinups, including a typical slutty nun but as per the universe, her chest filled with beautifully placed cybernetics. It was just fun to see, and there’s a lot of semi-subtle world building like that that I just adore.

The game has issues. However, if you wanted a slightly scaled back idea of GTA5 with a different aesthetic, this is not at all a bad choice. However I will not blame anyone if they wait for the “GOTY” editions to come out. And on sale.