Cyberpunk 2078

[Werthead]

Nice approval by Cyberpunk 2077 voicer actor and CG model Hideo Kojima (I believe he's done other stuff) for Edgerunners. Also gold shout out for Cyber City ODEO 808, which I saw in the 1990s and thought was outstanding.

 

[Ran]

Kojima has great taste. Also a big fan of Love, Death, + Robots and Alberto Mielgo's work, and happy to let the world know. Think he was big on Arcane too.

[IlyaP]

Well this is a pleasant surprise: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-cyberpunk-netflix-show-is-taking-over-the-2077-mod-scene/

[karaddin]

Yeah, Edgerunners seems to have given people a taste of Night City which was enough to realise what an incredible world they constructed for the game. If Phantom Liberty isn't too far off and is well received I think it can finally put the negativity of the premature launch and inaccurate expectations (due to the initial marketing) behind it.

Opinion even on Reddit is finally starting to shift with more people admitting they actually think it was great.

On the Phantom Liberty front - I have one theory for where it could be going which I'll spoiler in case new players check out the thread, the spoilers are only for the already released stuff.

Spoiler

One of the other people that flash up when you catch the van from the Peralez quest line is "Liberty Patel" and she has an eye patch. I think she's going to be a prominent antagonist that's been programmed to do whatever it is V is trying to stop. Assuming the AI behind that program is the same one behind Operation Carpe Noctem (which we find out about from Sandra Dorset's data bank) then it's part of Night Corp and has a strong interest in opposing Night City reunification with the NUSA.

The biggest argument against this though is that Peralez is pro reunification, so it might be a different group behind the SSI brain washing.

One other thing I found on my latest play through was that there's a fair bit I'd been missing in the Star ending

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure I'd talked to Carol etc after getting the jacket but don't remember them getting really into gossip about Saul and Panam. I also hadn't gotten as much out of Saul about his actual feelings on the raid before, but the big one I was missing was Mitch. The first time I played in 1.3 the option to take the basilisk for a spin got bugged and I couldn't get out so I'd just been skipping it. Turns out there's a bunch more about Saul and Panam after you get out of the basilisk and it really reframes Saul's motives.

Without all this I thought that he'd been convinced Panam has some good points about the direction of the clan, and accepted V as part of the family and thus worth the risk of the raid. With this new info in mind he isn't at all convinced by Panam, it's just she's had major victories in internal clan politics and he's losing his hold on power. While he's sincere about V being part of the family, he's agreeing to the raid because of the potential windfall for the clan - it can't just be throwing away a bunch of lives over one life which I think is actually reasonable. It's also a cynical ploy hoping that a successful raid will buy him leeway to shore his power base back up.

It's a much more complex character than I was appreciating, but does make me feel less bad about him getting Smashered 

 

[Garlan the Gallant]

I know nothing about the game, because I'm not into video games but the series on Netflix was fantastic! Trigger does good work but I think this was my favorite show of theirs.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Garlan the Gallant said:

I know nothing about the game, because I'm not into video games but the series on Netflix was fantastic! Trigger does good work but I think this was my favorite show of theirs.

There's some fun extras on Youtube talking with the Trigger team about various aspects. They really seemed down on anime on television for the domestic (Japanese) market, but it seems this international collaboration really reinvigorated them. They got 5 years to work on it and really craft it in a way they were never able to do before, and it shows.

[Garlan the Gallant]

14 minutes ago, Ran said:

There's some fun extras on Youtube talking with the Trigger team about various aspects. They really seemed down on anime on television for the domestic (Japanese) market, but it seems this international collaboration really reinvigorated them. They got 5 years to work on it and really craft it in a way they were never able to do before, and it shows.

It paid off. The writing was great, which turned it from some shlocky adaptation into something that stood on it's own. 

What's the reason for being down on anime on television for the domestic market? Is it not as popular anymore? I know that the manga market was suffering a few years ago, but I mainly thought that was due to piracy.

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, Garlan the Gallant said:

What's the reason for being down on anime on television for the domestic market? Is it not as popular anymore? I know that the manga market was suffering a few years ago, but I mainly thought that was due to piracy.

I got the sense that they felt constrained by what they could do and show on "normal" anime, and this being an international project for Netflix allowed them to really push the borders of what they've done before.

[Garlan the Gallant]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

I got the sense that they felt constrained by what they could do and show on "normal" anime, and this being an international project for Netflix allowed them to really push the borders of what they've done before.

That makes sense. There was certainly more frontal nudity, sex, and gore than your typical anime. The only thing that I can really think of something with similar levels are the Berserk movies.

[Werthead]

I saw an online discussion about other cyberpunk games and it reminded me of how damn good the original trailer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution was. Some great lines in there ("It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here,") and some nice material that never made it into the final game. Also highlighting the game's absolute A-tier soundtrack.

 

 

[The Grey Wolf Strikes Back]

I love in particular the theme song, Icarus. Also, the backstory, including that specific line ("its not the end of the world, but you can see it from here") is why I've kept my copy of the game's manual all these years. Out of curiosity, does Edgerunners use a lot of jargon/slang that would be unfamiliar to the average person?

[karaddin]

It definitely uses some slang that's also used in the game, I think almost all of it is pretty clear from context clues and just the general sound of it what they actually mean though. Quick list of what's in game, not sure all of these are in the show

• Something is "preem", it means "premium" - ie its really good.
• Someone is acting like a complete "gonk", they're being stupid/foolish.
• Not sure if its used in the show or not, but input/output is a sex partner broadly relating to who is putting what in who. 
• Chrome - mostly cybernetic augments, but can mean tech more generally. Chroming up = getting augments
• Ripperdoc/Ripper - Doctors that also do implants, maintenance etc
• Trauma Team - Private ambulance service that's also a SWAT squad
• MaxTac - The SWATTEST of the SWAT, get called when police report someone having a Cyberpsychosis episode (you don't need to know what that is, the show will fill you in). Rarely ends well for the person they're called in on.
• Merc/Solo/Edgerunner/Cyberpunk - mercenaries with various skill sets
• Netrunner - Hacker/tech expert, frequently associated with corporations or mercenaries
• Fixer - Middle man between clients and mercenaries
• Borg/Borged out - The most heavily augmented up to the point of barely being human anymore
• Braindance - full immersion VR. You see, hear, smell, feel everything the person recording it feels.
• Klep - steal
• Delta - leave
• Choom - Friend/mate/buddy/pal

That probably makes it look overwhelming lol, but as I said - was all clear to me from context.

Wert - Kinda amuses me that the talk about Deus Ex generally didn't make me think of this last week, but the trailer for DE:HR makes me realise I never got to playing Mankind Divided. I should probably do that at some point.

[The Grey Wolf Strikes Back]

Thanks for explaining @karaddin.

[IFR]

This series was a pleasant surprise. I don't play video games often, but the series has piqued my interest in the world. However, I understand that the game is a monster as far as resource requirements, and I only have a simple laptop for the purposes of school. So I imagine it will be many years down the line before I get to it.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, IFR said:

This series was a pleasant surprise. I don't play video games often, but the series has piqued my interest in the world. However, I understand that the game is a monster as far as resource requirements, and I only have a simple laptop for the purposes of school. So I imagine it will be many years down the line before I get to it.

Not necessarily, depending on how seriously you are interested in gaming. GeForce Now will stream to anything -- laptop, phone, tablet -- and allow you to play games over the cloud at high fidelity. They have a free tier but it has a queue and only gives you one hour... but if you're patient, I guess you could try the game out (still need to purchase it, though) for a little that way and see if it's for you. The subscription is $10 a month, lets you put on the bells and whistles (mainly the RTX raytracing), and have ~6 hour long play sessions with generally no queuing.  It connects to Steam, Epic Games, Gog, and some other services, but not all games are supported.

[Ran]

An official video using Edgerunners. This is such a great song for cruising around Night City. I've heard the claim that CDPR tweaked things in the game so it plays a little more often on the in-game radio. Also, in time with the release of the video (and I guess a fresh release on streaming), the song is #1 on the Top 50 Viral Global chart on Spotify. Pretty crazy, but cool.

( I do miss the fact that Trigger didn't choose to have at least one of the Samurai songs in the game. "Black Dog" would have been perfect near the end.)

[Kalnestk Oblast]

Edgerunners was really great. Possibly better than the actual game, though it's hard for me to divorce the two or my experience with each. At the very least it was a ridiculously great companion piece to the game in a way that I can only think Arcane has done so far. 

[karaddin]

I think it's much more connected to the game than Arcane actually is to League. Yeah, it's not an adaptation of the story in the game but it's so clearly the story of another gonk you could have run into in the Afterlife if you were a year earlier, especially given V is actually 10 years older than David.

Arcane is a fantastic story set in the world of LoL that happens to explain the back story of some characters, but it's just so disconnected from the game play it feels less like an adaptation rather than just another work in the same universe. Which is not a criticism, just musing on the differences - Arcane is also one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen.

On the Cyberpunk front, I'm also impressed by how strong they managed to make the short video clip to 'Let You Down' (the song that plays over the end credits for Edgerunners). A succinct little tragedy with the terrible thing in her past feeling far too realistic than it should, her decision to sacrifice herself being entirely relatable while also exactly the opposite of what her mother would have actually wanted. They're certainly doing what they need to build on this IP that they invested in.

[Kalnestk Oblast]

ooooh

 

 

[Werthead]

I do worry they are making the exact same mistake as before: announcing and hyping the shit out of stuff years and years before release. They really need to learn from the companies who don't announce things until 6 months before release.