Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Is Cyberpunk 2077 A Disappointment? - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 54

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

Parris Lilly joins us to give all of our thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077. Timecodes: 00:00:00 - Start 00:01:00 - Housekeeping 00:02:00 - What Are We Playing Cyberpunk On? 00:05:25 - Our 60 Second Impressions 00:13:10 - The Story 00:27:00 - The Narrative and Open World Design Relationship 00:34:00 - The Character Creation/Trans Representation 00:37:00 - The Surface Level Set Dressing 00:43:40 - Favorite Characters/Representation/What is the story trying to say? 00:49:03 - Are We Disappointed With The Game? 00:53:43 - Different Gameplay Styles 00:58:23 - Will Cyberpunk Have Room to Fit at Game Awards 2021? - James Davis Makes 01:13:18 - Transmogging 01:17:03 - Marketing of the Game 01:23:43 - The Future of Cyberpunk 2077 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys. Welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. Hello, Tim. The former and former Imran Khan. Howday, Tim. The new face of video games, the future class of video games. Blessing at Aeo Ye, Jr. What's up, Tim? And joining us for the first time on the Kind of Funny Games cast, Gamer Tag Radio Zone, Paris Lilly. Hey, Tim, thank you for having me. This is exciting. Yeah, I'm excited. to have for this we of course today giving our our first thoughts on cyberpunk because only one of us was able to play it for a lot before lunch which was of course blessing you can go check out his review on youtube.com

slash kind of funny games right now where he gave his full review of his thoughts of cyberpunk 277 on pc i would like you to know this is the kind of funny games cast where each and every week we get together to talk about video games all things we love about them all the criticisms we have about them which I'm sure we'll be getting into today. If you want to get the show live as it's being recorded with the exclusive Patreon post show and ad free, you can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games, just like our Patreon producers, James Hastings,

Sauntow West Gaming and Julian the gluten-free gamer did. If you don't want to do that, that's okay. You can just wait a little longer. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. We'll be right there for you, or search your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Games cast. We appreciate you no matter how you want to consider. assume this content. But I don't want to hold back. I want to get into, I have some thoughts. I'm sure

you all have some thoughts. We've been playing this game a whole bunch the last couple days. So I want to get right into it before we get into the needy gritty. I want to know what we've all been playing on, what our systems have been. Paris, let's start with you. I'm playing on PC. What type, like, what's your setup like? Oh, oh. So I'm on a Ryzen 3950 CPU. I have a 3090 GPU. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, it's 64 gigs of RAM, so I'm completely kidded out to play this game at the max. Wow.

Greg Miller, you already make it a face. What was you got? I fell asleep. I fell asleep when we got into the technical jargon of what this PC was, you know, sorry. It's just the cards and the graphics and the dot EXEs and the Dosses. It's just too much for me. It puts me right to sleep. I don't think saying names of things is.

Everyone, you said, this is my time. All right? You can spend your time on it. Don't worry about it. playing a i'm playing on playstation five i'm playing the piece four version via backwards compatibility in the playstation five emrod what about you i'm also playing on pc i don't know what the build is like i bought this thing five years it's a five year old build it's not a modern pc okay okay cool and then bless what about you i've been playing on pc um and my camera i couldn't

really tell you the build it's something that kevin delivered to me i believe the it's like a something kevin delivered to me yeah it's like an indie like rising gp u yeah i'm Yeah, you got a Rise in 1. You don't have any of the super fancy RTFs stuff. Yeah, I don't have like the Invita stuff, which means I'm not playing with RTS, and I'm not playing with DLSS or any of that stuff. But I am like running it on like ultra settings or like the highest settings I can go for the options I do have. And also you've been sitting with Andy as he's been playing through on Twitch.

And he has the same computer I do, which is NZXT build that has a 3080 and all that stuff. Yeah. And let me tell you, I have been jealous watching him play through this game, because it looks fantastic. Yeah. Actually, so I have one step extra that's ridiculous, but I have a super ultra-wide monitor,

Barrett, can you bring this up? Because I want people to understand. Really quick, Tim, when I pulled this up because I had to like set this video up before the show started. And before you came into the call,

we were just all kind of dunking on you and making fun of you because of your fucking ridiculous setup. It's stupid. It's honestly, like, I'm living in the future here where look, this is a super ultra-odd,

this is a 51-20 by 14-4. 40P monitor. That's awesome. And I have it with Q-Sync, so the lights are reacting to what I'm playing. Now here's the kicker that you guys don't know about. This is a new installation I've made fairly recently. There's this thing called the butt kicker. And it is a sub-woofer.

It's a sub-woofer that attaches to your chair. So every time I'll shoot, I feel that shit, man. That's amazing. It's crazy. And yeah, just look at how the super ultra-wide looks. Like, you're getting, this is as immersive as V-R. but it's just like a screen man it's what did you make film that for you

Gia I was like just standard I just need to like let people have some type of reference because if I just say oh I'm playing on super ultra wide they're like oh yeah it's called like no no no no you don't get it this is the dumbest thing that I have ever done and I am saying something you're a man who had four tons of uh

LaCroi yeah yeah no there's been a lot of dumb shit but I do want to say that I have been waiting for my kind of PC cherry to be popped a little bit when it came to to games with cyberpunk. I've been planning a cyberpunk was going to be my game that I was like, I want to, I want to experience on PC. And it sounds like that I'm very lucky that that I did that.

You chose wisely. Yeah. But anyways, I now want to get into what our impressions are so far. Greg, I want to start with you. Here's what I'm going to do. You have 60 seconds to give your thoughts to start all this off. Okay. Sure. Is somebody time me? You time me?

Two, one, go. Hey, everybody, it's me, Greg Miller. I've been playing Cyberpunk 27 for 20 hours right now, PlayStation 5, Corpo, level 18 right now, Street Credit 27. I can see it over here. And I am in love with it. Like, I think it is arguably one of the best fallout games I've played.

And that was for me a turning point with it, where I think we didn't know what this game was going to be. We weren't sure what exactly we were going to get. We'll get into what we actually got on older consoles. But I got to the funeral scene or a funeral scene. There was probably multiple in this game. And that for me was a turning point of understanding who V was and understanding what the world was and how I was building relationships with it. And from there, I've been amazed at the number of times I've been in conversations and not looked at my phone and gone into the optional dialogue to actually explore that more.

That's been in games like Fallout before. But usually I would skip through that right to get going. I think they're doing such a great job here with storytelling, direction, characters. and I enjoy the gameplay, and I don't think it's turning your heads at any point, but it's great. Two, one. There you go. Amron, you are up. I want to hear your thoughts in 60 seconds starting now.

So I have been playing for about 16 hours, probably a little bit more than that. And when you account for like loading screens and all that jazz. Reloads. Reloads, crashes. I love The Witcher, and I have been so excited for this game since, 2012 when they first announced it based on the fact how much I love Witcher 2 and I think which 3 is the game the generation I am incredibly disappointed with this game I don't think it's entirely bad I don't think it's entirely great I think there's enough like moments that

really kind of salvage experience for me but there's enough like parts where I'm just kind of like play in and when it crashes I'm like I don't feel the need to start playing or reboot this again and start playing again because I wasn't I don't know moment to a moment if I'm having fun in this game And for me, that's kind of like a kiss of death with games of this caliber, is that it's not giving me the experience that really enraptures me. And I wish it did. And we'll talk more about things like bugs in a second. Paris, 60 seconds on the clock starting now.

I definitely need more than 60 seconds, but I'll try and make this brief by saying the world of Night City is incredible. I absolutely love it. The story, the characters, the relationships that you build inside the game. I absolutely love, without a doubt, having a blast with that. But I truly wish this game was delayed until April of 2021. I really do. It just, it was not ready.

The way I say it is I don't want to fight the game to have fun. And I'm constantly fighting the game because of the bugs, the crashes, having to restart. Oh, I better hurry up and save because if I don't and some weird bug comes in there, I'm going to have a dialogue screen stuck in the middle of the page the entire time. It's things like that that frustrate me because I almost feel like right now, Cyberpunk 2077, no matter what your opinion on it is, you're right. You can say it's amazing. You can say it's terrible.

And you're right. And there you go. There you go on the dot. All right. Now I will go starting. Do you want me to time you? You're going to keep it fair, you think? Are you going to be...

Go for it, Greg. Time me. Hold on. I don't want, I'm not going to let him get away with this. All right, you know what I mean? Someone has to control me. You're starting in three, two, one, go. I am so happy that cyberpunk is clicking with me.

It is something that I, you know, we always talk about how much I don't really love. Pause. I've paused your time. I don't fucking believe it. I can't fucking believe this game is clicking with you. Jen, you believe it that Tim likes this game. him. Tim is in joy Western RPG. Fuck me. All right.

Three, two. Three, two. No, don't use your time to argue me, sir. All right. We're going to call it right down the middle, right? Blessing? Yep. Three, two, one, go. It's working for me a lot because it feels a lot more linear than I expected to be and the linear experience feels like it is paying off. It feels

like I'm getting story beats and characters that I do very much enjoy. And it's pulling me, making me want to do the side quest. So that's at me is the one thing that I've never really latched onto for the open world. games because it always just feels like extra shit to do. And I don't like the checklisty stuff. So with this, it really does feel like I'm playing through a story.

And I do feel like the decisions I'm making aren't actually having much of an impact. But I think that's also because I don't know what the other choices would have led to because it all just feels so organic. And I am enjoying that. It is the most immersive video game I've ever felt. I'm very privileged that I'm being able to play it in the meticulous Disneyland way that I am. And I think that if that weren't the case and if it were to look a lot different, that I would

not have these same experiences with it so far. But I can't wait to keep playing it. I love Keanu Reeves so much. And the soundtrack is fucking rad. All right. That's the kind of funny games cast, everybody. Thanks to tune. No, I just wanted to do that because I wanted to kind of at least set the tenor for at least where we were at, like, top level.

What were the first things to come to mind as we go? Greg. Blessing, or is that where you're going to go? I was wondering, have you played more? Of course, we made you marathon this game for a review, less than a week to review it. Have you been brought back to it? No, it's been the sucky thing of once I beat the game on PC, I was like, oh, perfect. All right, I can stop here and then wait for the PlayStation code and then pick up there and then

restart the game and play with an entirely different build and do different side quests and all that stuff. And then it's been this roller coaster of a week with two things. One, us not getting codes. And then two. Surprising. We never got console codes for this. I wonder why.

And then two, hearing all the reports about the console versions and seeing. all the concern and all this stuff. And I have a PS5, obviously, and so I won't have as many issues as people playing on the base PS4. But even with that in mind, I've had this thing of, fuck, do I want to buy it on PS4 or do I just want to keep playing on PC? And now that we're here, now that we're at about approaching a week of people having this game, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that, all right, maybe I should just buy it on, or maybe not buy it. Maybe I should just keep playing it on PC and keep rolling with the save. And I think that's what I plan to do. That said, I have been watching Andy play it. I've been.

accompanying him on his streams that he's been doing and watching him go through the motions of the beginning portions of the game and seeing him go through today on stream he went through a specific portion of the game which is about I want to say like four to eight hours in depending on how you play

for me it was eight hours I assume for Andy is probably closer to four hours because it seems like he has just started again man do I really adore parts of this game and man do I maintain pretty much everything I said last week in the in the review but man is it unfortunate to see that not everybody is having that same

experience whether it's due to bugs whether it's due to uh uh you know once you once you get into certain parts of the game parts of the game not paying off as much as other parts of the game right because it is a such it is such a deep complex game and there's so much you get into with it that said man like i i i still adore this game a lot i still think there's so much there's so much good about it, but it does bum me out a lot of the things surrounding this game. So what do we want to start now? First impression's out of the way.

Imran, you want to go to the plate and drop some shit? So I'll start with story, because that's the one thing that I expected was going to be a home run based on the fact that these are some people who made The Witcher. And that's the thing that runs through my head, as I talk about all this stuff, is this should be from the people who made the Witcher

and it doesn't always live up to that. And story, I think, is sometimes where it does and sometimes where it doesn't. There are aspects of the story, like Greg, you mentioned their funeral, which is, I think, probably one of the best side quests I've played so far in this game. Then there's other things that are like,

okay, you'll wander upon a side quest and it doesn't actually have a story to it. It's a lady says, hey, this person has cyber psychosis, go hit him with a sword for a while. And I do that, and that's it. That's a side quest. or there's some other ones that are

like the actual writing isn't good like when Keanu Reeve says I thought you were going to get either get off or get offed I'm like that's not a thing people like I understand this is the future and I say it in 277 that's the thing 2757 50 years from now

not actually going to be like that different they don't start talking like that is lines you get from the Johnny Nemonic video game not Johnny Nemonic and that's like that's how I feel about cyberpunk writing in the time is there are incredible highs and incredible lows and it feels like there's different writing teams like at work in this game and that's probably the case there actually is such a

large game there are probably actually different writing teams but there's things that just don't come off well and there's like voice acting performances some of them sound like placehold like there's a female cop early in the game that you talk to who i sounds like one of the developers just kind of like left their asset voice in the game. And it's, I want all that stuff to be better. But it's not compelling me enough that I, when I go into a quest,

I don't know, is this going to be the good running team or the bad running team? And sometimes like I just finished the Evelyn, what are the Evelyn Parker quest? I'm like, this is really good. Then I went on and did another quest and was like, oh, this is it not nearly as good. Why is,

why are every fixer introducing themselves to me? and then trying to sell me a car. Like, what is, what was the through line that they thought these things, like this main quest and this side stuff, why do they have different voices as if they're from different worlds? When it comes to the voice acting, I went with the female V, and I'm not loving her voice acting.

And it's kind of making me wish that I went male just because from what I've heard from watching people's videos, I seem to prefer it a bit more. How many hours in are you? Fall Parket. 12. Okay. Not that that would change anything.

I think it's interesting. For me, one of the struggles I had at the start that, again, the funeral scene kind of clicked everything into place to an extent for me was V in general. And I was in a similar boat where I went with the male V. And traditionally in the past, right, I've gone, I usually go with a female character name or Taylor Swift or Cara and I'm off to the races being a good person. And since I wanted to be different here and I wanted to role play more, I tried to make him look like Bud Fox. Charlie Sheen from Wall Street. And I did that because I knew I was picking Corpo, so I had all this stuff.

And no spoilers, obviously, in this entire review. But I can only assume that backstory portion, right? Because I only know Corpo goes so quickly and so fast before you're just thrust into the world. I was left immediately being like, oh, man, like, I kind of committed to this with a vision that I was going to be corporate longer than I was before I was out of my own doing all this stuff.

And so now that I'm on my own, I really feel like this character doesn't look the part, nor does he sound that great to me. And I was regretting the decision. And as I kept going and playing, it's been that I want out of RPGs is that slow descent into actually feeling like I own that character and who that character is. Where now, you know, I put up a tweet,

actually the day of, with the day of the funeral thing, of how I bought this ridiculous jacket that I thought looked like the Joker. And I put it in, and his hair's always slicked back because that's what I chose. And for some unfucking known reason,

there's no barbers. in Night City. There's no way to change any of that stuff. So I was like, oh, man, this doesn't look so much like Charlie Sheen anymore. It kind of looks like Jared Leto, and I tweeted out. And then everybody's like, no, it looks like Kevin. And it looks so much. It looked in this shot so much like Kevin.

It's so tough how much he looks like Kevin. If you can get that, Eric, please do it's on my Twitter. Going through that, though, like to where I am now 20 hours in, 20 plus hours in, like, I have an outfit I like. I have a face mask I like. I have a hat. And it's like, I feel, and not to mention the journey and the conversations I've had with characters that really connect with me like Pan Am or Judy or, you know what I mean?

These things that have fleshed it out both ways in terms of me feeling more like I'm making something for V and making him his own character and then also the choices I've made in dialogue that have made, given him a backstory and given him a personality. And so now when I think of V, I don't think of it being a jarring thing where I didn't like the voice in the beginning because I didn't. Now that is his voice and I feel like ownership over it if that makes sense. Yeah. Paris, what character did you go with and what's your story?

perspective, Ben? Sure. So, because I didn't say it at the top. So I'm about 45 hours in. Um, female V Corpo, just something I knew I always wanted to do since the game got announced. And it kind of goes back to, to what, what you guys have been saying already, where I actually, I like the voice actress for, for a female, by the way. I think she's fine. Um, but I do think some of the voice acting with some of the other characters, like this goes back to why I was saying, I almost feel like maybe you should have just delayed it in a whole year to April 2021. Like there's these little things that just don't feel finished just yet. Like I think overall what I've experienced with story.

Like I think Keanu Reeves is great. I love how he interjects into certain things. And the way I'm playing V, I don't necessarily trust him. So it's interesting to get his perspective and what I do want to listen to and what I don't want to listen to. And we've had like this interesting banner going back and forth. I think that's great. But then going back to what was said earlier, the way the side quests are integrated with the main story,

no spoilers, but it almost doesn't make sense. If you play the story and understand what the urgency of the story is, but then there's all these side quests that don't relay that urgency, if it makes sense. It almost feels like a completely separate game from what you're doing in the main game. And to be honest with you, I've been doing a lot of the side quests.

I really enjoy the side quest. I found some very compelling things. And it goes back to choice where I'll second guess myself after. I go, huh, I wonder what would have happened if I would have done something else, you know, as an example. So I like that part of the game. And I like that's what they were trying to convey, you know, last couple of years since they announced it. But I also say this, this isn't the RPG I thought it was going to be. And it goes back to what you were saying, Greg.

you found your happy place by saying it's a fallout game. And I totally get that. And if I play it that way, like I feel like if I play it like it's Fallout New Vegas, great. But that's not what I thought Cyberpunk 27 was going to be. So that just floats in the back of my head that this could have been more. The fact that we don't have a barber. And again, I'm a Witcher stand.

I'm a Witcher fan. Huge Witcher 3 fan. That's all I talk about. So this doesn't feel like it came from the makers of the witcher. or three in that sense. It feels like it came from Todd Howard, right? So I'm conflicted in that way. I'm enjoying it, but I'll go back to the bugs again.

There's been so many game, not I want to say game breaking, but there's been so many frustrating bugs where, like Wakaku as an example, I had a side mission with her, but I was doing a main mission that involved her. And she started talking about the main mission and the side mission at the same time.

That's awesome. Made no sense, right? I've had situations where I can't change the camera point of view when I'm in a vehicle. Or I can't even get on like a motorcycle. I can't even get on it. Just weird little things like that. Or like I said before, dialogue or other UI things

just are stuck on the screen. And I have to stop and save. And all right, let me restart it and go back in. And it breaks that immersion that I was hoping to have. Like the best thing that I've done, done so far in the game is literally hop on a motorcycle and just drive around and I'll just get into random shit along the way. To me, that's kind of the secret sauce of what they built so far is the world. The story is good and I'm trying to slow, slow burn it so I'm taking my time.

But it, like I said, it feels like it's about 75% complete right now. And I'm playing an early preview build versus playing the final polished game that I honestly expected from CD Oh yeah, I think that and I think that's what is killing them and rightfully so is I mean we're talking about these bugs and everything else but it is expectations right and I think It's one of the few times in my career you know since we brought on blessing this year and then just The length of the cyberpunk thing outside of the E3 demos and then sitting in on the night city stuff I was media blackout like I wasn't reading into it I wasn't reading I had no idea what the story was going to be. I wasn't sure how they were introducing Johnny Silverhand into the whole thing

and where we were going and yet, he'd get it. So I think for me sitting down with it with expectations, of course, those E3 demos are incredible. And I remember coming out of those, me and Tim be like, how is that a video game? Like, what is going on? Like, can you believe when this happened, that happened? That's why I think it took me so long in the beginning to find that sweet spot you're talking about of where are my expectations set. And once I set it to a fallout, it was awesome. And again, to compare it to fallout, which is what I've been doing. It is that idea of like sitting in the car and turning me, you know, me turning the camera to Pan Am and just having it framed on her while she tells me her story and me go through the optional dialogues to hear more about it before

I advance it over. You know, you talk about, you know, Paris, you don't trust Johnny Silverhand. Like, I do. We're bros. Like, you know what I mean? And that was the dialogues we're choosing. So I'm always so stoked when he pops up. I give him shit. He gives me shit. I hope that'll be awesome if that blows up my face in the end. And he's a horrible thing. You know what I mean? Like, I'm excited for that part of it. But, It is, I like how you said it earlier, Paris, right? Of like everything everybody said so far is true. You could have, say this game is terrible.

You could say this game is amazing. And it's, they're all true in some way, right? Like, for me, it is how much I love that story stuff, which I do agree with Tim. It feels linear for the most part, right? Like, I don't think I'm taking giant broad strokes. And I don't know. You know, I'm picking Corpo. Whenever, like, I have the Corpo response, I pick that to kind of throw it out there.

And it's always just like, usually, oh, you know something about corporations. I'm like, yeah, I used to be in one. What about it? But then it is stuff of like, you know, you get into the other, not even bugs, because I mean, bugs are so specific this game and so many of them, but just the weird choices. So yeah, like, you know, the barber stuff, right? Like the idea that, you know, you're in this giant world, but NPCs only have like one thing to say to you if they're NPCs, right? You can't, even when I was, there was one part where a guy was arguing with a vending machine, he was trying to fix. And I was like, oh, maybe this is going to start a side quest.

So I stood there and it just looped back around. And the same thing started happening. like, oh, okay, whatever, I'm on my way. I'm going to go do something else. And, like, you know, PlayStation 5, driving is one of those things, especially when I'm on the motorcycles. I get in there, and it's like,

that is one of those things where I feel like the world totally shows it seems, where it's like, oh, like, okay, like, driving doesn't feel great on a motorcycle. It doesn't look great. It's the thing that, you know, the Reddit's, subreddit's been so quick to tear apart of like there's really no driving AI.

It just follows you. So if you stop, the world breaks. And like, we're talking about immersion, right? It feels like Truman's show. where you know you park your bike and then everything comes to a halt because it's all waiting for you to do something like oh fuck right which makes stealing cars really difficult because getting in front of it's like you have to get wait at a traffic light for people to stop and then you can then see their car there's like no easy way to do it otherwise because they will just clip you and then be on their way yeah i've been hit by so many so many cars really really quick like i wonder if this is just a me problem but like the driving this is boss baby barric corny on the ones and twos what are you playing on how long you've been playing uh i'm on ps five Wait, is that the boss baby siren I do?

I play PS5. I'm like eight hours in. I haven't even, like I haven't gotten to like the title card yet. But I have a good late title card. Yeah, I have gotten to Keanu Reeves. Driving isn't great, right?

Like it's not just me. I don't like I feel like I'm an idiot the entire time I'm driving around because I'm constantly crashing into shit. And I just, my favorite is like the weird moon physics of the motorbike of like hitting stuff. I'm like, is there no gravity? The motorcycle, I finally tried a motorcycle yesterday, and that was like, that was the first time where I was like, oh, this finally feels like okay. Whenever I'm in a car, it does not feel good. Maybe I just haven't found like that right car yet, but I don't know. Changed the camera in the car definitely helped a lot for me. Yeah, I played, I play driving third person. Oh, yeah, that's what I've been driving to. I've been driving too. I've been driving first and it's been better that way, but like, I mostly do that for emergent reasons. There's a point in the game where like you lose your car, like the car you own. And,

At some point, like, that sucks because when you have to go do your next side quest, it's like, well, I don't have $17,000 to buy a new car. I guess I will just literally run across the city and that takes forever. Yeah. That's a very interesting, I felt like world moment for me where I lost my car because of that story moment. And for a while, I was like, all right, how the fuck do I get a new car? And that's when I started getting in the calls from people of like, hey, I'm selling a car. And I'm like, okay, cool. I guess everybody's selling cars in this game. and then like from there I looked at my side quest and saw there was a specific side quest

where I can I guess go collect my car again and I go there and it sends me on this like goose chase of oh yeah you thought you're going to your car but you're not going to eat your car because we're going to throw this twist in here your car is trash and the the confusing thing for that for for me because that was the first thing I did before going to the next main mission was like oh well the next main mission is like a thousand kilometer or a thousand meters away whatever so I want to get in my car and so I pick it up and that like kind of side mission happens and I want to explore that side mission because I hear it's a cool one. But then like I start talking to Johnny like we're best fucking buds and it's like yes that was I just met you and like we're still kind of like not cool with each

other yet like the game's writing assumes that you've gone through the story but the way the game is designed to make you get your car first. It's like they didn't. think about that. And there's like a lot of little things like that throughout my play through where I'm like, what, what was the thought process here? Yeah, they don't match up, right? I think, you know, I heard I think Imran say, yeah, too, that happened to me.

Where like, literally our first conversation ends and it's like, get the fuck out of my head, yada, yada, blah, blah. And then it was like, all right, we go get the car. And I'm like, I know, man, right? I'm like, wait, no, I don't, I wouldn't even be talking this way. It was one point where I got a new car from, like, Jackie. And I was like, I summoned it, and it was my old car.

And I still had a little dog in the dashboard and all that. like, oh, cool, Jackie loved me so much. He has a car exactly like mine. Then I thought about it for a little longer. It was like, no way, the game just glitched. They just gave me a wrecked car back. I was like, okay, or fine, whatever. That's weird.

So story-wise, for me, I went Street Kid and I'm playing through. And it's weird because the game, both story and gameplay-wise, but especially story for me, it feels like it's at odds with itself in terms of production value, where with how I'm playing with my setup, it is some of the highest production value I've ever seen in a video game. And then bugs will happen that are at odds with that, but they still look so good that I question, I was bringing this up on game Staley. Like, is this on the intent of the game or not? Like, is this glitch like a cyberpunkgy glitch?

Or is it something that's just happening to me that sucks? Or is this part of the story? Or am I supposed to have that car like Imron's talking about? And I don't know sometimes. And like that kind of, that really takes me out of it when I'm so immersed in it that I'm believing what they're showing because it looks great. but then it's kind of, you know, not the right thing. And that extends to you to story choices. I expected this to be this deep-ass RPG where every choice I was making is building

into like really taking the story in a different direction. And so far, I feel like I saw NC Fixer was talking about this from an accessibility point of view of you, you just don't have much time to make choices for a lot of the questions. Like reading through these things, they're hurrying you through. Like, Jackie will be like, hey, what's up? Why aren't you answering me? It's like, I haven't finished reading the third line of dialogue yet. And then it kind of feels like I'm being rushed to answer these questions.

And then once I answer the questions, it does just kind of feel more often than not. There's just the three options. And the first one will just, the first one will continue the plot. The other two are just, do you want more info on this? Yeah. Or not. Yeah. You know?

And I'm like, all right, cool. I can enjoy the game for what that is. And that's why I feel like from the linear perspective, so far, the main. the main story beats I'm super into. And I feel like anytime I'm in a mission, I'm like, oh, the plot is cool, the character is cool. I know exactly what's going on. The moment I complete a mission, I'm lost as all shit.

It does feel very disconnected, the side quest and the main quest for the most part, where once I get into a side quest, I'm like, oh, okay, I know what I'm doing. This is all awesome. But once I'm just in the world, it kind of loses its magic to me, where I kind of just want it to either be more linear or be more evenly paced as an open thing because it just feels at odds with itself. And it feels like the production design can be and the production of the narrative can feel so fantastic.

And then all of a sudden it's just like, I'm in this world that is incredible to look at and just walking around, just blowing my mind with the way the ray tracing and shadows and all this stuff. I'm just so impressed by. But it's the same five posters everywhere. Like everywhere. And the posters aren't like. good. Like, they look like

development assets. They don't have like the art style you'd expect from the game or like they look like they were made in the 1930s. And if not for the subject matter, I believe that. But it's, I don't know why they, they went to bat for these things. They went to bat over the transphobic

stuff. Like saying this is a part of the world. They want to really define the world with these things. But they're all really ugly in a way that like makes you think that, no, you should have just changed some of this stuff for the, for better of the game. Well,

specifically that the, the, the, the, the, the, mixed it up.

Yeah. Why is that everywhere? Like, it just is so ridiculous that they thought it was appropriate to

have that to begin with. But then more than that, like for it to just be everywhere and like for them to back it up, it's like, well, it comes off as not only problematic, but like lazy to have it

literally just be one of the five billboards I'm seeing everywhere. And I just think that it's like, yeah, that falls short for sure. Like, if you go back, and read, I don't know, it's the the one, but the one I remember, the one from Polygon in 2019,

where Charlie Hall went down and asked them at E3, like, what's up with this? You know, this just came out. It's the Mix It Up one where there's this, yeah, a female form within a dick, you know, clearly in her thing. This is Mix It Up or whatever. And they were like, you know, he, the CD Project Red offered the designer who had worked on all the posters. They sat down. They spoke about it. And it was like, no, it's meant to be this commentary of like, you know, obviously in the future cyberpunk, all this stuff, like you can switch in and change everything out and do whatever you want. And in this future, you know, trans bodies are as, you know, hypersexualized and, you know, cashed in on for money as cisgender bodies are, right? And it was like, okay,

I remember reading that at the time being like, okay, like, if that's how you're going to deliver it in the game and that's going to be the message behind it, awesome. Like, again, and again, this is me not being trans. So I don't really have an opinion that matters. But being like, if that's what you're going for, if you're trying to say something with it, awesome, go for it. And you play the game. And yeah, it's the same poster all the time, everywhere.

It doesn't seem like it's part of an overall campaign that's over-sexualizing everyone in Knight City for it. It's just this whole thing, you know, Carolyn at Polygon went into and her review. And then there's no more commentary on trans identity in this future. other than just the over-sexualized trans person. It is kind of, it's downplayed also by like the character creation not really allowing you to go all the way in terms of that.

Bizarre choice. Yeah. Truly bizarre choice. Like having seen the character creation creator for myself now. And honestly, very not impressed by it. I thought that was the first thing where I was like, I expected this to be like the coolest thing ever that allows me to make my character look exactly how I want them.

And it's just like, oh, no, I made someone that looks cool, but like, they're not how I want them, but look. Demon Souls has a better one, which is like weird. Because they've been talking this thing up for literal years. And it's like, okay, you have a big penis, like, what's the word, slider? And that's basically the most interesting thing about this case. Even then it's on a slider. Yeah.

I've heard about this goddamn dick slider for years now. And I didn't even get to have a slide. It's just, you might be, you might be thinking about the Conan slider. Remember, there was dick sizing and Conan with a slider, I believe. Yeah. And like, but regardless. regardless I the what I wouldn't you're going through and there's the gender and stuff I was just like shocked to see that for a game that is going to have these things and going to touch on these themes I was very kind of like taking it back because bless you were talking about the voices but I thought it's just even in terms of pronouns in terms of the way that they they have you choose your pronouns so that characters talk to you a specific way wouldn't have been that hard to get a couple more options in there it wouldn't be hard to have the option B it wouldn't be hard to have the option B like choose your pronouns as opposed to

to choose the voice and then that voice then determines what your pronouns are like it is a like there are quite a few bizarre decisions given this game being a cyrupunk game because like I like I feel a lot of the talking commentary I've seen around this stuff has been like hey yeah this is cyberpunk

and this is what cyberpunk is supposed to be right its attitude it's edgy it's style and I think some of that stuff I think does hold up when you get into it but but then a lot of that other stuff just doesn't like in terms of the way I've been trying to put it is like cyberpunk from a game that is made and that is made and put out in 2020 right versus cyberpunk from the 1980s or 1990s I don't think should be the same right I feel like with how we've grown as a society and how we look at things now and how we are able to take

things and reinterpret them through a 2020 lens this stuff should feel and look way more progressive than it is but like it does look it does come off a lot of times like a game that was made in the 90s with cyberpunk in the 90s in mind. And with that, like, this doesn't feel future looking for a game that is set in the future, which I think is bizarre. Even progressiveness, I don't think is the goal. It's that if you're making a, from wall

to wall in cyberpunk 277, they're just sex everywhere. And if you have a game that's about transhumanism and about sexuality, you have nothing to say about trans sexuality beyond just, I don't know, corporatism, then you've failed on a fundamental level in your writing. And that's kind of what I'm looking at here.

Like, the Witcher had a backdrop of fantasy to tell morality plays about humanity. Cyberpunk has a backdrop of cyberpunk to tell stories about cyberpunk. And that, I think, is kind of where it falls off for me is I wish that, like, they were willing to be more ambitious at the writing, and we're willing to tell those stories

that not even necessarily needed to be told, but could be told. And especially if you're alluding to that stuff in some sort of way, because I think that also reflects, like, I've been jokingly complaining about the dildos because there's so many dildos in the game, right? And, like, there was the article that came out today that was that, uh, yeah, Sirepunk, the, they came out and then, and they said, right, that there's, they're going to,

they're going to adjust the distracting amount of dildos that are in the game, right? And, like, how in 50 years does everything change except dildos? Like, those dildos look different. Those dildos look different. But, like, Imron, when you perfect something, you stop working on it, all right? Well, but to, to that, right? I'm in Paris there's like a couple of responses I got that were like

dude this is it's cyropunk right like it's it's sex it's all this stuff but I there's other ways to do that besides throwing dildos all over the place like get a pleasure sleeve in there like do something else like modernize this and switch this up in a way that makes it feel uh like makes it feel true to what it is right

if you're gonna if you're gonna go it all in in in terms of the sex stuff like go all in and make that stuff feel fleshed out and give it justification behind it. Like, same with, I think I brought this, I think I brought it in my review. I'm not positive. It was a note I took as I was taking notes during the game. Like a lot of the care, a lot of people groups in the game feel like a feel can come off as set dressy in terms of hey, we got the Japanese folks in Arasaka and they're here to fit this specific purpose of making this corporation scary and doing all this stuff, right? And then also in, in, uh, in

Pacifica, we got the Haitian group and they're there because they're also scary and they're gangsters and all this stuff, right? We also got Jackie Wells, who I love as a character, but I do think it's kind of weird that he speaks Spanish like randomly at times to your character who I don't think speak Spanish, right? Like, there's some sort of justification or reasoning behind, oh yeah,

like this is like, this is why this is why Jackie goes so hard in this way, right? Or this is why, or here's some here's some more to flesh out the Aresaka folks, or here's some more to flesh out X, Y, and Z. I feel like that do well, especially in terms, especially when you look at ways in which quite a few characters,

do feel like they're fleshed out. Like Jackie Wells, despite that stuff, I think it's an awesome character. I love his character. I think is awesome. There are a few characters from Erosaka that I think are cool characters. Pan Am, awesome character. Claire, awesome character. There's like a diverse range of cool characters that are fleshed out and

are from different backgrounds and have different body types and all this stuff. Like, the quality is there, but then they fall into the trap of, all right, cyberpunks, we have to have style. We have to do this, we have to do that, we have to go all the way. But they go all the way in the wrong ways, which I think is unfortunate a lot of the time. Before we move on, I want to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN.

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Remember, that's forhims.com slash kind of funny. Paris, who are some of your favorite characters so far? Oh, without a doubt, it's, I guess you call her Pan Am, right? Pan Am, that's, I mean, easily, easily her. I think, I think Johnny Silverhand would probably be second in that, just for his legacy of who he was and now in this world of 277 and coming to grips with everything. I, again, I'm trying to not spoil anything.

So I think that's another fascinating aspect. And I would say underrated for without spoiling it, Evelyn Parker. And you'll see why when you play the game and everything that means with that. But now one thing I actually do want to go back to from the previous conversation, because I realize I really got to jump in if I want to say something. Right. So when you're talking about the trans poster and just the controversy that that had in the real world a couple years ago to where we are now that we have the game, it's unfortunate because now I'm asking myself, what is the social commentary that cyberpunk 2077 is trying to tell? Because I don't know what it is. Like, okay, we're talking about trans rights. Is there racism in this world? I mean, I don't know because you're not telling that story. you're really telling, and now you bring this back to Blade Runner,

like Blade Runner for its time back in 82 was edgy. But you're almost telling that same story again, I feel, in 2020, and we're used to that because we've already seen it a million times. And you're not, I guess the best way I'm trying to say it is, I feel like right now they're playing it very safe. Now, I've not finished the game 100%, so I don't know how it ends, but it's very safe right now. It's doing a lot of tropes that,

were used to and I'm not like at oh my god I cannot believe they did that I'm like yeah yeah I've seen that in this movie I've seen this here there and and that's what I'm still waiting to see what what is this game trying to tell me what is the message that it wants to leave with me versus just all right I pick up a mission here I go do this or I'll do some cool hacking I'll upgrade my weapons and I'll solve it I get some points all right move on to the next thing That's kind of where I am with cyberpunk, where I really thought it was going to leave this message with me that would be something that when the credits roll, I'm going to be stuck with. I'm going to be thinking about it. It's something that I'm going to want to hop on Twitter and some message forum and talk with other people about because it was so engrossing to me.

And that isn't happening yet. So maybe it does by the time I get to the end. I don't know. But it's not there for me. Yeah, and I think that's what you're seeing so many great reactions and think pieces to it, right? And so much different commentary about it. I'll shout it from the rooftops over and over again, Carolyn's Polygon Review, Polygon Review, right? Talking about being a trans person playing this game, reviewing this game, and what does that look like, right?

And I pulled up this paragraph, right? For elements like the inescapable dehumanization of trans people on imagery throughout the city to function as any kind of critique of transphobia, the game itself would need to create tension around those images by showing us. humanized trans people navigating the world, but it doesn't. She goes on to talk about that of how you don't run into other trans people that they make a thing about. So you're only seeing this representation. And it's the same thing. I saw this from Matt T.M. Kim over at IGN.

He tweeted this last night. My brain's inability to come up with cyberpunk 27 and Asian representation thoughts is because Asian representation in cyberpunk 27 is no different than Asian representation in Blade Runner or any other mainstream cyberpunk story. all the thoughts I have in those just carry forward. It's not better or worse, which is an indictment on the genre and 277 for not doing something different from the established norm in this regard. He talks about it.

There was a whole conversation that sprung out of that last night of, you know, the Asian characters in this game are there to be bad people, right? That they are like invaders to this thing and they're causing this strife and there's this. And like, even in the responses to Matt, somebody was like, let me guess. There's a lot of honor in this.

And he's like, yes, in the first 10 minutes, it's all about honor. And it's like all that stuff that are the tropes, that are the predictable things, that are the stereotypes that I think you can run through and have a fun time playing this game. But yeah, am I going to, I'm not right even now in the main quest, that's not where I'm getting the juice and I'm excited about, right? I'm so stoked when Pan Am calls me and wants me to go to the bad lands to do something. When Judy rings me, it is in trouble. It's like, oh, yeah, that's the interesting, the really interesting stuff.

Like, I'll get Johnny where he needs to go or whatever, but like I really care about, you know, what's going on with these characters I'm meeting that do feel more diverse and have different angles on everything that's going on. And that's what the thing's Paris was talking about earlier was like, it's like a Mass Effect 3 style mismatch of urgency is that Johnny Silverhand has a story that absolutely needs to get resolved immediately.

But like I want to go talk to Judy because she's cool. And like that is, I'm struggling with that because like a Mass Effect 3, you can't have those two kinds of things because it just reminds me, you were in a video game. And that just immediately like shakes the immersion. That's, it's such an interesting thing there because I,

I almost want to ask everyone, like, are you disappointed by cyberpunk 2077? I am. I am saying, mind, it wasn't your time yet. You're going to get 60 seconds on the clock

when he says it. No, because personally, it's weird where I, I am positive on this game. And I definitely have criticisms of it. But I am very disappointed with the game. Like,

I am enjoying it because it is, allowing me to play it how I kind of wanted it to. I wanted it to be this bigger than experience that made me like something that I don't traditionally enjoy. You know, like I wanted it to be the opposite of what you're saying. And Ron, of,

oh, it's a video game. It's like, I want all the, the story and all the RPG elements to add up to something because this was supposed to be that. Those expectations were set. Like,

I am not, I was not overhyped on this game. Like, I was promised something. I was shown something time and time again. And that is not. would say you were lied to. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. And so that's why I kind of feel like I'm a little at odds with it, where it's like, I am enjoying it playing it the way that I'm playing it because there are set pieces that I'm really liking and XYZ. But that isn't what I was expecting from this game or what honestly should be there. Paris, do you remember in Witcher 2 when you make a choice midway through the game? And depending on what choice you make, you have two entirely different second half of the game, right? that this doesn't feel like the people who made that game.

Exactly. That's what I was saying before. And that's kind of the weird thing. To answer your question, Tim, I'm so conflicted because there's parts of this game that is absolutely phenomenal. It's amazing. But then there's parts of it that I'm just absolutely disappointed in

because I don't think this is the game that they were trying to sell us, the past X amount of years. It's just not. I was preaching even more recently. Again, I'm one of the hype guys. I'm super hyped about the game. But I had been preaching recently, like,

this is not Grand Theft Auto. This is an RPG. I think I was wrong. I feel like this is way more Grand Theft Auto than it is being an RPG. Are there RPG elements in it? Yes. But I don't feel like you have to pay attention to them

if you don't want to. I think it was Kelly. think it was Kelly from from GameSpot that pointed this out okay Kelly Kelly sorry sorry no no it's it's because the Reddit thread that was there I think Kelly from games around but it well I've met her before so I'm an idiot but um excuse me she pointed out that she barely crafted in the game like there were certain RPG things that you feel like you'd have to do she didn't do it and even me playing I've done some crafting but I've done it just because I feel like I probably should but I don't have to the game's not forcing me to be resourceful

I feel like there was a conversation offline before we even started about ammunition it's everywhere I don't I don't ever worry about running out of ammo when when I'm playing or I'm shooting or doing anything the hacking I do it because I want to do it not because I want to play as a net runner not because I have to and I understander's choice there but I feel like even the skill points I'm putting into certain things, I want it to matter more and it doesn't in this game. And that's what I thought I was going to get when picking up this game. And I know I really sound like such a Debbie Downer on it, but I think it's because the expectations, like we said at the top, were just so high. And coming off the Witcher 3, I fully expected them to at least match what they did with the Witcher 3.

Like I would say right now, if you told me, Paris, do you have to pick the Witcher 3 or cyberpunk 2077 right now which one you're going to pick i'm picking i'm picking the witcher three because i mean i've easily put over 500 hours into that game i don't know yet if i'll do that with cyberpunk 277 and that's kind of i never thought those words would come off of my lips a week ago that i'm saying right now and that that's kind of where the disappointment comes is the bugs will get fixed i know that i'm not worried about that they will fix the bugs i just worry that all right once i do go through all three life paths in this game. Now what? What am I doing? What's bringing me back to want to continue to play like I did with the Richard three? It's like I've done that story a million times,

but there's so much about that open world that I loved that I just like walking around and exploring. Whereas I feel like with Knight City, as impressed as I am with it right now, am I going to be impressed with that open world a year from now, two years from now? The randomness of the NPCs, is that going to start to bug me now? Like you said, everything stops with the AI when I get out the car and they're waiting to see what I do. Is that going to bother me? Because that doesn't happen into Richard III as an example. So these are the concerns that I have right now that I just absolutely did not think I was going to have going into this game. And I bring it with what I said at the top. I really wish they would have delayed this further because I think the bones are there.

absolutely they're there. I just don't think they got it all the way home yet when they launched the game. I think it needed more time. Obviously, go for Greg. No, I want to piggyback off that because I think you nail something, Paris. That's the same thing of like, am I disappointed with it, right? Like, yes, because I think it's what you're talking about. You look at it and you see what they were selling us and what they were showing us at E3.

And clearly, you knew there should be more. We know there should be more. We know it should work a different way. I shouldn't feel like the Truman Show when it stops, right? I shouldn't be sitting here saying, why am I bouncing on this motorcycle, all these different things. I'm still enjoying the game.

I still think the story gets over it. But one of the, I think the great disappointments of the game is something you said there too, is that I want to be a hacker, right? I love going in there. I love breaching, taking down the cameras, distracting stuff.

But like, it's me forcing myself to do that. The game didn't force me into a choice where I put my points in, and that's how I have to tackle situations. It's, you know, I got it in, what was the short circuit? The first time I had short circuit, right? I went there.

I was way outside of the range, but I could see it. I short-circuited somebody. They went, oh, they turned a football field away from me. And like, hey, that guy got it. And I was like, oh, fuck. And then I ran in, and I murdered them all with my guns. I had my three guns, just fucking wreck shop and destroyed them. And so then, you know, you jump an hour, whatever it was later.

A similar kind of thing happened. I wanted to start hacking. I did the thing. one person saw me or one camera, as soon as it started, saw me, and I just murked everyone. And so it's that thing of like, all right, so clearly, at no point do I need to hack. I can just run in and murder. And granted, I can turn up the difficulty and do a bunch of different stuff. But I can clearly just run over and be smart about ammo conservation and where I'm healing

and kill everybody. But I want to be the hacker. So I'm going to keep trying to do that, but it's just me trying to trick myself into how the game. I can do whatever I want. And that's the perfect way to put it. I'm trying to do like the selfie, like a net runner hack and everything. And I know I'm only eight hours in and I've been trying to put as many points as I can into like quick hacking and all that stuff. And yeah, like so far it feels like the hacking stuff feels as again, I'm very early on.

So I don't know like how much it opens up. Right now it feels as surface level is like watchdogs. But at least with watchdogs, I have the. kind of control to keep things stealthy. Like, stealth in this game is sub-Degos X, which is like, it's surprising, because this is like years and years later,

they could have looked at Deo-Sx and going like, all right, let's do that. Because I started specking a stealth, and then at some point I realized this is just more work for when I could just literally walk up to them, take my best and go like, brap-brap, and like, that's it. Like, that's faster and easier.

It just gets me to what I want in the first place, which is story. So, like, it has that, like, old PS1JRBG problem of I'm getting kind of annoyed with the gameplay so I just want to get that part over with so I can get the part I like which is the cutscenes. So what's interesting for me is I seem to differ from all of you where I don't like the net running stuff at all. So I'm like I just want to build up.

I want to be a powerhouse. I just want to run and shoot guns blazing and kill. And I think that that's why I'm enjoying those bits more. It's like because to me that stuff is fun and it is semi rewarding me when I'm putting my skills in those ways to just go through and. The game hasn't been challenging it all so far, except for when it crashes and stuff, and I have to do things over and over.

It's very frustrating to be happy. Yeah. But it's like I feel that so far with the quest that I'm doing, it's like I'm able to have fun being in this room, shooting people and like dealing with the overheating, dealing with all the stuff to get to the next cutscene to then move on. But again, that's not what I expected this game to be.

What I'm describing is uncharted. Yeah. You know? And like, And in a lot of ways, I feel like I am in joy. Like the reason I'm as high as I am on the game is it's allowing me to play it like an uncharted game. And I am getting rewarded for that. And it just seems like there are times when it gets pulled away from there that I'm like, huh.

Okay. I want to ask you guys a question here. The James Davis makes rights in. Let's start Game Awards 2021 predictions with these questions. Will Cyberpunk 277 win game of the year? with all the yellow with all the yellow queens will it win best community support will it win any awards at all i think i think there's a strong possibility that gets nominated for game of the year it's not going to win but i think i think it's up there for nominations if you're talking about the pc version like i think

people like ig n's game of the year nominees went up today and on cyberpunk they specifically specified the pc version of cyrpunk it's nominated for game of the year and left the other versions out obviously because they gave the other versions of four out of ten i think that's a possibility possibility, especially if they're able to support it and patch it and have that thing up to snuff. And on console, but probably mostly on PC, because I think it is for all the, I think for all the complex emotions and like complex feelings we have about the game, because it is such a deep game that is trying to go for so much. And there's so much we can pick apart. And there's so much that I think, uh, most of us here like, like for all for all that stuff. I think overall,

it can lend to itself to an experience that is fantastic if that is what you're, you're looking for. But I am like, I'm also on the same side of, yeah, we're our expectation is too high for this thing for a thing that is like trying to do so much and be so much just so many people. So, I agree with you almost completely, but I want to quibble with your word choice. I don't think it's a deep game. I think it's a very wide game. There's a lot of things you can do, but there's very little like depth to actually going into doing them. I would definitely agree with that. And that's where my disappointment does come in. I was expecting multiple layers to this. where you could really go down the rabbit hole with certain things,

and it's just simply not there. I'll just say this really quick as an example when we're talking about the net running and it being pointless. There's a mission with Evelyn. I'll just leave it at that, so it's not spoilers. That was my Sam Fisher moment in that mission, where I played it super stealth, doing all the hacking,

basically descending down to where I needed to go. And then I got spotted, and I made it and said, well, F it pulled out my katana, slice, slice, slice, slice. And I just completely broke the immersion of that. There was no penalty for me being spotted. I just went from being Sam Fisher to John Rambo, and that was it. You know, so I 100% agree with you.

It's very wide, but depth is just simply not there. Even like, you know, every time I get a perk point or a level point, and I go into that, and it's like, all right, what do I want to do? and I start reading into them, none of them jump off the page. Like, I've looked into the trees. I'm like, I don't feel like I'm building towards one that I really want. Like, and to Tim, your point, you know, that you're guns blazing and that's, you're enjoying that you want that.

Like, for the record, I enjoy the guns blazing stuff. Like, I think guns feel good. I have a, I have a assault rifle that I love with a great scope that, you know, every, you know, whatever it is, 20% lights people on fire. And so even though it's not doing as much damage as I haven't upgraded it all the way. And it's behind some of my other assault rifles. Like, it's a hell of a gun and I love using it. it's so it's this weird mix of when I do fuck it up and I am like all right I'm gonna kill

everybody I'm like still having fun and it's the you know it's the fallout in me of getting so excited when I like before this I was doing a mission with Goro you know I it all went it all went ass up I fucking kill everybody in this giant complex and then it was the who now I get to loot the bodies and I go to the bodies and I'm collecting all the components and that's when beforehand when I was crafting ammo before we went live and you guys are like why I'm like I got all these components I feel like I should something like I'm not using any of these common components why not like it's this weird thing again yeah I agree of like depth versus width where there's so much to do in the game and like I for the first time

right before we went live too when I was playing getting ready and making some notes like I finally noticed oh I finally have money again so I went and put in a bunch of cyberware for the first time and it's like oh man like I'm excited to use this stuff is it you know is the carrying capacity upgrade going to make me feel that much different no but as a pack rat I want that like I want to be able to go through and just collect everything the video game as video game shit of this that like just really sticks out and bothers me because i wanted it to be such a different like type of experience but i just can we just put a ban on having to look at something and click a button to loot things like i understand that that's what makes it a video game and like

that it's that level of interaction that like really you know changes it from a movie to a video game but it's like if i killed these guys and they have something i want to grab just let me walk over them and just auto pick it up like am i wrong about this like do you guys agree I feel like that's more difficult in RPG. Like, if it's ammo, I think ammo should be auto pickup for sure. Like in every game, if ammo doesn't take up space, ammo should be auto pickup, like, easily. But, like, part of my satisfaction from these games is sifting through each and every body that I kill. And, like, try to figure out, like, do I want this dildo?

Or do I want, like, whatever this is? But, like, that's sort of one of the things that, like, there's some weird UI issues at this game for, game that is like coming out in 2020, even though granted it started development eight years ago. Like, why can't I just look at this thing and say Mark is junk and put it in there? And then like when I go sell all junk, that should just sell all that stuff. There's no like way to Mark his favorite. So don't ever disassemble this. Stuff like that. It's there are UI elements that were solved five years ago that I'm shocked are still in this game. Well, see, I think this goes back to the original question that you read, Tim. Do I think this

will be a game of the year contender when Jeff Keeley comes out next December. Yes, because you know why? I think this game will evolve over the next six to nine months. Like I said before, I do think a lot of the UI issues we're talking about right

now, the bugs, they're going to fix them. They're going to change them. So things like that. I think one thing this game certainly needs right now is a walk toggle. So I can literally just walk around when I'm in Night City versus jogging or running everywhere. Just little quality of life things that I do

think will come because if you go back to 2015 with the Richard 3, it was the same thing. There were definitely a lot of quirks and bugs early on that they fixed. Like, that UI today is not the same UI it was five years ago, you know, and launch. So I do think that will happen

with cyberpunk. I do think the music soundtrack is phenomenal in it. I think, I don't even know if there's a award for music or whatever in the game awards, but I think that's something that can be recognized. The visual on PC. Again, I got a monster PC.

I'm playing with ray tracing and all this stuff. Phenomenal. Absolutely. Those kind of things should be celebrated when the time comes. You know, I think what we're talking about from just a pure gameplay expectation standpoint is where the game falls short. But I also think the average person isn't necessarily looking for that from cyberpunk either. I think as just an open world Grand Theft Auto fall fallout esk

type game I think it does its job just fine. I think people have a lot of fun with it. They'll identify with Keanu Reeves. It'll be great. See Project Red you know they can come out. They'll be nominated Jeff Keely they can come up and they'll make a joke about all the bugs right now and you know that that'll be that. But that wasn't what I was looking for from the game. Yeah, you had a great tweet I think yesterday right. That was the no not like this matrix thing where you're like talking about transparency and review copies and this is not this the season finale of 2020 sucks like this is not how this was supposed to go no yeah it wasn't we're talking about

all the politics and the issues with the game versus the actual game and that's the unfortunate thing i was fully expecting my timeline to be nothing but people just talking about all these amazing things that they did in the game instead we're talking about you know uh lack of review code lack of transparency, everything, obviously, with the last-gen consoles and the bugs. And that's unfortunate, because of all the video game company or developers out there,

CD Project Red was the one that I'll fully admit they had my trust. They really did. So I was not expecting them to deliver an unpollaged game. I thought if anyone would hit the red button and say, you know what, this game is not ready for, you know, for production. we're going to delay it would be them.

And we obviously were seeing evidence of that during the year. So it was just shocking that this is what we got on December 10. If you asked me a week ago, would you ever be like not be completely out of your mind hype for a Witcher 4? I'd be like, no, of course not. Which or 4 would be a game that I'd automatically buy. But now I'm going to be like there's just a little bit of suspicion that like a little bit of goodwill lost.

And that's something that's so hard to get back. And I like maybe a decent part of my cyberpunk disappointment is. just projection that I'm sad that CD Project Red is not the superhero game developer I thought they were. And it really does suck that it feels like so much of it comes down to business decisions. And I know we've talked about this so much

in the last week, but it's like the reality of this is, if the PC version was the only version that came out, I think it would be a much more interesting conversation. Oh, yeah. You know, it would be a much more positive conversation for sure. And then we would still be able to critique all of the, you know, problematic issues and just, like the there still would be crunched there's still a whole bunch of all that stuff that we would

still need to look at but it wouldn't be this thing of like this betrayal of trust from cd project red it would have been like oh here's a great game that has some has some bugs but every game has bugs the level this game has bugs especially on the other systems is like we're talking fallout 76 levels but it's like but there's a game to back that shit up and it's like man so much faith is lost with that and it's like that decision should have been made a long time ago but it clearly wasn't because there's a lot of PS4s in the wild. Like that's it. What do you think, like remember the, I think it was a Microsoft conference three years ago

when they had like cyberpunk 277 coming when it's ready. And the fact that they couldn't like hold to that is I think the most disappointing thing of all. Yeah, it is. I just simply look at it this way. Okay, if the Xbox one and the PlayStation 4 base versions look that way to show us, that's it. I mean, if we would have at least seen it ahead of the. time and could have made an educated decision on, ooh, I at least need to go get a 1X or a PS4 Pro before I play this thing and I'll wait. That's fair. I think the transparency more than

anything is my biggest disappointment right now that, look, the P, like you said, all games launch with bugs. The PC version is acceptable enough that, like you said, I think we'd be having a different conversation, even if it was Series X PlayStation 5. But the fact that they hid the base versions of those consoles just takes away all the goodwill that they had. It just does. There's no way around that because the majority of people that would experience

cyberpunk 2077 in the next calendar year are going to be playing them on those base consoles. And you hid what they were from the consumers. So I don't know. Like I said, it's just a huge disappointment to me. Yeah, Jeff

Grubb had a tweet this morning where you talked about how he tweeted, I feel a dude by CD Project Red. I get that reviews and coverage are inexplicably part of the machine, but it's rare that a company so boldly takes advantage of it to deceive and mislead. In half a decade, when we're talking about which are for, plan to remember this, right?

And like, you know, I kind of had a similar feeling of like, man, it sucks that in a way that like, you know, reviewers and people covering the game feel looped into this market machine of, hey, let's not provide console codes. Let's just provide PC codes because that's the only version that is optimized. And like that from CD Project Red, that's not something that you'd necessarily expect from a company that had so much goodwill with The Witcher 3. And like I think that's unfortunate. And yeah, like, I don't know.

Like in terms of like the game of the year conversation, I think this is going to be fascinating next year. And to see like one, the glow up the game will probably have seemingly. And then two, what that conversation does in terms of is a game, is a game what it is. a year later or is it what it is at launch? And how does that conversation effect? That's the thing about it where I think that becomes the conversation of Washington 2021. Where I think right now in obviously the heat of the moment here right now, no, I don't think Cyberpunk 2077 is nominated for Game of the Year next year.

And I'd be surprised if it was nominated for anything. I think it could get community support. It could get best ongoing game nods if they deliver on what they're talking about. If, you know, this January patch, this February patch, the DLC, the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation or the Xbox. you know, smart delivery versions actually come around, that they're able to bring PS4 and Xbox out of the dungeon into something somewhat playable.

But it's that we're having that conversation of like, cool, but like, can we trust them to do any of that? Like, even their whole thing, you know, I saw the Games Daily headline today about like, you know, the refund debacle as you see people going to get their refunds and PlayStation being like, no. And they're like, no, but like, CD Project Red put out this statement. And they're like, we don't give a fuck what they said.

Like, what are like, that. That is like, that's fine that they said that. I thought there, you know, it was a mealy mouth of apology yesterday of like, oh, man, like we'd love for you to take a chance on us. But if you can't, no, no, no, no. They took the chance on you when they gave you 60 fucking dollars. That was the chance they took. That was, you fucked that up.

And now you have to, you know, atone for these sins. And so how they atone, like this is, 2021 in cyberpunk is going to be fascinating because I would love nothing more if they were like, listen, these are the patches. It's going to get PlayStation 4 and Xbox. one to a place that's playable. Then here the DLCs we're giving you. Here's what the upgrades look like.

Beyond the visuals, right, we are going in and we are changing the AI for the drivers. We're changing the AI for NPCs. We're installing barbershops. We're installing cyber shops to change your look. All these, the things that, again, to Imron's point, you would assume

would be no brainers. The fact that I have to be so careful not to get rid of, what is it, slappy or whatever, the talking gun. Like, he, not a good gun, but I want to upgrade them eventually when I pay for the smart thing, right? So, yes, Skippy. I don't want, I don't want to delete Skippy, but I have to be so close. I have to pay so much attention not to delete M by accident. Like, if they can go and put all that in, great. But, I mean, their response yesterday I thought was so toned deaf, or, you know, Sunday, it was so tone deaf that I just don't have faith that they are on the same page we are in terms of what they need to do. One thing, because I meant to bring this up earlier, that I'm actually shocked as not in the game is some type of transmog. because part part of being V is you get to be this badass looking the way you want

whereas I'm just a hobo I'm literally just putting all these different parts on as I go so I can stay leveled up to where I need to be where it should be I find this badass outfit I want that's how I look and then the other things that I'm looting I'm basically you know you're infusing them

or however you want to say by some trans mock so it's just again And it's these little things that a quote unquote next generation open world RPG in 2020 doesn't have. Whereas like I'm a big destiny player, we've been arguing about TransMogg with Bungee for friggin' frigging for frigging five years. And they're doing it. So it's like it's shocking that CD Project Red didn't have that way to go.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey had that a month after launch, right? Because everybody wanted it so badly. And I was shocked it wasn't there. And I guess on paper, their argument is that you can upgrade the stuff. You know what I mean? you can use your materials. But I started doing that. And even then it's like, man, I'm putting a lot in.

And then I'm already tapping out on what I have. Do I really want to do that? So I've been committed to this look for my character, but it is underleveled. I could have more armor. But again, to our point, right? Like, basically what I do is I go to my journal or over on the map over the icon. And if it says danger high or very high, I'm like, fuck that. I'm underlevel.

And I'm not going. It's moderate when I'll actually go try to tackle something. I mean, it's insane. Like this game at, you know, it's base core of what it is, is fantasy, performance of cyberpunk and being cool. And I hate that I feel like I look cooler in real life than my V looks in this game. And that's some bullshit because I am not cool looking. But it's just like, let me look cool.

Let me wear a cool jacket that glows and shit. And it's like, I see there are some of them, but it's like, oh, well, it's better for me to wear this thing with these crock-looking ass shoes. I'm like, what the hell, man? Like, I just want to look dope. It's also like a merchant chattering. Like I had a scene with fingers, the like Ripper Doc that like, like, he's supposed to look weird

and he's supposed to look like a creep and like there's a part where you sit down next to him and when I was like sitting down he did the animation I was like oh wait I'm wearing booty shorts for this like really tense conversation where I'm like you're a sick freak it's like no I'm also looking like a huge idiot

right now and I had a weird bug that I think was fixed just by restarting the game where all of like my base outfit like V's favorite top and stuff like that when I put it all on in first person when you look down at your body, it was all there. But if there was ever a shot of my character

in third person, so if I looked in a mirror or when you get your eye removed to put in the new one, you kind of see your body, the game didn't register that I was wearing any clothes. So, like, I would just be completely naked. And it was just like, one of those things. It was like, what?

You're proud of your body, Barrett. What size you pick, Barrett? I played as a female. I'm playing as female, so. I don't need to talk about this. One dies vagina. That's also kind of upsetting. You have all these different options for your penis,

meaning five options, because you can go big, small, little circumcised, uncircised. There's only one vagina in the game. Yeah. Which, like, sounds like I'm joking, because part of me is joking,

but the other part of me is, like, you know, like, yeah, let's spread the love around. Let's spread the love around. Let me customize my V. Yeah. So I want to say one thing,

because I, you motherfucker. One thing I want to say is, like, as we were leading up to this in the years, like, for this game was so weird. And like, there had been things they've apologized for and things they've kind of brushed off. And it wasn't until I got into marketing for a video game studio that I realized, if you say things, the leadership

doesn't like, you get torn up. So the fact that so much of this stuff persisted through the years really makes me think, okay, then they didn't really disapprove of this. They just wanted to, like, you know, say this stuff and, like, leave people around. And that bothers me a lot, that they were able to, like, we're. We talk about the transphobic stuff and like, it's more stuff than that. We did talk about how they did lead some like,

game-rugating style, like, vocabulary around with this game. And now that I have a first, like, first person awareness of it, it kind of makes me think parts of the community interaction and the way CD project interactive with people is a little gross.

And I, that is my, saying my piece on that part. Lots to say. I agree. Yeah, I mean, it was definitely gross. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like that's a no-brainer.

I think that, you know, it's, remember when they did do the, um, uh, the Gog tweet, right? And then they like, if to the people we offended, you're like, that's a weird way to apologize. That's not how you apologize to people, actually. It really makes you think about like what their values are as a company. Yeah. And, and what they strive to be. Because again, yeah, like back in the Witcher days, um, they weren't trying to be like this edgy company and we could

see them as like making this great game and the more and more they've sunken into this edgy cyberpunk shit it's like they're really so showing their full ass. There's only so much Rojo allowed to do that. Yeah and I think I think it doubly sucks because there's fucking

like there's talent there right like yeah there's so much in the game or the animator or anyone who it's not their fault. There's so much good in this game and for it to be tainted by so much bad around it just purely sucks because Because again, like the work of so many talented people over there, like you said, right, the programmers, the people that are designing the world. People working six days a week on this game.

Yeah, the people who are going to continue on the game and are going to continue now. And then DLC. In a February patch, right? Like those people's work are being tainted by all the shit around this. And I think that is, it's terrible. It sucks. That, yeah. If I could be frank for a second.

For me, because look, let's just keep it real. Last couple of years, I've obviously been. a lot of the hype and everything, my face has shown up in a lot of that stuff, right? So if there's been any frustration that I've had is because of, and I'm just going to blame it on leadership, because ultimately it's their call. Because of the actions of leadership, I feel like, like you said, there's people on the development side, the QA side, people that I know that I've had private conversations with over the years. and, you know, dare I say, call some friend,

that this feels like such a letdown that I have to talk about this game this way. I didn't want to. I wanted to literally have on my pom-poms and, you know, the skirt and everything and just celebrate this game. That is what I wanted to do today. I really thought that's what we'd be doing.

But instead, you know, I got to tell the truth about what's happening. I have to tell the truth about my experience with the game. And that bums me out more than anything because you see the commentary that's happening on social media and other places read and all that. And it's very toxic. Excuse me. It's very negative. And that's terrible.

And they're the ones that I'm talking about the developers and stuff. They're the ones that are quote unquote on the front line having to deal with that because of decisions that were made that were out of their control. I said at the top, I'll say it again. I really feel like if they would have just sucked it up and delayed this game until April, as an example, which like I said, would have been a calendar year delay. Sure, people would have grumbled, happened for about a week, they would have got over it. The game comes out super polished in April. And then we're just judging on the merits of the game itself, the actual content of the game.

Instead of all this other bullshit that we're talking about, which no one wants to talk about this. Who wants to talk about this? I don't want to talk about it. But we have to because it's all a part of the launch. and for better or worse, like you mentioned way earlier, The Witcher 4 comes out, this will be in the back of my head

three, four, five years from now when they announce that. They're going, well, wait, should I get excited about it? Should I believe what they're showing me? Because look what happened with cyberpillar in that launch. And that's the unfortunate thing. I mean, I'm not going to trot out

the old Miyamoto delayed game, bad game. We all know so well, right? But I mean, that is again what we're talking about going forward, is that how I know it's there, but how many no man skies have we seen in our careers? Where it's like legitimately a redemption story where you talk about no man sky and how amazing that game is now.

Fallout 76 obviously launched in a completely broken, fucked up state and is now a completely different game with NPCs and yeta yet. But how much do we talk about Fallout 76? Fallat 76 still didn't hit the way fallout people wanted it to hit. I'm a fallout person, right? Like an anthem, and obviously the list goes on. How many do you see turn that around?

and could can you what is the and this is all stupid i mean but like what would the chat look like at game wars 2021 if yeah cd if cyberpunk goes off and it's going to be those are the guys who ripped me off for 60 dollars they did they bab blah blah like this is you know we had a question on games daily yesterday that was like how do you if you were them how do you fix this and they're already not really doing what i would do because you have to keep your head down and you have to fall on your sword and you have to this has to be a mea couple and you have to be out there and like i would you know think if that leadership we're talking and about that has led to so many questionable fucking tweets and decisions whether it be on social

media side of the actual game right like someone there has to go like there has to be like you have to own this that something horrible is went off here and you fucking lied to people to sell this on last gen hardware and like that's not happening so that will taint this game the entire way through and i really i've been wrong before once or twice i just don't see how we could get to December 2021 and industry-wide opinion and fan base opinion would have turned around to a point where where we're like, man, cyberpunk 2077, what a redemption story.

Yeah, I was talking to BioWare, I think last year, and they told me like, yeah, our plans are to a Realm Reborn anthem. Now, in my head,

I was thinking, like, there have been like two games that have ever Realm reborn, and one of them was Remerborn. Yeah, yeah, there's no man's guy,

right? Yeah. Like, there's, I'm sure at some point, the game will be fine. And I think that is the ultimate problem. Like,

the biggest disappointment here is that, like, this should have been a revolution, and the game itself is fine. And I, how long you can get there or how fat long it will take to get there and how like how much blood, sweat and tears will it will take. I'm not sure it's going to actually be worth it at the end of the day. But they do need to repair their reputation. However, however they can and it's going to involve more than just making the game better.

They have to like really be transparent about a lot of things, including their social media, including like their own corporate crunch policies and all that stuff. You got the multiplayer coming through. that seems to be still planned. And so, like, with that, what does, what does the improvement of cyberpunk 27 look like in the context of them also trying to work on this multiplayer game that in theory, I imagine it's going to be them trying to have their own GT online. Like, if, I don't think they can launch that while the conversation around 277 is still this. I don't mean you can launch PS5 Xbox Series X right now.

Like, I don't think you can say here's the next gen version while you're still trying to patch the last gen version. Like, they're in a rock and a hard place here where it's like, How do you talk about anything new and exciting while it's so broken? Even before the multiplayer, they have expansion packs that they want you to buy with your money. And you can't talk about it and stuff with the game in its current state. So again, I completely agree with you. There's a lot of work.

I feel like they're going to have to do just to somewhat regain our trust in just the next six months. Because again, this cyberpunk isn't just this game that we got last week. They want this to continue for years. So this conversation isn't going to end. But it started off so bad. And like you mentioned, it's so rare to have a redemption story in this industry. You know, like you bring up Anthem as the example.

You know, they're trying. They're going to try and bring it back. But what is everyone going to talk about when they bring it back? How poorly it launched. Was that a year ago? However long ago that was. And that's, it's going to be tough for cyberpunk.

And that's just so unfortunate. I'm telling you, I keep saying it, but I did not think we're going to be having this conversation. No, no, no, no. So it's just shocking. But as negative as this has been here in the back half, can't wait to finish work and play this fucking game tonight. I can't wait to get back into your cycle. Like, again, watching Andy go through that big portion towards the first, during the first inlude in the game, right? Like, yeah.

It's still, it's still a thing that makes me fall in love with that world. And I think there's so much potential and so much good. this year that all the stuff we're talking about in this back half of the podcast, I think just it, it sucks extra because of that, right? It sucks extra because there's so much in this game that is good and it works and that like I love personally. Right. For me, like the lows kind of balance out the highs, but the other way of looking at it is like the high is really balanced out the lows here. Like I really want to experience more of the highs of this game. Anytime I talk about this game, I keep getting shit because I keep using the word love and then

immediately going on into like all the problems I have with it. But it's warranted. That's warranted. Yeah, totally warranted. I think that's totally warranted. And that's why I feel like maybe I am leaning way more negative right now. But I think that's important because I think, you know, I do love what they showed. You know, from two years ago when I walked out of that E3 demo to where we are now, I have absolutely loved this world that they're trying to build with cyberpunk.

I wanted to succeed. Trust me. Like you said, I can't wait to go play it. later. But I'm not going to sugarcoat the issues that have stained this launch because they're real. They're apparent. And I hope they can dig themselves out of this so that we do get the game that we deserve. They do fix the bugs, the AI issues, all that stuff. So they can realize this world of Knight

City that they've been spending so many years building because we all want it. I want it. I'm not just up. Screw this game. I'm never playing again. I'm going to continue to play it. I'm going to finish it. I'm going to finish it. I'm going to do the other two light path. And then hopefully these patches come out and we'll see where we are at that point. But, you know, I do think it's important right now that we point out the bad because it's bad, despite all the good. We have to say it.

Yeah. I think that's a great, a great place to end this podcast. Paris, thank you very much for joining us. Oh, no. Thank you for having me. Where can people find you? You can find me at gamer tagradiotcom and you can find me on Twitter. at Vicious 696,

and I will probably be rambling about something similar to what I just said here today. Please, everyone, go do that. If you are at patreon.com slash kind of funny game supporter at the silver above level, guess what?

We're about to do the post show. Bless, do we have another Bless Who prepped? We do have another Bless Who prepped. It's time, baby. We'll see you in the Post Show.