Why I’m proud to be a cyberpunk V 1.0

Once in a decade I have a bit of a binge on computer games.

Ever since I used to bunk off Friday afternoon maths with a few mates to play the very basic, first generation of computer games on my ZX Spectrum I have had a general interest in how games have developed over the four decades since.

Occasionally a game will leap out as being interesting.

In the late 90s I remember watching my nephews play the James Bond ‘Goldeneye’ game on Nintendo and being amazed at how ‘awesome’ the graphics were and how aspects of the film had been recreated in the games.

A few years on I borrowed a copy of Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza to play on my PC and was fleetingly addicted to rampaging around the digitally created tower block killing off the terrorists.

That experience got me venturing into PC gaming for a while when I bought a copy of Half Life for myself.

Latterly, through buying consoles and games for the girls, I have ventured occasionally in first person/multiplayer shooters for the Wii and Call of Duty on the xBox and enjoyed watching Georgia playing Grand Theft Auto and Chloe playing Red Dead Redemption.

So a combination of lockdown enforced downtime and being a bit in limbo following the cochlear implant operation and learning to hear again electronically has created a ripe environment for me to venture into gaming again.

I spotted a while back that Google was experimenting with a cloud based gaming platform called Stadia and having switched more and more to cloud based platforms in many aspects of professional life it seems like a natural and logical path for gaming to follow.

A few minutes of account creation and parting with £40 on my credit card and I was the proud new owner of a Stadia 30 day trial and my own ‘cloud’ copy of Cyberpunk 2077. The promotion also threw in a free Stadia controller set-up, usually priced at £80 – so all in all a decent sounding opportunity 🙂

This spur of the moment purchase means that I approached the Cyberpunk game with no pre-conceived ideas or expectations and the criticism hadn’t gone mainstream at that point so I was pretty much unaware that the hardcore gaming community were not impressed.

I, on the other hand, have been extremely impressed and I’ll go as far as saying that for a spur of the moment purchase that £40 has delivered the best value for money entertainment I’ve ever experienced.

If 50 plus year old occasional gamers are the development company’s target market then they’ve got it absolutely spot on. I somehow doubt it however and I guess that’s why they’ve faced some flak for not meeting expectations.

In my childhood, 2000AD was my first and only consistent comic that I looked forward to eagerly each week from when it launched in 1977. Within that it was Judge Dredd who was the stand-out creation for me. I was a big fan!

Dredd inspired my subsequent love of motorcycles and the story setting in a futuristic MegaCity One is said to have been the earliest visual example of the ‘cyberpunk’ genre, which was first brought to the big screen through Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner in 1982 – easily one of my all time top films.

Although I was vaguely aware of Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk fantasy board game, also launched in the 1980s, the whole Dungeon & Dragon type role playing scene passed me by so it wasn’t really until The Matrix in 1999 that ‘cyberpunk’ was brought back to life for me.

Since the 1990s, Keanu Reeves has become the on screen king of cyberpunk from his starring role in Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix Trilogy to being digitally recreated more recently in Cyberpunk 2077.

It’s been a lot of fun hanging out with him over the last couple of months.

A game character modelled on a younger version of myself with Johnny Silverhand, brilliantly played by Keanu Reeves

I don’t want to spoil the central plot of the game for others but it has similarities to Johnny Mnemonic, which is probably why Reeves was top choice as the real life model for one of the game’s key characters.

Here are a selection of screenshots that help explain why I have found this game so engrossing …

The artistry in the game is phenomenal ! The way the light and weather changes around the city and its surroundings is very atmospheric. As the mist descends it is very reminiscent of Blade Runner.
Whenever you are on the outskirts of Night City, the skyline views are incredible in both the dark and the light. The fact you can explore this City freely and in-depth shows the vast degree of imagining the developers have put into it.
But it’s also the smallest of details that add to the experience. From subtle reflections in puddles and potholes in the roads to worn road markings and discarded litter – this game has been imagined down to pixel level.
Despite its dystopian backdrop, Night City has a softer side and I can be equally enthralled by the trees, grass and weeds that are also imagined and brought to life in extraordinary detail
A good game needs believable characters and those have been created and brought to life in exceptional detail too. Beyond the obvious recognition of Keanu Reeves you really do think the other folks you meet along the way have real life versions as well. They can even remind you of people even closer to you 😉
Motorcycles are a big aspect of the cyberpunk genre and the game is full of amazingly imagined machines that you can ride around to your heart’s content. They are close enough to today’s reality to real make you feel like you are actually riding them. The crashes can be scarily realistic too …

As well as following the main storyline of the game – which has different endings depending on the choices you make at various points – you can also make up your own game.

The environment is ‘open world’ enough to just travel around doing your own thing. I’ve probably done that more now than following the central story and to me that is testament to an enormous amount of work from the developers.

It really doesn’t surprise me that this production took 8 years to bring to market and that the end credits are over 30 minutes long!

This map shows just a fraction of Night City and the surrounding areas. At any one time there are many options for your own adventures away from the main storyline and new ones pop up all the time.

A Keanu classic line from The Matrix, that he also uses in John Wick too, is – “Guns. Lots of guns.”

Unsurprisingly, guns are a big feature of cyberpunk generally – it’s that meeting of ‘low life’ with ‘high tech’ that is core to the genre.

This game, and Night City in particular, is no exception with a vast array of weaponry available to the bad guys and the mercenaries trying to take them down. A key feature is that you can take the weapons off the bad guys when you dispatch them and either use them yourself or sell them to improve yourself in other ways, such as clothes and the all important cyberware.

Find and buy the right components during your missions and you can improve existing weapons or craft new ones. Upgrading over time makes the difference between wounding an opponent gradually with repeated shots to being able to remove heads and limbs with one single shot.

The other aspect of the gameplay I like is that it is a mixture of mystery and adventure and it is continually encouraging you to improve your skill set in order to get better at dealing with the challenges you face.

For instance, achieving some goals requires you to hack into systems and for that you need higher intelligence levels.

Choosing how to improve your skills and abilities is a great way to develop a character than enables you to play the game how you want to play it rather than being forced down certain routes.

Perhaps the element of the game, and indeed the cyberpunk genre in general, that appeals to me the most is the concept of human/machine augmentation.

My personal experiences in the last year of being implanted with advanced hearing technology certainly gives me a sense that I am truly cybernetic myself now and just hints at the amazing things that could be possible in the future.

As you can see from the screenshot below it is slightly ironic for me that there are no modifications available for your character’s hearing.

The other touch of irony is the large amount of Eurodollars – or ‘Eddies’ in game slang – that you need for any body augmentation. Given the vast sums of money fixing my hearing has cost over the years, that aspect of the game has certainly resonated strongly.

One of the most expensive modifications you can get for your character is super strong leg tendons that enable you to leap considerably higher than normal. This actually brings another dimension to the game as you can find your way up to amazing number of rooftops in Night City – all similarly rendered in surprising detail to stuff at ground level.

So, for a kid who grew up on Judge Dredd and Megacity One who became a teenager who raved about punk music and Blade Runner and an adult who raved about The Matrix and William Gibson novels, the environment created for Cyberpunk 2077 feels like a second home.

Add in my love of motorcycles, high technology, crafting and coding – and the fact that I am officially cybernetic myself – then perhaps you can understand why I am proud to be a cyberpunk V 1.0 🙂

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