Good Morning Night City!

"See the oil fields at first light"

U2 - Beautiful Day

 

Four and a half years ago, after having preordered Cybepunk 2077 only to watch the whole pre-launch fiasco unfold (abuse of company staff, incompatibility, missing features, crashes galore, etc.) I took a few steps around Night City only to give up immediately. It largely soured me on preordering in general. But, now that a sequel's been announced, I thought I might as well play that original I so pathetically overpaid for.

I suppose I can't blame CDProjekt entirely for my own reticence. For one, it just turns out I hate ads about as much in virtual life as I do in real life, and a cityscape plastered in abrasive, upbeat, in-your-face neon screeching cacodemonia makes me simply want to nuke the place. I'm not criticizing it objectively, mind you. I doubt you could stay true to the genre's Neuromancer / Blade Runner roots without some smatter of decor a la migraine. That's the punk aesthetic. *sigh* I've suffered it before, I suppose. Shadowrun Hong Kong was decent enough, and though not cyberpunk, No Man's Sky bears the same bubblegummy cross, if more low-key.

 

I'm more bothered by every character so far also fitting that mold. Again, I can't criticize them objectively, they're immersive and apt to this setting, but I can only spend so long rubbing elbows with swaggering, body-decorating, semiliterate, imbecile street trash. So when my beefy best bud asked me to visit the ripperdoc after the second tutorial mission... I walked right on past the car, and kept walking. If this is an open world game, let's put that to the test. First order of business was climbing to the top of the nearest parking garage, then along the highway until an offramp put me in the next neighbourhood. Finding myself headed vaguely northwards, I decided to just keep walking, hitting various targets of opportunity as I went.

 

Trying to find my heading itself turned out annoying. Why is there no option for a north-fixed minimap? You should always be thinking about your orientation versus the game world as a whole. Turning maps are for brainless twitch-gamers. At least they tacked on a compass at its corner, but it's still inexcusable.

 

That nuisance was tempered however by finding myself more than able to clamber down from highway ramps to rooftops and awnings and dumpsters to street level. Fully interconnected environments with no invisible walls go a long way toward establishing superiority over the previous decade's crop of Skyrim clones. Thus I spent a cheerful few minutes rather literally monkeying about. Better yet I discovered the hacking minigame and soon found myself hunting half a dozen suitable jacks in a row. Elegant replacement for other games' mithril resource nodes. Then it was on to the first boxing match against the twins, then responding to a police call, which took an embarrasing few reloads. Apparently the AI knows to keep cover or rush you to flush you out. I pick up my freebie software demon at the Kabuki Market, discovering I've acquired enough money and parts to craft a couple of others. Next stop: some good old soul-draining cyberware. A crit bonus nervous system mod would take me exactly to capacity. Guessing that's a hint from the devs, but the wolfman takes no hints! Instead opt for shooting stamina reduction and carrying capacity boosted to level 2 for all the loot I assume I'll be collecting in no time flat. With that and a couple of looted submachineguns I feel ready to take on the world.

 

Heading north led me to, appropriately enough, Northside. Now this is more my kind of place: unvarnished, utilitarian, no need for back-alleys because it need not hide its grime. Sure enough, as soon as I cross the street I run into an unhappy meeting of minds.

While two gangs are busy beefin' or squattin' or thuggin' or whatever it is they do, I take the opportunity to put my newfound cyber to the warfare. Proper application of hacked barrel explosions and one grenade leave me with only 2 wounded enemies to shoot. Then just across the street, two more Maelstrom members are arguing next to yet another exploding barrel; free, effortless loot. Will all mooks in this city come bundled with their very own hackable exploding barrel? That could get boring fast.

 

From there I start getting into the swing of things. Hit a gig nearby, Hippocratic Oath, finally learning how to get multiple rewards in the hacking minigame. Yes, I appear to be gravitating toward netrunner. (Guess I don't stop being an elf wizard just because the wizardry's of the tech variety and the elf is... look I'll figure out how to become an elf eventually, alright?) Two more groups of gangsters with more exploding barrels give me a chance to try other guns, but I'm already getting half the grunt-work done with Overheat instead. Keep a northerly heading, steal me one-a-dem newfangled motorized velocipedes, stop to foil another assault for the piggies and wtf, my very own someone's else's bike just vanishes during the fight? I get the need to despawn unused corpses and vehicles, but doing it right in front of the player's eyes is a bit gauche these days. Sidetrack for another gig, Rite of Passage, got me a swanky new electro-shotty out of it, but the ambush afterwards takes half a dozen reloads to beat. I need more RAM regen.

 

Bypassing the Maelstrom base just dead-ends into the bay. Do I want to continue my northward odyssey? Screw it, let's go for a swim... only to get hit with the lifeguard whistle.

They ain't lyin' either. While the northern border's got some lovely massive industrial architecture, it features nothing to interact with. Apparently I really will have to spend my time hobb(es)ing with the knobs. There is no escape from the gutter. At last defeated, I surrender to the end of the world and call my wheels up to ferry me back into the hardboiled wonderland.

Well, so far so bearable. It was a beautiful day in Night City.