Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cyberpunk Video Games

shellzine.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#61

Post by gregoryyy »

geuis wrote: post #6

Cyberpunk 2077: > Gameplay Type: First Person Shooter Role Playing Game Summary: A long anticipated release with eight years of development time, the game’s launch has been plagued with bugs and poor performance as well as decidedly mixed reviews. Regardless, the title offers gamers the largest open world cyberpunk universe thus far, so despite the rather uninspired art design and a plot that brings nothing new to th…

It had nice cinematic moments - but it felt like GTA with a Hollywood cyberpunk movie attached. Going from bunnyhopping around rooftops and killing 1000s of gangsters and cops in broad daylight with heavy weapons and ridiculous cyberware, to a fairly railroaded narrative about apparently obscure mercenary V barely surviving was some tonal whiplash.

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#62

Post by reactordev »

freehorse wrote: post #48
reactordev wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such an old school way of describing dialog trees. This isn't how it's done anymore. You're going to see more NN's making the decisions than fuzzy matching. That said, I think CDPR kicked the can when they didn't add more "lived in" scenarios in CP2077. The story was good but the world was hollow.

Which games currently use NN's for managing decisions-consequences in the story?

coming... What you have today is the result of 5 years ago of decisions. Give it time to catch up. There's a couple on the horizon that are going to blow you away. However, there are a few indie titles that have already incorporated some of this in smaller, unique ways. OMEA for example, or Wanderfolk.

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#63

Post by big_toast »

ghosty141 wrote: post #10

I love cyberpunk as a genre/style/aesthetic but there are almost no open world videogames that actually nail it. For me the cyberpunk aesthetic basically requires bustling small streets with tons of detail (shops, trash, crowds). That's where most games that try to use an open world fail in my opinion. We just don't have the technology yet to create these dense detail rich scenes without a lot of work on the develope…

Is there any open world game in any genre that manages the "bustling city" effect well? I didn't play Cyberpunk 2077 but Witcher 3 never quite got there either. It seems like 'detail' is a fractal/exponential problem that scales poorly in many respects.

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#64

Post by [deleted] »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #44
izacus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling art design uninspired and plot that brings "nothing new" has to be the dumbest take about art I've seen in a while. I wonder if they actually played the game to write such nonsense.

Dude they literally just aped the styles that were popular on tumblr in the decade before the game was released. Here you go: > https://tacticalneuralimplant.tumblr.com/archive/2013/4 > https://cyberpunktech.tumblr.com/archive/2015/8 Aesthetically, what the game did was literally the very definition of "nothing new" and "uninspired." It wasn't bad, but they definitely weren't pushing any new angles or visions.

[deleted]

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#65

Post by xyzsparetimexyz »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #44
izacus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling art design uninspired and plot that brings "nothing new" has to be the dumbest take about art I've seen in a while. I wonder if they actually played the game to write such nonsense.

Dude they literally just aped the styles that were popular on tumblr in the decade before the game was released. Here you go: > https://tacticalneuralimplant.tumblr.com/archive/2013/4 > https://cyberpunktech.tumblr.com/archive/2015/8 Aesthetically, what the game did was literally the very definition of "nothing new" and "uninspired." It wasn't bad, but they definitely weren't pushing any new angles or visions.

By which I guess you mean they copied Syd Mead? Sure. But that's totally valid. I personally don't really like the game (too many rpg trappings of being stuck in conversations I truly don't care about) but the way the city was realized is gorgeous, especially if you're into brutalism in any way. It's very reminiscent of the BTS system in Bangkok the way that there's a lot of straight concrete.

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#66

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

xyzsparetimexyz wrote: post #65
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude they literally just aped the styles that were popular on tumblr in the decade before the game was released. Here you go: > https://tacticalneuralimplant.tumblr.com/archive/2013/4 > https://cyberpunktech.tumblr.com/archive/2015/8 Aesthetically, what the game did was literally the very definition of "nothing new" and "uninspired." It wasn't bad, but they definitely weren't pushing any new angles or visions.

By which I guess you mean they copied Syd Mead? Sure. But that's totally valid. I personally don't really like the game (too many rpg trappings of being stuck in conversations I truly don't care about) but the way the city was realized is gorgeous, especially if you're into brutalism in any way. It's very reminiscent of the BTS system in Bangkok the way that there's a lot of straight concrete.

Not only Syd Mead, but he's in that set. (One of the great environment designers, but not a particularly noteworthy character designer or, e.g., UI designer.) Put it like this: They copied a well-established aesthetic, which was extremely popular at the time. It fed, and fed upon, the synthwave genre's ascent in the early 2010s. There was even some fawning over brutalism in the ~decade before the game was released: https://tacticalneuralimplant.tumblr.com/post/47196027149

Thing is, nothing was added to the game's aesthetic. No artist or designer put, as it were, his own stamp on the game's designs or environments. It was strictly generic and derivative. So by the time it came out I had seen it all a million times before. It could not have been less original, less inspired.

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#67

Post by ghosty141 »

freehorse wrote: post #53
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Cyberpunk has a good basis but as you say, it's heavy weight; they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think, but also it's a PC game so it can be modded and improved as hardware gets better. The challenge - and you already see it on lower crowd density numbers - is getting enough unique and different characters. Cyberpunk seems to have a number (dozens?) of NPC characters making up the crowds,…

> they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think I assume something like that to be the case, as I played the game last year and "empty streets like covid" definitely don't describe my experience. But apart from stuff like the NCPD-marked encounters spread around the city, you probably do not want to look too closely at the random npcs, as it does get repetitive fast. But they do give an image of a liv…

> and "empty streets like covid" definitely don't describe my experience

I think I gotta explain myself a little better here.

If you play the story it doesn't feel like that too much, but if you just walk through the city you often encounter quite empty roads and walkways. See here for example: https://youtu.be/0J55aRPrgOM?t=1285

Like mentioned above, you sadly can't properly fix it by just upping the population density since there are far too few models and you constantly notice the duplicate characters.

An example of what kind of crowd density and aesthetic I think is necessary for big populated cities can be seen in Altered Carbon: https://youtu.be/aDrj-_dB09k?t=22.

Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to dunk on the game, it's all just my personal opinion of what I want from a game with thats trying to nail the cyberpunk aesthetic.

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#68

Post by ghosty141 »

big_toast wrote: post #63
ghosty141 wrote: post #10

I love cyberpunk as a genre/style/aesthetic but there are almost no open world videogames that actually nail it. For me the cyberpunk aesthetic basically requires bustling small streets with tons of detail (shops, trash, crowds). That's where most games that try to use an open world fail in my opinion. We just don't have the technology yet to create these dense detail rich scenes without a lot of work on the develope…

Is there any open world game in any genre that manages the "bustling city" effect well? I didn't play Cyberpunk 2077 but Witcher 3 never quite got there either. It seems like 'detail' is a fractal/exponential problem that scales poorly in many respects.

I think Witcher 3 is the closest we have right now. Novigrad is a fantastic city and I loved to immerse myself in the game, I even played it without the minimap because it makes you think about your environment much more (NPCs even gave clues where you had to go for a mission in their speech!).

But yea I generally feel the same, that there are no open world games that manage to accurately portray a city (including residents and traffic).

I think the better route than trying to chase realism is using a stylized version of a city. Mirrors Edge does this particularly well imo. "The Ascent" is probaby the best detailed cyberpunk "world" right now (I haven't played it). From what I've seen that game has insane amounts of detail and they make it work by not trying to immitate real life and giving players access to a city but having custom built areas that mimic some aspects of a real place.

I'd love to read more about the whole virtual city topic etc. I feel like it's under-discussed.

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#69

Post by Ferret7446 »

teroshan wrote: post #7
geuis wrote: post #6

Cyberpunk 2077: > Gameplay Type: First Person Shooter Role Playing Game Summary: A long anticipated release with eight years of development time, the game’s launch has been plagued with bugs and poor performance as well as decidedly mixed reviews. Regardless, the title offers gamers the largest open world cyberpunk universe thus far, so despite the rather uninspired art design and a plot that brings nothing new to th…

> this game is the best available to allow players to immerse themselves in a cyberpunk setting Depends what you mean by "immerse". If it means driving through Night City on your bike and enjoying the view, sure. If it means role-playing as a character and building it your position in the city via meaningful choices with consequences, really not.

It's basically WRPG vs JRPG. I think it's safe to say based on historical game performance/sales that most people prefer the "railroaded" story format of JRPG than WRPG role playing.

For most people, video games are about relaxing/unwinding, not embarking on a creative DnD roleplay with "real" consequences.

This is also why linear stories are so much more popular than "choose your own adventure" or "audience participation".

Re: Cyberpunk Video Games

#70

Post by rob74 »

DaOne256 wrote: post #20

Beneath a Steel Sky (1994) should be on this list. It's freeware, available from GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/beneath_a_steel_sky

I started playing that at least three times along the years (if for nothing else, then for the dialogue: "You need a rad suit to go in there! -- What do you mean?! This suit is totally rad!"), but somehow never got very far...
Post reply on HN