Cyberpunk 2077–First Impressions

Okay – so! Let’s cut to the chase here. 1. I haven’t forgotten this blog, I’ve just been hella busy with the holidays and oh, yeah, the US trying to tear itself apart because of some dumb fucked-up complete waste of fucking space morons decided they no longer liked democracy and would much rather proceed to commit a laughable attempt at a coup that resulted in the death of five people for no fucking reason other than that whole group of people was collectively being dumber than a bag of fucking rocks.

Okay… woooosaaaah. Let’s just… take a moment to relax. Chill. Deep breath. Check out my V before we start. Vega Bakker Wells. Because, to him, a name isn't where you come from, it's who you belong to. 

Alright, now, let’s get to the point of this actual post. Previously, I had been playing Cyberpunk 2077 on ‘current gen’ console (xBox one) and while it was commendable, it honestly wasn’t built for it. It just wasn’t. In my opinion, it really shouldn’t have been released in 2020 at all. I get why they wanted a 20202 release date (Cyberpunk 2020 and Johnny being from 2020 etc). But it really needed to wait. Not because the game itself needed a lot more time, it really didn’t (I’ll explain later) – but because we, the people, needed more time so that more people had next gen consoles in their homes. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an xBox series S. I opted for the S over the X because $$ and because honestly, I don’t use disks anymore. Plus, I have a 4 TB external hard drive that works just fine so problem solved there.

That being said – I’m now playing on next gen. And it’s better. Way better. Like… it’s fine. I haven’t had a single glitch at all and I’m well past where I was on current gen. I’m past Jackie’s memorial and have done some questing after that. I’m sure I’ll run into some glitches down the line because, it’s a game, and games have glitches. It’s impossible to have none. I’ve even had Destiny 2 crash to home-screen on me before. It’s extremely rare, but it still happens. Anyway. My first impressions are thus…

1. The game is huge. It’s packed with so much stuff. There are revolving little quest things (assaults in progress) that just pop up all over the place. They’re apparently never-ending and are a great way to earn street cred (I had V up to 20 street cred before even starting the Heist job). The world is full of NPCs in the city, more densely populated at the city center and thinning out the further away from there you get. Which is a nice touch. All of the NPCs react and are hilarious if you even get near them with a vehicle. The children are even funnier because they’re just little people. No video game has really cracked the code on kids yet, not really. The city itself is just huge, enormous. Maybe not in foot print but in the amount of things happening around you all the time.

2. It’s overwhelming. And no, you don’t get used to it – or at least, I haven’t. There’s stuff happening all the time, all around you. It can be a little… much. Like – okay, when I was in Las Vegas, I heard slot machines so much that I started hearing them in my fucking sleep. It’s like that. Night City is so crowded, so incredibly Night City that it can be a little much. Getting out into the badlands is priority numero uno for my V.

3. I started out with the Corpo life path on my current gen play, but on this one – which I’ll be following through with – I went Nomad. Which is just so much fun. It’s the most interesting. The game incites so many ways for you to build up your own V in your head. Vega Bakker Wells, which is my guy, is complicated but kind of not. He’s kinda mean but kinda not. And after Jackie, he’s hurting. Bad. Right away, you get so many opportunities to build your own story in Night City, or outside of it. That’s the sign of a good world, a good story.

4. Johnny Silverhand is an asshole. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. He’s a fucking dick. But – eventually – he comes around. And you get where he’s coming from on a lot of things but others, he’s just an ass.

5. The combat isn’t as bad as people are saying. Maybe if you use the technical combat modes in games that are optional – then you might not like it. But it’s not that bad. It’s pretty standard. –shrug- People are just bitching.

6. There are some hilarious quests in the game, I’ve been on a few so far that were just too funny. [Flaming Crotch Guy]

7. The romance options? What the fucking fuck, CDPR? Seriously. I’m not even going to go into in depth here because I have quite a bit to say about it. But, we’ll just say, as I’m sure you know by now. That female V gets 2 options, Male V gets 2 options. One gay, one straight. Done. Fin. That’s it. In this world of “choices”, those are your choices.

8. The story is a good one but you can see some plot holes. It’s based on a table top game, so there are intentional holes in the story. So, CDPR couldn’t lean on the table top game for those plot holes, that should be filled by players – and you can tell where those holes are. I’m not dissing the writers at CDPR, but you can tell which is Cyberpunk and which is CDPR, if that makes sense. [Yes, I know V is CDPR].

9. Jackie tore me up, just like I knew he would. But, I wish we could have gone on more quests with him. Really get to know him a lot better. Maybe actually help him pick something out for Misty or something. That would have been nice.

10. As a Nomad V, I’d like to know what happened with their family, why’d they leave? What exactly happened. I don’t know if they explain it in the game and I’m not going to go look for it online.

11. The detail is amazing. The graphics are awesome. And current gen doesn’t hold a candle to what next gen can do with this game. It really doesn’t. Keep that in mind if you’re playing on current gen console. If you’re playing on PC, the higher level the equipment, obviously – the better the game performance will be.

Well, that’s about it for this one. I covered a few things and I’ll be posting about the whole romance option debacle next here, hopefully, in a few days.

HC vs Canon

So, with the D4 announcement that we got – I have been seeing a lot of Solas unrest. It’s with that in mind that I figured that I would make a post about the egg and what I generally think about him and the discord surrounding him. obviously these are my opinions and while there are some things supported by canon material – a lot of it is conjecture. Now, with that out of the way…

First, Solas is a villain. Yes, I know all the bruhaha about people wanting him to have a redemption arc and all of that and while he might in DA4, it’s highly unlikely. See – there are a couple of problems that go on simultaneously when it comes to ol’ egghead. One, he was the first romance option in Bioware that straight up betrays the player and leaves. His betrayal is different, it’s not an immediate result betrayal – it’s got long range consequences. His betrayal is his lie and his infiltration of the Inquisition and of the player’s inner circle. Isabella betrays Hawke but, if played correctly, she has a redemption arc. Solas, doesn’t. And they made an entire DLC to prove that Solas isn’t going to have one. That he is the villain and while he may try to spin it like he doesn’t want to do this – the player isn’t going to stop him. Even a romanced player. And in my opinion, that’s even worse. They’ve already come out and said it, the final discussion with Solas is the final boss battle. Because it says to the player, in no uncertain terms, that Solas is the bad guy here and that he will go through with his plan, no matter what the player says or does, he won’t change his mind. He looks forward to you trying… but he won’t change his mind. Solas is an ends justify the means character and while befriending or romancing him does show him that the elves of Thedas are real people, he still considers everyone else acceptable casualties.

And those are the things that people seem to skip right over when they start defending Solas. Let’s make one thing clear here – you can like Solas as a character, you can appreciate that he’s well written and you can like the romance that he has with Lavellan, but still understand that he is the villain in this part of the story. When he’s with the player in the beginning of the game, in the part that we don’t see, he’s not a nurse maid. He’s trying to figure out how to get the anchor off the Inquisitor’s hand without destroying the anchor. He doesn’t give two shits if the Inquisitor dies, as long as the anchor survives. Then, the only reason he’s with the Inquisition after that is because he wasn’t able to get it off. So, he tries to influence the Inquisition, basically babysit his anchor. Let’s not forget that the whole temple explosion and rift is his fault in the first place – if he’d had the power to do it when he woke up, he would have and yeah, it would have been just as bad. Even if you want to chalk it up by saying well, he didn’t know anyone yet – he just woke up in a strange world etc. Okay… but – he doesn’t change the way he thinks about it. It’s not like he “sees the error of his ways” or anything, no matter what the Inquisitor says or does. Once the foci is broken, he bounces – he has no use for the Inquisition anymore and subsequently the Inquisitor anymore. He has other stuff he’s got to do – including sucking the life out of other old gods to get powered up. He can feel like he’s in between a rock and a hard place all he wants but he’s the one who put himself there. Especially since, if the Inquisitor doesn’t “change everything”, then “the people” aren’t even on his list of people to take care of. Plus, let’s not forget his big plan. Which, we aren’t entirely sure of only that he’s got a huge spy network that he’s been building up for however long he’s been with the Inquisition, using his place in the Inquisition to do so since apparently he just woke up before the temple explosion – and then his plan to tear down the veil which will throw Thedas into chaos, which he’ll have to deal with as will everyone else and maybe the world will… eventually chill out… one day… in the distant future?

To put it extremely simply, Solas is responsible for everyone who died at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, who died due to any rift demons all across Thedas, and he’s okay with that. He barely sees humans, dwarves, and qunari as people, and if not befriended/romanced, he barely sees elves as people. He’s got no problem sacrificing however many are going to die once the veil goes. And all because… he wants to bring back a way of life that he’s responsible for ending in the first place. That’s Solas in a nutshell. And while we can say all day long that he made mistakes and he’s just trying to fix it, that he’s redeemable, that he can be saved… I think there’s an important thing that’s being missed.

It’s been a long time since Inquisition dropped. Six years. Six whole years. That’s six years of head canons running wild and a lot of them have been about Solas. Six years of people writing stories, coming up with hypothesis, and conjectures. And that matters… because a lot of what people are expecting out of DA4 with Solas seems to me, to be leaning heavily on a lot of head canon and not canon-canon. Canon = Solas is a villain with no redemption arc. Head Canon = Solas’ love for Lavellan will make him see the error of his ways because she changed everything. See the difference? The first one is what happened, the second one is what people want to happen and while the second one does seem great – it’s probably not going to happen. Even if you want to weave a lot into his character – which is complex – it probably won’t matter in the game. He’s still going to do what he planned to do and it’s going to be our job to try and stop him. Because, he’s the antagonist. He’s the quintessential villain who doesn’t think he’s a villain, who thinks his cause is worthy, and honestly – he’s got a little martyrdom going on in his head. His “feelings” don’t matter – only the cause. What he “wants” doesn’t matter – only the cause. These are things that are canon and in game. We’ve seen it. But – again – head canon gets in the way, it clouds the issues because six years.

Now, me personally? I don’t mind Solas – I’m not a huge Solas fan but I admit it openly, my first play through, my Lavellan romanced the fuck outta Solas and consequently got her heart broke. It was a jarring moment and it was so well written, it was amazing. I mean, award winning shock because what!? But yeah, it was great. But – I’m more of a Blackwall fan. Cullen’s okay… he’s about equal with Solas for me.

Now – head canon Solas? He’s fucking awesome and yes! Of course he is – everyone’s HC characters are much better than canon, because they’re better for us because we made edited them to our preferences. Which is why you’ll see Solas drawn without a sunken in stomach and a bit beefier – because in game he’s… sickly skinny. Even I do it because yeah – put some weight on that dude, no reason for his stomach to be thinner than his waist. But, I digress.

The point of the matter is – we’ve got six years of head canons to shelf when DA4 drops, and I hope that these preconceived notions that are so heavily influenced by head canons don’t get in the way and cause a lot of negative reactions to the game when it does come out.

Anastasia Bray and Rasputin

Y’all.... I cannot stop thinking about the whole possibility of Rasputin being turned into an Exo. I mean... come on. What if... oh man, there are so many what if’s. So, spoiler warning up front because this is going to get into some apparently data-mined information or supposedly “leaked” info or whatever. But first…

Let’s talk about the EXO program created by Bray Tech. I find the Exo’s to be extremely interesting. The entire concept has been done quite a few times over in various genres and games/stories/worlds. We saw something similar in Dragon Age Origins with the Golems. Unwilling or willing souls being put into stone bodies so they could basically be impervious to harm and essentially be super soldiers. The whole “robo cop” thing and “master chief”, hell even Fallout 4 did something with the robo-brains. It’s been done, a lot. But, I think, Destiny has done it the most… comprehensively. There’s a huge backstory to go along with them and a lot of complexities. Not to get too technical because I’m not going to go all lore-in-depth on this but… the EXO program was so incredibly controversial for the EXO’s that they won’t even talk about it. From what I understand, they are the ones that shut that shit down and they damn sure won’t talk about it. None of them will. Now, not all of them even remember it but those that do – won’t say shit. Because the EXO program was jacked up. For starters, as it always is, not everyone was a willing participant. And, as usual, a lot of people died during the program. I mean, it was an experiment. There were bound to be casualties as they figured out how to make it work. But some of the casualties were… unnecessary. Bray Tech suffered severely from the “science brain” thing. Some of the early Exo’s went insane because they were people… trapped in robot bodies. Something any regular, random, laymen would be like “well… duh, of course they went crazy” about. But, something that flew right over the scientists heads. Basically, what ended up having to happen was they had to give Exo’s the physical ability to eat, drink, sleep, and… do… other things. Yeah, that. –droll stare-. So, for all the fan fic writers out there, there you go. They have the equipment. Because people want, people crave, covet, desire and to not be able to fulfill those things? To not be able to sate those desires? They go fucking crazy. And crazy people do crazy shit and when you put crazy people in basically indestructible metal insanely strong bodies, bad things can happen. So, a lot of people died before they figured this basic shit out. Then once they figured that out, if the Exo’s didn’t do what they were told, basically, they just reset them. Scrambled things up just enough so that they were compliant again. And basically kept them as slaves. Now, everyone knows how that works out in the end. So, from what I understand, the Exo’s shut down the Exo program so that there couldn’t be any more Exo’s made because it fucking sucks. Yeah, it sounds great, be strong – be basically immortal – live forever – never get hurt! Yeah! But it sucks. As most guardians can probably attest to after a few centuries of watching people and places just kind of… fade away. I’m still not entirely clear on how Exo’s become guardians, especially if they haven’t actually died yet… or if it’s like… they’re just… shut down or in stasis or like in “sleep mode” or something. I don’t know. Anyway! That’s the Exo part and that’s only a fraction of what Bray Tech did. (They also built Rasputin, who fucked humanity over in a big way but in that way of logic. Sacrifice 1 to save 100 kind of way only he did it on a much bigger scale. Again, robo-brain, i-robot, it’s apparently what AI’s are just going to do…) So yeah… moving on.

Okay, unpopular opinion here... but... I cannot stand Ana Bray. Well, kind of, okay, let me explain. First, let me say that as a character, Ana is adorable. But she’s not without her flaws, which is what makes her a good character. She’s incredibly well written and that’s what makes her great. She’s got a rich history and backstory, she comes from an incredibly interesting family and franchise or whatever you want to call it but… yeah… the Anastasia Bray... thinks that her family? Was like... the greatest ever. That they... didn’t do anything wrong. When... erhm... they did a lot wrong. But! She thinks... or appears to think... that they... didn’t? Or rather, that the ends justified the means. So, like, even though the entire Exo program was horrible. Completely and 100% unconscionable... she supports it. Because it gave the world such great and wonderful golden age technology and advancements. And that, that right there - that thinking? That’s what makes her a Bray. Now, I know the arguments. People can go back and forth all day long about whether or not technological advancements should happen and personally? I think that they should but that scientists should still maintain their moral compasses and take those moments to really think about what they’re doing. Like... maybe don’t force people into robot bodies and then effectively kill them because they’ve gone insane... because you put them in a robot body! Anyway... and then there’s that whole faking her death thing. But not for the reasons one might think. I mean, she saw an out and damn she took it - good on her. But it was the reason she took it that was kind of shitty. I’m not saying Guardians shouldn’t go looking for who they were before, that’s fine though often, you won’t like what you find down the rabbit hole but you might? So, who knows. But... she did abandon people she called friend to chase after it. And that would be fine as long as she stayed gone not pop back up all “oh yeah... this is my pet robot...” Which, by the way, her view of is so incredibly skewed, it’s not even funny. You can see the beginnings of it when you go get the shard to tempt Xol with in the EDZ when Rasputin damn near kills your ass and Zavala’s all “how’d you get him to do that?” And she’s all “I asked him... he listens to me.” Which are two entirely different things but she apparently doesn’t understand that. Highlighted further by the fact that Rasputin doesn’t listen to her for shit. He doesn’t listen to anyone. He’s an extremely advanced, extremely traumatized, extremely homicidal AI, that has been isolated from any interactions other than extreme hostility from all fronts until this one person comes along (Ana) and is all “oh he listens to me, he’s my friend, I’m his buddy” and he might look at her like that but come on... he damn sure isn’t all “friends! my glorious friends!!!” And if he is? He isn’t going to be all 100% sure what friendship actually means.

Also, if Ana did slap his ass onto what amounts to a hard drive? He’s going to freak out. He is literally going to go insane, just as her ghost warns. He’s going to fucking flip. Imagine being able to be damn near everywhere all the time and then suddenly what? You’re here. Only. Right there. No where else. You’re in a box. A cage. He’s going to fucking flip out. If he doesn’t straight up try to kill her, or kill her ghost because he knows how the whole guardian thing works – he damn sure isn’t going to stick around. He’ll bolt, he’ll leave, he’ll get the fuck away from her, probably in a blind panic. And that’s the end of my speculation, I’m sure he’ll try desperately to find a way to… transfer himself back into his old… hardware? Or something.

But… fantasy type speculation time… because this wouldn’t actually happen in game but might be canon – like… how Eris is apparently our bestie canonically.

Wouldn’t it be fucking wicked if like… Rasputin went to find us? Like, our guardian and just fucking showed up? And we didn’t know who he was at all, just some random Exo? And then he spoke, desperate sounding freaky ass Russian? (Which always bugs me, the fucker knows English, he just speaks his version of Russian to be an ass.) And imagine our guardian being all “WHAT THE FUCK?!?” Because Rasputin?! An Exo?! OH OH OH And we take him to Zavala because what else are we going to do with him?! And our ghost is like “this is a way bad idea…” and we’re like, again, “well, what else are we going to do with him!” And Zavala’s like “…..” And Rasputin’s like “…..” And then it’s a huge game of keep the two titans away from each other because Rasputin? Oh, he’d have titan qualities, he wouldn’t be one because he wouldn’t be a guardian but he’d damn sure be close. OH OH OH And he’d have the Valkyrie! So, he’d be like a Warlock? OH OH OH!!!! And Ikora’s just like “why is this my life? –ugh-“ And we’re like dragging this Exo away who’s damn near screaming obvious threats at Zavala in some freaky ass computer Russian and Zavala’s just simmering, telling anyone who will listen that he wants that thing out of the tower. So where do we take him? OH OH OH!!! We take him to Ada-1. Because what else are we going to do with him!!!!! And then Ada-1 is all “Who is this?” And we’re like “You don’t want to know.” And she’s like “Actually I do, which is why I asked.” And then suddenly he’s like “Rasputin.” And we’re like “I knew you spoke English, you asshole!” And Rasputin is just all staring at some of the gun mock-ups and Ada’s like “… is he okay?” And we’re like “uh… so fucking far from okay it’s not funny.” Meanwhile, Ana’s burning up Zavala’s comm link and ours all “RASPUTIN IS AN EXO AND HE’S FUCKING MISSING!” And finally we bark back “WE FUCKING KNOW YOU GOD DAMN PSYCHO WHAT THE FUCK WHERE YOU THINKING!” And then she’s like “Oh thank the Traveler, he’s with you.” Like he’s some god damned run-away teenager that was like I’m going to go live with Dad! rawr! And then we hear the fucking Drifter all “well, well, well, who do we have here.” And we’re like “Fucking nobody, Eli, go back to your bank.” And Rasputin’s like “garble-garble-Russian-garble-Valkyrie-DIE!” And Ada’s all “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!” And Ghost is just like “ugh…” And we’re just like “Fucking kill him, Rasputin, I don’t even care at this point.” And you aren’t going to do anything until you hear Eli make a strange sound that sounds like some kind of weird rat squealing in pain and then you have to run down the hall because the Drifter ran, he’s not stupid, and you have to pull Rasputin off of him and it’s like Terminator 3 and you’re just like “how did my life end up like this.” And then you hear Calus over there tapping into his little stooge all “Guardian?? Is that… you…” and you’re like “SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU GOD DAMNED CREEP.” And you finally get Rasputin off world. And now you have an Exo side-kick and Zavala’s not talking to you and the Drifter’s trying to buy him from you and Calus is sending you little heart emoji’s and Ana’s begging you to bring him back and Ada’s suggesting you take him to some weird undisclosed location and your ghost is just lamenting about how things used to be when hive Princes and Taken Kings were the only things you had to worry about.

Wow… that kind of got out of hand… but then again, Rasputin being an Exo would make everything get out of hand.

How Blogging Is Still Relevant.

So, it may seem like it’s been forever and a day since I’ve posted and it has. It really really has. With everything that has been going on, time has really just become something seems unreal, like it doesn’t even exist. On one hand, there are very real things going on that are way up on the priority list that completely blow blogging, vlogging, gaming, and all of this completely out of the water. But, on the other hand, sometimes it’s when things are seemingly going completely insane that things like this can save one’s sanity.

Even if things were not the way that they are right now – there are still people out there who might think that starting a blog now? In 2020 when blogging is so 1999 or… whenever blogging really took off – and that might put some people off from starting one up. Even put some people off from starting a vlog, because it seems like there is absolutely no way that they’ll ever be able to make a mark in this massive ocean of content. But, you know what I say to that, even if only one person (other than your family) reads your stuff, or sees your stuff, it’s a win. Why not? Most of the time, for regular people, it’s just about getting this stuff out of your own head. So, blog/vlog on.