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Welcome to Lair of Secrets Podcast.
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Tonight we're talking about why we keep coming back to Cyberpunk 2077.
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Released in December of 2020, it was glitchy as hell.
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And almost five years later, we're still playing it and we keep going back.
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But why?
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So you guys actually wrote answers to this.
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So why?
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alright, I have a lot of thoughts about this because I think I've gone through seven
playthroughs of the game at this point.
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And, you know, there are many different ways to play it, you know, can get into all of
that, but I think at the end of the day, there's something about Cyberpunk 27 that just
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resonates.
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It is familiar in ways that kind of surprise me.
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I lived in LA for a very short time.
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And when I go to Night City, certain parts of it remind me lot of parts of LA.
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And then recently I started getting into watching some Tokyo tourism videos and salary net
videos and things.
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And watching these folks walk down the streets of Tokyo looks like Night City.
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And Night City looks like Tokyo.
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And so there were things about just being in the city that keep drawing me back.
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It irritates me so much that more things aren't explorable.
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But that's because I've played the game seven times.
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I also think there's something about, and this is a larger philosophical point, that
cyberpunk itself is so reflective of the world we currently live in.
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mean, it's kind of a shame because it makes cyberpunk lose its edge when you realize how
cyberpunk-y the real world is right now.
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I go look up some articles about how corporations surveil their employees or how flock
cameras are everywhere and watching everybody.
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I mean, it's easy to sound like I need to be weaving tinfoil into hats over here.
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But when you look at it deeply, when you think about the things that we as GenXers were
raised with, it's like the...
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the worldview of Star Wars, the worldview of Star Trek, the generation after us, the
Millennials, have Harry Potter, and there's cyberpunk that's in there.
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And which of those actually gives you a blueprint for how to live in the world today?
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It's not the Jedi, and it's not Star Trek, and it's not Harry Potter.
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Only cyberpunk has a metaphor that is suitable as a lens to view the real world.
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That may be a lot deeper than people want to go about a video game, but I've been thinking
about this a lot.
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So I'll turn it over to David at this
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I mean, I would really love to be able to, follow in the heels of Star Trek, in terms of
ways to live by, the, the post scarcity society would be awesome.
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if it ends up in the Star Trek vein, if it ends up more like in the altered carbon vein,
where the, what do they call it?
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They're not called Methuselah's.
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What are they called?
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Are they okay?
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Yeah.
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But basically the ultra rich.
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live effectively forever and everyone else doesn't and I was just seeing an article about
Zuckerberg today where he's taken all of his all the stuff that was Originally going
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toward like helping humanity is going toward life extension now.
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So you know
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I mean.
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You look at Saburo Arasaka and you look at the way that he was living to 150 and the fact
that he was going to take over his son via the chip.
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That was the plan.
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And then you look at, what's his name, Brian Johnson and using his son's blood to help
extend his life and make him healthier.
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It's obscene and yet this is what the rich do.
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They're not like us.
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I think people see something in both the stories and the video game that I think resonated
with a lot of people.
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And also it gave them power to do something about it as V.
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I mean, let's put it this way.
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If you were to run around with a number of weapons and begin to do gigs in Indianapolis,
someone might say something, but
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They might.
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But in Night City, in this cyberpunk world, you have some power to make change.
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And that's not something a lot of people have right now.
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Yeah.
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I think a lot of us, or at least the three of us here grew up with cyberpunk and we're
thinking, yeah, data jacks would be awesome.
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And, you know, cyber eyes would be awesome.
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cause of the, the things that they would give us.
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and so there's a nostalgia there because we didn't think what would they take away?
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I don't want a corporate branded
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set of eyes or a corporate branded data jack that, you know, six months down the line,
they're going to stop all the updates for and brick, you know, uh, like, like Google just
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did my nest last, two weeks ago.
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Well, that's the really, the Philip K.
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Dick cyberpunk is really worn out here, Gibson reflected it an awful lot.
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Pondsmith picked up all those pieces and kind of created a pastiche that worked on a
number of levels and is a great entree to the genre.
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I think a lot of people wind up discovering more cyberpunk and
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If I'm lucky, they went back and read some of the old books.
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And there's a lot of international news cyberpunk being written about colonization and
stuff like that.
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But it's all the same thing.
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The East India Company was the Arasaka of its day.
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Yep.
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And yeah, although we are, we are talking about the game as well.
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Not just, yeah, not just cyberpunk.
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Yeah.
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Um, the reason why I keep coming back to it is not the dark side that we just talked
about.
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some of it is like the exploration.
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I have not played, seven, three playthroughs.
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think Chris beats.
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the three of us, of the three of us.
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uh But, you know, I'm still finding sites and sounds and story that each playthrough is
new to me.
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Or I make choices that are different from the last playthrough and that opens up a whole
area of story and places where I go and people that I meet.
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And that is one thing that has always been
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Interest to me even just in life is you know the new the exploration It probably also even
even per for Not people without ADHD.
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uh I imagine the exploration is fun.
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But for me there's something new around every corner
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discovery is a huge part of the way I like to game too.
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We've talked about that, and so I agree with you.
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And I don't have ADHD.
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Yeah,
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I think I really and we were talking about this a little bit later on but like the fact
that you can keep coming back to it and find new and interesting things is cool.
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I like the way that the the lore has built up since 2020 and 2020-2045 and honestly even
us playing in cyberpunk red campaign it's provided a lot of inspiration for
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what is happening back in 2045 and thinking about like, how do you get there?
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How do you get here from there?
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Right?
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And the other thing that I find interesting, and I don't know if they were, I don't think
they were explicitly trying to make this statement, but how much the world has stagnated
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despite being one of high technology.
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Because the world of 2020, in some ways, you know, it's a step back because there was, you
know,
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A of nuclear bombs exchanged and the time of Red actually serves as a reset to regress
things.
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But at end of the day, it's still all of the cyberpunk neon, but it's 50 years later,
right?
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And so the culture is kind of stuck and it's not figuring out how to reboot itself and
move itself forward.
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But I did like the different storylines were fantastic.
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I feel like it's not that you're necessarily having truly meaningful impacts on the
overall story.
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right, because you're still following a branching storyline.
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But it does feel very immersive and like you can just throw yourself into the storyline
for a while and have a ton of fun.
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And if that gets a little boring, I'm just gonna go over and do all this stuff.
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I think there are two other things we have to keep in mind.
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In that five-year period, there were a number of updates, upgrades, expansions, story
packs, changes from point level to point level that made it worthwhile to go back.
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uh Additionally, the modding community is amazing.
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And there are so many great mods out there.
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If you've not tried the Dark Future mod,
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It's amazing.
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It adds stress.
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it adds a cyber psycho thing that can happen to you.
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uh Dark Future is one of my favorites.
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It's really great.
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And I think one other thing, you you talk about, you know, the discovery is also good, but
the strategy, like if you go in and you play, like I played a net runner at least three
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separate times in three different ways.
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But then I went in and said, I'm going to go in and I'm only going to use bladed weapons.
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Then I did the Arasaka heist that way and all that.
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It makes you play the game differently.
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Or I'm going to be a solo.
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I'm not going to get a deck.
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I'm going to get the Sandevastan and some of the Militech augments and stuff like that.
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Things that, the quick hacks are great and everything.
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but try and play it as a solo without the net running and it becomes a different game.
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Yes, the branching storyline is the same.
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Yes, a lot of the tissues are the same, but the way you have to achieve the goals and the
fact that I think they have a lot of thought into you can achieve each mission multiple
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different ways.
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There are some, maybe you can get in through the roof, but if you don't have that skill,
maybe you've got to talk your way in and maybe you've got to...
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So there are so many different ways to play.
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I keep, just like you, David, I keep discovering new things.
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When I played just as a straight up solo, all of a sudden I had the body strength to do
some things that the net runner didn't do and I could just, you know.
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So the world can adapt to the different ways of achieving the goal, which I really like.
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I'm just really bad at the physical stuff.
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tried to do it for my current run.
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is what I've been trying to do is like, all right, I'm gonna get really good at the sword,
right?
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Like it's in Snow Crash, right?
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Like every person until they're like, what, 24, thinks that, know, if their family was
wiped out by terrorists, they could train night and day to become Batman and go kill
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everybody with a sword, except no.
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But yeah, so I'm trying.
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I'm trying, I'm like, I'm gonna be stealthy.
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I'm gonna get people with a sword.
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And I am not stealthy, and I keep not getting them with the sword.
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and that's where your perk trees and all of that.
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But yeah, I mean, it's much harder.
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mean, playing just with bladed weapons, it's hard, but it's very rewarding when you're
able to deflect.
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Once you get good at deflecting the bullets right at the person because there's a perk
that allows you to do that, uh it becomes this amazing thing.
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And this is what I mean is they put so much thought into this.
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And I think
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Because it went so poorly, they really pushed themselves hard to recover.
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And I think that added a lot of great stuff that if it had come out strong, we might not
have gotten these things.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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stuff that was highlighted early on, like the ability to, I've only done it a handful of
times, but you can now just get on the train to Night City and go for a ride.
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done, so in dark future, it can disable fast travel.
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So you need to drive around the city or take the, you know, and I haven't done this very
often with first person shooters, but I can do it in cyberpunk, really get immersed in the
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character I'm trying to play.
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Where does my V come from?
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How did they get that way?
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How would they react to this or that or the other thing?
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And then when you get into Phantom Liberty, it becomes a whole other ballgame because now
you're in a James Bond movie, a cyberpunk James Bond movie.
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And with two very broken spies, you know?
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And so it becomes this whole other game.
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I don't know, it's one of the best games I've ever played.
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I started admittedly, I didn't buy it at the very beginning.
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I got into it at 1.6 when a lot of things were being repaired in that particular version
and I heard good things.
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But the 2.0 made it a new game.
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Yeah, I don't remember when I bought it, but I had decided to not do a pre-order on it
because I'd been burned with pre-order and early access for long enough that, you know, I
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really wanted it.
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But I waited a couple months, I think, before I actually picked it up.
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Might have been as much as six months, but they had fixed a decent amount of the issues.
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I never really ran into any...
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didn't run into any game breaking bugs.
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I never really ran into a ton of things like T posing and the car suddenly exploding.
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I had a couple of those, but nowhere near as bad as the Skyrim stuff that was there uh and
still is.
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you mentioning the body and being as a solo.
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I'm starting to feel that my multiple Netrunner playthroughs have been easy mode uh
because you're
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the difficulty?
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I mean, like, played hard mode.
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That's a different experience.
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It's amazing.
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but I will say that I have been tempted to a couple of times because going in and there's
five guys and then you stack up the quick hacks and they're all like dropping and they
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still don't know where you are because you're stealthed and all that kind of stuff.
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It just feels too easy sometimes.
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Thing that I saw recently, they just released auto drive where you can get in the car and
set your destination and it will drive you there.
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And they fixed some bugs where it would get stuck behind traffic and things like that.
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um One of the things it says is it no longer stops at stoplights.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I want to try that out for a couple of reasons Because the whole world is is pretty
beautiful uh You know going through there also, I think I'd like to record an auto drive
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of some things and then Use that for our actual play like interstitials between scenes or
something like that It was a
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point about the beauty of the game itself, I mean, I don't have a top-of-the-line graphics
card.
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I cannot throw down that kind of money.
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um Yeah, one day I could do part of the ray tracing, but not much of it.
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But one of the reasons I like this game is, first of all, it's beautiful even at the level
that I'm looking at it.
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And that's going to mature.
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I'm going to upgrade this card one day and it's gonna look even better in the future to me
and you know, also you can I mean there are a whole video there's a producer named
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daydream gaming on YouTube and They have produced a number of just walking around Night
City videos That are kind of fun to throw in the background, but I used to use them as
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background when I would DJ cyberpunk music
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And it would serve as the video portion of the thing I would layer music on top of because
it was gorgeous, because it's amazing.
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And they did a beautiful job with it.
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Even the trashy parts are rendered beautifully.
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And so it's interesting.
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There's a lot that goes into this, the city design.
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We can talk about the city design at some point.
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But the fact that they brought in city planners to design the city.
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I mean, I don't know about you, but I'll be walking around Night City and I'll look around
and go, my God, that looks just like this back alley in the middle of Akron, Ohio I used
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to see.
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00:16:42,064 --> 00:16:54,519
Because it's rusty and because it is old industrial and because, and I'm sure other people
have those experiences too where they did a good job of making it feel familiar.
208
00:16:55,675 --> 00:17:03,964
Yeah, you know, I went back and I used the map to explore Night City for our campaign.
209
00:17:03,964 --> 00:17:08,567
I was especially like, you know, so obviously in 2077, some districts have moved.
210
00:17:08,567 --> 00:17:13,143
address this in uh some of the source books because of urban renewal and what have you,
right?
211
00:17:13,143 --> 00:17:14,110
And that happens, right?
212
00:17:14,110 --> 00:17:19,033
Like we talked about it in our building better cities episode for campaigns and coffee,
but.
213
00:17:19,956 --> 00:17:26,050
being able to go in there and drive down to the city center and then walk out of the city
center, I realized I have a problem.
214
00:17:26,050 --> 00:17:35,975
Because when I was designing the run into Elysium HQ for a cyberpunk campaign, I had this
vision of it being more like escape from New York, but escape from New York, like the
215
00:17:35,975 --> 00:17:39,657
whole island of Manhattan is the prison, right?
216
00:17:39,657 --> 00:17:42,944
And the core, the old core of Night City is not that big.
217
00:17:42,944 --> 00:17:45,912
And I only really realized that when like, oh,
218
00:17:46,146 --> 00:17:46,629
Right.
219
00:17:46,629 --> 00:17:48,858
this is, all right, I have to come up with a different plan.
220
00:17:48,858 --> 00:17:51,747
So being able to just get out and explore is great.
221
00:17:52,062 --> 00:17:53,677
you can see across it.
222
00:17:53,677 --> 00:17:54,558
Uh-oh.
223
00:17:56,444 --> 00:18:03,668
So that's where I had to come up with things to make it more challenging for you guys to
have blockades leading into it so people could shake you down.
224
00:18:03,668 --> 00:18:06,869
There'd be some role playing opportunities so it wasn't going to be a clean in and out.
225
00:18:06,869 --> 00:18:08,790
That was before you blew up your car.
226
00:18:09,317 --> 00:18:10,177
Yeah.
227
00:18:10,799 --> 00:18:12,883
Yeah.
228
00:18:12,883 --> 00:18:13,584
I will say
229
00:18:13,584 --> 00:18:18,266
in Cyberpunk Red, the game we're in, a nuke did go off and they still haven't rebuilt.
230
00:18:18,266 --> 00:18:24,090
So getting through there would be slower, just from the rubble and other things like that.
231
00:18:24,090 --> 00:18:36,659
I believe our car blew up because, there was a crit fail on a drive test and we caught a
piece of rebar sticking out of some rubble, which caused the car to flip and then
232
00:18:36,659 --> 00:18:40,751
then is when the gangers toss the grenade in the car.
233
00:18:41,092 --> 00:18:41,517
Mm-hmm.
234
00:18:41,517 --> 00:18:44,900
there was a grenade launcher involved at some point that caused the actual explosion part.
235
00:18:44,900 --> 00:18:46,913
But yeah, was, know, it was a team effort.
236
00:18:46,913 --> 00:18:55,492
But I think the other thing that we talked about multiple starts and multiple endings, and
this is one of the things that I enjoyed about Mass Effect was when playing through Mass
237
00:18:55,492 --> 00:18:58,605
Effects 1, 2, and 3, like it felt like...
238
00:18:59,082 --> 00:19:03,562
as you were moving through the game and I had played that multiple times, like you were
having an impact on the story.
239
00:19:03,562 --> 00:19:09,082
Now Mass Effect 3 got to a place where it didn't actually have the impact we thought it
was gonna be the first time around.
240
00:19:09,082 --> 00:19:14,842
But with this, like you truly do have very separate storylines starting.
241
00:19:14,842 --> 00:19:17,082
I don't know that they influence the actual gameplay.
242
00:19:17,082 --> 00:19:20,602
I mean, they do in terms of like giving you dialogue choices and stuff like that.
243
00:19:20,602 --> 00:19:28,782
But the ability to go, I hadn't played, I think I played a Nomad twice, a Street Kid once,
and I went back and played a Corpo this time.
244
00:19:28,797 --> 00:19:31,120
and it was a different experience, right?
245
00:19:31,120 --> 00:19:42,731
And I gotta say every single time, and spoilers for a five-year-old game, but Jackie's
death is just a huge, I think, emotional thing, and every time you play through it again,
246
00:19:42,731 --> 00:19:48,125
you can skip past it now with Phantom Liberty, but if you're doing the full playthrough,
you know that's coming, right?
247
00:19:48,125 --> 00:19:49,838
And there's no way to avoid it.
248
00:19:49,838 --> 00:19:50,748
Jackie's death.
249
00:19:50,748 --> 00:19:53,091
mean, first of all, Jackie is an amazing character.
250
00:19:53,091 --> 00:19:57,074
He is my favorite character, I think, in all of video games.
251
00:19:57,074 --> 00:20:02,520
and I would totally pay for someone to make a game where Jackie lives.
252
00:20:02,721 --> 00:20:05,184
know, Jackie dying?
253
00:20:05,184 --> 00:20:07,866
Again, spoiler for a five-year-old game.
254
00:20:07,887 --> 00:20:08,928
But, what?
255
00:20:08,928 --> 00:20:10,370
God, what's her name?
256
00:20:10,370 --> 00:20:13,120
ah Not Bug, no.
257
00:20:13,120 --> 00:20:13,550
bug.
258
00:20:13,550 --> 00:20:15,602
No, no, no, no, no, the one who kills herself.
259
00:20:15,602 --> 00:20:16,498
know, Bug.
260
00:20:17,409 --> 00:20:18,420
Oh, I know what you're talking about.
261
00:20:18,420 --> 00:20:19,493
The hacker.
262
00:20:20,458 --> 00:20:22,738
I'm just saying, Bug is the netrunner.
263
00:20:22,738 --> 00:20:24,449
friend who hires you.
264
00:20:24,870 --> 00:20:27,513
I'm totally blanking on her name.
265
00:20:27,513 --> 00:20:41,475
But when she is abducted and you have to rescue her and they talk about the things that
she has been through, I mean, this is a game that doesn't shy away from the violent, the
266
00:20:41,475 --> 00:20:42,646
sexual.
267
00:20:42,932 --> 00:20:44,333
the dark side of everything.
268
00:20:44,333 --> 00:20:48,627
I mean, there's the side quest that ends in a crucifixion.
269
00:20:48,627 --> 00:20:49,547
know, that...
270
00:20:49,547 --> 00:20:54,691
Oh, Ken!
271
00:20:55,132 --> 00:21:00,375
I've done it twice, and both times, it's hard.
272
00:21:00,376 --> 00:21:06,440
It can be a hard game to play, but I've really been impressed with their storytelling.
273
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:08,868
I never played The Witcher, any of The Witchers.
274
00:21:08,868 --> 00:21:12,422
I had played nothing by CDPR before this game.
275
00:21:12,422 --> 00:21:20,583
And it really, I think, raised the bar for how role-playing games, first-person
role-playing games need to be.
276
00:21:20,583 --> 00:21:26,218
And I think you see that in some successors, like in The Outer Worlds 2.
277
00:21:26,294 --> 00:21:34,020
I think Obsidian learned some things from watching Cyberpunk because they have multiple
origins.
278
00:21:34,074 --> 00:21:37,176
and they have multiple forms of dialogue and multiple things you can now...
279
00:21:37,176 --> 00:21:48,942
Obsidian was always good at that, but they've really stepped it up in the Outer Worlds too
compared to the Outer Worlds, and I think that's due to games like Cyberpunk and like the
280
00:21:48,942 --> 00:21:49,783
things you can do with it.
281
00:21:49,783 --> 00:21:52,194
Also, Keanu Reeves, what's not to love?
282
00:21:52,194 --> 00:22:02,480
I mean, if you're gonna have someone stuck in your head, mean, Johnny Surverhand is a
jerk, you know, yes, but it's delightful to see these...
283
00:22:02,621 --> 00:22:11,114
these actors that you know and have enjoyed, for you to hang out with them, even if
they're just a character in a video game.
284
00:22:11,114 --> 00:22:12,364
It's fun.
285
00:22:12,601 --> 00:22:18,746
And it's amazing to have that, it's almost like a one-on-one experience with them.
286
00:22:19,266 --> 00:22:28,236
I'm not trying um to get into a parasocial relationship with Idris Elba here, but the idea
that, I mean, the interactions in this game,
287
00:22:28,236 --> 00:22:37,455
when you get into it, feel so natural and realistic that it leaves an impact on you, I
think.
288
00:22:37,476 --> 00:22:38,737
At least it did me.
289
00:22:38,737 --> 00:22:42,460
options seem more real and less contrived.
290
00:22:42,460 --> 00:22:51,809
like the fact that you're asking questions and responding in ways that you think your
character would be responding.
291
00:22:51,809 --> 00:22:55,591
And they don't really leave out the responses that...
292
00:22:57,390 --> 00:22:58,484
that aren't good.
293
00:22:58,484 --> 00:23:02,376
You know, it's it, that's a bad way to put it, but it's a
294
00:23:04,058 --> 00:23:10,676
There have been times when you get a set of dialogue options in other games where it's
like, I want none of these.
295
00:23:11,077 --> 00:23:16,128
And I don't recall ever seeing that in Cyberpunk 2077.
296
00:23:16,128 --> 00:23:17,608
em
297
00:23:17,608 --> 00:23:19,499
up Cyberpunk 2077, too.
298
00:23:19,499 --> 00:23:24,281
You're allowed to not take the job with Pan Am or to alienate Johnny.
299
00:23:24,281 --> 00:23:27,744
And, you know, you're allowed to make terrible mistakes.
300
00:23:27,744 --> 00:23:28,904
And it changes.
301
00:23:28,904 --> 00:23:31,325
really fundamentally changes the game.
302
00:23:31,495 --> 00:23:34,008
And I think that reinforces the sense of choice, right?
303
00:23:34,008 --> 00:23:38,643
Like because you're making V your own V because...
304
00:23:38,715 --> 00:23:43,747
there's enough choices to consistently reinforce how your V would act in this situation.
305
00:23:43,747 --> 00:23:51,040
So are you doubling down on Johnny's crush the corpos sort of mentality or are you
resisting it?
306
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:58,784
And there are consistent dialogue choices and not even just at the two extremes, but also
some stuff in the middle where you can say, well, he's starting, that's actually a really
307
00:23:58,784 --> 00:23:59,314
good argument.
308
00:23:59,314 --> 00:24:01,445
Maybe I agree with Johnny in this.
309
00:24:01,445 --> 00:24:04,986
He's a dick, but like he's right this time.
310
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:10,184
And there's a way that they interweave the small jobs, the gigs, and the main storyline.
311
00:24:10,184 --> 00:24:18,522
There is one storyline that you do a job for Regina that you assassinate someone named
Jotaro Shobo.
312
00:24:18,723 --> 00:24:28,671
And if you do it before you go to clouds and confront Woodman, you can bring up that you
did that in that conversation.
313
00:24:28,671 --> 00:24:32,414
So there's an interweaving of the gigs.
314
00:24:32,732 --> 00:24:37,006
And then there's so much lore just scattered throughout.
315
00:24:38,309 --> 00:24:44,115
I think one of my favorite, it's not a conspiracy theory because everything points to it,
but the mystery of Mr.
316
00:24:44,115 --> 00:24:46,018
Blue Eyes and who Mr.
317
00:24:46,018 --> 00:24:48,060
Blue Eyes is and what his significance is.
318
00:24:48,060 --> 00:24:49,762
Do you know what I'm talking about?
319
00:24:51,627 --> 00:24:52,820
I've seen Mr.
320
00:24:52,820 --> 00:25:00,196
Blue Eyes a couple of times, I don't, uh if I'm remembering it correctly, but I don't
remember a whole lot about him.
321
00:25:00,196 --> 00:25:06,510
All I'm going to say is that there is a character that you only meet in person in two
places.
322
00:25:06,510 --> 00:25:09,431
One, the Jefferson Peralta ending.
323
00:25:09,431 --> 00:25:12,592
When you finish that job, there's someone you talk to.
324
00:25:12,592 --> 00:25:21,916
And if you look off across the plaza from where you're sitting and you zoom in with
something that can zoom in, you see a man dressed in a suit with dark hair and blue
325
00:25:21,916 --> 00:25:23,296
glowing eyes.
326
00:25:23,580 --> 00:25:36,929
And if you go into, I think it's the sun ending, the one where you go and hijack the
celestial casino in the sky, the person that hires you to do that is Mr.
327
00:25:36,929 --> 00:25:37,650
Blue Eyes.
328
00:25:37,650 --> 00:25:41,163
And the thing is that Mr.
329
00:25:41,163 --> 00:25:46,676
Blue Eyes is also present if you get Songbird out.
330
00:25:47,181 --> 00:25:51,043
and take her to the moonshot and get her off on the moonshot.
331
00:25:51,043 --> 00:25:58,088
He appears far away across the airport, and he is watching what you're doing.
332
00:25:58,849 --> 00:26:11,269
There is a theory, and it comes through the it begins with the Sandra Dorsett job, it goes
all the way through, that there is something that Nightcorp is doing with some form of AI.
333
00:26:12,255 --> 00:26:19,157
And that's what Sandra Dorsett stole, and that's why she was fed to the scavs.
334
00:26:19,317 --> 00:26:29,760
So this is what—there's this lore that goes through all of this that even if you've played
the game multiple times, you might not get, unless you really follow the text.
335
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:39,962
Unlike the text in Skyrim, where every book has something in it, this stuff weaves
together into stories.
336
00:26:40,132 --> 00:26:51,558
And they did an even better job with the Phantom Liberty stuff because the Phantom Liberty
gigs, you can actually, after Phantom Liberty ends, there are moments when you will get a
337
00:26:51,558 --> 00:27:02,834
phone call from someone that you helped in a gig in Dogtown, and they want you to come
visit their new Scop Dog stand, or they want to do, you know, or they left something for
338
00:27:02,834 --> 00:27:03,834
you somewhere.
339
00:27:03,834 --> 00:27:09,378
So they really ratcheted that up as part of 2.0 and Phantom Liberty.
340
00:27:09,378 --> 00:27:11,399
Anyway, it's a great game.
341
00:27:11,399 --> 00:27:13,860
like you say, you keep getting new things out of it.
342
00:27:13,860 --> 00:27:15,761
You keep discovering things.
343
00:27:15,761 --> 00:27:18,162
And I don't know.
344
00:27:18,162 --> 00:27:22,645
I'm waiting to find my next Cyberpunk 2077, you know?
345
00:27:22,645 --> 00:27:24,445
I haven't found it yet.
346
00:27:24,445 --> 00:27:27,036
I've played a number of really good games.
347
00:27:27,503 --> 00:27:31,253
But I haven't found this one again.
348
00:27:32,032 --> 00:27:33,193
There are a couple of things.
349
00:27:33,193 --> 00:27:46,321
This jumps back a little bit, but the quests that you're given, there are ways, you can't
always have a happy ending, no matter how hard you try.
350
00:27:46,321 --> 00:27:54,726
And that is different than a lot of other games out there where you can choose certain
things and you can get the most perfect ending.
351
00:27:54,726 --> 00:27:55,987
Whereas this one is,
352
00:27:55,987 --> 00:27:57,088
little more true to life.
353
00:27:57,088 --> 00:28:02,115
Other people are making decisions, not just you, and you can't always win.
354
00:28:02,115 --> 00:28:05,318
You can get as best as you can, but you can't always win.
355
00:28:05,415 --> 00:28:13,175
I think that's the noir influence coming through, the idea of that there are moral
compromises.
356
00:28:13,255 --> 00:28:18,675
You see this in the spin-off comic books that they've put out.
357
00:28:18,675 --> 00:28:28,695
If you read those, then none of them have really happy endings, but there's always the
moral compromise of having to live in the world you live in and still do the best you can
358
00:28:28,695 --> 00:28:31,475
and just try to make it so you can live with yourself.
359
00:28:31,475 --> 00:28:34,175
But your point is accurate.
360
00:28:34,843 --> 00:28:39,268
I think it's the sun ending again where you wake up in the mansion.
361
00:28:39,309 --> 00:28:44,035
If you had someone that you were dating, they break up with you right before your big job.
362
00:28:44,035 --> 00:28:46,714
um
363
00:28:46,714 --> 00:28:47,017
ending.
364
00:28:47,017 --> 00:28:48,739
I'm gonna have to try and get this ending.
365
00:28:48,739 --> 00:28:52,664
Yeah, no, mean, and that's, look up the endings.
366
00:28:52,664 --> 00:28:54,086
Don't watch the videos.
367
00:28:54,086 --> 00:28:55,747
I don't know if you've done the ending for...
368
00:28:55,747 --> 00:29:04,805
The one that really hit me the hardest was the ending to Phantom Liberty if you allow them
to take the chip out of you.
369
00:29:06,441 --> 00:29:15,889
because it fast forwards you a couple of years and things change and you're able to go
back to Night City in 2080.
370
00:29:16,643 --> 00:29:17,531
Oh.
371
00:29:17,555 --> 00:29:20,516
or 2079, but yeah, basically 2080.
372
00:29:20,516 --> 00:29:23,039
And it's very bittersweet.
373
00:29:23,039 --> 00:29:35,269
I don't want to tell you what happens, I don't want to ruin it, but V comes out of that
fundamentally changed and has to find, and lives and finds, has to find a way.
374
00:29:35,330 --> 00:29:40,255
It's actually led me off into like a little fan fiction world of what does V do after
that?
375
00:29:40,255 --> 00:29:43,394
But it, that ending,
376
00:29:43,394 --> 00:29:55,944
Misty plays a beautiful part in that ending and it is worthwhile and it leaves you it does
the best thing that fiction does which is kind of like makes a little hole in you and then
377
00:29:55,944 --> 00:30:06,141
fills it with something and then you walk away with that they they really nailed it it's
do i don't think it's the best ending i mean i think my favorite ending for the happy
378
00:30:06,141 --> 00:30:11,301
ending is probably the going off with the altacaldos ending but
379
00:30:11,301 --> 00:30:11,923
one.
380
00:30:11,938 --> 00:30:29,611
But the ending of Phantom Liberty, if you accept the deal and have them remove the shard,
the engram and everything, it is deeply sad but also very kind of wondrous.
381
00:30:29,611 --> 00:30:34,694
And it really makes you think about what would be next for this character.
382
00:30:36,765 --> 00:30:38,525
Now I need to start another playthrough.
383
00:30:40,865 --> 00:30:50,465
I still want to get through the playthrough where you've befriended Johnny enough that you
can do that last mission with that one.
384
00:30:50,565 --> 00:30:57,145
I haven't been able to do that because I missed the one dialogue option in the field.
385
00:30:57,885 --> 00:31:01,475
you basically have to replay everything if you miss it.
386
00:31:01,475 --> 00:31:08,792
and you know, it's worth it to do that to get that ending that don't fear the Reaper
ending is unbelievable.
387
00:31:08,792 --> 00:31:10,103
It's hard.
388
00:31:10,103 --> 00:31:17,730
Even if you're 20th level net runner running in there with all the gear, it's hard, but it
is so.
389
00:31:19,341 --> 00:31:31,459
Have you ever done a run where you, before Jackie dies, and you just do all of the side
missions that are entirely possible?
390
00:31:31,961 --> 00:31:32,495
Yeah.
391
00:31:32,495 --> 00:31:33,295
Yep.
392
00:31:33,295 --> 00:31:40,035
The problem I have is when you do all the side and the cop missions, because the cop
missions tied together too.
393
00:31:40,535 --> 00:31:47,095
There are story patterns that lead through all of those things too, which is really kind
of wild.
394
00:31:48,135 --> 00:31:49,055
But yeah, I've done it.
395
00:31:49,055 --> 00:31:51,695
The problem is that you level up a lot.
396
00:31:51,695 --> 00:31:59,815
Like, you will top out your level way before the end of the game if you go and do all the
jobs.
397
00:31:59,869 --> 00:32:00,852
Mm-hmm.
398
00:32:02,235 --> 00:32:08,058
Which is the only real flaw I've seen in the game, is that I would like to continue to be
able to level.
399
00:32:08,058 --> 00:32:17,986
I think you can still get, like, not perk points, but the points for Solo or Shinobi or
that kind of thing.
400
00:32:17,986 --> 00:32:24,499
Those keep going up, but once you've topped out, you can't get 20s in everything.
401
00:32:24,499 --> 00:32:27,010
You can't become Superman.
402
00:32:28,373 --> 00:32:33,025
I will say the other things that I love about it are, one, just this conversation, right?
403
00:32:33,025 --> 00:32:35,884
So the fact that you can talk with people and they're like, wait, did you know this?
404
00:32:35,884 --> 00:32:37,627
Like even Erebus, right?
405
00:32:37,627 --> 00:32:44,199
I was just, as I was building out our Cyberpunk Red campaign, I was just going like
riffing off of the Greek mythology theme.
406
00:32:44,199 --> 00:32:48,350
And I don't remember, did you come up with, you came up with Erebus, right?
407
00:32:48,350 --> 00:32:51,237
up with Erebus, but Erebus also appears in Cyberpunk 2077.
408
00:32:51,237 --> 00:32:52,559
Yes.
409
00:32:53,343 --> 00:32:56,449
Yeah, I did.
410
00:32:56,491 --> 00:32:57,892
I totally did.
411
00:32:58,933 --> 00:33:05,318
And so how I, but how I built out Erebus's person, we haven't gotten that far in the, in
the actual game, right?
412
00:33:05,318 --> 00:33:11,684
But like, okay, actually unknowingly I have established the necessary threads to get us to
that point.
413
00:33:11,684 --> 00:33:12,636
But, it's cool.
414
00:33:12,636 --> 00:33:13,546
I just, didn't know that.
415
00:33:13,546 --> 00:33:14,787
they're like, Hey, there's this thing.
416
00:33:14,787 --> 00:33:15,128
It's great.
417
00:33:15,128 --> 00:33:17,219
Lord, you're not going to enable it to do X and Y and Z.
418
00:33:17,219 --> 00:33:19,551
And I think of my response online was basically.
419
00:33:20,212 --> 00:33:23,583
No, no, no, we haven't revealed those parts yet.
420
00:33:23,910 --> 00:33:28,352
But yeah, I mean, just there's all of these cool things that you can just keep keep
stumbling across.
421
00:33:28,352 --> 00:33:31,194
And there's some just such marvelous toys, right?
422
00:33:31,194 --> 00:33:33,615
Some of the weapons are tremendous.
423
00:33:33,615 --> 00:33:36,576
Some of the combinations you can do is really cool.
424
00:33:36,576 --> 00:33:39,918
And so you can you can have those different play styles so you can go full on fists.
425
00:33:39,918 --> 00:33:41,749
You can go full on steel.
426
00:33:41,749 --> 00:33:42,639
You can.
427
00:33:42,885 --> 00:33:51,362
I mean, it's kind of easy to be the sniper, but even then, right, like tweaking your
weapon to do exactly what you want it to be able to do and have your fallback style.
428
00:33:51,362 --> 00:33:58,448
I will say there is that challenge when you've been playing high level and then you reboot
and you go to the new, to a new game.
429
00:33:58,448 --> 00:34:01,500
And like, I had built out like all of my cyber legs.
430
00:34:01,500 --> 00:34:03,452
I was basically able to jump like 50 feet.
431
00:34:03,452 --> 00:34:09,737
I don't know how high it actually was, but there were no obstacles in Night City for my
previous build.
432
00:34:09,937 --> 00:34:11,368
And I'm like trying to do it again.
433
00:34:11,368 --> 00:34:12,319
It's like,
434
00:34:12,961 --> 00:34:15,399
I think I jumped like two feet.
435
00:34:15,399 --> 00:34:17,496
What do mean I can't get over this low wall?
436
00:34:17,496 --> 00:34:18,867
I'm a normal human again.
437
00:34:18,867 --> 00:34:19,927
Dang it.
438
00:34:20,788 --> 00:34:21,446
Yeah.
439
00:34:21,446 --> 00:34:31,787
And one of the other things that I like about the storytelling in it, um, and the quest
system in it is, and there's some of this in like fallout four and Chris and I had started
440
00:34:31,787 --> 00:34:41,835
playing fallout 76 a little bit, um, as well is those in world notes and the in world,
like the cop, when you mentioned the cop missions, that's the one that, that really
441
00:34:41,835 --> 00:34:43,796
brought it up to me is
442
00:34:43,796 --> 00:34:56,806
Those notes back and forth in the cop missions lead to other things, but you actually have
to read them and go searching for the container that you can open that has the special
443
00:34:56,806 --> 00:34:59,139
thing or a motorcycle or whatever.
444
00:34:59,139 --> 00:35:03,102
And it doesn't put a dot on your map.
445
00:35:03,102 --> 00:35:07,627
doesn't put a side quest mission in your, in your mission log.
446
00:35:07,627 --> 00:35:12,038
and that's a bit of nostalgia for me for.
447
00:35:12,038 --> 00:35:22,116
you the early role playing games and such of like, there are no quest markers, or very
few, and you had to have a pad of paper next to you to take all your notes.
448
00:35:23,157 --> 00:35:29,921
and I kind of find that a bit refreshing that you, if you want to ignore all that, you can
ignore all that.
449
00:35:29,921 --> 00:35:37,825
It's not required, but if you want to get into some of the nitty gritty of the story, you
better keep a note.
450
00:35:38,495 --> 00:35:39,408
Indeed.
451
00:35:39,587 --> 00:35:47,233
There's, mean, I've watched my fair share of YouTube videos, not of playthroughs, but just
of people talking about aspects of the game.
452
00:35:47,233 --> 00:35:49,195
I've done a little bit of research on my own.
453
00:35:49,195 --> 00:35:54,600
There are some things I still haven't gone to find in game yet that I've read about, and I
might one day.
454
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,071
The modding community, again, has impressed me.
455
00:35:57,071 --> 00:36:00,344
There are some really great ways to play the game.
456
00:36:00,344 --> 00:36:02,974
Also, the VR version of it.
457
00:36:02,974 --> 00:36:07,354
If you can get it working, I did once and it was pretty impressive.
458
00:36:08,114 --> 00:36:10,914
I wouldn't want to play the whole game that way.
459
00:36:12,414 --> 00:36:17,074
It's a guy created a thing to do it.
460
00:36:17,774 --> 00:36:26,014
So it's not a mod, but it is a piece of software you need to install and then have it talk
to your headset.
461
00:36:26,174 --> 00:36:29,654
Usually it goes through Steam, at least mine did.
462
00:36:31,270 --> 00:36:36,775
And it's, mean, it's beautiful to walk around the city and see everything I res and all of
that.
463
00:36:36,775 --> 00:36:42,180
But, you know, I think it's going to be one of those games that continues to evolve.
464
00:36:42,180 --> 00:36:45,102
And there's been a lot of talk.
465
00:36:45,583 --> 00:36:50,687
CDPR has been contracting with, I believe they're called Virtuous.
466
00:36:50,707 --> 00:36:57,674
It's a French company that has been doing, they did, I think the 2.1 update for the game.
467
00:36:57,986 --> 00:37:00,307
and they've introduced some new things to it.
468
00:37:00,307 --> 00:37:07,590
So there are rumblings that there are more things coming in for the game.
469
00:37:07,590 --> 00:37:18,485
I mean, there's talk about the new anime is coming out and all of that, but do you think
they're going to be able to resist having an update that puts something from that anime
470
00:37:18,485 --> 00:37:19,305
into the game?
471
00:37:19,305 --> 00:37:20,997
Because they did that with Netrunner.
472
00:37:20,997 --> 00:37:23,038
Not Netrunner, with Edge Runners.
473
00:37:23,038 --> 00:37:24,559
Yeah, yeah.
474
00:37:24,559 --> 00:37:25,510
So I...
475
00:37:25,510 --> 00:37:32,814
I believe that CDPR just changed co-CEOs this year and there was a little bit of an about
phase.
476
00:37:32,814 --> 00:37:35,545
They were saying, we're done with the game, we're moving on.
477
00:37:35,545 --> 00:37:38,227
But then they started contracting with Virtuous.
478
00:37:38,227 --> 00:37:43,069
Then they put out a 2.1, then they put out 2.2, then 2.3.
479
00:37:43,069 --> 00:37:44,970
And there's rumors of more coming.
480
00:37:44,970 --> 00:37:52,614
They just did a live interview with Mike Pondsmith, just about creating Cyberpunk Red,
which is worth a watch, by the way.
481
00:37:52,614 --> 00:37:54,295
um
482
00:37:54,740 --> 00:37:58,306
it makes me wonder if there's another cyberpunk game coming too.
483
00:37:58,411 --> 00:38:00,011
Well, Orion.
484
00:38:00,171 --> 00:38:01,722
But that's years away.
485
00:38:01,722 --> 00:38:04,751
Yeah, we know there's definitely another game coming, because...
486
00:38:05,015 --> 00:38:11,266
but if they keep releasing these point releases, that keeps their fan base interested.
487
00:38:11,410 --> 00:38:14,932
And then when the new one comes out, and I'm OK with this.
488
00:38:14,932 --> 00:38:25,337
sort of doing a Bethesda thing, but Bethesda, you saw it with Fallout 4, they just did the
anniversary edition, Skyrim, did the same thing, you know.
489
00:38:25,417 --> 00:38:33,739
They do, but that's what I mean is that I think CDPR has learned from Bethesda's bumbling
about with this, that it's not just a money grab.
490
00:38:33,739 --> 00:38:36,670
And I think they know that they have...
491
00:38:36,904 --> 00:38:46,488
the user base that if they can keep them interested, the game, I believe they've just
called it Cyberpunk 2, is going to sell like gangbusters.
492
00:38:46,488 --> 00:38:49,491
um
493
00:38:49,638 --> 00:38:51,571
The one thing that.
494
00:38:53,595 --> 00:39:01,446
I was very disappointed when I heard they canceled, but I don't know that I would want in
it.
495
00:39:01,748 --> 00:39:06,354
I mean, I want it, but I don't know how they would make it good was multiplayer.
496
00:39:06,702 --> 00:39:13,855
Yeah, I would be afraid of it turning into like one of those like Fortnite things.
497
00:39:13,855 --> 00:39:18,557
just would have been, yeah, I have no interest in that.
498
00:39:18,557 --> 00:39:28,420
There's rumors, well, first of all, there's a mod that's been being built that will allow
multiplayer that apparently is pretty impressive, but it's not ready for prime time yet,
499
00:39:28,420 --> 00:39:29,562
but they've been doing a good job.
500
00:39:29,562 --> 00:39:34,784
Rumor is that Cyberpunk 2 is gonna have a multiplayer function, but.
501
00:39:34,784 --> 00:39:37,028
This is still in the design phases.
502
00:39:37,028 --> 00:39:39,842
mean, you could make a rumor up about anything.
503
00:39:39,842 --> 00:39:42,526
I mean, it's going to have Morgan Blackhand.
504
00:39:42,526 --> 00:39:45,601
It's going to have Johnny Silverhand back from the Dedican.
505
00:39:45,601 --> 00:39:48,023
I mean, you can say just about anything.
506
00:39:48,023 --> 00:39:50,143
had Morgan Blackhand.
507
00:39:50,963 --> 00:39:53,223
Or no, no, that wasn't Morgan Blackhand.
508
00:39:54,103 --> 00:39:57,143
The guy who crashed the old net.
509
00:39:57,516 --> 00:40:00,136
a race, Raish Bartmoss, yeah.
510
00:40:00,376 --> 00:40:04,196
I mean, he was in a freezer, but yeah.
511
00:40:04,816 --> 00:40:05,716
Yeah.
512
00:40:06,496 --> 00:40:11,216
But you know, it's kind of funny, but even that's an illustration of things coming to a
poor end.
513
00:40:11,216 --> 00:40:13,836
I mean, it's kind of like, oh, what happened to him?
514
00:40:13,836 --> 00:40:17,296
Well, he just lost power and died.
515
00:40:17,477 --> 00:40:18,448
Yeah.
516
00:40:18,448 --> 00:40:26,873
I think he was, in suspended animation and then the company that ran it just shut it down.
517
00:40:28,053 --> 00:40:30,555
Didn't take anybody out of suspended animation.
518
00:40:30,555 --> 00:40:31,915
They just shut it off.
519
00:40:31,915 --> 00:40:33,136
the thing about the Mr.
520
00:40:33,136 --> 00:40:44,825
Blue Eyes thing, speaking of Morgan Blackhand, is that if you go into the game files,
apparently, the graphics that are used for Mr.
521
00:40:44,825 --> 00:40:47,946
Blue Eyes are labeled Morgan Blackhand.
522
00:40:48,071 --> 00:40:49,055
Mmm.
523
00:40:49,770 --> 00:40:55,083
Mike Pondsmith has explicitly said that Morgan Blackhand is not in this game.
524
00:40:55,584 --> 00:41:00,488
So could have just been a, he says he's been off doing other things.
525
00:41:00,488 --> 00:41:02,870
What those things are, who knows?
526
00:41:02,870 --> 00:41:04,881
But yeah, so I don't know.
527
00:41:04,881 --> 00:41:14,149
I mean, we could go and I could keep talking about this game for hours because it captured
my imagination in a way, in a time, it was...
528
00:41:15,594 --> 00:41:21,948
It was during COVID, think, or just after, just at the tail end of COVID when I discovered
this game.
529
00:41:21,948 --> 00:41:28,691
And it was also after I had a very bad job experience and had left and was taking a year
off.
530
00:41:28,691 --> 00:41:41,124
And so there was an awful lot in this game about redemption and corporate nonsense and,
you know, making a difference and all that, really, really put hooks into my soul.
531
00:41:41,124 --> 00:41:43,701
And I'll always, yeah.
532
00:41:43,701 --> 00:41:47,235
that you don't normally expect from a video game.
533
00:41:47,235 --> 00:41:58,125
moral questions, ethical questions that are put to you in ways that don't shy away from
the ugliness of the world.
534
00:41:58,166 --> 00:42:03,070
I was always impressed with, I my God, look at the ads in this city.
535
00:42:03,130 --> 00:42:13,179
Some of them are, some of them are filthy, objectionable, terrible, you know, things, but
also very human, but also...
536
00:42:13,283 --> 00:42:20,163
very much like, if the business could push that envelope and businesses are fundamentally
amoral entities.
537
00:42:20,543 --> 00:42:23,123
So, I mean, go read your Cory Doctorow.
538
00:42:23,723 --> 00:42:30,743
But, you know, they're fundamentally amoral agencies that will do whatever they can to get
ahead because that's their mandate.
539
00:42:30,803 --> 00:42:37,663
This is the logic, not even the logical conclusion, logical extension of that, this whole
city.
540
00:42:38,078 --> 00:42:55,458
Having a philosophical underpinning for Cyberpunk 2077 and other video games that do it
well, those are the games that really kind of grab you and draw you and have you keep
541
00:42:55,458 --> 00:42:57,298
talking about them later.
542
00:42:57,418 --> 00:43:06,623
I might go back and play more Skyrim and make yet another Stealth Archer, but I'm not
going to talk about
543
00:43:06,623 --> 00:43:15,123
the story, I'm not going to talk about the things that I did other than, hey, I made my
8,000th stealth archer kill.
544
00:43:16,843 --> 00:43:24,903
Whereas Cyberpunk 2077, we're talking about the different endings, we're talking about how
all the stories weave together.
545
00:43:25,963 --> 00:43:34,003
And I think we should probably talk about that on a regular episode of how we can pull
that into our regular tabletop games.
546
00:43:34,667 --> 00:43:36,339
I think that's a good idea.
547
00:43:36,874 --> 00:43:39,345
Yeah, yeah, and I think I agree with you.
548
00:43:39,345 --> 00:43:46,554
I think the game grabs you with its its point of view and it also grabs you with you.
549
00:43:46,554 --> 00:43:53,641
You realize early on that V is not in a good place and V may not be able to get to a good
place, right?
550
00:43:53,641 --> 00:43:59,727
And so you're really being confronted with these own morality, morality and mortality.
551
00:44:00,308 --> 00:44:02,048
just from the early go.
552
00:44:02,048 --> 00:44:09,123
I think Phantom Liberty ratchets that up as it's maybe giving you the option to get out
and then will you actually take it?
553
00:44:09,123 --> 00:44:15,276
Especially if you're playing this, you know, if you've been playing this for a while and
you're like, well, there was never an option to get out, but maybe there's an option to
554
00:44:15,276 --> 00:44:16,208
get out, right?
555
00:44:16,208 --> 00:44:22,382
And forcing those kinds of questions and those thoughts early on is, I think it's part of
what makes it a compelling game.
556
00:44:22,382 --> 00:44:25,964
Because you might spend some time trying to like negotiate with death.
557
00:44:25,964 --> 00:44:27,785
And sometimes you might just say,
558
00:44:28,087 --> 00:44:28,959
Well screw it.
559
00:44:28,959 --> 00:44:30,697
Let's go down guns blazing.
560
00:44:30,697 --> 00:44:32,418
Mm-hmm.
561
00:44:32,418 --> 00:44:42,522
I think I would love to go back and have both of you play that Phantom Liberty and get to
that ending where V can have Johnny removed.
562
00:44:42,522 --> 00:44:51,066
And I want to hear your thoughts about that because it hit me like a truck and I couldn't
stop thinking about it for.
563
00:44:51,919 --> 00:44:52,509
Wow.
564
00:44:52,509 --> 00:44:55,070
Alright, well, I guess we have our homework.
565
00:44:58,292 --> 00:45:03,025
That's probably, now that homework has been assigned, it's probably a good place to wrap
up the episode.
566
00:45:03,025 --> 00:45:04,615
Minions, you have your homework as well.
567
00:45:04,615 --> 00:45:06,937
Thank you for joining us for our latest Overlord training.
568
00:45:06,937 --> 00:45:09,148
This is why you're here, so you can have homework.
569
00:45:09,148 --> 00:45:14,350
Like and subscribe to the show on YouTube and stop by our website for links to all the
social things.
570
00:45:14,350 --> 00:45:16,291
Our website is at lairofsecrets.com.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,380
Welcome to Lair of Secrets Podcast.
2
00:00:01,380 --> 00:00:05,580
Tonight we're talking about why we keep coming back to Cyberpunk 2077.
3
00:00:05,580 --> 00:00:09,460
Released in December of 2020, it was glitchy as hell.
4
00:00:09,460 --> 00:00:13,820
And almost five years later, we're still playing it and we keep going back.
5
00:00:13,820 --> 00:00:14,940
But why?
6
00:00:14,940 --> 00:00:16,720
So you guys actually wrote answers to this.
7
00:00:16,720 --> 00:00:17,840
So why?
8
00:00:20,088 --> 00:00:25,011
alright, I have a lot of thoughts about this because I think I've gone through seven
playthroughs of the game at this point.
9
00:00:25,011 --> 00:00:34,716
And, you know, there are many different ways to play it, you know, can get into all of
that, but I think at the end of the day, there's something about Cyberpunk 27 that just
10
00:00:34,716 --> 00:00:35,457
resonates.
11
00:00:35,457 --> 00:00:40,299
It is familiar in ways that kind of surprise me.
12
00:00:40,299 --> 00:00:42,955
I lived in LA for a very short time.
13
00:00:42,955 --> 00:00:48,386
And when I go to Night City, certain parts of it remind me lot of parts of LA.
14
00:00:48,386 --> 00:00:55,590
And then recently I started getting into watching some Tokyo tourism videos and salary net
videos and things.
15
00:00:55,590 --> 00:01:00,631
And watching these folks walk down the streets of Tokyo looks like Night City.
16
00:01:00,631 --> 00:01:02,611
And Night City looks like Tokyo.
17
00:01:02,611 --> 00:01:09,418
And so there were things about just being in the city that keep drawing me back.
18
00:01:09,418 --> 00:01:13,140
It irritates me so much that more things aren't explorable.
19
00:01:13,140 --> 00:01:16,103
But that's because I've played the game seven times.
20
00:01:16,103 --> 00:01:29,430
I also think there's something about, and this is a larger philosophical point, that
cyberpunk itself is so reflective of the world we currently live in.
21
00:01:29,430 --> 00:01:38,335
mean, it's kind of a shame because it makes cyberpunk lose its edge when you realize how
cyberpunk-y the real world is right now.
22
00:01:38,367 --> 00:01:49,908
I go look up some articles about how corporations surveil their employees or how flock
cameras are everywhere and watching everybody.
23
00:01:49,908 --> 00:01:54,651
I mean, it's easy to sound like I need to be weaving tinfoil into hats over here.
24
00:01:55,213 --> 00:02:04,291
But when you look at it deeply, when you think about the things that we as GenXers were
raised with, it's like the...
25
00:02:04,291 --> 00:02:13,888
the worldview of Star Wars, the worldview of Star Trek, the generation after us, the
Millennials, have Harry Potter, and there's cyberpunk that's in there.
26
00:02:13,888 --> 00:02:19,172
And which of those actually gives you a blueprint for how to live in the world today?
27
00:02:19,172 --> 00:02:24,275
It's not the Jedi, and it's not Star Trek, and it's not Harry Potter.
28
00:02:24,275 --> 00:02:30,888
Only cyberpunk has a metaphor that is suitable as a lens to view the real world.
29
00:02:31,255 --> 00:02:36,501
That may be a lot deeper than people want to go about a video game, but I've been thinking
about this a lot.
30
00:02:36,501 --> 00:02:39,018
So I'll turn it over to David at this
31
00:02:39,624 --> 00:02:49,101
I mean, I would really love to be able to, follow in the heels of Star Trek, in terms of
ways to live by, the, the post scarcity society would be awesome.
32
00:02:49,101 --> 00:02:57,115
if it ends up in the Star Trek vein, if it ends up more like in the altered carbon vein,
where the, what do they call it?
33
00:02:57,115 --> 00:02:58,756
They're not called Methuselah's.
34
00:02:58,756 --> 00:03:00,036
What are they called?
35
00:03:00,816 --> 00:03:01,586
Are they okay?
36
00:03:01,586 --> 00:03:01,857
Yeah.
37
00:03:01,857 --> 00:03:04,117
But basically the ultra rich.
38
00:03:04,198 --> 00:03:16,399
live effectively forever and everyone else doesn't and I was just seeing an article about
Zuckerberg today where he's taken all of his all the stuff that was Originally going
39
00:03:16,399 --> 00:03:20,347
toward like helping humanity is going toward life extension now.
40
00:03:20,347 --> 00:03:21,764
So you know
41
00:03:21,764 --> 00:03:22,215
I mean.
42
00:03:22,215 --> 00:03:33,242
You look at Saburo Arasaka and you look at the way that he was living to 150 and the fact
that he was going to take over his son via the chip.
43
00:03:33,242 --> 00:03:34,903
That was the plan.
44
00:03:34,903 --> 00:03:42,086
And then you look at, what's his name, Brian Johnson and using his son's blood to help
extend his life and make him healthier.
45
00:03:42,086 --> 00:03:45,115
It's obscene and yet this is what the rich do.
46
00:03:45,115 --> 00:03:46,475
They're not like us.
47
00:03:47,396 --> 00:03:55,259
I think people see something in both the stories and the video game that I think resonated
with a lot of people.
48
00:03:55,259 --> 00:04:00,568
And also it gave them power to do something about it as V.
49
00:04:00,568 --> 00:04:01,901
I mean, let's put it this way.
50
00:04:01,901 --> 00:04:12,604
If you were to run around with a number of weapons and begin to do gigs in Indianapolis,
someone might say something, but
51
00:04:12,606 --> 00:04:13,660
They might.
52
00:04:13,732 --> 00:04:20,324
But in Night City, in this cyberpunk world, you have some power to make change.
53
00:04:20,324 --> 00:04:23,528
And that's not something a lot of people have right now.
54
00:04:24,341 --> 00:04:24,714
Yeah.
55
00:04:24,714 --> 00:04:32,490
I think a lot of us, or at least the three of us here grew up with cyberpunk and we're
thinking, yeah, data jacks would be awesome.
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And, you know, cyber eyes would be awesome.
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cause of the, the things that they would give us.
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and so there's a nostalgia there because we didn't think what would they take away?
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I don't want a corporate branded
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set of eyes or a corporate branded data jack that, you know, six months down the line,
they're going to stop all the updates for and brick, you know, uh, like, like Google just
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did my nest last, two weeks ago.
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Well, that's the really, the Philip K.
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Dick cyberpunk is really worn out here, Gibson reflected it an awful lot.
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Pondsmith picked up all those pieces and kind of created a pastiche that worked on a
number of levels and is a great entree to the genre.
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I think a lot of people wind up discovering more cyberpunk and
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If I'm lucky, they went back and read some of the old books.
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And there's a lot of international news cyberpunk being written about colonization and
stuff like that.
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But it's all the same thing.
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The East India Company was the Arasaka of its day.
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Yep.
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And yeah, although we are, we are talking about the game as well.
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Not just, yeah, not just cyberpunk.
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Yeah.
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Um, the reason why I keep coming back to it is not the dark side that we just talked
about.
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some of it is like the exploration.
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I have not played, seven, three playthroughs.
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think Chris beats.
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the three of us, of the three of us.
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uh But, you know, I'm still finding sites and sounds and story that each playthrough is
new to me.
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Or I make choices that are different from the last playthrough and that opens up a whole
area of story and places where I go and people that I meet.
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And that is one thing that has always been
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Interest to me even just in life is you know the new the exploration It probably also even
even per for Not people without ADHD.
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uh I imagine the exploration is fun.
84
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But for me there's something new around every corner
85
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discovery is a huge part of the way I like to game too.
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We've talked about that, and so I agree with you.
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And I don't have ADHD.
88
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Yeah,
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I think I really and we were talking about this a little bit later on but like the fact
that you can keep coming back to it and find new and interesting things is cool.
90
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I like the way that the the lore has built up since 2020 and 2020-2045 and honestly even
us playing in cyberpunk red campaign it's provided a lot of inspiration for
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what is happening back in 2045 and thinking about like, how do you get there?
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How do you get here from there?
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Right?
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And the other thing that I find interesting, and I don't know if they were, I don't think
they were explicitly trying to make this statement, but how much the world has stagnated
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despite being one of high technology.
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Because the world of 2020, in some ways, you know, it's a step back because there was, you
know,
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A of nuclear bombs exchanged and the time of Red actually serves as a reset to regress
things.
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But at end of the day, it's still all of the cyberpunk neon, but it's 50 years later,
right?
99
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And so the culture is kind of stuck and it's not figuring out how to reboot itself and
move itself forward.
100
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But I did like the different storylines were fantastic.
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I feel like it's not that you're necessarily having truly meaningful impacts on the
overall story.
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right, because you're still following a branching storyline.
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But it does feel very immersive and like you can just throw yourself into the storyline
for a while and have a ton of fun.
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And if that gets a little boring, I'm just gonna go over and do all this stuff.
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I think there are two other things we have to keep in mind.
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In that five-year period, there were a number of updates, upgrades, expansions, story
packs, changes from point level to point level that made it worthwhile to go back.
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uh Additionally, the modding community is amazing.
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And there are so many great mods out there.
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If you've not tried the Dark Future mod,
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It's amazing.
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It adds stress.
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it adds a cyber psycho thing that can happen to you.
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uh Dark Future is one of my favorites.
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It's really great.
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And I think one other thing, you you talk about, you know, the discovery is also good, but
the strategy, like if you go in and you play, like I played a net runner at least three
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separate times in three different ways.
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But then I went in and said, I'm going to go in and I'm only going to use bladed weapons.
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Then I did the Arasaka heist that way and all that.
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It makes you play the game differently.
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Or I'm going to be a solo.
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I'm not going to get a deck.
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I'm going to get the Sandevastan and some of the Militech augments and stuff like that.
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Things that, the quick hacks are great and everything.
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but try and play it as a solo without the net running and it becomes a different game.
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Yes, the branching storyline is the same.
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Yes, a lot of the tissues are the same, but the way you have to achieve the goals and the
fact that I think they have a lot of thought into you can achieve each mission multiple
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different ways.
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There are some, maybe you can get in through the roof, but if you don't have that skill,
maybe you've got to talk your way in and maybe you've got to...
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So there are so many different ways to play.
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I keep, just like you, David, I keep discovering new things.
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When I played just as a straight up solo, all of a sudden I had the body strength to do
some things that the net runner didn't do and I could just, you know.
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So the world can adapt to the different ways of achieving the goal, which I really like.
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I'm just really bad at the physical stuff.
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tried to do it for my current run.
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is what I've been trying to do is like, all right, I'm gonna get really good at the sword,
right?
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Like it's in Snow Crash, right?
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Like every person until they're like, what, 24, thinks that, know, if their family was
wiped out by terrorists, they could train night and day to become Batman and go kill
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everybody with a sword, except no.
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But yeah, so I'm trying.
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I'm trying, I'm like, I'm gonna be stealthy.
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I'm gonna get people with a sword.
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And I am not stealthy, and I keep not getting them with the sword.
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and that's where your perk trees and all of that.
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But yeah, I mean, it's much harder.
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mean, playing just with bladed weapons, it's hard, but it's very rewarding when you're
able to deflect.
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Once you get good at deflecting the bullets right at the person because there's a perk
that allows you to do that, uh it becomes this amazing thing.
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And this is what I mean is they put so much thought into this.
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And I think
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Because it went so poorly, they really pushed themselves hard to recover.
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And I think that added a lot of great stuff that if it had come out strong, we might not
have gotten these things.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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stuff that was highlighted early on, like the ability to, I've only done it a handful of
times, but you can now just get on the train to Night City and go for a ride.
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done, so in dark future, it can disable fast travel.
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So you need to drive around the city or take the, you know, and I haven't done this very
often with first person shooters, but I can do it in cyberpunk, really get immersed in the
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character I'm trying to play.
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Where does my V come from?
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How did they get that way?
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How would they react to this or that or the other thing?
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And then when you get into Phantom Liberty, it becomes a whole other ballgame because now
you're in a James Bond movie, a cyberpunk James Bond movie.
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And with two very broken spies, you know?
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And so it becomes this whole other game.
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I don't know, it's one of the best games I've ever played.
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I started admittedly, I didn't buy it at the very beginning.
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I got into it at 1.6 when a lot of things were being repaired in that particular version
and I heard good things.
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But the 2.0 made it a new game.
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Yeah, I don't remember when I bought it, but I had decided to not do a pre-order on it
because I'd been burned with pre-order and early access for long enough that, you know, I
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really wanted it.
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But I waited a couple months, I think, before I actually picked it up.
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Might have been as much as six months, but they had fixed a decent amount of the issues.
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I never really ran into any...
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didn't run into any game breaking bugs.
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I never really ran into a ton of things like T posing and the car suddenly exploding.
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I had a couple of those, but nowhere near as bad as the Skyrim stuff that was there uh and
still is.
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you mentioning the body and being as a solo.
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I'm starting to feel that my multiple Netrunner playthroughs have been easy mode uh
because you're
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the difficulty?
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I mean, like, played hard mode.
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That's a different experience.
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It's amazing.
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but I will say that I have been tempted to a couple of times because going in and there's
five guys and then you stack up the quick hacks and they're all like dropping and they
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still don't know where you are because you're stealthed and all that kind of stuff.
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It just feels too easy sometimes.
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Thing that I saw recently, they just released auto drive where you can get in the car and
set your destination and it will drive you there.
185
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And they fixed some bugs where it would get stuck behind traffic and things like that.
186
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um One of the things it says is it no longer stops at stoplights.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I want to try that out for a couple of reasons Because the whole world is is pretty
beautiful uh You know going through there also, I think I'd like to record an auto drive
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of some things and then Use that for our actual play like interstitials between scenes or
something like that It was a
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point about the beauty of the game itself, I mean, I don't have a top-of-the-line graphics
card.
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I cannot throw down that kind of money.
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um Yeah, one day I could do part of the ray tracing, but not much of it.
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But one of the reasons I like this game is, first of all, it's beautiful even at the level
that I'm looking at it.
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And that's going to mature.
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I'm going to upgrade this card one day and it's gonna look even better in the future to me
and you know, also you can I mean there are a whole video there's a producer named
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daydream gaming on YouTube and They have produced a number of just walking around Night
City videos That are kind of fun to throw in the background, but I used to use them as
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background when I would DJ cyberpunk music
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And it would serve as the video portion of the thing I would layer music on top of because
it was gorgeous, because it's amazing.
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And they did a beautiful job with it.
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Even the trashy parts are rendered beautifully.
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And so it's interesting.
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There's a lot that goes into this, the city design.
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We can talk about the city design at some point.
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But the fact that they brought in city planners to design the city.
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I mean, I don't know about you, but I'll be walking around Night City and I'll look around
and go, my God, that looks just like this back alley in the middle of Akron, Ohio I used
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to see.
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Because it's rusty and because it is old industrial and because, and I'm sure other people
have those experiences too where they did a good job of making it feel familiar.
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Yeah, you know, I went back and I used the map to explore Night City for our campaign.
209
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I was especially like, you know, so obviously in 2077, some districts have moved.
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address this in uh some of the source books because of urban renewal and what have you,
right?
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And that happens, right?
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Like we talked about it in our building better cities episode for campaigns and coffee,
but.
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being able to go in there and drive down to the city center and then walk out of the city
center, I realized I have a problem.
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Because when I was designing the run into Elysium HQ for a cyberpunk campaign, I had this
vision of it being more like escape from New York, but escape from New York, like the
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whole island of Manhattan is the prison, right?
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And the core, the old core of Night City is not that big.
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And I only really realized that when like, oh,
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Right.
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this is, all right, I have to come up with a different plan.
220
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So being able to just get out and explore is great.
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you can see across it.
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Uh-oh.
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So that's where I had to come up with things to make it more challenging for you guys to
have blockades leading into it so people could shake you down.
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There'd be some role playing opportunities so it wasn't going to be a clean in and out.
225
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That was before you blew up your car.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I will say
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in Cyberpunk Red, the game we're in, a nuke did go off and they still haven't rebuilt.
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So getting through there would be slower, just from the rubble and other things like that.
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I believe our car blew up because, there was a crit fail on a drive test and we caught a
piece of rebar sticking out of some rubble, which caused the car to flip and then
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then is when the gangers toss the grenade in the car.
233
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Mm-hmm.
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there was a grenade launcher involved at some point that caused the actual explosion part.
235
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But yeah, was, know, it was a team effort.
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But I think the other thing that we talked about multiple starts and multiple endings, and
this is one of the things that I enjoyed about Mass Effect was when playing through Mass
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Effects 1, 2, and 3, like it felt like...
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as you were moving through the game and I had played that multiple times, like you were
having an impact on the story.
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Now Mass Effect 3 got to a place where it didn't actually have the impact we thought it
was gonna be the first time around.
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But with this, like you truly do have very separate storylines starting.
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I don't know that they influence the actual gameplay.
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I mean, they do in terms of like giving you dialogue choices and stuff like that.
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But the ability to go, I hadn't played, I think I played a Nomad twice, a Street Kid once,
and I went back and played a Corpo this time.
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and it was a different experience, right?
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And I gotta say every single time, and spoilers for a five-year-old game, but Jackie's
death is just a huge, I think, emotional thing, and every time you play through it again,
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you can skip past it now with Phantom Liberty, but if you're doing the full playthrough,
you know that's coming, right?
247
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And there's no way to avoid it.
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Jackie's death.
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mean, first of all, Jackie is an amazing character.
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He is my favorite character, I think, in all of video games.
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and I would totally pay for someone to make a game where Jackie lives.
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know, Jackie dying?
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Again, spoiler for a five-year-old game.
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But, what?
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God, what's her name?
256
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ah Not Bug, no.
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bug.
258
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No, no, no, no, no, the one who kills herself.
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know, Bug.
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Oh, I know what you're talking about.
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The hacker.
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I'm just saying, Bug is the netrunner.
263
00:20:22,738 --> 00:20:24,449
friend who hires you.
264
00:20:24,870 --> 00:20:27,513
I'm totally blanking on her name.
265
00:20:27,513 --> 00:20:41,475
But when she is abducted and you have to rescue her and they talk about the things that
she has been through, I mean, this is a game that doesn't shy away from the violent, the
266
00:20:41,475 --> 00:20:42,646
sexual.
267
00:20:42,932 --> 00:20:44,333
the dark side of everything.
268
00:20:44,333 --> 00:20:48,627
I mean, there's the side quest that ends in a crucifixion.
269
00:20:48,627 --> 00:20:49,547
know, that...
270
00:20:49,547 --> 00:20:54,691
Oh, Ken!
271
00:20:55,132 --> 00:21:00,375
I've done it twice, and both times, it's hard.
272
00:21:00,376 --> 00:21:06,440
It can be a hard game to play, but I've really been impressed with their storytelling.
273
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:08,868
I never played The Witcher, any of The Witchers.
274
00:21:08,868 --> 00:21:12,422
I had played nothing by CDPR before this game.
275
00:21:12,422 --> 00:21:20,583
And it really, I think, raised the bar for how role-playing games, first-person
role-playing games need to be.
276
00:21:20,583 --> 00:21:26,218
And I think you see that in some successors, like in The Outer Worlds 2.
277
00:21:26,294 --> 00:21:34,020
I think Obsidian learned some things from watching Cyberpunk because they have multiple
origins.
278
00:21:34,074 --> 00:21:37,176
and they have multiple forms of dialogue and multiple things you can now...
279
00:21:37,176 --> 00:21:48,942
Obsidian was always good at that, but they've really stepped it up in the Outer Worlds too
compared to the Outer Worlds, and I think that's due to games like Cyberpunk and like the
280
00:21:48,942 --> 00:21:49,783
things you can do with it.
281
00:21:49,783 --> 00:21:52,194
Also, Keanu Reeves, what's not to love?
282
00:21:52,194 --> 00:22:02,480
I mean, if you're gonna have someone stuck in your head, mean, Johnny Surverhand is a
jerk, you know, yes, but it's delightful to see these...
283
00:22:02,621 --> 00:22:11,114
these actors that you know and have enjoyed, for you to hang out with them, even if
they're just a character in a video game.
284
00:22:11,114 --> 00:22:12,364
It's fun.
285
00:22:12,601 --> 00:22:18,746
And it's amazing to have that, it's almost like a one-on-one experience with them.
286
00:22:19,266 --> 00:22:28,236
I'm not trying um to get into a parasocial relationship with Idris Elba here, but the idea
that, I mean, the interactions in this game,
287
00:22:28,236 --> 00:22:37,455
when you get into it, feel so natural and realistic that it leaves an impact on you, I
think.
288
00:22:37,476 --> 00:22:38,737
At least it did me.
289
00:22:38,737 --> 00:22:42,460
options seem more real and less contrived.
290
00:22:42,460 --> 00:22:51,809
like the fact that you're asking questions and responding in ways that you think your
character would be responding.
291
00:22:51,809 --> 00:22:55,591
And they don't really leave out the responses that...
292
00:22:57,390 --> 00:22:58,484
that aren't good.
293
00:22:58,484 --> 00:23:02,376
You know, it's it, that's a bad way to put it, but it's a
294
00:23:04,058 --> 00:23:10,676
There have been times when you get a set of dialogue options in other games where it's
like, I want none of these.
295
00:23:11,077 --> 00:23:16,128
And I don't recall ever seeing that in Cyberpunk 2077.
296
00:23:16,128 --> 00:23:17,608
em
297
00:23:17,608 --> 00:23:19,499
up Cyberpunk 2077, too.
298
00:23:19,499 --> 00:23:24,281
You're allowed to not take the job with Pan Am or to alienate Johnny.
299
00:23:24,281 --> 00:23:27,744
And, you know, you're allowed to make terrible mistakes.
300
00:23:27,744 --> 00:23:28,904
And it changes.
301
00:23:28,904 --> 00:23:31,325
really fundamentally changes the game.
302
00:23:31,495 --> 00:23:34,008
And I think that reinforces the sense of choice, right?
303
00:23:34,008 --> 00:23:38,643
Like because you're making V your own V because...
304
00:23:38,715 --> 00:23:43,747
there's enough choices to consistently reinforce how your V would act in this situation.
305
00:23:43,747 --> 00:23:51,040
So are you doubling down on Johnny's crush the corpos sort of mentality or are you
resisting it?
306
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:58,784
And there are consistent dialogue choices and not even just at the two extremes, but also
some stuff in the middle where you can say, well, he's starting, that's actually a really
307
00:23:58,784 --> 00:23:59,314
good argument.
308
00:23:59,314 --> 00:24:01,445
Maybe I agree with Johnny in this.
309
00:24:01,445 --> 00:24:04,986
He's a dick, but like he's right this time.
310
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:10,184
And there's a way that they interweave the small jobs, the gigs, and the main storyline.
311
00:24:10,184 --> 00:24:18,522
There is one storyline that you do a job for Regina that you assassinate someone named
Jotaro Shobo.
312
00:24:18,723 --> 00:24:28,671
And if you do it before you go to clouds and confront Woodman, you can bring up that you
did that in that conversation.
313
00:24:28,671 --> 00:24:32,414
So there's an interweaving of the gigs.
314
00:24:32,732 --> 00:24:37,006
And then there's so much lore just scattered throughout.
315
00:24:38,309 --> 00:24:44,115
I think one of my favorite, it's not a conspiracy theory because everything points to it,
but the mystery of Mr.
316
00:24:44,115 --> 00:24:46,018
Blue Eyes and who Mr.
317
00:24:46,018 --> 00:24:48,060
Blue Eyes is and what his significance is.
318
00:24:48,060 --> 00:24:49,762
Do you know what I'm talking about?
319
00:24:51,627 --> 00:24:52,820
I've seen Mr.
320
00:24:52,820 --> 00:25:00,196
Blue Eyes a couple of times, I don't, uh if I'm remembering it correctly, but I don't
remember a whole lot about him.
321
00:25:00,196 --> 00:25:06,510
All I'm going to say is that there is a character that you only meet in person in two
places.
322
00:25:06,510 --> 00:25:09,431
One, the Jefferson Peralta ending.
323
00:25:09,431 --> 00:25:12,592
When you finish that job, there's someone you talk to.
324
00:25:12,592 --> 00:25:21,916
And if you look off across the plaza from where you're sitting and you zoom in with
something that can zoom in, you see a man dressed in a suit with dark hair and blue
325
00:25:21,916 --> 00:25:23,296
glowing eyes.
326
00:25:23,580 --> 00:25:36,929
And if you go into, I think it's the sun ending, the one where you go and hijack the
celestial casino in the sky, the person that hires you to do that is Mr.
327
00:25:36,929 --> 00:25:37,650
Blue Eyes.
328
00:25:37,650 --> 00:25:41,163
And the thing is that Mr.
329
00:25:41,163 --> 00:25:46,676
Blue Eyes is also present if you get Songbird out.
330
00:25:47,181 --> 00:25:51,043
and take her to the moonshot and get her off on the moonshot.
331
00:25:51,043 --> 00:25:58,088
He appears far away across the airport, and he is watching what you're doing.
332
00:25:58,849 --> 00:26:11,269
There is a theory, and it comes through the it begins with the Sandra Dorsett job, it goes
all the way through, that there is something that Nightcorp is doing with some form of AI.
333
00:26:12,255 --> 00:26:19,157
And that's what Sandra Dorsett stole, and that's why she was fed to the scavs.
334
00:26:19,317 --> 00:26:29,760
So this is what—there's this lore that goes through all of this that even if you've played
the game multiple times, you might not get, unless you really follow the text.
335
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:39,962
Unlike the text in Skyrim, where every book has something in it, this stuff weaves
together into stories.
336
00:26:40,132 --> 00:26:51,558
And they did an even better job with the Phantom Liberty stuff because the Phantom Liberty
gigs, you can actually, after Phantom Liberty ends, there are moments when you will get a
337
00:26:51,558 --> 00:27:02,834
phone call from someone that you helped in a gig in Dogtown, and they want you to come
visit their new Scop Dog stand, or they want to do, you know, or they left something for
338
00:27:02,834 --> 00:27:03,834
you somewhere.
339
00:27:03,834 --> 00:27:09,378
So they really ratcheted that up as part of 2.0 and Phantom Liberty.
340
00:27:09,378 --> 00:27:11,399
Anyway, it's a great game.
341
00:27:11,399 --> 00:27:13,860
like you say, you keep getting new things out of it.
342
00:27:13,860 --> 00:27:15,761
You keep discovering things.
343
00:27:15,761 --> 00:27:18,162
And I don't know.
344
00:27:18,162 --> 00:27:22,645
I'm waiting to find my next Cyberpunk 2077, you know?
345
00:27:22,645 --> 00:27:24,445
I haven't found it yet.
346
00:27:24,445 --> 00:27:27,036
I've played a number of really good games.
347
00:27:27,503 --> 00:27:31,253
But I haven't found this one again.
348
00:27:32,032 --> 00:27:33,193
There are a couple of things.
349
00:27:33,193 --> 00:27:46,321
This jumps back a little bit, but the quests that you're given, there are ways, you can't
always have a happy ending, no matter how hard you try.
350
00:27:46,321 --> 00:27:54,726
And that is different than a lot of other games out there where you can choose certain
things and you can get the most perfect ending.
351
00:27:54,726 --> 00:27:55,987
Whereas this one is,
352
00:27:55,987 --> 00:27:57,088
little more true to life.
353
00:27:57,088 --> 00:28:02,115
Other people are making decisions, not just you, and you can't always win.
354
00:28:02,115 --> 00:28:05,318
You can get as best as you can, but you can't always win.
355
00:28:05,415 --> 00:28:13,175
I think that's the noir influence coming through, the idea of that there are moral
compromises.
356
00:28:13,255 --> 00:28:18,675
You see this in the spin-off comic books that they've put out.
357
00:28:18,675 --> 00:28:28,695
If you read those, then none of them have really happy endings, but there's always the
moral compromise of having to live in the world you live in and still do the best you can
358
00:28:28,695 --> 00:28:31,475
and just try to make it so you can live with yourself.
359
00:28:31,475 --> 00:28:34,175
But your point is accurate.
360
00:28:34,843 --> 00:28:39,268
I think it's the sun ending again where you wake up in the mansion.
361
00:28:39,309 --> 00:28:44,035
If you had someone that you were dating, they break up with you right before your big job.
362
00:28:44,035 --> 00:28:46,714
um
363
00:28:46,714 --> 00:28:47,017
ending.
364
00:28:47,017 --> 00:28:48,739
I'm gonna have to try and get this ending.
365
00:28:48,739 --> 00:28:52,664
Yeah, no, mean, and that's, look up the endings.
366
00:28:52,664 --> 00:28:54,086
Don't watch the videos.
367
00:28:54,086 --> 00:28:55,747
I don't know if you've done the ending for...
368
00:28:55,747 --> 00:29:04,805
The one that really hit me the hardest was the ending to Phantom Liberty if you allow them
to take the chip out of you.
369
00:29:06,441 --> 00:29:15,889
because it fast forwards you a couple of years and things change and you're able to go
back to Night City in 2080.
370
00:29:16,643 --> 00:29:17,531
Oh.
371
00:29:17,555 --> 00:29:20,516
or 2079, but yeah, basically 2080.
372
00:29:20,516 --> 00:29:23,039
And it's very bittersweet.
373
00:29:23,039 --> 00:29:35,269
I don't want to tell you what happens, I don't want to ruin it, but V comes out of that
fundamentally changed and has to find, and lives and finds, has to find a way.
374
00:29:35,330 --> 00:29:40,255
It's actually led me off into like a little fan fiction world of what does V do after
that?
375
00:29:40,255 --> 00:29:43,394
But it, that ending,
376
00:29:43,394 --> 00:29:55,944
Misty plays a beautiful part in that ending and it is worthwhile and it leaves you it does
the best thing that fiction does which is kind of like makes a little hole in you and then
377
00:29:55,944 --> 00:30:06,141
fills it with something and then you walk away with that they they really nailed it it's
do i don't think it's the best ending i mean i think my favorite ending for the happy
378
00:30:06,141 --> 00:30:11,301
ending is probably the going off with the altacaldos ending but
379
00:30:11,301 --> 00:30:11,923
one.
380
00:30:11,938 --> 00:30:29,611
But the ending of Phantom Liberty, if you accept the deal and have them remove the shard,
the engram and everything, it is deeply sad but also very kind of wondrous.
381
00:30:29,611 --> 00:30:34,694
And it really makes you think about what would be next for this character.
382
00:30:36,765 --> 00:30:38,525
Now I need to start another playthrough.
383
00:30:40,865 --> 00:30:50,465
I still want to get through the playthrough where you've befriended Johnny enough that you
can do that last mission with that one.
384
00:30:50,565 --> 00:30:57,145
I haven't been able to do that because I missed the one dialogue option in the field.
385
00:30:57,885 --> 00:31:01,475
you basically have to replay everything if you miss it.
386
00:31:01,475 --> 00:31:08,792
and you know, it's worth it to do that to get that ending that don't fear the Reaper
ending is unbelievable.
387
00:31:08,792 --> 00:31:10,103
It's hard.
388
00:31:10,103 --> 00:31:17,730
Even if you're 20th level net runner running in there with all the gear, it's hard, but it
is so.
389
00:31:19,341 --> 00:31:31,459
Have you ever done a run where you, before Jackie dies, and you just do all of the side
missions that are entirely possible?
390
00:31:31,961 --> 00:31:32,495
Yeah.
391
00:31:32,495 --> 00:31:33,295
Yep.
392
00:31:33,295 --> 00:31:40,035
The problem I have is when you do all the side and the cop missions, because the cop
missions tied together too.
393
00:31:40,535 --> 00:31:47,095
There are story patterns that lead through all of those things too, which is really kind
of wild.
394
00:31:48,135 --> 00:31:49,055
But yeah, I've done it.
395
00:31:49,055 --> 00:31:51,695
The problem is that you level up a lot.
396
00:31:51,695 --> 00:31:59,815
Like, you will top out your level way before the end of the game if you go and do all the
jobs.
397
00:31:59,869 --> 00:32:00,852
Mm-hmm.
398
00:32:02,235 --> 00:32:08,058
Which is the only real flaw I've seen in the game, is that I would like to continue to be
able to level.
399
00:32:08,058 --> 00:32:17,986
I think you can still get, like, not perk points, but the points for Solo or Shinobi or
that kind of thing.
400
00:32:17,986 --> 00:32:24,499
Those keep going up, but once you've topped out, you can't get 20s in everything.
401
00:32:24,499 --> 00:32:27,010
You can't become Superman.
402
00:32:28,373 --> 00:32:33,025
I will say the other things that I love about it are, one, just this conversation, right?
403
00:32:33,025 --> 00:32:35,884
So the fact that you can talk with people and they're like, wait, did you know this?
404
00:32:35,884 --> 00:32:37,627
Like even Erebus, right?
405
00:32:37,627 --> 00:32:44,199
I was just, as I was building out our Cyberpunk Red campaign, I was just going like
riffing off of the Greek mythology theme.
406
00:32:44,199 --> 00:32:48,350
And I don't remember, did you come up with, you came up with Erebus, right?
407
00:32:48,350 --> 00:32:51,237
up with Erebus, but Erebus also appears in Cyberpunk 2077.
408
00:32:51,237 --> 00:32:52,559
Yes.
409
00:32:53,343 --> 00:32:56,449
Yeah, I did.
410
00:32:56,491 --> 00:32:57,892
I totally did.
411
00:32:58,933 --> 00:33:05,318
And so how I, but how I built out Erebus's person, we haven't gotten that far in the, in
the actual game, right?
412
00:33:05,318 --> 00:33:11,684
But like, okay, actually unknowingly I have established the necessary threads to get us to
that point.
413
00:33:11,684 --> 00:33:12,636
But, it's cool.
414
00:33:12,636 --> 00:33:13,546
I just, didn't know that.
415
00:33:13,546 --> 00:33:14,787
they're like, Hey, there's this thing.
416
00:33:14,787 --> 00:33:15,128
It's great.
417
00:33:15,128 --> 00:33:17,219
Lord, you're not going to enable it to do X and Y and Z.
418
00:33:17,219 --> 00:33:19,551
And I think of my response online was basically.
419
00:33:20,212 --> 00:33:23,583
No, no, no, we haven't revealed those parts yet.
420
00:33:23,910 --> 00:33:28,352
But yeah, I mean, just there's all of these cool things that you can just keep keep
stumbling across.
421
00:33:28,352 --> 00:33:31,194
And there's some just such marvelous toys, right?
422
00:33:31,194 --> 00:33:33,615
Some of the weapons are tremendous.
423
00:33:33,615 --> 00:33:36,576
Some of the combinations you can do is really cool.
424
00:33:36,576 --> 00:33:39,918
And so you can you can have those different play styles so you can go full on fists.
425
00:33:39,918 --> 00:33:41,749
You can go full on steel.
426
00:33:41,749 --> 00:33:42,639
You can.
427
00:33:42,885 --> 00:33:51,362
I mean, it's kind of easy to be the sniper, but even then, right, like tweaking your
weapon to do exactly what you want it to be able to do and have your fallback style.
428
00:33:51,362 --> 00:33:58,448
I will say there is that challenge when you've been playing high level and then you reboot
and you go to the new, to a new game.
429
00:33:58,448 --> 00:34:01,500
And like, I had built out like all of my cyber legs.
430
00:34:01,500 --> 00:34:03,452
I was basically able to jump like 50 feet.
431
00:34:03,452 --> 00:34:09,737
I don't know how high it actually was, but there were no obstacles in Night City for my
previous build.
432
00:34:09,937 --> 00:34:11,368
And I'm like trying to do it again.
433
00:34:11,368 --> 00:34:12,319
It's like,
434
00:34:12,961 --> 00:34:15,399
I think I jumped like two feet.
435
00:34:15,399 --> 00:34:17,496
What do mean I can't get over this low wall?
436
00:34:17,496 --> 00:34:18,867
I'm a normal human again.
437
00:34:18,867 --> 00:34:19,927
Dang it.
438
00:34:20,788 --> 00:34:21,446
Yeah.
439
00:34:21,446 --> 00:34:31,787
And one of the other things that I like about the storytelling in it, um, and the quest
system in it is, and there's some of this in like fallout four and Chris and I had started
440
00:34:31,787 --> 00:34:41,835
playing fallout 76 a little bit, um, as well is those in world notes and the in world,
like the cop, when you mentioned the cop missions, that's the one that, that really
441
00:34:41,835 --> 00:34:43,796
brought it up to me is
442
00:34:43,796 --> 00:34:56,806
Those notes back and forth in the cop missions lead to other things, but you actually have
to read them and go searching for the container that you can open that has the special
443
00:34:56,806 --> 00:34:59,139
thing or a motorcycle or whatever.
444
00:34:59,139 --> 00:35:03,102
And it doesn't put a dot on your map.
445
00:35:03,102 --> 00:35:07,627
doesn't put a side quest mission in your, in your mission log.
446
00:35:07,627 --> 00:35:12,038
and that's a bit of nostalgia for me for.
447
00:35:12,038 --> 00:35:22,116
you the early role playing games and such of like, there are no quest markers, or very
few, and you had to have a pad of paper next to you to take all your notes.
448
00:35:23,157 --> 00:35:29,921
and I kind of find that a bit refreshing that you, if you want to ignore all that, you can
ignore all that.
449
00:35:29,921 --> 00:35:37,825
It's not required, but if you want to get into some of the nitty gritty of the story, you
better keep a note.
450
00:35:38,495 --> 00:35:39,408
Indeed.
451
00:35:39,587 --> 00:35:47,233
There's, mean, I've watched my fair share of YouTube videos, not of playthroughs, but just
of people talking about aspects of the game.
452
00:35:47,233 --> 00:35:49,195
I've done a little bit of research on my own.
453
00:35:49,195 --> 00:35:54,600
There are some things I still haven't gone to find in game yet that I've read about, and I
might one day.
454
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,071
The modding community, again, has impressed me.
455
00:35:57,071 --> 00:36:00,344
There are some really great ways to play the game.
456
00:36:00,344 --> 00:36:02,974
Also, the VR version of it.
457
00:36:02,974 --> 00:36:07,354
If you can get it working, I did once and it was pretty impressive.
458
00:36:08,114 --> 00:36:10,914
I wouldn't want to play the whole game that way.
459
00:36:12,414 --> 00:36:17,074
It's a guy created a thing to do it.
460
00:36:17,774 --> 00:36:26,014
So it's not a mod, but it is a piece of software you need to install and then have it talk
to your headset.
461
00:36:26,174 --> 00:36:29,654
Usually it goes through Steam, at least mine did.
462
00:36:31,270 --> 00:36:36,775
And it's, mean, it's beautiful to walk around the city and see everything I res and all of
that.
463
00:36:36,775 --> 00:36:42,180
But, you know, I think it's going to be one of those games that continues to evolve.
464
00:36:42,180 --> 00:36:45,102
And there's been a lot of talk.
465
00:36:45,583 --> 00:36:50,687
CDPR has been contracting with, I believe they're called Virtuous.
466
00:36:50,707 --> 00:36:57,674
It's a French company that has been doing, they did, I think the 2.1 update for the game.
467
00:36:57,986 --> 00:37:00,307
and they've introduced some new things to it.
468
00:37:00,307 --> 00:37:07,590
So there are rumblings that there are more things coming in for the game.
469
00:37:07,590 --> 00:37:18,485
I mean, there's talk about the new anime is coming out and all of that, but do you think
they're going to be able to resist having an update that puts something from that anime
470
00:37:18,485 --> 00:37:19,305
into the game?
471
00:37:19,305 --> 00:37:20,997
Because they did that with Netrunner.
472
00:37:20,997 --> 00:37:23,038
Not Netrunner, with Edge Runners.
473
00:37:23,038 --> 00:37:24,559
Yeah, yeah.
474
00:37:24,559 --> 00:37:25,510
So I...
475
00:37:25,510 --> 00:37:32,814
I believe that CDPR just changed co-CEOs this year and there was a little bit of an about
phase.
476
00:37:32,814 --> 00:37:35,545
They were saying, we're done with the game, we're moving on.
477
00:37:35,545 --> 00:37:38,227
But then they started contracting with Virtuous.
478
00:37:38,227 --> 00:37:43,069
Then they put out a 2.1, then they put out 2.2, then 2.3.
479
00:37:43,069 --> 00:37:44,970
And there's rumors of more coming.
480
00:37:44,970 --> 00:37:52,614
They just did a live interview with Mike Pondsmith, just about creating Cyberpunk Red,
which is worth a watch, by the way.
481
00:37:52,614 --> 00:37:54,295
um
482
00:37:54,740 --> 00:37:58,306
it makes me wonder if there's another cyberpunk game coming too.
483
00:37:58,411 --> 00:38:00,011
Well, Orion.
484
00:38:00,171 --> 00:38:01,722
But that's years away.
485
00:38:01,722 --> 00:38:04,751
Yeah, we know there's definitely another game coming, because...
486
00:38:05,015 --> 00:38:11,266
but if they keep releasing these point releases, that keeps their fan base interested.
487
00:38:11,410 --> 00:38:14,932
And then when the new one comes out, and I'm OK with this.
488
00:38:14,932 --> 00:38:25,337
sort of doing a Bethesda thing, but Bethesda, you saw it with Fallout 4, they just did the
anniversary edition, Skyrim, did the same thing, you know.
489
00:38:25,417 --> 00:38:33,739
They do, but that's what I mean is that I think CDPR has learned from Bethesda's bumbling
about with this, that it's not just a money grab.
490
00:38:33,739 --> 00:38:36,670
And I think they know that they have...
491
00:38:36,904 --> 00:38:46,488
the user base that if they can keep them interested, the game, I believe they've just
called it Cyberpunk 2, is going to sell like gangbusters.
492
00:38:46,488 --> 00:38:49,491
um
493
00:38:49,638 --> 00:38:51,571
The one thing that.
494
00:38:53,595 --> 00:39:01,446
I was very disappointed when I heard they canceled, but I don't know that I would want in
it.
495
00:39:01,748 --> 00:39:06,354
I mean, I want it, but I don't know how they would make it good was multiplayer.
496
00:39:06,702 --> 00:39:13,855
Yeah, I would be afraid of it turning into like one of those like Fortnite things.
497
00:39:13,855 --> 00:39:18,557
just would have been, yeah, I have no interest in that.
498
00:39:18,557 --> 00:39:28,420
There's rumors, well, first of all, there's a mod that's been being built that will allow
multiplayer that apparently is pretty impressive, but it's not ready for prime time yet,
499
00:39:28,420 --> 00:39:29,562
but they've been doing a good job.
500
00:39:29,562 --> 00:39:34,784
Rumor is that Cyberpunk 2 is gonna have a multiplayer function, but.
501
00:39:34,784 --> 00:39:37,028
This is still in the design phases.
502
00:39:37,028 --> 00:39:39,842
mean, you could make a rumor up about anything.
503
00:39:39,842 --> 00:39:42,526
I mean, it's going to have Morgan Blackhand.
504
00:39:42,526 --> 00:39:45,601
It's going to have Johnny Silverhand back from the Dedican.
505
00:39:45,601 --> 00:39:48,023
I mean, you can say just about anything.
506
00:39:48,023 --> 00:39:50,143
had Morgan Blackhand.
507
00:39:50,963 --> 00:39:53,223
Or no, no, that wasn't Morgan Blackhand.
508
00:39:54,103 --> 00:39:57,143
The guy who crashed the old net.
509
00:39:57,516 --> 00:40:00,136
a race, Raish Bartmoss, yeah.
510
00:40:00,376 --> 00:40:04,196
I mean, he was in a freezer, but yeah.
511
00:40:04,816 --> 00:40:05,716
Yeah.
512
00:40:06,496 --> 00:40:11,216
But you know, it's kind of funny, but even that's an illustration of things coming to a
poor end.
513
00:40:11,216 --> 00:40:13,836
I mean, it's kind of like, oh, what happened to him?
514
00:40:13,836 --> 00:40:17,296
Well, he just lost power and died.
515
00:40:17,477 --> 00:40:18,448
Yeah.
516
00:40:18,448 --> 00:40:26,873
I think he was, in suspended animation and then the company that ran it just shut it down.
517
00:40:28,053 --> 00:40:30,555
Didn't take anybody out of suspended animation.
518
00:40:30,555 --> 00:40:31,915
They just shut it off.
519
00:40:31,915 --> 00:40:33,136
the thing about the Mr.
520
00:40:33,136 --> 00:40:44,825
Blue Eyes thing, speaking of Morgan Blackhand, is that if you go into the game files,
apparently, the graphics that are used for Mr.
521
00:40:44,825 --> 00:40:47,946
Blue Eyes are labeled Morgan Blackhand.
522
00:40:48,071 --> 00:40:49,055
Mmm.
523
00:40:49,770 --> 00:40:55,083
Mike Pondsmith has explicitly said that Morgan Blackhand is not in this game.
524
00:40:55,584 --> 00:41:00,488
So could have just been a, he says he's been off doing other things.
525
00:41:00,488 --> 00:41:02,870
What those things are, who knows?
526
00:41:02,870 --> 00:41:04,881
But yeah, so I don't know.
527
00:41:04,881 --> 00:41:14,149
I mean, we could go and I could keep talking about this game for hours because it captured
my imagination in a way, in a time, it was...
528
00:41:15,594 --> 00:41:21,948
It was during COVID, think, or just after, just at the tail end of COVID when I discovered
this game.
529
00:41:21,948 --> 00:41:28,691
And it was also after I had a very bad job experience and had left and was taking a year
off.
530
00:41:28,691 --> 00:41:41,124
And so there was an awful lot in this game about redemption and corporate nonsense and,
you know, making a difference and all that, really, really put hooks into my soul.
531
00:41:41,124 --> 00:41:43,701
And I'll always, yeah.
532
00:41:43,701 --> 00:41:47,235
that you don't normally expect from a video game.
533
00:41:47,235 --> 00:41:58,125
moral questions, ethical questions that are put to you in ways that don't shy away from
the ugliness of the world.
534
00:41:58,166 --> 00:42:03,070
I was always impressed with, I my God, look at the ads in this city.
535
00:42:03,130 --> 00:42:13,179
Some of them are, some of them are filthy, objectionable, terrible, you know, things, but
also very human, but also...
536
00:42:13,283 --> 00:42:20,163
very much like, if the business could push that envelope and businesses are fundamentally
amoral entities.
537
00:42:20,543 --> 00:42:23,123
So, I mean, go read your Cory Doctorow.
538
00:42:23,723 --> 00:42:30,743
But, you know, they're fundamentally amoral agencies that will do whatever they can to get
ahead because that's their mandate.
539
00:42:30,803 --> 00:42:37,663
This is the logic, not even the logical conclusion, logical extension of that, this whole
city.
540
00:42:38,078 --> 00:42:55,458
Having a philosophical underpinning for Cyberpunk 2077 and other video games that do it
well, those are the games that really kind of grab you and draw you and have you keep
541
00:42:55,458 --> 00:42:57,298
talking about them later.
542
00:42:57,418 --> 00:43:06,623
I might go back and play more Skyrim and make yet another Stealth Archer, but I'm not
going to talk about
543
00:43:06,623 --> 00:43:15,123
the story, I'm not going to talk about the things that I did other than, hey, I made my
8,000th stealth archer kill.
544
00:43:16,843 --> 00:43:24,903
Whereas Cyberpunk 2077, we're talking about the different endings, we're talking about how
all the stories weave together.
545
00:43:25,963 --> 00:43:34,003
And I think we should probably talk about that on a regular episode of how we can pull
that into our regular tabletop games.
546
00:43:34,667 --> 00:43:36,339
I think that's a good idea.
547
00:43:36,874 --> 00:43:39,345
Yeah, yeah, and I think I agree with you.
548
00:43:39,345 --> 00:43:46,554
I think the game grabs you with its its point of view and it also grabs you with you.
549
00:43:46,554 --> 00:43:53,641
You realize early on that V is not in a good place and V may not be able to get to a good
place, right?
550
00:43:53,641 --> 00:43:59,727
And so you're really being confronted with these own morality, morality and mortality.
551
00:44:00,308 --> 00:44:02,048
just from the early go.
552
00:44:02,048 --> 00:44:09,123
I think Phantom Liberty ratchets that up as it's maybe giving you the option to get out
and then will you actually take it?
553
00:44:09,123 --> 00:44:15,276
Especially if you're playing this, you know, if you've been playing this for a while and
you're like, well, there was never an option to get out, but maybe there's an option to
554
00:44:15,276 --> 00:44:16,208
get out, right?
555
00:44:16,208 --> 00:44:22,382
And forcing those kinds of questions and those thoughts early on is, I think it's part of
what makes it a compelling game.
556
00:44:22,382 --> 00:44:25,964
Because you might spend some time trying to like negotiate with death.
557
00:44:25,964 --> 00:44:27,785
And sometimes you might just say,
558
00:44:28,087 --> 00:44:28,959
Well screw it.
559
00:44:28,959 --> 00:44:30,697
Let's go down guns blazing.
560
00:44:30,697 --> 00:44:32,418
Mm-hmm.
561
00:44:32,418 --> 00:44:42,522
I think I would love to go back and have both of you play that Phantom Liberty and get to
that ending where V can have Johnny removed.
562
00:44:42,522 --> 00:44:51,066
And I want to hear your thoughts about that because it hit me like a truck and I couldn't
stop thinking about it for.
563
00:44:51,919 --> 00:44:52,509
Wow.
564
00:44:52,509 --> 00:44:55,070
Alright, well, I guess we have our homework.
565
00:44:58,292 --> 00:45:03,025
That's probably, now that homework has been assigned, it's probably a good place to wrap
up the episode.
566
00:45:03,025 --> 00:45:04,615
Minions, you have your homework as well.
567
00:45:04,615 --> 00:45:06,937
Thank you for joining us for our latest Overlord training.
568
00:45:06,937 --> 00:45:09,148
This is why you're here, so you can have homework.
569
00:45:09,148 --> 00:45:14,350
Like and subscribe to the show on YouTube and stop by our website for links to all the
social things.
570
00:45:14,350 --> 00:45:16,291
Our website is at lairofsecrets.com.
