I'm gonna pull a That Guy™ for a minute and say that the writing is overly edgy, into "it seems like an emotionally stunted 14 year old wrote the dialog for this game" way. Like, swearing just to swear a lot. "No guys, this game is SO ADULT it's TOTALLY FOR ADULTS so we're gonna swear a lot because that's what ADULTS do"
"Hey guys I totally saw a drug deal on TV once and so this is what it looks like", etc.
I really wish we could start seeing more actual maturity in AAA video game writing. Gamers (and luckily, indie games) are getting older and more sophisticated but I swear it feels like they're still creating a lot of AAA titles for 16 year old edgelord boys.
This additional information has done nothing to change my sarcastically phrased opinion
@CB said:
Because what our gaming landscape really needs right now is another gruff white dude protagonist in a dystopian society with a fetish for the pseudo-exotic.
@CB said:
This additional information has done nothing to change my sarcastically phrased opinion
@CB said:
Because what our gaming landscape really needs right now is another gruff white dude protagonist in a dystopian society with a fetish for the pseudo-exotic.
Like the fact that the protagonist in the trailer 48 minute gameplay video is a woman?
@CB said:
This additional information has done nothing to change my sarcastically phrased opinion
@CB said:
Because what our gaming landscape really needs right now is another gruff white dude protagonist in a dystopian society with a fetish for the pseudo-exotic.
Did you watch the upload? In the first minute and a half they showcase the character creation system and it's everything but "gruff white dude". Cmon man.
Y'all can complain about too much swearing all you want, even though I think that's absurd but whatever. But complaining about a white male protag? They go way out of their way to show you that this isn't a forced white male flex on the haters type game. They literally show you that you can change sex, skin tone, body type, and other features, in addition to back story, origins, and situational effects on the character.
It's nothing to do with the actual gender and color of the protag, it's that the story was clearly written for white dudes. It's not the swearing that makes it bad and immature. It's just not very good. It's not compelling or interesting. It feels like it'll play, for me, like GTAV plays.
I'll probably play it, but only for the missions and the tech, unlike an Elderscrolls game, or a Fallout Game, or an Assassin's Creed game, which I play for the missions, the tech, the story, and because I genuinely care about the characters.
I just don't see myself caring about anyone in this over-dark, juvenile, male-power-fantasy centered world. Also, I'll prolly have to turn the Gamma way up, and keep the room dark, and that's irritating.
1
RequitThat one guySomewhere over there, I don't knowIcrontian
edited August 2018
@CB said:
It's nothing to do with the actual gender and color of the protag, it's that the story was clearly written for white dudes. It's not the swearing that makes it bad and immature. It's just not very good. It's not compelling or interesting. It feels like it'll play, for me, like GTAV plays.
So it doesn't matter that you can be a scumbag of any race, gender, creed, and origin. The fact that it's got guns, swearing, and violence makes it a white dudes game. Interesting point of view. I guess I can't be surprised a game developer in Poland would make games that cater to the white male fantasy.
@CB said: I'll probably play it, but only for the missions and the tech, unlike an Elderscrolls game, or a Fallout Game, or an Assassin's Creed game, which I play for the missions, the tech, the story, and because I genuinely care about the characters.
I'm glad somebody likes the story in those games. I myself enjoyed the plotline of GTA V, so nothing here has dampened my gusto. I'm a simple guy who like guns, explosions, and recently iced nipples. What can I say?
@CB said:
I just don't see myself caring about anyone in this over-dark, juvenile, male-power-fantasy centered world. Also, I'll prolly have to turn the Gamma way up, and keep the room dark, and that's irritating.
What would you like to see changed? Personally, I'd have liked the option to trade a freshly baked cake for the drone, to live out my female-power fantasies. Perhaps with freshly sliced strawberries! That would be cool.
Look at the coding: White skin means normal person. Brown skin means thug or exotic. All men are buff and stoic, and if they are not, they are mockery. All women are either sex objects or in need of rescuing, or both. The opening scene is full of dead naked women. TITILLATING!
This is white male power fantasy. Allowing the player to change the color and gender of the protag doesn't change or excuse any of this other stuff. Also, it's just bad, hackneyed writing. The more I think about what I've seen of this game so far, the more I think I won't play it after all.
I totally understand where CB is coming from. What I think he's saying is that the game seems to be, from what I've seen in the trailer (and I did watch almost all of it), written with white male power fantasy tropes at its core, and having "diversity" shoehorned into it with character creation and "strong badass female leads" doesn't change that. Again: imagine a bunch of 16 year old boys writing this, and they feel like they "have to include" "diversity", and this is kind of what you'd get.
It just seems juvenile. Not offensive, or "non-pc" or non-diverse. It just seems kinda immature.
Would it have been better if there were only dead naked dudes? Or if they were clothed? Would you rather not have that scene in the game at all? Rippergangs are a cyberpunk equivalent of modern-day organ harvesters they don't care about who they target and yes, people are kept naked in ice tubs so they don't rot. Trust me man my dick isn't getting hard because there's naked boobies and dicks all over the place (You know all 4 bodies in that scene which were 50-50) As for the 'target' being a woman, you were hired to find her rich women and women in general are kidnapped more than men. Maybe they should ax the entire mission or rippergangs altogether because its cliched.
As for women as sex objects or in need of help if you'd watched the entire video (Or even skipped around like I did) you'd know that's not true, there's a scary fucking corporate lady who holds you at gunpoint and then LITERALLY hacks your brain, I'd be pissing my self and I'm a big strong manly man, but then I guess because the MC is a lady its just reinforcing the trope. Would the game be better if there was no character creator or would y'all just complain about muh gruff white man?
On white v brown, there's people with Chrome plugged into their goddamned skulls, there's white dudes in the video who have their eyes replaced with shit that makes them look like glowing, angry flies. There's an entire ripper gang of Russian dudes who are mostly made of red chrome and metal, no one in this universe looks normal especially when you can buy muscle grafts for less than a week's rent.
This is based off Cyberpunk 2020, Mike fucking Pondsmith is the lead content advisor/contributor. 2020 is a universe where there's a goddamned criminal gang who got plastic surgery to look like the Brady Bunch.
You seem to want to drag this into a "political correctness" or #NotAllMen argument. No, it would not be "better" if it were dead naked dudes, because you're missing the point entirely. It's not about dead naked women or naked anybody, or women heroes/villains/badasses in the game. It's about the immaturity of the writing.
@Ilriyas said:
Rippergangs are a cyberpunk equivalent of modern-day organ harvesters they don't care about who they target and yes, people are kept naked in ice tubs so they don't rot.
It may be 'immature' but its based on a real thing that really happens and to think that harvesting operations wouldn't be expanded to multi-thousand dollar cybernetics is absurd. Imagine how much someone would pay for all the shit Adam Jensen was hard-wired with in Deus Ex. I'd be upset if they left it out because Rippergangs are a huge thing in the original source material to the point where there's a cop focused adventure around going after one.
@primesuspect said:
This train has gone off the rails. We're having two entirely different discussions here
FWIW, Google Image Search has surprisingly poor results for "derailed steampunk train"
0
RequitThat one guySomewhere over there, I don't knowIcrontian
@primesuspect said:
It's not about dead naked women or naked anybody, or women heroes/villains/badasses in the game. It's about the immaturity of the writing.
That I buy, but again. What would you have rather seen? Instead of rescuing a person and a robot, should the protagonist been driving a schoolbus of pre-teen cyberpunks to band practice? As funny as it'd be to see someone with cybernetic augmentations try to catch whoever shot that spitball or tracking down the tween that won't stop twooting on the flute, I'm not sure it'd be worth a full fledged game.
I mean I acknowledge that constant swearing and the like is immature, I wouldn't mind if they were to tone it down a bit. But at the same time that sort of over-the-top language is characteristic of Cyberpunk 2020 and I don't see my enjoyment suffering because of how much I enjoy the genre and the source material. I guess it just doesn't bother me because for me this is a genre of game I've been looking forward to for a long, long time, I love Pondsmith's work (And the fact that he's so heavily involved is amazing to me) plus I like CDProjektRed's work as the cherry on top so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I had to laugh because after reading this conversation, I skipped around to find the player rescuing a naked lady from a bath tub, and then the "scary corporate lady" wearing tight-ass leather skirt and heels. Tough sexy lady beating you up; I mean, that could be some women's fantasy too but I don't see as much in video games that falls into my nerdy, unfeminine, hetero girl fantasy (though I did enjoy nearly 500 hours of Geralt's fine ass). Being able to take your own make-up off in a first-person game doesn't really improve the immersion factor at all. It's also nothing really to do with playing a character that looks like whatever you want and everything to do with meeting a wide variety of different characters in the game; that's what makes it interesting and fun. Tough, manly guys and women in form fitting or revealing clothing and impractical footwear doesn't feel unique or interesting. You need NPCs which are diverse, in personality and lifestyle as well as skin color, not just the character creation options.
The setting looks super cool to me though, I will definitely play it and probably enjoy it (scoffing at unnecessarily placed naked ladies counts as enjoyment). Side note; why did they blur out all the naughty bits in the character creation and then show an entire nude lady five minutes later? I feel like we missed the only opportunity to catch full frontal male nudity here.
I've got no idea why they blurred out CC but not the rest of it, as for the nude lady she's in an ice tub surrounded by surgical tools so I wouldn't say its unnecessary and if you really want some cold, dead man ass there's a corpse on top of her at like 4:30 I doubt it measures up to Geralt's though
Oh I just meant in general, not necessarily that specific scene. Surprising how many times nude or mostly nude ladies pop up for no apparent reason in games, especially random cleavage and ass shots. :-P
It's almost as if the generation that grew up with Duke Nukem 3D informing our teenage years ended up trying to design games that capture that childhood magic.
Comments
I'm gonna pull a That Guy™ for a minute and say that the writing is overly edgy, into "it seems like an emotionally stunted 14 year old wrote the dialog for this game" way. Like, swearing just to swear a lot. "No guys, this game is SO ADULT it's TOTALLY FOR ADULTS so we're gonna swear a lot because that's what ADULTS do"
"Hey guys I totally saw a drug deal on TV once and so this is what it looks like", etc.
I really wish we could start seeing more actual maturity in AAA video game writing. Gamers (and luckily, indie games) are getting older and more sophisticated but I swear it feels like they're still creating a lot of AAA titles for 16 year old edgelord boys.
This additional information has done nothing to change my sarcastically phrased opinion
Like the fact that the protagonist in the trailer 48 minute gameplay video is a woman?
Did you watch the upload? In the first minute and a half they showcase the character creation system and it's everything but "gruff white dude". Cmon man.
Y'all can complain about too much swearing all you want, even though I think that's absurd but whatever. But complaining about a white male protag? They go way out of their way to show you that this isn't a forced white male flex on the haters type game. They literally show you that you can change sex, skin tone, body type, and other features, in addition to back story, origins, and situational effects on the character.
It's nothing to do with the actual gender and color of the protag, it's that the story was clearly written for white dudes. It's not the swearing that makes it bad and immature. It's just not very good. It's not compelling or interesting. It feels like it'll play, for me, like GTAV plays.
I'll probably play it, but only for the missions and the tech, unlike an Elderscrolls game, or a Fallout Game, or an Assassin's Creed game, which I play for the missions, the tech, the story, and because I genuinely care about the characters.
I just don't see myself caring about anyone in this over-dark, juvenile, male-power-fantasy centered world. Also, I'll prolly have to turn the Gamma way up, and keep the room dark, and that's irritating.
So it doesn't matter that you can be a scumbag of any race, gender, creed, and origin. The fact that it's got guns, swearing, and violence makes it a white dudes game. Interesting point of view. I guess I can't be surprised a game developer in Poland would make games that cater to the white male fantasy.
I'm glad somebody likes the story in those games. I myself enjoyed the plotline of GTA V, so nothing here has dampened my gusto. I'm a simple guy who like guns, explosions, and recently iced nipples. What can I say?
What would you like to see changed? Personally, I'd have liked the option to trade a freshly baked cake for the drone, to live out my female-power fantasies. Perhaps with freshly sliced strawberries! That would be cool.
Look at the coding: White skin means normal person. Brown skin means thug or exotic. All men are buff and stoic, and if they are not, they are mockery. All women are either sex objects or in need of rescuing, or both. The opening scene is full of dead naked women. TITILLATING!
This is white male power fantasy. Allowing the player to change the color and gender of the protag doesn't change or excuse any of this other stuff. Also, it's just bad, hackneyed writing. The more I think about what I've seen of this game so far, the more I think I won't play it after all.
I totally understand where CB is coming from. What I think he's saying is that the game seems to be, from what I've seen in the trailer (and I did watch almost all of it), written with white male power fantasy tropes at its core, and having "diversity" shoehorned into it with character creation and "strong badass female leads" doesn't change that. Again: imagine a bunch of 16 year old boys writing this, and they feel like they "have to include" "diversity", and this is kind of what you'd get.
It just seems juvenile. Not offensive, or "non-pc" or non-diverse. It just seems kinda immature.
Would it have been better if there were only dead naked dudes? Or if they were clothed? Would you rather not have that scene in the game at all? Rippergangs are a cyberpunk equivalent of modern-day organ harvesters they don't care about who they target and yes, people are kept naked in ice tubs so they don't rot. Trust me man my dick isn't getting hard because there's naked boobies and dicks all over the place (You know all 4 bodies in that scene which were 50-50) As for the 'target' being a woman, you were hired to find her rich women and women in general are kidnapped more than men. Maybe they should ax the entire mission or rippergangs altogether because its cliched.
As for women as sex objects or in need of help if you'd watched the entire video (Or even skipped around like I did) you'd know that's not true, there's a scary fucking corporate lady who holds you at gunpoint and then LITERALLY hacks your brain, I'd be pissing my self and I'm a big strong manly man, but then I guess because the MC is a lady its just reinforcing the trope. Would the game be better if there was no character creator or would y'all just complain about muh gruff white man?
On white v brown, there's people with Chrome plugged into their goddamned skulls, there's white dudes in the video who have their eyes replaced with shit that makes them look like glowing, angry flies. There's an entire ripper gang of Russian dudes who are mostly made of red chrome and metal, no one in this universe looks normal especially when you can buy muscle grafts for less than a week's rent.
This is based off Cyberpunk 2020, Mike fucking Pondsmith is the lead content advisor/contributor. 2020 is a universe where there's a goddamned criminal gang who got plastic surgery to look like the Brady Bunch.
You seem to want to drag this into a "political correctness" or #NotAllMen argument. No, it would not be "better" if it were dead naked dudes, because you're missing the point entirely. It's not about dead naked women or naked anybody, or women heroes/villains/badasses in the game. It's about the immaturity of the writing.
It may be 'immature' but its based on a real thing that really happens and to think that harvesting operations wouldn't be expanded to multi-thousand dollar cybernetics is absurd. Imagine how much someone would pay for all the shit Adam Jensen was hard-wired with in Deus Ex. I'd be upset if they left it out because Rippergangs are a huge thing in the original source material to the point where there's a cop focused adventure around going after one.
This train has gone off the rails. We're having two entirely different discussions here
FWIW, Google Image Search has surprisingly poor results for "derailed steampunk train"
That I buy, but again. What would you have rather seen? Instead of rescuing a person and a robot, should the protagonist been driving a schoolbus of pre-teen cyberpunks to band practice? As funny as it'd be to see someone with cybernetic augmentations try to catch whoever shot that spitball or tracking down the tween that won't stop twooting on the flute, I'm not sure it'd be worth a full fledged game.
You seem to assume that I have an issue with the dead naked people? Where are you getting this? Are you confusing me with CB?
I mean I acknowledge that constant swearing and the like is immature, I wouldn't mind if they were to tone it down a bit. But at the same time that sort of over-the-top language is characteristic of Cyberpunk 2020 and I don't see my enjoyment suffering because of how much I enjoy the genre and the source material. I guess it just doesn't bother me because for me this is a genre of game I've been looking forward to for a long, long time, I love Pondsmith's work (And the fact that he's so heavily involved is amazing to me) plus I like CDProjektRed's work as the cherry on top so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
The only thing I'm disappointed about is that you won't actually be able to join Trauma Team as a paramilitary EMT.
All this just makes me want to play Shadowrun again. Because sometimes all grimdark needs is a little magic.
I had to laugh because after reading this conversation, I skipped around to find the player rescuing a naked lady from a bath tub, and then the "scary corporate lady" wearing tight-ass leather skirt and heels. Tough sexy lady beating you up; I mean, that could be some women's fantasy too but I don't see as much in video games that falls into my nerdy, unfeminine, hetero girl fantasy (though I did enjoy nearly 500 hours of Geralt's fine ass). Being able to take your own make-up off in a first-person game doesn't really improve the immersion factor at all. It's also nothing really to do with playing a character that looks like whatever you want and everything to do with meeting a wide variety of different characters in the game; that's what makes it interesting and fun. Tough, manly guys and women in form fitting or revealing clothing and impractical footwear doesn't feel unique or interesting. You need NPCs which are diverse, in personality and lifestyle as well as skin color, not just the character creation options.
The setting looks super cool to me though, I will definitely play it and probably enjoy it (scoffing at unnecessarily placed naked ladies counts as enjoyment). Side note; why did they blur out all the naughty bits in the character creation and then show an entire nude lady five minutes later? I feel like we missed the only opportunity to catch full frontal male nudity here.
I've got no idea why they blurred out CC but not the rest of it, as for the nude lady she's in an ice tub surrounded by surgical tools so I wouldn't say its unnecessary and if you really want some cold, dead man ass there's a corpse on top of her at like 4:30 I doubt it measures up to Geralt's though
Oh I just meant in general, not necessarily that specific scene. Surprising how many times nude or mostly nude ladies pop up for no apparent reason in games, especially random cleavage and ass shots. :-P
Yeah it's a total mystery how that happens
It's almost as if the generation that grew up with Duke Nukem 3D informing our teenage years ended up trying to design games that capture that childhood magic.