Monthly Archives: July 2024

Memory is a funny thing. Two people can have different recollections of the same occasion thanks to personal perspective, and the passage of time may influence how you interpret your own past experiences. But what would happen if someone could get inside your head and deliberately tamper with your memories? Poking and prodding until they fundamentally changed who you are? How could you handle your day-to-day life when you start questioning everything you ever thought you knew about yourself and your history? These are questions that come to the surface during the most unsettling quest in Cyberpunk 2077 which happens to also be my personal favorite.

While there are plenty of memorable quests and gigs in CD Projekt Red's RPG, the side job Dream On refuses to leave my mind. Each time I replay it, I find it just as disquieting as the first time I experienced it. What begins as a simple break-in investigation soon unravels into a dark web of shady politics and mind-altering manipulation. It steadily becomes apparent that something much bigger and far more sinister is going on than first meets the eye, and the way it all unfolds always hooks me right in. Even now, after trying out each possible solution at the end of the quest, I'm still not sure what the best course of action is, which only makes me appreciate it more.

It goes without saying that there are major spoilers ahead for the Cyberpunk 2077 quest Dream On

What I appreciate most about this side job is how a previous quest titled I Fought the Law sets it up. Early on in Cyberpunk 2077, the news is all abuzz about the death of Mayor Rhyne. Now, with an election to be held, new candidates are gunning for the role, and that of course opens up the way for some seedy politically fuelled dealings. One such candidate is Jefferson Peralez, who you meet after his wife Elizabeth calls you to set up a meeting. It's all quite clandestine, with you hopping in a car as they offer you money to look into the death of Mayor Rhyne. They believe Holt, a rival in the running, is involved and after investigating, you go to their swanky apartment to deliver your findings.

It's here that the first seed for what's to come is planted. When you meet Jefferson in his home the first time, he's speaking on the phone and having a very polite conversation. When you come back to the apartment to take up the Dream On quest, he's on the phone again, only there's a marked difference in Jefferson's behavior. He speaks crassly and makes demands of the person on the other end of the call, and when he talks to you, he doesn't sound quite the same in tone Even his posture is altered. When I initially did the quest in my first playthrough some years back, I didn't think much about this. It was only when I came to replay it that I truly appreciated the setup and realized the significance of those changes in him.

Jefferson and Elizabeth call you back for the side job in order to look into an unusual break-in at their apartment. Jefferson recalls waking up and seeing someone there, even reaching for his gun, but the next morning, it's as though he dreamt it. All signs that anything has happened have seemingly been erased. Convinced that Holt is once again up to something, it's up to V to find out what's going on. I always jump at the chance to do any sort of detective work, and nothing speaks to me quite like a good mystery, which is also why this job reeled me right in from the get-go.

What makes this quest so memorable is the way it starts to build a strange, troubling picture that just keeps unraveling. Elizabeth guides you through the apartment, and as you interact with various rooms, it begins to become clear that something very weird is going on. When you look at her wedding photo, for instance, she recalls how beautiful the blue roses were, even though they're clearly red in the picture.It's a minor detail, but I can still remember the pit in my stomach and the foreboding that only grew as she made more mistakes.

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You eventually find a hidden room she had no idea was there, and worse still, it's full of monitoring equipment. It's such an unsettling invasion of privacy, but it's also the first tangible evidence that something much worse is going on than anyone initially suspected. Upon pursuing it further, with a little help from a satellite scan on the rooftop and a fast car chase across Night City, you finally learn the truth. In true dystopian form, the revelation plays into the darkest side of Cyberpunk 2077: someone or something is messing with their minds, changing their memories, modifying their personalities, and transforming them into the perfect puppets to control.

When you tell Elizabeth your findings, it turns out she had an inkling all along and her words are enough to give anyone chills: "His personality He seemed to be changing right in front of me, becoming someone else. He stopped reading, forgot the title of his favorite movie, even his musical taste changed overnight." In the world of Cyberpunk 2077, there's nothing as deeply terrifying as the idea that technology can change who you are, or that people could manipulate you in such an invasive way. So much so far that you lose yourself. I love how it shares frightening parallels with what Johnny Silverhand's engram threatens to do to you as V.

The main question Dream On leaves you with is one I'm still thinking about - despite playing it several times at this point. Would you want to know this is happening to you? Or never know the truth? You're left with the choice to tell Jefferson what you've found or lie and tell him what he thinks is true - that Holt is the one behind the break-in. After seeing both outcomes, I'm still not entirely sure what is better. Could you handle knowing that your very memories have been tampered with? How could you trust anything or anyone, when you question your own mind? Your own memories? What's worse, to live in paranoia, or live like a puppet on a string? I still don't know myself, but that's why I love this quest. The way it unfolds never fails to pulls me right in, and the uncomfortable questions it leaves me with are why it sticks with me.

Phantom Liberty didn't change my mind about the best Cyberpunk 2077 ending.

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Every time I replay Cyberpunk 2077's most unsettling quest, I'm reminded why it's a firm favorite - Gamesradar

I like Cyberpunk 2077. Its a game that I feel a persistent pull to return to especially after the Phantom Liberty expansion despite already having played it through to completion twice. Im the kind of person who uninstalls a game the second I hit credits, more focused on playing a broad array of games than I am in playing anything very deeply. So the fact that I felt compelled to return to Cyberpunk 2077 tells me that it does, in fact, have a hold on me. Though it has frequently frustrated me, I cant argue with my own behavior.

Still, it wasnt the game I wanted it to be at least not fully. I love Blade Runner, and despite Cyberpunks marketing focusing so heavily on its sunnier take on the genre, I held out hope that it would deliver the kind of neon-drenched, rainy metropolis I go back to Ridley Scott's masterpiece for over and over. 2077 did offer those sights intermittently, but that aesthetic wasnt really what CD Projekt Red was going for. Cyberpunk was doing something different and while thats laudable, I still wanted something else.

Ridley Scott's 1982 masterpiece set the bar and few stories, in any medium, have cleared it.

If youve ever felt a similar pull and/or a similar frustration, Nobody Wants To Die is a must play. Im still only about a third of the way through the game, but it is delivering evocative cyberpunk vistas at a clip that 2077 just couldnt match.

Thats partially because Nobody Wants To Die is a strictly linear game, which allows developer Critical Hit to carefully craft each skybox. Cyberpunk 2077 often served up sights that wowed me like a huge wall of skyscrapers that reached to the sky, filling your entire field of view but those moments were fewer and farther between because the game was offering an open world that you could look at from any location and angle you chose. Plus, those sights were enticing because they stoked your imagination of what you could do once you got to those places. After playing the game for a while, you figured out that the answer was, "Not much."

Nobody Wants To Die, by contrast, doesnt pretend that it's going to let you loose on its futuristic New York City. It's a highly curated experience, and its strict linearity and minimal interactivity mean that you're only ever focused on taking in the world around you and the story unfolding within it. And that story is pretty interesting genre storytelling in the tradition of Blade Runner, with a retrofuturist spin that will hit hard for fans of BioShock and Fallout. The game is set in the New York of 2329, and our era is now referred to as The Mortal Age. Humanity has solved the pesky issue of mortality, but what should be an unalloyed good has, through the innovation of capitalism, been replaced with a hellish payment plan. Thanks to a substance called Ichorite, humans can pass their consciousness from one body to another. But, to do so, they must continually pay into a subscription service. And because new physiques are auctioned off, regular working class people tend to inherit bodies with illnesses, chronic pain, or worse.

It's playing with some of the same ideas as Altered Carbon, the sci-fi novel which was adapted into a Netflix series starring Joel Kinnaman and Anthony Mackie, but the ideas still feel fresh here. The game's portrayal of a capitalist future where immortality the most mythic, impossible dream humanity ever dreamed has been reduced to just another bill rigged to screw over working people is dark and bleakly resonant.

The actual gameplay is less exciting than its ideas and presentation. Mostly, your hard-boiled detective character, James Karra, walks around murder scenes, searching for bits that the UI indicates are interactive, interacting with them, then moving on to the next interactive bit. We've been doing these kinds of crime scene investigations in games for over a decade now, and it just isn't particularly interesting. Piecing the case together using little holographic statues on James' apartment floor is more fun, but mostly you won't be here for the gameplay.

No, you're here for the sights Nobody Wants To Die has to show you, And those are things you wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhuser Gate. Just kidding, thats Blade Runner. But, more than most cyberpunk games, Nobody Wants To Die comes close to realizing on screen the evocative beauty of Roy Batty's monologue to Deckard on that rain-drenched roof.

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Whether You Love Or Hate Cyberpunk 2077, You Need To Play Nobody Wants To Die - TheGamer

Roll20, maker of virtual tabletop roleplaying tools, has released a new integration with Discord that aims to make remote game nights more convenient.

Starting today, all Discord users can launch the Roll20 virtual tabletop software directly within Discord as an "Activity," gaining access to all the usual roleplaying tools their platform provides, including interactive maps, character sheets, simulated dice rolling, drag-and-drop rulebooks, and more.

Roll20 currently supports most of the heavy-hitters in the tabletop space, including Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast, the Dune TTRPG from Mophidius Entertainment, Cyberpunk RED from R.Talsorian Games, and my personal favorite: ALIEN The Roleplaying Game from Free League Publishing. Now available alongside Discord's voice and video features (not to mention its gamer-centric userbase), Roll20 hopes to make it easier than ever for roleplaying enthusiasts to organize game nights.

This integration marks a pivotal moment for the hobby, offering an unprecedented level of convenience to players and GMs," Roll20 told IGN. "By leveraging Discord's intuitive communication features and enabling their vast user base access to adventure at the click of a button, we're opening the door for even more players to discover and enjoy tabletop RPGs."

Roll20 has been testing this integration in beta for the past four months and making adjustments based on player feedback. Games created within Discord will also feature Roll20's new platform experience, which was its first major update since 2012.

Both Roll20 and its new Discord integration will also support the D&D 2024 revised 5E editions as well, which IGN has been following closely, including a reveal of the upcoming Monster Manual cover.

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Roll20 Introduces Discord Integration, Will Support Dungeons & Dragons, Dune, Cyberpunk RED, and More - IGN

Nobody Wants to Die begins with two 2010s storytelling flourishes that made me groan. First, we've got some dead wife hallucinations up in here, the favored psychiatric symptom of tough guy protagonists everywhere. The second was the main character, whose name I already forget, making a noise like "Hnnnnrrrraaaaagggh" and looking down at his hands clenching and unclenching while the screen kind of pulses and goes all blurry. This guy has a terminal case of Xbox 360 FPS protagonitis.

But Nobody Wants to Die isn't an FPS, it's a first person adventure game set in a dark cyberpunk retro-future, a distinct '40s noir twang complicating the requisite megabuildings, neon everything, and corporate domination. A sci-fi setting that looks a certain way just for the heck of it is totally fine in my book, but Nobody Wants to Die's wiseguy future just left me cold.

It didn't help that it opens withstop me if you've heard this one beforean old timey cartoon whose goofy presentation belies the horrible alien morality of its creators, in this case a society where everyone is immortal via consciousness transferring between bodies. I'm sure tons of movies and TV shows pulled this move before Fallout did, but even this trope's big videogame debut was all the way back in 1997. I didn't feel shock or surprise at the upbeat music or cartoony guys swapping brains around, just an emotionless register that I was supposed to think "this ain't my daddy's dystopian sci-fi!"

The body snatching-based economy strains credulity. That'd be fine if Nobody Wants to Die said or did anything interesting with it, but it does not. The protagonist is 120 years old but he doesn't feel particularly haunted by that lifespanyou could have told me he's fortysomething like any number of Philip Marlowe wannabes and I'd believe you.

I've enjoyed plenty of first person puzzlers in the past, but Nobody Wants to Die is a chore and a bore.

There are flashes of a smarter, more fun take on this concept scattered throughout the game, when Nobody Wants to Die loosens up a little and explores the logical conclusions of such a society. Health and physical ability are aggressively enforced by the government, since transfer-ready bodies are a valuable commodity controlled by the state, and this has led to a new Prohibitionthat's cool, and very funny! Murder and death aren't much of a big deal unless a body's consciousness transfer juice gets borked, but the casual attitude towards mortality this might engender was only briefly touched on in my time with the game, and otherwise you could totally forget that everyone around you is haunted by the ages and jaded by cheap, mildly inconveniencing death.

Cool stuff like that takes a back seat to the story's obsession with its own fictional history and boring political intrigue. I don't care about the Illuminati/Freemasons/whoever's conspiracy behind the immortal economy, a plotline that gets kickstarted before you've even had a chance to get to grips with the setting. Similarly snore-worthy is the relationship between our protagonist and his handler, two individuals with no chemistry and even less charisma.

"Today's special: Skewered asshole. Get it?" Detective Guy says after finding an impaled body at a crime scene. "Get what?" Mission control lady flatly asks. "He was impaled?" Mr. Detective replies. "Oh forget it." Firewatch this is not.

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While musing about how the body transfer economy favors the wealthy, the protagonist declares: "It's not an auction anymore, it's some kind of fucking exclusive bidding club." Somebody's gotta fill me in on the finer distinctions between an auction and a bidding club. Would you be surprised to learn the detective protagonist is a loose cannon? "Everyone knows you don't give two greasy rat shits about regulations," the mission control lady says, just so we know he doesn't play by the rules.

It's corny, wooden stuff that might have made for acceptable bread to an FPS sandwich, but Nobody Wants to Die is an adventure game with the story and characters front and center. I've enjoyed plenty of first person puzzlers in the past, but Nobody Wants to Die is a chore and a bore. You have a little device that lets you rewind time to investigate crime scenes, which sounds cool, but the incredible visual of a bombed-out room reassembling itself is undermined by the piecemeal, halting way the game delivers it.

Investigation basically plays like Cyberpunk 2077's braindance sequences, with you zipping along the timeline of the crime scene looking for anything of note. I liked Cyberpunk's braindances, but they were minigames in a wider RPG, and rarely overstayed their welcome. Nobody Wants to Die's investigations have to carry an entire game and are bloated with stultifying busywork.

I felt like a put-upon errand boy, shuffling back and forth in the two crime scenes I endured, fiddling with my detective toys and touching things in the environment to finally make the plot move forward. Nobody Wants To Die's corkboard and string companion minigame, meanwhile, has an enjoyable degree of freedom to it that elevates it over similar gaming examples like the one in Alan Wake 2, but it can still be effectively brute forced and does not have the juice to power a six-hour game.

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Nobody Wants to Die is not a good adventure or puzzle experience, and instead feels like someone made a whole game out of the lightly interactive cinematic intro sequence of a triple-A shooterall it's missing is somebody walking backwards delivering the exposition. There's some stuff I liked, despite everything: The environments are meticulously detailed, with clutter and non-plot-related interactive items that make it feel worthwhile to just poke around and explore. It's also graphically quite pretty, leveraging all that shiny Unreal Engine tech and sweating my graphics card in a good way. I had to lower the settings to "Medium" and still had north of 80% GPU utilization on my RTX 3070, along with a consistent 60fps, still-impressive environments, and few stutters that I noticed.

At the risk of damning Nobody Wants to Die with faint praise, I was also impressed by some of the written reactivity I saw in its opening hours. A cigar purloined from a high-end office was available for me to smoke later on, while my mission control buddy referenced that particular history of larceny when the possibility of stealing evidence came up. Being nice to Ms. Mission Control and not an asshole similarly opened up new dialogue options based on her growing trust.

But after enduring two of Nobody Wants to Die's projected six hours, I don't want to play any more of it, and I cannot recommend investing that time or $25 into it. There are better first person adventures, sci-fi detective stories, short games, and cheap games you should check out instead.

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Cyberpunk adventure Nobody Wants to Die feels like if you made an entire game out of the boring no-combat intro of a triple-A FPS - PC Gamer

Johnny Silverhand just got added to Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game as a reward for reaching the first stretch goal of its crowdfunding campaign which launches on September 3rd. Johnny will be part of an optional game mode called Relic, which will attempt to replicate the Relic experience from the video game. You can read below for more details about Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game and the addition of Johnny Silverhand:

Go On Board and CD PROJEKT RED announced that the crowdfunding campaign for Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game will launch on the 3rd of September and will last until the 20th September, and the character of Johnny Silverhand will be included as the very first stretch goal. What else is known?

Go On Board and CD PROJEKT RED once again joined forces to create another adventure-packed game. This time, the authors of the acclaimed The Witcher: Old World will take players to neon-soaked Night City in a tabletop adaptation of Cyberpunk 2077. Only recently did the studio publish a refreshed Gamefound project page that now presents everything the game will have to offer. One of the biggest reveals to accompany the announcement is the debut of Johnny Silverhands board game rendition.

Where is Johnny?

Go On Board revealed in their recent project update that the first stretch goal (unlockable content) for Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game will be the famous rockerboy Johnny Silverhand. The now iconic character was first featured in the tabletop RPG created by Mike Pondsmith. His dramatic story had a huge impact on shaping the story of Night City, where the games action is set. He also appeared in Cyberpunk 2077 from CD PROJEKT RED, where he was portrayed by Keanu Reeves. We eagerly awaited to see if Silverhand would also be part of Go On Boards latest production and he is! The miniatures design is based on his appearance in the hit video game, confirming that Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game is indeed true to its core inspiration.

Gameplay-wise, Go On Boards pre-campaign materials disclose that Johnny will be a part of an optional game mode titled Relic. Its also a nod towards CD PROJEKT REDs work, where the Relic appeared as a powerful biochip that stored Silverhands digitized personality called an engram. The adaptation will aim to replicate the experience from the video game if used during a mission, Johnny will merge with a players character, providing powerful advantages while also posing a constant threat of losing oneself. It adds a fun twist to the regular gameplay, enhancing its replayability potential and resulting in surprising effects, thanks to which every mission becomes a unique experience.

What other features can we expect?

Besides the already revealed star of its pre-campaign, Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game will offer a plethora of components and unique gameplay features that correspond to what gamers as well as board game and tabletop enthusiasts love in the franchise. From miniatures to cards and more, every element is perfected to the smallest detail, reflecting all the characteristics of Cyberpunks dark future seen in Cyberpunk 2077. Even the first-person perspective arts relate to CD PROJEKT REDs work, which sees players experience the setting and story from their characters eyes! The refreshed Gamefound project page also talks about the games goals and storylines, key features, and how to sink into Night Citys dystopian mood. So gather your crew and get ready to experience an unforgettable adventure full of adrenaline-pumping action and epic fights! Among other, Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Games story campaign will include such gameplay elements as:

Thats but a drop in the ocean of all the content you can find on the updated page. Visit Gamefound to learn more about the game and plans for further development.

What is Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game?

This cooperative story-driven tactical action game will take 1-4 players on an exciting adventure in the most dangerous megalopolis of the dark future, Night City. Participants can choose from the characters of V, Panam, Jackie, or Judy and explore a what if? scenario, where a crucial event from the video game is altered and branches out into a completely new story comprising 13 different missions. In moments of respite, players will visit Night City to upgrade their characters equipment and uncover Street Stories, immersive micronarratives that result in surprising outcomes through choices and mechanical tests.

As for the action part, Go On Boards game will provide a unique teamwork system in which every participant must think on the fly and make individual tactical decisions to achieve a common goal. Creative implementation of different mechanics help recreate the pace known in the video game. Players have time to prepare a plan, but changing circumstances may require mixing some improvisation into the initial strategy.

More to be presented

So far, the game has attracted the interest of over 47,000 followers. With such a large community, Cyberpunk 2077The Board Game is expected to be a huge success. Thanks to fan feedback, the creators keep expanding and transforming the project. If youd like to know more about the game and see how it changed or whats in store for the future, visit Gamefound.

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Upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 The Board Game adds Johnny Silverhand as a stretch goal - Gaming Trend