Category Archives: Cyberpunk

Youve got to love the aesthetics of dystopian cyberpunk video games, where all the technology looks like its cobbled together from cast-off bits of the old worlds remains. Kudos go to those who attempt to recreate these virtual props and bring them into the real world, but our highest praise goes to those who not only make a game-realistic version of a prop, but make it actually work.

Take the Nokota Manufacturing radio from Cyberpunk 2077, for instance. [Taylor] took one look at that and knew it would be the perfect vessel for a Baofeng UV-5R, the dual-band transceiver that amateur radio operators love to hate. The idea is to strip the PCB out of a Baofeng no worries, the things cost like $25 and install it in a game-accurate 3D printed case. But this is far from just a case mod, since [Taylor]s goal is to replace the radios original controls with something closer to whats in the game.

To that end, [Taylor] is spinning up an interface to the stock radios keypad using some 7400-series bilateral analog switches. Hooked to the keypad contacts and controlled by a Mini MEGA 2560 microcontroller, the interface is able to send macros that imitate the keypresses necessary to change frequencies and control the radios settings, plus display the results on the yellow OLED screen that seems a dead-ringer for the in-game display. The video below shows some early testing of the interface.

While very much still a work in progress, weve been following [Taylor]s project for a week or so and hes really gaining some ground. Weve encouraged him to enter this one in the Cyberdeck Challenge weve got going on now; it might not have much deck going for it, but it sure does have a lot of cyber.

Read more:

Bringing A Baofeng Into The Cyberpunk 2077 Universe - Hackaday

Cyberpunk DefinitionAnswering What is Cyberpunk?

As a sub-genre of science-fiction, Cyberpunk has managed to branch out and be so much more than its origins. That said, there is still a basic concrete definition from which many authors and artists start with when making something in this field. This is, essentially, what Cyberpunk meant and still means from the outset.

Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as low-life and high tech, Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks arent actively fighting against a megacorp, theyre still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.

The name Cyberpunk was coined by author Bruce Bethke, who used it as the title for one of his short stories. The author has said he didnt intend the name to represent this new category, and that the name itself came about through synthesis as he tried to combine different words together. The idea of the name a punk or troublemaker with insane computer skills remains.

The history of Cyberpunk origins, and what it consists of, is surprisingly extensive. So for the sake of all you readers at home, well condense it a bit here. But for those who have the time, take a look at the first part of Indigo Gamings documentary on Cyberpunk below.

What is Cyberpunk A documentary

The exact date from which this sub-genre emerged is not set in stone. However, certain books can point to its creation. In particular, Philip K. Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is seen as one of the first examples of this type of fiction (proto-Cyberpunk). It was part of the New Wave science fiction literature scene, which included many well-known authors, such as Dick, John Brunner, J.G. Ballard, and Bruce Sterling.

In the 1960s and 70s, these authors and others created science fiction worlds that rejected optimistic utopias. Instead, they opted for dystopian near-futures, where technology had advanced too far and nations as we knew them ceased to exist. These were also topics of popular sci-fi cinema of the 70s, but as far as Cyberpunk goes, it was still in the zygote phase of its creation.

It would not be until the 1980s that the sub-genre would truly make itself known to the world with the iconic film Blade Runner (1982). Based on Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner is not 100% Cyberpunk by definition, but its look, feel, and setting means it qualifies.

It introduced the world to a dystopian near future of constant rain, overpopulation, electric billboards, and humanoid androids. Whats more, it influenced William Gibson, a man frequently referred to as the godfather of Cyberpunk. Additionally, Katsuhiro Otomos manga series AKIRA began serialization in Japan the same year Blade Runner released.

Cyberpunk origins Blade Runner

But lets not digress from Gibson, for in 1984 he released Neuromancer, which is known as the Cyberpunk novel. Featuring a console cowboy, clear divisions between the rich and poor, a pre-internet internet (the matrix, aka cyberspace), and artificial intelligence, this novel more or less announced the arrival of Cyberpunk as we know it.

By the mid to late 80s, Cyberpunk already had its own anthology book and a tabletop game. Which later became the basis for CD Projekt Reds video game adaption Cyberpunk 2077.

Additionally, Neuromancer had two sequels (and a video game) and Otomos AKIRA was made into a groundbreaking animated film, further influencing how the genre would look in the world of anime.

Cyberpunk AKIRA

By the 1990s, Cyberpunk had seriously hit the mainstream, to extremely questionable success. Some of William Gibsons short stories were even made into movies, with Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and New Rose Hotel (1998) (they were box office failures). And in-between those movies, filmmakers took influence from the genre and made movies like RoboCop (1987), The Running Man (1987), The Lawnmower Man (1992), Judge Dredd (1995), Strange Days (1995), and Ghost in the Shell (1995).

The Matrix (1999) eventually wound up being the most mainstream Cyberpunk influenced movie of its era. And by the time the Wachowskis they themselves influenced by Japanese Cyberpunk anime like Ghost in the Shell made The Matrix, the sub-genre of Cyberpunk had evolved in dramatic ways.

Cyberpunk in film The Matrix

Not getting into the overwhelming number of derivatives that exist, Cyberpunk was no longer just punks against the system (though that was certainly still a part of it). More than anything, films, television, and other mediums had taken elements from it to create stories that evoked Cyberpunk imagery and themes. Even if they themselves were not overly Cyberpunk in nature.

At the same time, Cyberpunk was moving away from literature, soon finding a home with movies, television, and above all else, video games. Seminal games like Shadowrun, Snatcher, Perfect Dark, the Metal Gear series, and the Deus Ex series have been among the most prominent and acclaimed examples of Cyberpunk fiction anywhere.

Cyberpunk retrospective Deus Ex

Even with Cyberpunk making a name for itself in video games, movies have continued to tackle its themes in different ways. Philip K. Dick keeps getting adapted with Minority Report (2002), Paycheck (2003), andA Scanner Darkly (2006).

Meanwhile, other filmmakers either keep adapting Japanese Cyberpunk anime/manga Ghost in the Shell (2017), Alita: Battle Angel (2019) or make their own stories with Cyberpunk themes, like Ex Machina (2015), Upgrade (2018), and Possessor (2020).

And of course, there is Blade Runner 2049 (2017), the ultimate example of just how much the original film and the sub-genre it helped create has influenced science-fiction as a whole.

Cyberpunk movie Blade Runner 2049

As the future seen in older Cyberpunk works has become both paradoxically outdated and real, the genre has found new life in new forms of media. It has spawned too many other sub-sub-genres to count, with post-Cyberpunk, dieselpunk, and steampunk being among them.

Theres even an entire Japanese film genre called Cyberpunk that takes the body modification element to unnerving (and horrific) extremes.

Its a sub-genre that exists as an attitude, a fashion trend, a political call to arms, and as a form of entertainment. Cyberpunk is no longer just one type of thing, but rather a greater and ever changing life form, one which never stops being relevant or cool to old and new fans alike.

Now that your crash course on Cyberpunk is complete, its time to look at what some of the best movies in the sub-genre have to offer. Our list ranks 10 of the best movies for filmmakers, ranging from under-seen gems to bonafide classics, all of which interpret cyberpunk in their own unique ways.

The rest is here:

What is Cyberpunk Genre Definition, Origins & Examples - StudioBinder

Review Information

Time played: 45 hours

Platform: PC

Hotly anticipated for the best part of a decade, Cyberpunk 2077 is finally here, and its as rambunctiously detailed and gorgeous as the trailers suggest.

CD Projekt Red has added another inimitable RPG to its library, one that you could easily sink tens of hours into over the course of many months, eking out every hair-splitting detail.

Its easy to recommend if you need a big game to tide you through the holiday season, especially if you can look past the present mechanical hiccups and a somewhat compromised narrative.

In Cyberpunk 2077, you play as V, a mouthy merc who will do whatever it takes to become a living legend in Night City. Unfortunately, that also means harboring the long-dead spirit of Keanu Ree-, sorry, Johnny Silverhand, a washed-up rockstar terrorist who is slowly taking over their mind. Hi-jinks ensue!

When you get your hands on the game, the scale of Cyberpunk 2077 will no doubt make you anxious. Weve spent 45 hours poring over the majority of its content and experiencing three of its endings, and our map screen is still nowhere near clear. But this is no cause for concern because when it comes to RPG quest design, CD Projekt Red is the best in the business.

Even the most inoffensive of enemy encounters has a story behind it in Cyberpunk 2077, which makes exploration fundamentally awesome. Thanks to the scope of the setting, you never really know who or what youre going to stumble into next. A burger date with a criminal messiah or a black market braindance exorcism? Even the rowdy racing missions are good fun. Curious delights await the most inquisitive players, and youve always got options in how you want to approach them.

Its very easy to spend 30+ satisfying minutes quick saving and quick loading your way through one combat segment to get the right sequence of events you had mapped out in your head. Youll sear your synapses over a dubious dialogue choice in an otherwise unimportant side mission just because the framing is so interesting that you care about the outcome.

Its that Witcher witchcraft that the Polish developer is famous for that makes what is banal in other open-world games exhilarating here. We kept saying wed crack on with the main missions in the interest of completing the game quicker, but every time we finished one, wed get dragged away into a four-hour desert stupor of superb side quest after superb side quest.

Roleplay certainly played a part in how this game took our brain hostage. We played as a Nomad hacker with a teal undercut and custom heart-shaped pubes. Our V is a smooth-talking technical mastermind who can breach their opponents defenses from afar and contaminate them with code, causing contagion and cyber psychosis, forcing their manipulated subjects into forced suicide.

This games hacking mechanics put Watch Dogs to shame, letting you control almost every aspect of an environment in a fashion only rivaled by classic immersive simulators like Deus Ex. If things went awry, wed rely on our cybernetic augmentations to do the talking, like our dermal engravings that let you wield Smart weapons with homing bullets and the Mantis Blades, razor-sharp forearm protrusions that let us mop up any mushy-brained stragglers.

And even when missions pump the brakes, Cyberpunk 2077 keeps things interesting by turning you into a Batman Arkham-esque investigator. Braindance puzzles divulge plot details by letting you play through and inspect others recorded memories committed to digital wax. Youll then be able to spot-check suspicious NPCs with stat-based dialogue checks that hark back to the halcyon days of Fallout 3.

If you think about it, there arent many single-player FPS RPGs of this nature on the market, so returning to this style felt novel, especially with the next-gen nuance implemented by CD Projekt Red. But thats not to say there arent some redundant systems in play here.

It's a lot more dynamic in practice, but Cyberpunk 2077s nearest neighbor combat wise is Fallout 4. Its not doing anything too exciting in that department beyond the quirky cyberware, but it still provides a good enough gameplay loop. However, melee combat, especially with blunt weapons, feels particularly floaty and disappointing, so its a shame that theres an entire branch of missions based around it.

And over nearly 50 hours, weve never even considered the need for consumable food or drink items, despite the fact that they so easily clog your inventory. The Wanted system is also a dead weight that serves no purpose other than to annoy you when you run over a civilian by mistake easy to do, given the tight streets and erratic steering of vehicles as you travel between icons.

And yes, unfortunately, there are plenty of glitches to contend with. From quests we cant complete to overlays not going away, there's a lot going on. Weve had memorable moments scuppered by unruly animations and missing dialogue and textures. Par for the course, you might say, and fair enough it hasnt stopped us from mainlining the damn thing long after completing it. A Day One patch is coming which should iron out some of the creases, but given there are hundreds of clothing items and specific animations for pulling a laptop out from under a bed, keep your expectations tempered.

The main questline acts as the reliable spine of Cyberpunk 2077, introducing cool characters and providing structure to the open world, coaxing exploration in the same inoffensive way that Skyrim does. Given that youre playing as a blank slate, it falls short of being as rich and novelesque as The Witcher 3 if that is what youre expecting. Still, its an enjoyable blockbuster with some neat twists and killer set pieces, as you take out snipers at a busy corporate parade and infiltrate a digital brothel.

The supporting cast is fronted by Johnny Silverhand, Vs obnoxious sidekick whose in-game model looks like Keanu Reeves after a bad nights sleep. He goes on like one of those people still in denial about the death of rock music and exists to torment the player with eclectic dialogue that sticks out amid an unconvincing redemption arc. Reeves performance is great fun to watch, but the writing that surrounds it undermines it. Its a shame, but there are plenty of other interesting side characters with better arcs that youll get to know throughout the game.

In the themes and subtext department, the game is often at odds with itself. Its an anti-capitalist satire that has ironically positioned itself to be the ultimate hot commodity in 2020, one that has been made under allegedly questionable conditions. What were left with is a very corporate take on cyberpunk that leans on vogue 80s aesthetics, hypersexualization, and random spats of out-of-place philosophy. Its surprising how much it felt chained to the plot points and characters of its tabletop inspiration, too, despite being set half a century after it.

The way the game treats its female characters is disappointing, and its politics are all over the place. It digs into some sensitive themes that are well above its pay grade, and the conclusions often ring hollow thanks to the games inherent edginess. A lot of the imagery seems designed to shock the player without ever actually making them think, usually at the expense of the oppressed. Frankly, its hard to be enthused about the crystal ball punk manifesto of a game that brandishes influencers on its billboards...

Weve no idea how it plays on consoles just yet, but we played on PC with an RTX 2080 powering its stunning rain-slicked ray-traced streets. Even on max settings, it ran peachy, with some natural frame rate dips in busy areas. It sounds fantastic too. The sound designers and composers need a lot of credit for their thumping techno beats and Nine Inch Nail facsimiles that echo through grime-infested abandoned buildings and atmospheric bars. The guns are similarly crunchy and punchy, just how we like them.

Were going to be playing a lot more of Cyberpunk 2077, even though weve already seen it through and sunk nearly 50 thoroughly enjoyable hours into it over the course of a week. The fun factor, replayability, and value for money on offer is undeniable, and the limited market of FPS RPGs with immersive sim gameplay systems makes Cyberpunk 2077 an easy sell for those who love games like Fallout and Deus Ex its an amalgamation of many of the genres best features.

There are half-baked mechanics, glitches, and narrative missteps to contend with that you may or may not struggle to ignore. Still, the overall package is well worth a look, especially if you want to leverage the games remarkable fidelity to take advantage of your next-gen console or graphics card.

Cyberpunk 2077: Price Comparison

Continued here:

Cyberpunk 2077 review | TechRadar

1. More Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty DLC News Coming In June  GameSpot
2. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Info Finally Dropping in June  Push Square
3. CD Projekt Red promises to share more information about Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty in June  Notebookcheck.net

Here is the original post:

More Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty DLC News Coming In June - GameSpot

Cyberpunk 2077s first major downloadable content, the expansion Phantom Liberty, is coming in 2023, developer CD Projekt Red announced Tuesday with the add-ons first teaser trailer. CD Projekt Red describes Phantom Liberty as a new spy-thriller expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 that will be set in a new district of Night City.

The first trailer for Phantom Liberty doesnt offer a ton in the way of detail. Player character V takes an oath to faithfully serve the New United States of America, while the voice of Johnny Silverhand admonishes her that that was a bad idea. Theres a snippet of gameplay, but the trailer doesnt promise much. Actor Keanu Reeves confirmed separately in a Night City Wire livestream presentation that hell return to voice Johnny in the expansion.

Phantom City will be available for the Google Stadia, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X versions of Cyberpunk 2077 but not, apparently, for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. The games new 1.6 patch, known as the Edgerunners Update, will be the final update for the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Cyberpunk 2077.

The Edgerunners Update is named for its tie-in to the Netflix animated series coming next week. Patch 1.6 introduces equippable items from the anime to Cyberpunk 2077, including the the jacket worn by David Martinez, the animes protagonist, and a shotgun used by another character from the show. The update also brings new features to the game including a clothing transmog system, cross-platform progression, and a playable Roach Race minigame arcade cabinet.

Cyberpunk 2077 was originally released in December 2020, but in a notoriously buggy state. Developer CD Projekt Red spent the better part of the following year bug-squashing and polishing the game, work that ultimately delayed an update for PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game and its first expansion. CD Projekt confirmed in April that Cyberpunk 2077s first expansion was targeting a 2023 release window.

Read the original here:

Cyberpunk 2077 DLC Phantom Liberty gets release window, first trailer ...

Utah band Spirit Machines beats out 7,800 others to have song featured in video game Cyberpunk 2077  ABC4.com

Go here to see the original:

Utah band Spirit Machines beats out 7,800 others to have song featured in video game Cyberpunk 2077 - ABC4.com

Nvidia's RTX And DLSS3 Cyberpunk Support Demonstrate Why These Features Are The Future Of Gaming  Forbes

More here:

Nvidia's RTX And DLSS3 Cyberpunk Support Demonstrate Why These Features Are The Future Of Gaming - Forbes

Curious about the Cyberpunk 2077 Militech Datashard? By the sounds of it, you've just met Meredith Stout, and you're working your way through The Pickup quest. You can just hand the credchip straight over to the Maelstrom, but it's more interesting to explore all your options before skipping off to the All Foods gate.

Prepare to work some Cyberpunk 2077 hacking (opens in new tab) magic. It only takes a few seconds to remove the malware from the datashard, but it's worth doing if you're hoping to stay on the right side of the Maelstrom gang. Here's how to get the Militech Datashard in Cyberpunk 2077 and hack it to remove the malware stored on the chip.

Before heading to the All Foods building in The Pickup quest, you have the opportunity to call Meredith Stout and arrange to meet her. This optional objective appears after you speak to Dexter DeShawn in his car (The Ride quest). While the meeting is a little hostile at first, the conversation leads to you receiving a Militech Datashard that has some cash on it.

With the credchip safely in hand, you can then poke around and remove the malware on the chip. This virus is intended to catch out the Maelstromers, so tampering with it can change what happens when you meet Cyberpunk 2077's Royce (opens in new tab) later on.

After Meredith drives away, you can use your hacking knowledge to use Breach Protocol on the credchip and wipe it. Open your Journal (I) and select the Shards tab, then scroll right down to the bottom and choose the Militech Datashard. Then, press F to crack the security on the chip.

Upon breaching the credchip you'll notice that there are two sequences:

It's possible to complete both sequences, but the game-changing option is the neutralize malware sequence at the top. Here's how to hack the Militech Datashard and enter both sequences:

Now you're ready to meet Jackie at the All Foods gate and continue The Pickup mission.

Follow this link:

How to hack the Cyberpunk 2077 Militech Datashard - pcgamer

The Last Of Us Updates, An Award For Cyberpunk 2077 And More Gaming News For Wednesday, January 4  Forbes

See the original post:

The Last Of Us Updates, An Award For Cyberpunk 2077 And More Gaming News For Wednesday, January 4 - Forbes

Why Playing Cyberpunk 2077 As A Melee Character Is The Most Fun You Can Have With It  Kotaku Australia

Read the original post:

Why Playing Cyberpunk 2077 As A Melee Character Is The Most Fun You Can Have With It - Kotaku Australia