b0r1s wrote:

Seems to be and some free DLC that the PlayStation doesn’t get. Definitely do it. It’s wonderful. Forgot to add in my write up that it’s also a genuinely positive game. Some may say it’s corny and obvious but I think it’s good the game lacks cynicism and it doesn’t need humour to sell its positive vision of humanity. Genuinely touching end too.

Tempy wrote:

What are your thoughts on using the word icelandic to describe America. Always thought this was a really weird thing to be staring you in the face for whole time whilst you just accept it. That Kojima magic maybe.

hylian_elf wrote:

16. Persona 5 Royal (PS4) - 26/12 - 142hrs
Well, it’s Persona, and it’s bloody great. Deep themes and highly thought provoking. Not as good as 4, which I thought had better characters, and the dungeons, while expanded and with set maps and light puzzles, were too long and at times tedious. But the social sim side is as good as ever, the battles are great, the soundtrack is brilliant, and the UI design is gorgeous. I’m gonna miss the Phantom Thieves, having grown so attached to them/the game over the course of 140 hours. Now to sell a kidney and hunt down P3P. 
[9]

hylian_elf wrote:

@Nina: Hifumi. Only other option I considered was Makoto but she seemed the type that may one day beat me up or something!

Won’t be starting P3P for some time. Need a break from Persona, too many other (big) games to play.

Right. Finished Cyberpunk.
All Surface No Feeling *

Of all the Cyberpunk zeitgeist of the past month - the bugs, the ad campaign, the refunds, it is Night City itself that lingers. A disgusting monolith, crammed to the brim with activities and alleyways. The landscape evolves and dissipates as I enter and leave, the towers giving way to industrial sprawls, to shacks, and finally, to the desert. Night City itself, as a construct, feels like the one of the best realised environments I have encountered in a videogame. And when it all clicks, the world of Cyberpunk really comes to life in a grotesque and fascinating way. 
In one particular side mission that I've been replaying in my head, I spent the day accompanying a criminal who was going to atone for his sins in the most dramatic way possible. He was being supported by Corpos who saw a way to make a cheap buck from his torment, turning it into a media consumable by many. In the end, I became a passive participant in his suffering, watched from afar, but in an earlier conversation, I had put enough seeds of doubt into his head about his plan that it botched the media product. Completing the mission, I noticed the billboards around town advertising the event, as if the city itself was reminding me of the choices I had made. 
I keep thinking if there was a way for the outcome to turn out different - and at times I think there was, but when I also stack it up against several of the key 'systemic' choices in the game, I'm less inclined to believe this. It feels odd that a world where the overriding message about humanity's excess seems to be that you can do everything, but none of it matters or fulfils in the long run, the developers seem to have taken that to the core of the game's design.
Take that initial choice (not the size of your endowment) of the origin story for your V - Nomad, Streetkid or Corpo. In the run up to the release of the game, there was sizeable buzz, here and elsewhere about rolling the game multiple times to see how things could play out differently. But to what end? A few dialogue choices scattered in at opportune moments that don't serve to change events, but solely to provide a spot of colour? It feels like a system drawn over from the tabletop game that was too unweildy to package into the game for three diverse playthroughs. 
There are more systems that feel as though they have been shoehorned into the game in order to point at the origin source and say 'hey, we did that too'. The modifications options in the game at first can seem overwhelming, yet by about halfway through, aside from my mantis blade arms (which quickly were rendered useless by the weaponry I collected) any of the upgrades I purchased felt as though they made no real difference to how I actually played the game - it was all artifice. 
To a lesser extent, the skill trees offer a similar veil of depth. I specced pretty much exclusively in guns and body, and finished the game at level 40. Yet in several late game sequences and sidequests, I managed to effectively stealth my way through at no expense for the build I had created - in the world of every playthrough having viable options, the spectre of the Deus-Ex-hole-in-the-wall or convenient-pile-of-crates still rears its unweildy head, 20 odd years on. My gun perks allowed me 20% faster reloads, among other such delights, but by the time I was around 20 hours in, I possessed firepower that allowed me to one shot the thugs that ran aimlessly at me. 
The game crumbles under the illusion of choice, and as a result, everything in it seems to be less fully formed than if CDPR had been able to rein in things moreso, to reduce the 'need' to have a little of everything in the title. Regardless of what others may think, I absolutely feel the AAA pressures of creating the ur-game (I'll see you in 2022, multiplayer) akin to GTA or Ubiworld is where the fundamental failings of the game lie. Gigs fly in with nondescript abandon - always more to see. A half-baked police system is built in - drive twenty seconds down the road and a three star warning disappears. Fallout-esque items (though sadly fewer dildos than I expected) scatter across every environ, but I never really found a desire or reason to spend money. A character scolds me for killing everyone with gay abandon, but in looking up the quest line after completing the game, it actually changed no elements of what happens. It is a game in which I can do anything, but nothing actually carries any value. 
It's impossible to weigh up the content of the game without looking at the context within which I played it. I played on my PC which I only bought this year, and the game ran smoothly at ultra across the board throughout. Yes, I got my fair share of hilarious bugs, but only one of them hard crashed the game, and another glitched a quest necessitating a re-load. I was, by all accounts, lucky. Yet it does feel somewhat fitting that a game structured around a piece of faulty tech, with radio news stories talking about injuries caused by faulty tech... well, you get the rest. 
At the end of the game I chose my ending based on one of the two characters in the game that I genuinely enjoyed spending time with, and I can't see myself going back to see alternatives - there isn't enough meat to the bones of that ending to rush in for that. But I will keep dipping in and out of the city, watching the highrise mount and then dissipate as I run through the highways. That remained a constant joy for me, and throughout my playthrough I was never once inclined to fast-travel to a locale, even when it was several kilometers away. 
It seems CDPR have made the most Cyberpunk product  , not game, that they could. A game pushed out unfinished and half-baked by a Corpo hiding it behind the sheen of Keanu, the buzz of 'what could be' in 2021. A game where the voice of those pushing the relentless ad campaign to the trolls and easy targets of the net echoes loudest. A game in which I can modify what I do, what I wear, and how I do it to my hearts content, but where none of it really matters. 
And despite all that, it's raining in Night City, and my motorbike is only 31 meters away on autocall, there's road to be covered, and things to see that you people wouldn't believe.

Spoiler:

*Yes, I know I got the Manics song the wrong way round but it doesn't work otherwise

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Is Blasphemous on your list of B's?