Eeeeeexcept for me scratching my head about that Capitalism bit wondering if he thinks there’s *really* a better solution If not and he’s simply stating the obvious, fine; I agree Just am genuinely curious if my pessimism is founded or not
Ya a lot of video essayist just spout dumb shit that doesn’t mean anything. But he uses analogies and comparisons really well. Maybe just bulk up the videos to also cover counter points to his own argument
I'll never forget that time in RDR2 I had a horse die for the first time. It was in the mountains because I was trying to catch the Arabian Horse for RDR1 nostalgia. Ended up being a big long mountain survival horror story with a big ass bear and wolves. The bear killed my horse I was on and since I was in the mountains I was far far away from any fast travel points and since it's the mountains only the rare horse would be my reliable way back out of the mountains. Idk how long I spent up there. Definitely 2 irl days of hunting for food, finding shelter, and fending off pissed off wild life until I found the damn horse. I will never forget how genuine that whole scenario felt. Like I was legit stuck in the mountains do to my own accord and the games wild life AI. That whole experience made me ball my fucking eyes out when I saw that same horse get killed in the final cutscenes. I never felt that experience in any other game unless it was like Minecraft where the whole survival mode is always like that. But for that just to happen to me in a game where they tell me "You're railroaded the entire time" I just don't think it's the whole truth. Play GTAV and then play RDR2. Huge huge difference even though they're very similar. RDR2 just did what GTAV think it was doing.
Yeah, and I get why some people might say that all those little immersive mechanics might be a chore for them, when you've spent hours feeding your horse, brushing it, comforting it, bonding with it, customizing it and then it dies, it hurts more. Cleaning the guns is not that big a deal as it doesn't need to be done that often and looting might take a while, but you already get so much stuff that it isn't really necessary, I liked the slow gameplay in the open world and really felt immersed. I wish rockstars doesn't get rid of all of that because of complaints like that, because for me, that's where the magic was, not the missions when hundreds of enemies are launched at you, but the slow, quieter, immersive part, with well made animations and attention to details.
@@factoryreset855 honestly I really wish RDR2 had a lot less heavily scripted story moments where you are forced on a path, slowly making your way to a marker to go into a cutscene to go into a shooting gallery to go into another cutcene and more of the classic rpg elements where things just kinda happen themselves and you get only vague hints on how to approach things. It would transition into the freeroam, slow-paced survival segments the OP was describing much more organically imo
@@Spiderella3959 Yeah, the mission's structure was the weakest part of the game imo, while the open world's structure was it's strong one. I wish they'd rework the way they design quests, nowadays when I play, I just roam the map and do side content instead of doing the main story (already finished it once)
@@Spiderella3959 This is exactly the point of this video. RDR2 was developed for 8 years, by about 2000 people according to google. It already was a massive undertaking and developing an immersive and "free-er" quest system would also be one. It's the same reason why mechanics in Bethesda games are not perfect, and why CDPR's games are really strong at the story, quest system and worldbuilding but nothing else. When developing games you have to make trade-offs because it's insanely expensive, the technology moves fast and the more things you stuff into your game the more you risk having a stable and performant product.
Clearly he wasn't your best bud if you pushed back his funeral for a bunch of random bullshit that TRIGGERS those calls. Seriously if you actually treat the death of your best friend with the respect it deserves and go there first nothing interrupts it.
I forgot I was watching something about cyberpunk through the intro. I mean, a compact in-depth analysis of RDR1 in 5 minutes about the folly of redemption and forgiveness that had me hooked was literally just context. What a masterpiece. I'm starting to see a pattern that the best content creators on this dogshit platform tend to be the most hidden. Well done.
That 5 minute opening was quite possibly the single best written opening to any video I have ever seen. In a few short minutes, you perfectly summarize the core thesis of a game, a game separate from the game you analyze in the video, so that you can then fall back on said analysis as a lens to view the prime focus of the video. Masterfully done.
“The marketing seemed to imply it was the second coming of Jesus Christ but lord and savior is not a genre” is such a raw line. Your style of discussing topics is fantastic. You could title your videos anything and even if they were about something completely different I wouldn’t notice, because you get me hooked every time. Keep up the great videos and please talk about anything you want, because it will be a treat to listen to regardless
As an avid gun person, I generally liked cleaning my guns in RDR2, wish it was fleshed out to cleaning the springs, receiver, bore and trigger. Just because I'd spend hours just doing that lol. I enjoy having a lil bit of realism, like eating, sleeping and drinking. Or cleaning guns and making sure equipment isn't degrading and breaking, it add more depth to the gameplay, maybe not mentor impact but just enough to burn boredom off.
Yeah I agree, RDR2 is easily the greatest open world game of this gen. No other game comes even close. And IT WORKED on day one! Not like CP2077 that is still broken months after release.
One of the nice quality of life improvements I've seen in some games like No Man's Sky or Subnautica: "Realism" (hunger, thirst, etc) vs "Exploration" (no hunger, etc) settings when you start a new game. It's always nice to have the ability to turn off stuff like this but at least give the player a choice if they don't want to be bothered by being too real. For straight realism, I love Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which has a lot of mechanics like eating, but they never really get in the way of gameplay. The animations don't take forever and don't waste your time as a gamer. Take a bath? Screen goes dark for like 2 seconds and "you've bathed as well as you can in a trough" message pops up, and you can go on your merry way.
I can see why, but I would disagree. The thing I've learned in last couple of years: is that if a game\movie\book\manga does not keep you engaged - it's doing something wrong. Things like that while are realistic and fun once in a while (shaving in Withcer 3 for example) are chorus that are there not to keep you entertained, but busy. And I hate it
_"...the NPCs actually don't have bad AI..."_ Wait a minute, you're not actually going to defend this bullsh- _"...they have no AI."_ Ok, you got me scared for a second there.
I really liked the city environment, even though it was lacking in detail. I recently played it for the first time so I never saw how rough it looked at launch. I still ended up getting bored of the game and started another Witcher playthrough lmao
I honestly love the way he approaches his points. Like he starts off at a totally unrelevent thing and slowly brings it to the point that he really wants to talk about in way that it makes sense.
A year later. After watching the cyberpunk anime I realised what 2077 did wrong. While the world and the story in it were punk... The game itself wasn't. It followed every single modern gaming tradition and lost itself in them.
Out of the thousands of video essays on cyber punk I’ve never heard of someone say that the game needs to cut down on its existing features. But holy crap you are 100% right. Crafting, skills, clothing, looting, cars and all that are so terrible and they waste my time when I played the game. I genuinely want to try out a mod that just removes the features.
Damn, I am the complete opposite, I like the crafting system because it's not that frustrating getting materials, I like to go on foot to my destination and do Littles encounters along the way that gives me materials to craft, mostly a new sword, because all my skills point are and will be in the sword option, I want to be a ninja weeaboo that dashes and double jump, and I need all theses features so that my gameplay can be complete
i think the issue is less that the game tried to have everything, as lets say Fallout: NV had most of features we see in Cyberpunk 2077 the issue with CP is that there seem to have been no focused effort NV is an open world post apocalyptic RP game with shooting and crafting elements cyberpunk is an open world cyberpunk RPShooterCraftingDriving game, all at the same time all elements have a place in the game, but there seem like there was a lack of drive somewhere, thus no concentrated development was made and all avenues were pursued equally, leading to a weak game that doesn't accomplish much because it didn't have a goal to accomplish The Witcher III was a great game because it was a character driven story game, it had a clear objective so all parts of the game go in that same direction, all elements of the game work together to push the game forward, while in CP all the different elements are walking over each other, competing for your attention and thus hold the game back
@@quentintin1 What? NV didn't have anywhere near the number of features as Cyberpunk. The shooting is even more half-baked than Cyberpunk, character animations were non-existent and voice acting was subpar, enemy AI was non-existent, and the crafting system was way too complicated and also really not necessary. NV lived and died on the vast amount of player choice it allowed in their well crafted world, that was their focus and they blew it out of the park, all the rest didn't really matter..
I have to disagree on the "unnecessary" mechanics in RDR2. Maybe it was just me, but part of the reason I was flat out balling at the end of the game was because I had cleaned Morgan's arms and legs, his guns, and his horse. I had cooked his food and fished and camped with him. Part of what makes him such a relatable character is that you have to step into his shoes so deeply that you can't help but feel his character progress through the story. It made me more invested in him, and for me that made the payoff much greater.
Well, each person has their own taste I guess. I personally hated all the time-wasters in RDR2. So much so I never finished it. I might even say that it disrespects my time by doing so. But hey, good to know there are people liking that kind of stuff.
I understand, but is it really necessary for me to hold (A) to bathe or when I need to craft 200 split point bullets individually? Making me hold a button over and over again when I could just relax and watch a (skippable) animation ruins the immersion for me. There isn't a minigame when we skin animals or set up camp but I still appreciate those things and believe a minigame would make them worse.
I really liked RDR2's excessive animations. Looting slowly was done so you could only gather a few precious items before the lawmen showed up. Always made me feel on edge and made it a gamble. Skinning was laborious to gross you out. Sort of ties into the atmosphere of the game, gritty. Cleaning guns made me appreciate my favorite guns more, made an etching or design upgrade feel shiny even if I'd had it for awhile. Rewards you with accuracy. Whether Arthur decides to clean his guns or not, works for his character. Arthur was a slow, walker and runner which is indicative of how weak he was getting. John runs quite a bit faster in contrast. You can groom your horse. You can pet dogs. Smoking a cigarette in combat is something you should've done before combat. Game punishes you for not preparing. Heavy animations do not work for the majority of games though. I appreciate in Elden Ring that you can loot quickly from your horse. In fact, you can't take damage during lever or door animations, which just works for the type of game, because it's already unforgiving and needs that balance. But for me, the animations in RDR2 never got old, but I can understand those that complain.
The game is just...there. What is it? An RPG? FPS? A GTA like game? Sandbox? Sure yeah, but is one of those mechanics polished enough? No. Does it have brilliance moments? Yes. As Woolie said before at the end of the Super Best Friends Play Heavy Rain playthrough streams - "Wasted potential will always be worse than a game with no potential at all."
It’s crazy because even before the game cane out we didn’t know wtf it was, other than an « RPG Experience » which is funny because they call it an action adventure now.
Of the hundreds, if not thousands of video essays on games i’ve watched, this is the most tightly focused one, and it says it everything it wants to say in less than the usual 3 hours, well done!
I agree. This was the first video to truly make me realize what really makes Cyberpunk 2077 a bad game. It’s not the glitches or the combat or the RPG elements or the open world. All of that isn’t why Cyberpunk 2077 is a bad game… It’s a bad game because it’s a Jack of all trades master of none. It’s a game that can do a lot of things okay, but it never *excels* at those things. It lacks focus, it lacks vision. It is literally a game about everything… and yet nothing at all.
@@NoahDaArk Honestly it's a pale imitation of its origin. They screwed up when they made it into a basic video game RPG, none of the mechanics in the game match the originals they are named after. Cyberpunk was not an RPG that used Levels, Hitpoints or magical instaheals. Progression wasn't about improving stats or getting a higher level of the same gun or equipment you start with. It was a skill based game with realistic depictions of combat with firearms. If you get shot in your fleshy gut then you might die straight away or you might bleed out in a few minutes. Unless your as augmented as Adam Smasher and wearing a full suit of Metalgear hard armour then you're not standing in the middle of a hail of bullets like it's a light rain. If you are as augmented as him and wearing that armour, then you stand out like a sore thumb and the NCPD are likely going to call in Maxtac just to question why you're walking around in combat armour before you get anywhere near your mission. It's depressing that they failed to get the basics of Cyberpunk and made a generic video game RPG instead of working on what made Cyberpunk work.
Needed a lot longer than 2 years. 2 Years isn't shit in game dev. You can see it's been half a year since launch and all they've done is bug fixes, not actual game changes civ/cop/combat Ai just as bad just few less bugs, driving just as bad just a few fixes, graphics just a few fixes, no multiplayer (now saying they might scrap that idea) no changes to combat (still janky, just more consistently janky. Still also pretty fun though) no changes to lackluster side quests (the good ones are still good, but slightly less buggy) no weapon additions or enemy types or car mods or more cars or more body mods or location additions or any vendor/ immersive areas that were planned added, a _tiny_ amount of balance changes (reduced revolver enemy damage ??? Increased gorilla arms damage by 20%) They could easily spend another 5-10 years on this, and it'd probably be really good and measure up to what was hoped for, but it was good enough when it came out if you had realistic expectations (and not a braindead last-gen console peasant) paid you in fun plenty enough for your $60. I put 70hrs in the first week, remember about 3 bugs, and had a good time. Time to play one of the other billion games out there and move on
@@echo5827 guy, they themselfs said that it was also for last gen. I wouldnt care if they said it was only for next gen but when you say it works for both then i expect it to work for both. They should have just focused on next gen and pc. Dont make claims you cant prove.
I found your channel about half a week ago and I’ve been binging your discussion and essay videos ever since. It’s insane to me that you don’t have more subscribers and a bigger audience. It’s equally insane to me to find out how high the quality of your videos were just half a year or so back and how tiny your audience at that time was for being so on top of your craft. Your growth in a relatively short timeframe is honestly impressive and inspiring. So inspiring that I’ve decided to start giving game reviews and game discussion/essays a try, something I have thought on for a long time but never pulled the trigger. Thanks for the motivation, I’ll be here for the foreseeable future. Keep making delicious peachy cobbley music, DJ. Or play games. Y’know. Whatever tickles the pickle.
I honestly really liked the longer animations in RDR2. They make me feel calm. I would always go into first person when eating or drinking, feeding or brushing my horse, cleaning my weapons lol.
Great take. Especially since you can clearly see how at a certain point they realised there's no way they'll ever complete the game before the deadline and just cut everything down to the simplest working version and moved the "open world development team" from adding even more useless buildings filled with nothing and visited by nobody to peppering the map with NCPD activities and heartless sidequests to pump the gametime up to the minimum acceptable quota. Cyberpunk is a complete and utter failure, a wasted opportunity and something sorely needed by CDPR. They had a stellar career up to this point, but everybody needs to fall from time to time to get a reminder, that reality exists and can hit you in the ass. Here's to hope it allows them to grow and release even better games in the future.
Ye except the part that they won anyway. They got the money and on steam the reviews are so good and i dont really understand why. This is so shit compared to a lot of indy games that cant be so hyped due to budgets. CDPR failed everythin,they knew this game was bad but..you know money are money so who cares "i hope we ll get fans trust again" well fuck you. Yes i played the game and as soon as i saw the wanting system ,the basic thing this game needed,i new it was gonna be so bad. Nobrainer refund
@@3093DaNieLe3093 Unfortunately the state on consoles has taken most of the attention from players and media to a point that a lot dont even see the utter failures in game design and quality of quests etc. CDPR also used this as a small cover up, directing all attention to "fixing the consoles" and just acting like they didnt know something was really wrong with the core game itself. I do not think they will use this as a learning experience to better themselves, quite the contrary I believe. They never made so much money in that short period of time. They literally made back the develepment and marketing costs for the entire project with the preorders alone. The only thing the managers learn in a big corp is when they make big money, they did something right, so they will believe by overhyping and deceiving customers they can do the same again in the future as they did now, if they really wanted to better themselves they would have atleast adressed the problems with the core game itself by now. Its the same thing that happened with Bethesda, they made FO3, FO4, Oblivion, Skyrim and all of those games were overshadowed by their "bugginess" and thats what players and media paid their attention to in these games, also leading to them to completely overlook the poor game design of all those games. The only reason why a somewhat bigger piece of the player base started acknowledging these issues is because Obsidian showed the players that they could make a far superior game compared to Bethesda and that in just 1 years time with FO:NV. This lead of course to the fact that Bethesda instantly stopped working with them ever again, because they didnt want them to overshadow their internal production or force Bethesda to increase their quality to not contrast as much. In addition to that in such big corps like CDPR (and yes CDPR is a huge corp, their net worth is significantly higher than f-ing Ubisoft and Rockstar) due to product issues that damaged their brand, design leads and engineers will be fired and also removed from the board. Instead the people who made the big $$$ (by overhyping, lying and deceiving their customers), the marketing people, are those who get to be more represented in the board and the decision making process. This automatically begins an unstoppable process where marketing gets more of a say over the company compared to the product people (engineers, designers, etc), which basically means "full throttle into the dark side". Its the same thing that happened with EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda and many other once small and innovative companies that grew into huge corps and placed the people in the leading positions that made the most $$$, and those were the marketing people.
I will never understand the statement of CDPR having a "stellar career" like you and many many others claim, when they only ever became somewhat known after a single good game and nothing more. If anything, it feels like they were nothing but a one hit wonder.
@@arandom35yearold thats because they showed in TW3 how to make a game with passion and love. The attention to detail for the secondary stories and the quality over quantity given to gamers..not clients to scam. Cyberpunk turn the table upside down,ive never seen such bad product honeslty
I think it was just a more simpler example to contextualise the problem with cyberpunk. His main point was that once they refine their focus and improved the foundations, they should then add on shit like crafting, skills, etc. RDR2 has a good story and gameplay, they added those mechanics as a cherry on top - without those, the mechanics will be pointless and tedious.
I feel that it was a daring shot... And successful. Normally I find these kind of things utterly pointless but here they pushed you into a more meditative approach of the game and with that into immersing yourself into the game... As long as you let the game do that with you, if you allow it to take your hand so that it can show you what it wants to show. If you don't want that then it feels forced so I can understand that some people really don't like that feature because have have to surrender to it to enjoy it (since it's not really optional). It dead risky to push that on the player and say "look this is how we want you to experience the game, we even took tons of work and resources to make an these little animations for it. So do it!" Some people will not like that obviously, they want their freedom, that's why they play games. But for me personally it was perfect. Perfect to loose myself in the game and loose track of what was happening to be immersed in a harder and yet simpler time. I wouldn't have done it without that I would have rushed it and missed the joy of just being present in the game...
I have an even spicier take: The thing they focused the most on was the story. The moments with Jackie, seeing Johnny come around, and Takemura change from your hunter to your protector are all examples of character development most "storytelling" "rpg" games these days can only dream of. If the devs focused and honed in on this, the experience legitimately could have held a candle to The Matrix, and I genuinely believe that. Of course the games systems on PC weren't entirely broken and will continue to be fixed in due time as you say- but a story when released is generally set in stone. God I wish they'd get Keanu back in the studio and really finish this game; you know he loves to be Johnny.
Quite a few modern "storytelling" "rpgs" tell a far better story in a much more beautiful way, take Disco Elysium for example. While the story is the strongest part of C2077, it's not strong enough to hold up the weight of the game.
@@imbaby5499 We could argue over subjective taste all day, and I agree that Disco Elysium is a fantastic way to tell a story. That doesn't change the quality of Cyberpunk's writing, especially in the mainline story. I agree with the sentiment though, a lot of the game was outright botched and a good story doesn't make a good game. I'll suffer through a bad game for a good story though, and not everyone is the same. (Deadly Premonition is the ultimate example of this)
Red Dead Redemption 2 took me an incredibly long time to beat, which just a few weeks ago I finally did. And I have to kind of disagree with some of the critiques towards it. Doing the mundane tasks constantly wasn't too bad, but more than anything the need to constantly travel from area to area on horseback (Yes you do get fast traveling and you can travel on carriages but it get tedious to get to the place you need to do both things) really made me struggle with finishing the game. Sometimes a mission would happen and it would just drop me off so fuckin far from any civilization it was so annoying. Eating, sleeping, bathing, it really wasn't too bad. I never felt like those things were an issue for me personally.
I do have to say I actually kinda teared up at Jackie's funereal because it reminded me of my fathers' funeral who died when I was 19. Albeit Puerto Rican, yet still felt a lot similar. Shit hit close to home. The memorandums and everything. Shit hit close to home
Agreed, they did an excellent job depicting the loss of your best friend, a mother's son, a member of a community and the ripple effects of grief. When I got his bike, I never rode anything else for the rest of the game.
@@Shnap1337 stuff like that feels good because it's when your motivation as a player lines up with the motivation of the main character. This does not happen often in CP2077
So if redemption doesn't matter you want them to like, shoot the game to death in broad daylight instead for justice right? Idk man it's still a pretty kickass game
@@patrickobrien1198 emm, what? Do you replied to wrong comment? By the way, they should be the ones to get punished, not game. People were all to foolish to buy into "We aren't like other companies owo" and forgive some stuff, but now it's clear, they are new stage of asshole corpos who are self-aware and know what strings to use.
The story telling this man has is incredible, I click on cyberpunk video, I know it’s cyberpunk, but i get lost in a story of red dead redemption, on John, and remember one of my favourite games, and redemption.
I enjoy all those little moments you don't like in RDR2. All those little animations that most developers wouldn't consider putting in. They actually did really immerse me in the world and I still go back to it just to enjoy being Arthur in that world.
Finally, for the first time in a long time... A UA-camr who's not a fucking moron. Someone who doesn't just parrot the same bullshit braindead ideas over and over. Someone who actually thinks for themselves. +respect to you good sir...
23:32 they do serve what the game is about, finding redemption in the turning point of the old west. The setting of RDR2 is just as important as the main plot for Arthur. The very beginning of the game sets you up to expect a slower paced, truer representation of the old west and what it takes to not only live in it but to also redeem yourself from it.
Honestly? While I get what you're trying to say about RDR2, I gotta disagree with the criticism of the minor things like eating, cleaning guns, and feeding your horse. These things barely take any time; the eating is tied to the health system and you'll generally replenish it mid-combat in a matter of seconds only occasionally, guns take forever to degrade in condition and can be cleaned rapidly or instantly at a gunsmith, and feeding your horse is only done after very, very long periods of time. I may be biased due to my love of food in video games, but these things all do not make the game worse as a whole. You may dislike them, but that does not mean EVERYONE despises them to the same extent.
@@kaz_1392 dude if you don’t want to be immersed then have a dirty gun and horse. These features may negatively affect the pacing, these minor flaws are so small you can look past them. Also if I’m gonna buy a gun and customize it with many designs I appreciate the cleaning, watching my guns going from dirty to clean you can appreciate these subtle details. To add on I feel like the horse is very crucial for the game and the idea that you can take care of it helps me enjoy and be immersed the RDR2 world. If you don’t like this game you should play the assassins creed franchise.
Yep, the big part of RDR2 is that it's more than an open-world crime game - it's a wild west immersive sim - with a good story on top. Those little things sell you the fantasy of being in that world.
I disagree about red dead redemption tossing the idea of punishment in the trash. I think that Johns punishment was working for the government, hunting down and murdering the people he once called family, his family being taken hostage. And on top of that, the government didn’t help him so he could do it correctly. He had to continue his life of crime albeit in a different way so that he could do something that he would surely be scarred mentally from. That was his punishment. It’s sort of like having to do community service but x10
Exactly, he atoned for his past, what happened to him wasn't justice it was a federal agency tying loose ends, John was no longer a threat and would have to suffer for what he did for the rest of his life through regret, he was also starting to become a productive member of society. I liked the ending because it was well written not because john got his comeuppance.
Came to say this. Ultimately the idea of “justice” is a frustratingly nebulous one that people literally have to go to college and then take more college to understand sufficiently for practicing law. Marston did atone for his crimes, however selfishly motivated he was in doing so, in the suffering of scorching every bridge he built his whole life while the remaining people he cared about were constantly under threat, all in the name of public service. Furthermore, he came out the other end a changed man with the potential of helping more people and breaking the cycle of violence by giving his son a proper father figure. Instead, a better man was taken out of society for the crimes committed by a long-dead scumbag. That’s not justice, that’s short-sighted vigilante-ism actively undermining societal progress, and just throwing the dude in jail to rot wouldn’t’ve been much of an improvement. Even the fairest trial would have a jury out for the man’s blood, because their angle isn’t pragmatic but emotional. I can’t blame people at all for hating him, but I can take issue with a system that refuses to see the potential benefits of punishing a bad man by forcing him to do good instead of removing him entirely such that he can’t contribute anything. More to Cobbler’s point, No Man’s Sky made many similar mistakes to Cyberpunk, was redeemed thoroughly, and is now a good game with a large, loyal, active player-base. If he was implying CDPR should just put the game out to pasture like Marston because redemption would be hollow in the face of the laundry list of fuck ups they made in delivering the game, I think that’s way too hasty a conclusion to come to. The devs CAN cut superfluous content, it WOULD make the game more enjoyable, and that WILL cultivate a dedicated player-base and set people at ease about CDPR’s intentions, i.e. they will “atone for their crimes.” In their case, with the age of games-as-a-service upon us, I don’t think it’s too late for reparations.
True he was essentially just working as a criminal again but this time for the government and once he had served his purpose to the state they gunned him down in front of his home and his wife and son. They didn't kill him because he was a murderer and criminal and needed to be punished for his crimes, they murdered him because they needed to tie a loose end that was it, it had nothing to do with justice or retribution for the victims of John and his old friends.
Finding a nice camp spot, lighting up a smoke even though there isn't anything to shoot, and grooming then feeding my horse an apple before warming up by the fire and heading to bed. Waking up the next morning, eating a can of beans, drinking some coffee while lighting a cigar, and hopping back on my horse to ride to the next mission. Forty minutes of pure bliss, I live for this shit.
This is a seriously underrated video. No joke, I was in complete disagreement with your final point when I started watching, but you convinced me by the end of it. You've got a real talent for crafting discussions.
Really happy I found this channel. I really love video game essays and these are so well done and have just the perfect amount of contempt for corporations that I can really get into.
I'm a new and aspiring game developer. I'm gonna make my first little game as a test this summer. I recently stumbled upon your channel, and so far, every single video I watched from you has been filled with useful tips and advice, grounded and justified criticisms, and so much more helpful advice. The things you said in your videos had made me see my work (or rather drafts) in a completely new light. I realized a lot of problems with my ideas both story wise and gameplay wise. I cannot thank you enough for making this content. You made me realize problems that could've doomed my career from the start.
I'm trying to get into development, myself. It's a truly mind-boggling undertaking, particularly if you're acting solo. Modeling, texturing, writing, animation, programming, DESIGN...it's just so much. It's incredibly humbling whenever developers email me, comment, or tweet at me. I wish you the best of luck and thank YOU for watching
Cleaning ,feeding and talking to your horse is a part of the rdr2 magic. it builds a relationship that felt so real And made the horse death scene at the end so heartfelting ( it's like my real life horse died ) . Rdr2 is one of the all time great in my opinion .
I think the point is if your game is an rpg, focus on making it an rpg, and not an immersive cowboy simulator. If you want to make an immersive cowboy simulator well then focus on that and lose focus on places that don't add to it. But I've never played Rdr2, that's just what i assume he was getting at
I’m not ashamed to say I cried during the ofrenda scene in cyberpunk. It’s so damn heart felt, and I honestly said that this is how I want people to remember me after I die.
I feel like the repeating of tasks in rdr2 is misjudged, I find it nice because it’s more immersive, it gives the feeling of constant maintenance and work that the old west had, whether that be of yourself or the gang.
Regarding red dead redemption 2, I loved the long animations, it definitely immersed me more. I like the eating, the cleaning guns. You say it doesn't serve the purpose of the greater game, but a game doesn't have to be about ONE thing. What the mechanics of cleaning horses and animations do is serve the purpose of making it seem as real and as grounded as possible. It maybe doesn't serve the story very well if at all. And I am one to say that games need more focus sure but the mechanics in rdr2 don't detract from the focus. You can ignore those mechanics if you want to, it has no affect on the story and very little on the gameplay. oh and your analysis on red dead redemption 1 was interesting never heard that take before
The mechanics kinda service the story. The gang wants to maintain their free outlaw lifestyle so the immersion helps the player understand that feeling. Going hunting and just riding around on your horse let's you feel the world around you. I don't think it's as good as it could be. You can play the whole game without upgrading the camp or donating so it makes that feel worthless. You can have low honor and just get along with the gang fine. You think the honor system would change the ending. Maybe evil Arthur sides with Dutch while good Arthur sides with John. Who knows?
Showing Jackie's death in trailers was a dick move, it reduced the shock value and then Jackie was justa timebomb I was waiting to blow up anytime, I didn't feel the impact that could have been if I didn't knew his death was coming.
Makes it even worse that Jackie's death means nothing. If Jackie lived he would have to leave the city or just constantly look behind his back for people trying to kill or arrest him. And even if he did stick around he can't exactly help V he doesn't know anyone who could help V. Jackie would just be turned to a side character like Victor, who occasionally shows up to be your friend that doesn't do to much in the story post prologue. Hell, Jackie's death doesn't motivate V to stop Arasaka or literally anything, just makes him sad and he moves on after a funeral, a funeral that is optional.
Fear of death is one of the most fantastic narratives a game can play. The most emotional ending for cyberpunk, and my personal favorite, is the suicide ending, mainly for two reasons. 1, up to this point, V has lost his best friend and most of his close allies, he feels the weight of his actions and doesn’t want to lose every one else he loves. He and Johnny finally decide that no more blood needs to be spilled, and choose to end their life peacefully. To quote first blood, after everything he’s been through, V deserves a little peace. The second and more important reason is that this was the last ending I did. I watched as Vs life ended in catastrophe every, single, time. While he did have some success when he became an aldecaldo, and there is a very small spark of hope that by selling his soul he can come back one day, these choices still end in the death of good people: rouge or Saul. V choosing a peaceful death over a painful rest of his life actually saves the people around him, and it’s a heartbreaking tragedy seeing as rouge finally gives respect to V and even more so Panam damning V, both of them not knowing that they could have been hurt way worse if V chose to break into that tower. Also don’t do suicide.
Too many woke jokes it's kinda annoying especially when you realize it's just his political opinions fighting through for a spot on the script. Its distracting from the review
@@jmorel42 well to you yes to others no that's kindve the charm of picking reviewers they don't need to make everyone happy just a certain group of people
This is by far the best piece of videogame content i've seen on youtube. Since release I just can't put myself to finish Cyberpunk 2077 because as soon as I see the desktop icon I immediately remember all the potential and hard work wasted thanks to CDPR's poor management. I still think that Cyberpunk 2077 could've been a great action adventure/mafia type game, had the managers actually knew what they were going for.
Thank you! Witcher 3 worked because it was about Geralt, who is an interesting, defined, and fun character to be. The two things that worked in the game were the city and the intro and ending story. Oh and takemura was a great character. If it made a better city experience, with a more focused lead character, I think it would have shined in spite of flaws.
Okay, I understand this is 2 years late and this comment will ultimately fall on deaf ears, but this intro was a masterclass in video storytelling. I was satisfied once the Cyberpunk B-roll started. I damn near clicked off the video thinking it was over just to be reminded that I had another 24 minutes left. So thank you, for providing free entertainment the way that you do.
Agree with almost everything you said, but the realism and long animations in red dead 2 add a ton for me and a lot of people who I've talked about. They add to the immersion and make the game come alive for me.
Some people want to play RDR2 as a cowboy simulator. And I guess it's cool that people get that experience. It would have been awesome if they added shorter animations, or managed to cut out animations, and just let the players decide whether they want realistic animations or quick-paced ones.
Yeah, I'm all for the realism but what Far Cry Primal did is best with the animation skipping that you can toggle on and off. 100%ing RDR2 you'll probably spend literal hours just watching that same skinning animation to get all the shit you need.
@@cryomaniac3217 you obviously didn’t read what I said, I said if you’re trying to 100% RDR2 you literally spend hours watching Arthur cut pelts off dead animals. I have over a thousand hours on this game lmfao 🤣
@@spoike7027 and no, if you haven't already 100%ed the game, and said "probably" spend hours watching the same animation. You definitely don't have a 1000 hrs
With these types of games, you have to play on a high difficulty and be easy to get immersed, which is why I loved it so much. I had to play on a higher difficulty than I could handle to keep the immersion and to keep it from being dull, but that's okay. I had fun, and I enjoyed being in the ridiculous world, and that's why I loved it
Dude, I'm speechless. Your opinion is something that is rare nowadays. I just hope that people like you will be heard one day. Maybe the industry would get better after that.
After watching this video, I realize that most of my favorite game franchises have flaws. The Witcher 3 has an over-simplified combat system, Half-Life 2's gunplay is bad despite being a FPS, Deus Ex Mankind Devided's main story is a horrible Shane Dawson conspiracy video, but I still love them nonetheless. A flawed masterpiece is what we really need nowadays, not some middling games that want to be good at everything and eventually fail in the process.
And as Angry Joe would put it: “they aren’t good games, they’re legendary games!” And indeed those three games are legends in what they do. The Witcher 3 is a fantastic RPG with an even greater story. Half-Life 2 nails being a unbroken narrative. And Deus Ex is a phenomenal stealth action game. There is no such thing as perfect games… only legendary ones
@@qwoovy2359 if you mod fallout you might get it. I started out with a couple, then it just lead to a landslide of random mods. It's easy to get over 100 mods accidentally.
@@qwoovy2359It was already good. No one started playing Fallout New Vegas modded. Most modding is just to remedy the limitations of the shit ass oblivion engine meeting an 18 month development cycle.
You should revisit Cyberpunk. It’s majorly different. Calls have better timing, quests feel more fun, cops have been fully revamped as has cyberware, and much much more
@@SirMilkBottle Most likely but doesn't IMO stop the video from being wrong. Redemption absolutely matters. If we cease to care about redemption then we will cease to forgive. And that type of life is just too miserable for me
I agree mechanically with the critique. Everything you said here is correct. I've got about 300 hours in CP2077, and have played through the game 4x. To repeat your criticisms - the gunplay lacks, the hacking is boring, exploration is tedious, and enemies are laughable(unless youre on the hardest setting, at which point it becomes ut2k4 instagib). But what gets me coming back and starting the game again and again is twofold - the momentary glimpses of brilliance, and the *feeling* of being in a cyberpunk dystopia. For the former - there are many instances where its clear CDPR is at their apex. The pickup. The fingers mission. The implementation of braindance. The universally bleak endings. Some missions I've played through with 4 different builds, and have had four different resolutions and paths to the same objective. The game conveys none of this, and yet, it's there. Brilliantly executed, waiting to be revealed by your actions. This isnt everything. In fact, its very few things. But when it's there, it is incredible. As for the latter - The biggest, most monumental contribution this game has for the medium is the *detail* of its open world. Every nook and cranny has hand-placed garbage, blood stains, decrepit furniture. The amount of labor-mixed-with-love that went into curating every single square inch of the world is definitive. 300 hours in, I *still* find incredible new places, moments, experiences. There's a miniature city in a parking garage in Northside. The forest under the corpo plaza. The casino in the sewers in westside. The fortress-towers off the coast. The drowned-out town. All of those places juxtaposed with the chrome and neon and bustle and guns and whatever else make the entire experience similar to breathing pound cake. It's thick, inescapable, vast, and unyielding. You have to drink from this thematic & content firehose, or else you'll drown. And I cant picture how else a life in Night City would be.
The world consistently impresses me, as well. I wish I had more reason to explore it, is my issue. I wish that they either focused on that exclusively, or took the time and energy spent on that and instead put it into the roleplaying. There are a few great games in Cyberpunk 2077, but none of those games have room to breathe.
@@DJPeachCobbler I almost never comment on anything man but I gotta disagree here on at least one point. Exploration can be rewarding occasionally, like reading some emails that tell you where to get a good piece of loot that are not pointed out anywhere else for instance. But also in the verticality of the world, as in you can either sneak your way through a building full of guards towards your assassination target, or you can use double jump to climb to his office window and shoot him from a balcony/rooftop. The level design around the fixer missions is honestly not bad in having a lot of different ways to approach them but I agree they should have been cut down to a few longer more narratively engaging quests instead of a hundred little ones. Great essay as always though, and I agree that it is a game of great moments made all the more frustrating by a whole host of other issues. Gotta say though, Smart Guns are fun. Also, I would recommend Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines if you want another good narrative RPG experience albeit with an extra helping of jank.
I just wanted to say that I don't like the animations and needs of RDR2, I *love* them. It keeps me so immersed that I frequently go on slow rides, petting my horse, smoking and eating. I fucking hunt, camp and cook my own meals. It's great.
Hot take: as much as I love the story of RDRII, I wish it'd been thrown out in favor of a player-driven role-playing experience. Imagine the roles of Red Dead Online in single-player, fleshed out with the same care as the main story.
@@BlueisNotaWarmColour I think that could be done. The engine is there. Rockstar could quite easily make a standalone or spinoff from RDR2, but with a different storyline.
@rinkerthemaker nobody else can make it. Red Dead II already had all the systems (wanted, bounty, economy, etc.) but didn't commit to them and made them janky to serve the main campaign which let's face it nobody bought the game for the cutscenes
I disagree with the criticism of the small things or tedious things in RDR2. Every time I brushed my horse, pet it, protected it, and gained a better relationship with it made it feel so much more real to me. I didn’t even use the quick travel feature so I could enjoy the scenery and enjoy the atmosphere of the game. Those small details made RDR2 my favorite game ever, those small and sometimes monotonous tasks made the game so much more real for me. You (SPOILERS BELOW) And when my horse finally died at the end, it made me cry. I had never cried for a game before in my life. I felt a genuine connection to it and seeing it die was heartbreaking. It is the small things that make it what it is, a masterpiece.
When I first bought cyberpunk on day one I had the idea that this game would actually make me choose what i want to do, and I wanted to do was to challenge myself by not having any cybernetic enhancements whatsoever, Which I thought would be difficult because I thought that cybernetics would act as the games levelling system. So I boot up the game and go through the streetkid lightpath and thought to myself: “hey that’s pretty cool and unique I’m sure the lightpath has a great effect on the rest of the game!” Which it didn’t. Then, after getting through the intro and I was forced to get cybernetic enhancements because of the story, and in that moment I looked back on what I have just played, the glitches, the terrible frame-rate, the limited character customisation which didn’t even have some basic hair types for my character. And I that moment I knew, that this game was going to suck.
Honestly I liked the eating, and cleaning aspects of rdr 2. You never needed to give him a bath, and whenever you wanted you didn’t need to clean your horse either, just run them through water. It gives players the choice to have a more realistic play through. I never once bathed Arthur or worried about his cleanliness and nothing bad came from it, and you can clean your horse and feed it while you’re riding it so I never minded that much either, other than that great video
Yeah me too man. People complained exactly like this when san andreas introduced the fat and muscle meters and having to maintain your character. I like that realism shit, but I understand why lots of folks dont like to go through the motions
I once summed up my experiences with cyberpunk like this. Cyberpunk in the begining was like a empty pool. You jumped epecting greatness only to break your legs. Than after a few updates the poll started to fill up, you jump in again with reasonable expectations, and you realize that after some of the patches and the updates, and realize that the once empty pool has water, which is great! Until you realize it only goes your thigh
I was actually impressed by the call from a fixer during the funeral cause I had the option to tell him “fuck off this isn’t a good time” and he hung up. I genuinely thought it was scripted due to dumb luck
“When you try to please everyone, you please no one.”
"A game where the player can do anything is a game that focuses on nothing" - Yahtzee crosshaw
Well said no more need to be said
The embodiment of what went wrong with cyberpunk 2077
😔👊 socity
I really hope if they ever decided to make Witcher 4, they don't listen to some angry casuals who says the game are way too long.
Once he showed the cyberpunk girl trailer I was like, Oh yeah this is a cyberpunk video not a red dead one.
To be fair I'd be down with him analyzing and breaking down the themes and motifs in both red dead redemption games.
@Nagger cobbler provides a c unique perspective to red dead
Cobbler is really good at introducing something else to us and circling it back around to what the title is
Same, and it gave me December 10th flashbacks
That transition was smooth af, though
This entire channel is underrated. Best dessert on UA-cam
Yes it is.
THANK YOU
I completely agree and I’m glad others do too
Eeeeeexcept for me scratching my head about that Capitalism bit wondering if he thinks there’s *really* a better solution
If not and he’s simply stating the obvious, fine; I agree
Just am genuinely curious if my pessimism is founded or not
Well there's no need for that..
Ya a lot of video essayist just spout dumb shit that doesn’t mean anything. But he uses analogies and comparisons really well. Maybe just bulk up the videos to also cover counter points to his own argument
The "I'm afraid" from Arthur always brings a tear to my eye :(
I'll never forget that time in RDR2 I had a horse die for the first time. It was in the mountains because I was trying to catch the Arabian Horse for RDR1 nostalgia. Ended up being a big long mountain survival horror story with a big ass bear and wolves. The bear killed my horse I was on and since I was in the mountains I was far far away from any fast travel points and since it's the mountains only the rare horse would be my reliable way back out of the mountains. Idk how long I spent up there. Definitely 2 irl days of hunting for food, finding shelter, and fending off pissed off wild life until I found the damn horse. I will never forget how genuine that whole scenario felt. Like I was legit stuck in the mountains do to my own accord and the games wild life AI. That whole experience made me ball my fucking eyes out when I saw that same horse get killed in the final cutscenes. I never felt that experience in any other game unless it was like Minecraft where the whole survival mode is always like that. But for that just to happen to me in a game where they tell me "You're railroaded the entire time" I just don't think it's the whole truth. Play GTAV and then play RDR2. Huge huge difference even though they're very similar. RDR2 just did what GTAV think it was doing.
Yeah, and I get why some people might say that all those little immersive mechanics might be a chore for them, when you've spent hours feeding your horse, brushing it, comforting it, bonding with it, customizing it and then it dies, it hurts more. Cleaning the guns is not that big a deal as it doesn't need to be done that often and looting might take a while, but you already get so much stuff that it isn't really necessary, I liked the slow gameplay in the open world and really felt immersed. I wish rockstars doesn't get rid of all of that because of complaints like that, because for me, that's where the magic was, not the missions when hundreds of enemies are launched at you, but the slow, quieter, immersive part, with well made animations and attention to details.
@@factoryreset855 honestly I really wish RDR2 had a lot less heavily scripted story moments where you are forced on a path, slowly making your way to a marker to go into a cutscene to go into a shooting gallery to go into another cutcene and more of the classic rpg elements where things just kinda happen themselves and you get only vague hints on how to approach things. It would transition into the freeroam, slow-paced survival segments the OP was describing much more organically imo
@@Spiderella3959 Yeah, the mission's structure was the weakest part of the game imo, while the open world's structure was it's strong one. I wish they'd rework the way they design quests, nowadays when I play, I just roam the map and do side content instead of doing the main story (already finished it once)
lol
@@Spiderella3959 This is exactly the point of this video. RDR2 was developed for 8 years, by about 2000 people according to google. It already was a massive undertaking and developing an immersive and "free-er" quest system would also be one. It's the same reason why mechanics in Bethesda games are not perfect, and why CDPR's games are really strong at the story, quest system and worldbuilding but nothing else. When developing games you have to make trade-offs because it's insanely expensive, the technology moves fast and the more things you stuff into your game the more you risk having a stable and performant product.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Me: *deletes game
I AM THE GREATEST GAME DESIGNER
You only really beat the game when you go outside and play some B-ball.
Wasn't that the philosophy behind Ico on the ps2?
God damn I hated that. "Hey I know you are on your' best bud's funeral but hey, wanna buy a new car?"
Clearly he wasn't your best bud if you pushed back his funeral for a bunch of random bullshit that TRIGGERS those calls. Seriously if you actually treat the death of your best friend with the respect it deserves and go there first nothing interrupts it.
^
literally went to his funeral the moment i could. no one interrupts you. :shrug:
@@arkhamcreed4326 going into the neighborhood triggers those calls,
Only thing I did beforehand was clearing Watson as much as I can BEFORE the heist
@@stardust_2339 that’ll do it because you have to much street cred
Wait what
I forgot I was watching something about cyberpunk through the intro. I mean, a compact in-depth analysis of RDR1 in 5 minutes about the folly of redemption and forgiveness that had me hooked was literally just context. What a masterpiece. I'm starting to see a pattern that the best content creators on this dogshit platform tend to be the most hidden. Well done.
Visibility becomes a curse. UA-cam channels die because they try to monetize everything they make to a growing audience.
That 5 minute opening was quite possibly the single best written opening to any video I have ever seen.
In a few short minutes, you perfectly summarize the core thesis of a game, a game separate from the game you analyze in the video, so that you can then fall back on said analysis as a lens to view the prime focus of the video.
Masterfully done.
“The marketing seemed to imply it was the second coming of Jesus Christ but lord and savior is not a genre” is such a raw line. Your style of discussing topics is fantastic. You could title your videos anything and even if they were about something completely different I wouldn’t notice, because you get me hooked every time. Keep up the great videos and please talk about anything you want, because it will be a treat to listen to regardless
As an avid gun person, I generally liked cleaning my guns in RDR2, wish it was fleshed out to cleaning the springs, receiver, bore and trigger. Just because I'd spend hours just doing that lol. I enjoy having a lil bit of realism, like eating, sleeping and drinking. Or cleaning guns and making sure equipment isn't degrading and breaking, it add more depth to the gameplay, maybe not mentor impact but just enough to burn boredom off.
Yeah I agree, RDR2 is easily the greatest open world game of this gen. No other game comes even close. And IT WORKED on day one! Not like CP2077 that is still broken months after release.
This is why I wish I could get him to do a video on Escape from Tarkov.
One of the nice quality of life improvements I've seen in some games like No Man's Sky or Subnautica: "Realism" (hunger, thirst, etc) vs "Exploration" (no hunger, etc) settings when you start a new game. It's always nice to have the ability to turn off stuff like this but at least give the player a choice if they don't want to be bothered by being too real.
For straight realism, I love Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which has a lot of mechanics like eating, but they never really get in the way of gameplay. The animations don't take forever and don't waste your time as a gamer. Take a bath? Screen goes dark for like 2 seconds and "you've bathed as well as you can in a trough" message pops up, and you can go on your merry way.
Same lol
I can see why, but I would disagree. The thing I've learned in last couple of years: is that if a game\movie\book\manga does not keep you engaged - it's doing something wrong. Things like that while are realistic and fun once in a while (shaving in Withcer 3 for example) are chorus that are there not to keep you entertained, but busy. And I hate it
_"...the NPCs actually don't have bad AI..."_
Wait a minute, you're not actually going to defend this bullsh-
_"...they have no AI."_
Ok, you got me scared for a second there.
Can't have a bad one if you have none at all
Big Brain alert
Had us in the first half, not gonna lie
They're just A.
The ad timing was perfect too
@@sweet-lara They're more A then I
"A heartfelt dumpster-fire" is probably the best way to describe this game
There was something about it that kept me playing through all that nonsense
I really liked the city environment, even though it was lacking in detail. I recently played it for the first time so I never saw how rough it looked at launch. I still ended up getting bored of the game and started another Witcher playthrough lmao
You call it a dumpster fire yet you played it and enjoyed it?
@@wesleyleigh4063 yah...you can do that..
@@tyler547 that's a shit game as well
Despite the bullshit I hear I still want to play
I honestly love the way he approaches his points.
Like he starts off at a totally unrelevent thing and slowly brings it to the point that he really wants to talk about in way that it makes sense.
A year later. After watching the cyberpunk anime I realised what 2077 did wrong. While the world and the story in it were punk... The game itself wasn't. It followed every single modern gaming tradition and lost itself in them.
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
which might explain why things keep evolving into crabs..... make cyberpunk have crabs is the takeaway here
.
this reply is perfect
I disagree. Perfection is achieved when there's nothing more to add *AND* nothing left to take away.
Out of the thousands of video essays on cyber punk I’ve never heard of someone say that the game needs to cut down on its existing features. But holy crap you are 100% right. Crafting, skills, clothing, looting, cars and all that are so terrible and they waste my time when I played the game. I genuinely want to try out a mod that just removes the features.
Damn, I am the complete opposite, I like the crafting system because it's not that frustrating getting materials, I like to go on foot to my destination and do Littles encounters along the way that gives me materials to craft, mostly a new sword, because all my skills point are and will be in the sword option, I want to be a ninja weeaboo that dashes and double jump, and I need all theses features so that my gameplay can be complete
You're a fool
i think the issue is less that the game tried to have everything, as lets say Fallout: NV had most of features we see in Cyberpunk 2077
the issue with CP is that there seem to have been no focused effort
NV is an open world post apocalyptic RP game with shooting and crafting elements
cyberpunk is an open world cyberpunk RPShooterCraftingDriving game, all at the same time
all elements have a place in the game, but there seem like there was a lack of drive somewhere, thus no concentrated development was made and all avenues were pursued equally, leading to a weak game that doesn't accomplish much because it didn't have a goal to accomplish
The Witcher III was a great game because it was a character driven story game, it had a clear objective so all parts of the game go in that same direction, all elements of the game work together to push the game forward, while in CP all the different elements are walking over each other, competing for your attention and thus hold the game back
@@quentintin1 What? NV didn't have anywhere near the number of features as Cyberpunk. The shooting is even more half-baked than Cyberpunk, character animations were non-existent and voice acting was subpar, enemy AI was non-existent, and the crafting system was way too complicated and also really not necessary. NV lived and died on the vast amount of player choice it allowed in their well crafted world, that was their focus and they blew it out of the park, all the rest didn't really matter..
@@Ansalion a lot of that is because NV is built on Fallout 3
I have to disagree on the "unnecessary" mechanics in RDR2. Maybe it was just me, but part of the reason I was flat out balling at the end of the game was because I had cleaned Morgan's arms and legs, his guns, and his horse. I had cooked his food and fished and camped with him. Part of what makes him such a relatable character is that you have to step into his shoes so deeply that you can't help but feel his character progress through the story. It made me more invested in him, and for me that made the payoff much greater.
Well, each person has their own taste I guess. I personally hated all the time-wasters in RDR2. So much so I never finished it. I might even say that it disrespects my time by doing so. But hey, good to know there are people liking that kind of stuff.
I understand, but is it really necessary for me to hold (A) to bathe or when I need to craft 200 split point bullets individually? Making me hold a button over and over again when I could just relax and watch a (skippable) animation ruins the immersion for me. There isn't a minigame when we skin animals or set up camp but I still appreciate those things and believe a minigame would make them worse.
@rinkerthemaker looting takes 5 decades. theres one time waster i can think of
well said
Nah
I really liked RDR2's excessive animations.
Looting slowly was done so you could only gather a few precious items before the lawmen showed up. Always made me feel on edge and made it a gamble.
Skinning was laborious to gross you out. Sort of ties into the atmosphere of the game, gritty.
Cleaning guns made me appreciate my favorite guns more, made an etching or design upgrade feel shiny even if I'd had it for awhile. Rewards you with accuracy. Whether Arthur decides to clean his guns or not, works for his character.
Arthur was a slow, walker and runner which is indicative of how weak he was getting. John runs quite a bit faster in contrast.
You can groom your horse. You can pet dogs.
Smoking a cigarette in combat is something you should've done before combat. Game punishes you for not preparing.
Heavy animations do not work for the majority of games though. I appreciate in Elden Ring that you can loot quickly from your horse. In fact, you can't take damage during lever or door animations, which just works for the type of game, because it's already unforgiving and needs that balance. But for me, the animations in RDR2 never got old, but I can understand those that complain.
Super based. Those are things I’ve enjoyed about the game but have never fully realized until reading this. Thanks dawg
Cyberpunk 2077 should have been the Immersive Sim that Deus Ex: Human Revolution wanted to be.
The game is just...there. What is it? An RPG? FPS? A GTA like game? Sandbox? Sure yeah, but is one of those mechanics polished enough? No. Does it have brilliance moments? Yes.
As Woolie said before at the end of the Super Best Friends Play Heavy Rain playthrough streams - "Wasted potential will always be worse than a game with no potential at all."
It’s crazy because even before the game cane out we didn’t know wtf it was, other than an « RPG Experience » which is funny because they call it an action adventure now.
wasted potential is way better than nothing, at least someone else can snatch up the idea or be inspired by it
It's a AAA game. It's a new genre where they add just a pinch of everything from the spice cabinet and no specific flavor actually shines through
Of the hundreds, if not thousands of video essays on games i’ve watched, this is the most tightly focused one, and it says it everything it wants to say in less than the usual 3 hours, well done!
I agree. This was the first video to truly make me realize what really makes Cyberpunk 2077 a bad game. It’s not the glitches or the combat or the RPG elements or the open world. All of that isn’t why Cyberpunk 2077 is a bad game…
It’s a bad game because it’s a Jack of all trades master of none. It’s a game that can do a lot of things okay, but it never *excels* at those things. It lacks focus, it lacks vision. It is literally a game about everything… and yet nothing at all.
@@NoahDaArk Honestly it's a pale imitation of its origin. They screwed up when they made it into a basic video game RPG, none of the mechanics in the game match the originals they are named after.
Cyberpunk was not an RPG that used Levels, Hitpoints or magical instaheals. Progression wasn't about improving stats or getting a higher level of the same gun or equipment you start with.
It was a skill based game with realistic depictions of combat with firearms. If you get shot in your fleshy gut then you might die straight away or you might bleed out in a few minutes.
Unless your as augmented as Adam Smasher and wearing a full suit of Metalgear hard armour then you're not standing in the middle of a hail of bullets like it's a light rain. If you are as augmented as him and wearing that armour, then you stand out like a sore thumb and the NCPD are likely going to call in Maxtac just to question why you're walking around in combat armour before you get anywhere near your mission.
It's depressing that they failed to get the basics of Cyberpunk and made a generic video game RPG instead of working on what made Cyberpunk work.
It could have been everything promised, but it needed 2 years, and the leadership caved under the pressure of the 5 minute emotions of investors.
They are still the majority of investors, so it is their own fault and greedyness.
Needed a lot longer than 2 years. 2 Years isn't shit in game dev. You can see it's been half a year since launch and all they've done is bug fixes, not actual game changes
civ/cop/combat Ai just as bad just few less bugs, driving just as bad just a few fixes, graphics just a few fixes, no multiplayer (now saying they might scrap that idea) no changes to combat (still janky, just more consistently janky. Still also pretty fun though) no changes to lackluster side quests (the good ones are still good, but slightly less buggy) no weapon additions or enemy types or car mods or more cars or more body mods or location additions or any vendor/ immersive areas that were planned added, a _tiny_ amount of balance changes (reduced revolver enemy damage ??? Increased gorilla arms damage by 20%)
They could easily spend another 5-10 years on this, and it'd probably be really good and measure up to what was hoped for, but it was good enough when it came out if you had realistic expectations (and not a braindead last-gen console peasant) paid you in fun plenty enough for your $60. I put 70hrs in the first week, remember about 3 bugs, and had a good time. Time to play one of the other billion games out there and move on
It needed two years *less*, and the devs to pick what kind of game they wanted to develop.
@@echo5827 guy, they themselfs said that it was also for last gen. I wouldnt care if they said it was only for next gen but when you say it works for both then i expect it to work for both. They should have just focused on next gen and pc. Dont make claims you cant prove.
@@echo5827 Screw off with your pc master race elitism.
I found your channel about half a week ago and I’ve been binging your discussion and essay videos ever since. It’s insane to me that you don’t have more subscribers and a bigger audience. It’s equally insane to me to find out how high the quality of your videos were just half a year or so back and how tiny your audience at that time was for being so on top of your craft.
Your growth in a relatively short timeframe is honestly impressive and inspiring. So inspiring that I’ve decided to start giving game reviews and game discussion/essays a try, something I have thought on for a long time but never pulled the trigger. Thanks for the motivation, I’ll be here for the foreseeable future.
Keep making delicious peachy cobbley music, DJ.
Or play games.
Y’know. Whatever tickles the pickle.
I honestly really liked the longer animations in RDR2. They make me feel calm. I would always go into first person when eating or drinking, feeding or brushing my horse, cleaning my weapons lol.
Saying hi before you hit 1 million subs. Just don't develop a cocaine habit and don't blow all your money on Lamborghinis.
You mean 5 dollar Bj's
He can't do both?
That's exactly what I would do.
Another feature people wish they would add to Cyberpunk.
Great take. Especially since you can clearly see how at a certain point they realised there's no way they'll ever complete the game before the deadline and just cut everything down to the simplest working version and moved the "open world development team" from adding even more useless buildings filled with nothing and visited by nobody to peppering the map with NCPD activities and heartless sidequests to pump the gametime up to the minimum acceptable quota. Cyberpunk is a complete and utter failure, a wasted opportunity and something sorely needed by CDPR. They had a stellar career up to this point, but everybody needs to fall from time to time to get a reminder, that reality exists and can hit you in the ass. Here's to hope it allows them to grow and release even better games in the future.
Ye except the part that they won anyway. They got the money and on steam the reviews are so good and i dont really understand why. This is so shit compared to a lot of indy games that cant be so hyped due to budgets. CDPR failed everythin,they knew this game was bad but..you know money are money so who cares "i hope we ll get fans trust again" well fuck you. Yes i played the game and as soon as i saw the wanting system ,the basic thing this game needed,i new it was gonna be so bad. Nobrainer refund
@@3093DaNieLe3093 Unfortunately the state on consoles has taken most of the attention from players and media to a point that a lot dont even see the utter failures in game design and quality of quests etc.
CDPR also used this as a small cover up, directing all attention to "fixing the consoles" and just acting like they didnt know something was really wrong with the core game itself.
I do not think they will use this as a learning experience to better themselves, quite the contrary I believe. They never made so much money in that short period of time. They literally made back the develepment and marketing costs for the entire project with the preorders alone.
The only thing the managers learn in a big corp is when they make big money, they did something right, so they will believe by overhyping and deceiving customers they can do the same again in the future as they did now, if they really wanted to better themselves they would have atleast adressed the problems with the core game itself by now.
Its the same thing that happened with Bethesda, they made FO3, FO4, Oblivion, Skyrim and all of those games were overshadowed by their "bugginess" and thats what players and media paid their attention to in these games, also leading to them to completely overlook the poor game design of all those games. The only reason why a somewhat bigger piece of the player base started acknowledging these issues is because Obsidian showed the players that they could make a far superior game compared to Bethesda and that in just 1 years time with FO:NV. This lead of course to the fact that Bethesda instantly stopped working with them ever again, because they didnt want them to overshadow their internal production or force Bethesda to increase their quality to not contrast as much.
In addition to that in such big corps like CDPR (and yes CDPR is a huge corp, their net worth is significantly higher than f-ing Ubisoft and Rockstar) due to product issues that damaged their brand, design leads and engineers will be fired and also removed from the board. Instead the people who made the big $$$ (by overhyping, lying and deceiving their customers), the marketing people, are those who get to be more represented in the board and the decision making process.
This automatically begins an unstoppable process where marketing gets more of a say over the company compared to the product people (engineers, designers, etc), which basically means "full throttle into the dark side". Its the same thing that happened with EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda and many other once small and innovative companies that grew into huge corps and placed the people in the leading positions that made the most $$$, and those were the marketing people.
I will never understand the statement of CDPR having a "stellar career" like you and many many others claim, when they only ever became somewhat known after a single good game and nothing more. If anything, it feels like they were nothing but a one hit wonder.
@@arandom35yearold thats because they showed in TW3 how to make a game with passion and love. The attention to detail for the secondary stories and the quality over quantity given to gamers..not clients to scam. Cyberpunk turn the table upside down,ive never seen such bad product honeslty
@@3093DaNieLe3093 Yeah but a single product isnt exactly a stellar career. Or a career in thr first place.
I personally loved the realism in rdr2 even the long animations
I think it was just a more simpler example to contextualise the problem with cyberpunk.
His main point was that once they refine their focus and improved the foundations, they should then add on shit like crafting, skills, etc. RDR2 has a good story and gameplay, they added those mechanics as a cherry on top - without those, the mechanics will be pointless and tedious.
Unless.... the main focus of the game became a survival rpg
Dido
I love the fact that i can do all that in rdr2 it emerses me in the game, into arthurs life
I feel that it was a daring shot... And successful. Normally I find these kind of things utterly pointless but here they pushed you into a more meditative approach of the game and with that into immersing yourself into the game... As long as you let the game do that with you, if you allow it to take your hand so that it can show you what it wants to show.
If you don't want that then it feels forced so I can understand that some people really don't like that feature because have have to surrender to it to enjoy it (since it's not really optional). It dead risky to push that on the player and say "look this is how we want you to experience the game, we even took tons of work and resources to make an these little animations for it. So do it!"
Some people will not like that obviously, they want their freedom, that's why they play games. But for me personally it was perfect. Perfect to loose myself in the game and loose track of what was happening to be immersed in a harder and yet simpler time. I wouldn't have done it without that I would have rushed it and missed the joy of just being present in the game...
I have an even spicier take: The thing they focused the most on was the story. The moments with Jackie, seeing Johnny come around, and Takemura change from your hunter to your protector are all examples of character development most "storytelling" "rpg" games these days can only dream of. If the devs focused and honed in on this, the experience legitimately could have held a candle to The Matrix, and I genuinely believe that. Of course the games systems on PC weren't entirely broken and will continue to be fixed in due time as you say- but a story when released is generally set in stone. God I wish they'd get Keanu back in the studio and really finish this game; you know he loves to be Johnny.
Quite a few modern "storytelling" "rpgs" tell a far better story in a much more beautiful way, take Disco Elysium for example. While the story is the strongest part of C2077, it's not strong enough to hold up the weight of the game.
@@imbaby5499 We could argue over subjective taste all day, and I agree that Disco Elysium is a fantastic way to tell a story. That doesn't change the quality of Cyberpunk's writing, especially in the mainline story. I agree with the sentiment though, a lot of the game was outright botched and a good story doesn't make a good game. I'll suffer through a bad game for a good story though, and not everyone is the same. (Deadly Premonition is the ultimate example of this)
Red Dead Redemption 2 took me an incredibly long time to beat, which just a few weeks ago I finally did. And I have to kind of disagree with some of the critiques towards it. Doing the mundane tasks constantly wasn't too bad, but more than anything the need to constantly travel from area to area on horseback (Yes you do get fast traveling and you can travel on carriages but it get tedious to get to the place you need to do both things) really made me struggle with finishing the game. Sometimes a mission would happen and it would just drop me off so fuckin far from any civilization it was so annoying. Eating, sleeping, bathing, it really wasn't too bad. I never felt like those things were an issue for me personally.
I do have to say I actually kinda teared up at Jackie's funereal because it reminded me of my fathers' funeral who died when I was 19. Albeit Puerto Rican, yet still felt a lot similar. Shit hit close to home. The memorandums and everything. Shit hit close to home
I love the Spanish reggaeton on the radio station. It was really authentic
Agreed, they did an excellent job depicting the loss of your best friend, a mother's son, a member of a community and the ripple effects of grief. When I got his bike, I never rode anything else for the rest of the game.
@@Shnap1337 stuff like that feels good because it's when your motivation as a player lines up with the motivation of the main character. This does not happen often in CP2077
I liked Jackie too. It's just so sad he had to die that early. The game barely gave me any time to get attached to him.
Plot twist: the glitches are just Johnny Silverhand messing with you.!
You write this comment everywhere.
@@mikhaelgribkov4117 And yet he's not wrong.
not wrong
So if redemption doesn't matter you want them to like, shoot the game to death in broad daylight instead for justice right? Idk man it's still a pretty kickass game
@@patrickobrien1198 emm, what? Do you replied to wrong comment? By the way, they should be the ones to get punished, not game. People were all to foolish to buy into "We aren't like other companies owo" and forgive some stuff, but now it's clear, they are new stage of asshole corpos who are self-aware and know what strings to use.
this is some underrated shit right here
The story telling this man has is incredible, I click on cyberpunk video, I know it’s cyberpunk, but i get lost in a story of red dead redemption, on John, and remember one of my favourite games, and redemption.
but then Edgerunners came out...
Honey look cobbler posted
"Wake up the kids, get them out here, he's gonna talk about Skyrim!"
?!
Cyberpunk 2077 may be overcooked but this cobbler is perfectly baked
I think you mean under cooked
@@jokey-mmmm4432 You clearly diden't watch the video
I love every part of rdr2 and I love giving Arthur baths because it’s all about caring for a doomed man who isn’t real😩
The reason why you gave arthur bath was pretty wholesome
This is the video that will constantly remind me of how much I am going to miss your video game content 😢DJPC is such a special writer man.
I enjoy all those little moments you don't like in RDR2. All those little animations that most developers wouldn't consider putting in. They actually did really immerse me in the world and I still go back to it just to enjoy being Arthur in that world.
That flip from Red Dead to Cyberpunk at 5:00 was one of the most cinematic things iv seen quite some time, thank you
Finally, for the first time in a long time... A UA-camr who's not a fucking moron. Someone who doesn't just parrot the same bullshit braindead ideas over and over. Someone who actually thinks for themselves. +respect to you good sir...
ironic cuz these types of comments are literally on every critique video of cyberpunk
He literally said the same crap as yongyea and everyone else who was 100% team CDPR before the community turned against CDPR.
Cope harder
@@notjimpickens7928 “Cope harder” take your own advice homie.
thanks for bringing this dude's videos to me ive enjoyed everyone
@@notjimpickens7928 Well... Arguably... The community didn't just turn on CDPR.
CDPR released a shit game.
“Red Dead Redemption is about redemption.”
No fucking way 😂
My man's writes a wholebass video essay to introduce his video essay
23:32 they do serve what the game is about, finding redemption in the turning point of the old west.
The setting of RDR2 is just as important as the main plot for Arthur. The very beginning of the game sets you up to expect a slower paced, truer representation of the old west and what it takes to not only live in it but to also redeem yourself from it.
Honestly? While I get what you're trying to say about RDR2, I gotta disagree with the criticism of the minor things like eating, cleaning guns, and feeding your horse. These things barely take any time; the eating is tied to the health system and you'll generally replenish it mid-combat in a matter of seconds only occasionally, guns take forever to degrade in condition and can be cleaned rapidly or instantly at a gunsmith, and feeding your horse is only done after very, very long periods of time. I may be biased due to my love of food in video games, but these things all do not make the game worse as a whole. You may dislike them, but that does not mean EVERYONE despises them to the same extent.
*Laughs in Persona*
Yeah I agree with you...... I liked those added features
@@kaz_1392 dude if you don’t want to be immersed then have a dirty gun and horse. These features may negatively affect the pacing, these minor flaws are so small you can look past them. Also if I’m gonna buy a gun and customize it with many designs I appreciate the cleaning, watching my guns going from dirty to clean you can appreciate these subtle details. To add on I feel like the horse is very crucial for the game and the idea that you can take care of it helps me enjoy and be immersed the RDR2 world. If you don’t like this game you should play the assassins creed franchise.
@@calebpark1185 ????
I was on the side of I like the fact that you have to clean your gun and horse.....
Did you read my comment properly?
Yep, the big part of RDR2 is that it's more than an open-world crime game - it's a wild west immersive sim - with a good story on top. Those little things sell you the fantasy of being in that world.
I disagree about red dead redemption tossing the idea of punishment in the trash. I think that Johns punishment was working for the government, hunting down and murdering the people he once called family, his family being taken hostage. And on top of that, the government didn’t help him so he could do it correctly. He had to continue his life of crime albeit in a different way so that he could do something that he would surely be scarred mentally from. That was his punishment. It’s sort of like having to do community service but x10
Exactly, he atoned for his past, what happened to him wasn't justice it was a federal agency tying loose ends, John was no longer a threat and would have to suffer for what he did for the rest of his life through regret, he was also starting to become a productive member of society. I liked the ending because it was well written not because john got his comeuppance.
The government is just a bunch of killers and cheats anyways so he never changed who he was working for. Just the name he was working under
Came to say this. Ultimately the idea of “justice” is a frustratingly nebulous one that people literally have to go to college and then take more college to understand sufficiently for practicing law. Marston did atone for his crimes, however selfishly motivated he was in doing so, in the suffering of scorching every bridge he built his whole life while the remaining people he cared about were constantly under threat, all in the name of public service. Furthermore, he came out the other end a changed man with the potential of helping more people and breaking the cycle of violence by giving his son a proper father figure.
Instead, a better man was taken out of society for the crimes committed by a long-dead scumbag. That’s not justice, that’s short-sighted vigilante-ism actively undermining societal progress, and just throwing the dude in jail to rot wouldn’t’ve been much of an improvement. Even the fairest trial would have a jury out for the man’s blood, because their angle isn’t pragmatic but emotional. I can’t blame people at all for hating him, but I can take issue with a system that refuses to see the potential benefits of punishing a bad man by forcing him to do good instead of removing him entirely such that he can’t contribute anything.
More to Cobbler’s point, No Man’s Sky made many similar mistakes to Cyberpunk, was redeemed thoroughly, and is now a good game with a large, loyal, active player-base. If he was implying CDPR should just put the game out to pasture like Marston because redemption would be hollow in the face of the laundry list of fuck ups they made in delivering the game, I think that’s way too hasty a conclusion to come to. The devs CAN cut superfluous content, it WOULD make the game more enjoyable, and that WILL cultivate a dedicated player-base and set people at ease about CDPR’s intentions, i.e. they will “atone for their crimes.” In their case, with the age of games-as-a-service upon us, I don’t think it’s too late for reparations.
True he was essentially just working as a criminal again but this time for the government and once he had served his purpose to the state they gunned him down in front of his home and his wife and son. They didn't kill him because he was a murderer and criminal and needed to be punished for his crimes, they murdered him because they needed to tie a loose end that was it, it had nothing to do with justice or retribution for the victims of John and his old friends.
Finding a nice camp spot, lighting up a smoke even though there isn't anything to shoot, and grooming then feeding my horse an apple before warming up by the fire and heading to bed. Waking up the next morning, eating a can of beans, drinking some coffee while lighting a cigar, and hopping back on my horse to ride to the next mission. Forty minutes of pure bliss, I live for this shit.
This is a seriously underrated video. No joke, I was in complete disagreement with your final point when I started watching, but you convinced me by the end of it. You've got a real talent for crafting discussions.
Really happy I found this channel. I really love video game essays and these are so well done and have just the perfect amount of contempt for corporations that I can really get into.
I'm a new and aspiring game developer. I'm gonna make my first little game as a test this summer.
I recently stumbled upon your channel, and so far, every single video I watched from you has been filled with useful tips and advice, grounded and justified criticisms, and so much more helpful advice.
The things you said in your videos had made me see my work (or rather drafts) in a completely new light. I realized a lot of problems with my ideas both story wise and gameplay wise.
I cannot thank you enough for making this content. You made me realize problems that could've doomed my career from the start.
I'm trying to get into development, myself. It's a truly mind-boggling undertaking, particularly if you're acting solo.
Modeling, texturing, writing, animation, programming, DESIGN...it's just so much. It's incredibly humbling whenever developers email me, comment, or tweet at me. I wish you the best of luck and thank YOU for watching
@@DJPeachCobbler yes I'm also a starting developer although my strategy is to first make the mobile version and see how well it will be received
Cleaning ,feeding and talking to your horse is a part of the rdr2 magic. it builds a relationship that felt so real
And made the horse death scene at the end so heartfelting ( it's like my real life horse died ) . Rdr2 is one of the all time great in my opinion .
yeah dude that is one of the best part of the game
Just get a new horse lol
@@unclexbox85 I’m guessing you don’t know the scene his taking about
I think the point is if your game is an rpg, focus on making it an rpg, and not an immersive cowboy simulator. If you want to make an immersive cowboy simulator well then focus on that and lose focus on places that don't add to it. But I've never played Rdr2, that's just what i assume he was getting at
Not opinion, fact
I wasn't looking at the screen when the video started. That one note was all it took for me to recognize RDR.
His predictions about Cyberpunk's post launch trajectory was 100% on the money right down to the kotaku headline
I’m not ashamed to say I cried during the ofrenda scene in cyberpunk. It’s so damn heart felt, and I honestly said that this is how I want people to remember me after I die.
I feel like the repeating of tasks in rdr2 is misjudged, I find it nice because it’s more immersive, it gives the feeling of constant maintenance and work that the old west had, whether that be of yourself or the gang.
Regarding red dead redemption 2, I loved the long animations, it definitely immersed me more. I like the eating, the cleaning guns. You say it doesn't serve the purpose of the greater game, but a game doesn't have to be about ONE thing. What the mechanics of cleaning horses and animations do is serve the purpose of making it seem as real and as grounded as possible. It maybe doesn't serve the story very well if at all. And I am one to say that games need more focus sure but the mechanics in rdr2 don't detract from the focus. You can ignore those mechanics if you want to, it has no affect on the story and very little on the gameplay. oh and your analysis on red dead redemption 1 was interesting never heard that take before
The mechanics kinda service the story. The gang wants to maintain their free outlaw lifestyle so the immersion helps the player understand that feeling. Going hunting and just riding around on your horse let's you feel the world around you. I don't think it's as good as it could be. You can play the whole game without upgrading the camp or donating so it makes that feel worthless. You can have low honor and just get along with the gang fine. You think the honor system would change the ending. Maybe evil Arthur sides with Dutch while good Arthur sides with John. Who knows?
Showing Jackie's death in trailers was a dick move, it reduced the shock value and then Jackie was justa timebomb I was waiting to blow up anytime, I didn't feel the impact that could have been if I didn't knew his death was coming.
Makes it even worse that Jackie's death means nothing. If Jackie lived he would have to leave the city or just constantly look behind his back for people trying to kill or arrest him. And even if he did stick around he can't exactly help V he doesn't know anyone who could help V. Jackie would just be turned to a side character like Victor, who occasionally shows up to be your friend that doesn't do to much in the story post prologue. Hell, Jackie's death doesn't motivate V to stop Arasaka or literally anything, just makes him sad and he moves on after a funeral, a funeral that is optional.
Fear of death is one of the most fantastic narratives a game can play. The most emotional ending for cyberpunk, and my personal favorite, is the suicide ending, mainly for two reasons. 1, up to this point, V has lost his best friend and most of his close allies, he feels the weight of his actions and doesn’t want to lose every one else he loves. He and Johnny finally decide that no more blood needs to be spilled, and choose to end their life peacefully. To quote first blood, after everything he’s been through, V deserves a little peace.
The second and more important reason is that this was the last ending I did. I watched as Vs life ended in catastrophe every, single, time. While he did have some success when he became an aldecaldo, and there is a very small spark of hope that by selling his soul he can come back one day, these choices still end in the death of good people: rouge or Saul. V choosing a peaceful death over a painful rest of his life actually saves the people around him, and it’s a heartbreaking tragedy seeing as rouge finally gives respect to V and even more so Panam damning V, both of them not knowing that they could have been hurt way worse if V chose to break into that tower.
Also don’t do suicide.
"i fear the man who practiced one kick a thousand times rather than a man who praticed a thousand kicks once"
- Bruce lee
I actually really like all the having to eat and sleep and take baths and everything tbh
Im glad im not the only one
Same
Same
Me too , that moments are satisfying
Me too
Bruh is this guy the prophet of gaming? I swear each one of his takes is a masterpiece
Too many woke jokes it's kinda annoying especially when you realize it's just his political opinions fighting through for a spot on the script. Its distracting from the review
@@jmorel42 well to you yes to others no that's kindve the charm of picking reviewers they don't need to make everyone happy just a certain group of people
@@augustuslunasol10thapostle To each his own
@@jmorel42 I noticed a total of 2; what does this say about each of us?
@@jmorel42 define woke joke
This is by far the best piece of videogame content i've seen on youtube. Since release I just can't put myself to finish Cyberpunk 2077 because as soon as I see the desktop icon I immediately remember all the potential and hard work wasted thanks to CDPR's poor management. I still think that Cyberpunk 2077 could've been a great action adventure/mafia type game, had the managers actually knew what they were going for.
Finish it. The ending is very unexpected. Although you do get multiple endings. Mine was a mindfuck.
Thank you!
Witcher 3 worked because it was about Geralt, who is an interesting, defined, and fun character to be.
The two things that worked in the game were the city and the intro and ending story. Oh and takemura was a great character. If it made a better city experience, with a more focused lead character, I think it would have shined in spite of flaws.
Okay, I understand this is 2 years late and this comment will ultimately fall on deaf ears, but this intro was a masterclass in video storytelling. I was satisfied once the Cyberpunk B-roll started. I damn near clicked off the video thinking it was over just to be reminded that I had another 24 minutes left. So thank you, for providing free entertainment the way that you do.
"You're missing a heartfelt dumpster fire" isn't something i thought i'd hear today.
Bro I can’t wait for your channel to explode. THIS IS SUCH UNDERRATED CONTENT
The algorithm has shined upon you this day. All hail the algorithm.
Ahhhhhh that's explain it
😂
Just found your channel today and already watched 3 of them, i love your writing, sketches and message. Keep doing what your doing
Agree with almost everything you said, but the realism and long animations in red dead 2 add a ton for me and a lot of people who I've talked about. They add to the immersion and make the game come alive for me.
Some people want to play RDR2 as a cowboy simulator. And I guess it's cool that people get that experience. It would have been awesome if they added shorter animations, or managed to cut out animations, and just let the players decide whether they want realistic animations or quick-paced ones.
Yeah, I'm all for the realism but what Far Cry Primal did is best with the animation skipping that you can toggle on and off. 100%ing RDR2 you'll probably spend literal hours just watching that same skinning animation to get all the shit you need.
@@spoike7027 you obviously haven't played rdr2, you don't spend hours doing shit like that
@@cryomaniac3217 you obviously didn’t read what I said, I said if you’re trying to 100% RDR2 you literally spend hours watching Arthur cut pelts off dead animals. I have over a thousand hours on this game lmfao 🤣
@@spoike7027 I've 100%ed rdr2, you have no idea what you're talking about. It never got boring, and hunting actually became my favorite activity
@@spoike7027 and no, if you haven't already 100%ed the game, and said "probably" spend hours watching the same animation. You definitely don't have a 1000 hrs
”I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
-Asian Mike Tyson
You know that the video is good when you watch it all the way through and then realise it's 30 minutes long...
With these types of games, you have to play on a high difficulty and be easy to get immersed, which is why I loved it so much. I had to play on a higher difficulty than I could handle to keep the immersion and to keep it from being dull, but that's okay. I had fun, and I enjoyed being in the ridiculous world, and that's why I loved it
This channel good. This channel very fucking good.
For the first 4 mins I completely forgot this vid was about Cyberpunk lol
Dude, I'm speechless. Your opinion is something that is rare nowadays. I just hope that people like you will be heard one day. Maybe the industry would get better after that.
After watching this video, I realize that most of my favorite game franchises have flaws. The Witcher 3 has an over-simplified combat system, Half-Life 2's gunplay is bad despite being a FPS, Deus Ex Mankind Devided's main story is a horrible Shane Dawson conspiracy video, but I still love them nonetheless. A flawed masterpiece is what we really need nowadays, not some middling games that want to be good at everything and eventually fail in the process.
And as Angry Joe would put it: “they aren’t good games, they’re legendary games!” And indeed those three games are legends in what they do.
The Witcher 3 is a fantastic RPG with an even greater story.
Half-Life 2 nails being a unbroken narrative.
And Deus Ex is a phenomenal stealth action game.
There is no such thing as perfect games… only legendary ones
@@NoahDaArk man I gotta go play witchers
The guy with the malfunctioning dong is our guy Jesse Cox. Awesome little cameo for a creator
"Fallout: New Vegas is a shitty first person shooter"
My 130 mod load order says otherwise
I bet over half of them are just to get the game to work properly.
@@funnyman10912 ah shit he's got me.
No, they don’t. If you need 100+ mods to make it good then it’s not good
@@qwoovy2359 if you mod fallout you might get it. I started out with a couple, then it just lead to a landslide of random mods. It's easy to get over 100 mods accidentally.
@@qwoovy2359It was already good. No one started playing Fallout New Vegas modded. Most modding is just to remedy the limitations of the shit ass oblivion engine meeting an 18 month development cycle.
This channel is a hidden gem
That intro was deep as fuck. Not a outlook a lot of people think about, or even put on UA-cam. Keep up the great work man.
Yeah this guys channel is underrated
As someone in Pen and Paper gaming professionally this was kinda what I needed, thanks for the reminder.
You should revisit Cyberpunk. It’s majorly different. Calls have better timing, quests feel more fun, cops have been fully revamped as has cyberware, and much much more
I feel like you completely missed the point of the video.
Are you illiterate? Or did you want to miss the point of the video?
@@SirMilkBottle Most likely but doesn't IMO stop the video from being wrong. Redemption absolutely matters. If we cease to care about redemption then we will cease to forgive. And that type of life is just too miserable for me
Did you watch the video
This dude can read the future, I swear!
This video has aged way to well.
I agree mechanically with the critique. Everything you said here is correct. I've got about 300 hours in CP2077, and have played through the game 4x. To repeat your criticisms - the gunplay lacks, the hacking is boring, exploration is tedious, and enemies are laughable(unless youre on the hardest setting, at which point it becomes ut2k4 instagib).
But what gets me coming back and starting the game again and again is twofold - the momentary glimpses of brilliance, and the *feeling* of being in a cyberpunk dystopia.
For the former - there are many instances where its clear CDPR is at their apex. The pickup. The fingers mission. The implementation of braindance. The universally bleak endings. Some missions I've played through with 4 different builds, and have had four different resolutions and paths to the same objective. The game conveys none of this, and yet, it's there. Brilliantly executed, waiting to be revealed by your actions. This isnt everything. In fact, its very few things. But when it's there, it is incredible.
As for the latter - The biggest, most monumental contribution this game has for the medium is the *detail* of its open world. Every nook and cranny has hand-placed garbage, blood stains, decrepit furniture. The amount of labor-mixed-with-love that went into curating every single square inch of the world is definitive. 300 hours in, I *still* find incredible new places, moments, experiences. There's a miniature city in a parking garage in Northside. The forest under the corpo plaza. The casino in the sewers in westside. The fortress-towers off the coast. The drowned-out town.
All of those places juxtaposed with the chrome and neon and bustle and guns and whatever else make the entire experience similar to breathing pound cake. It's thick, inescapable, vast, and unyielding. You have to drink from this thematic & content firehose, or else you'll drown.
And I cant picture how else a life in Night City would be.
The world consistently impresses me, as well. I wish I had more reason to explore it, is my issue. I wish that they either focused on that exclusively, or took the time and energy spent on that and instead put it into the roleplaying. There are a few great games in Cyberpunk 2077, but none of those games have room to breathe.
@@DJPeachCobbler I almost never comment on anything man but I gotta disagree here on at least one point. Exploration can be rewarding occasionally, like reading some emails that tell you where to get a good piece of loot that are not pointed out anywhere else for instance.
But also in the verticality of the world, as in you can either sneak your way through a building full of guards towards your assassination target, or you can use double jump to climb to his office window and shoot him from a balcony/rooftop. The level design around the fixer missions is honestly not bad in having a lot of different ways to approach them but I agree they should have been cut down to a few longer more narratively engaging quests instead of a hundred little ones.
Great essay as always though, and I agree that it is a game of great moments made all the more frustrating by a whole host of other issues. Gotta say though, Smart Guns are fun.
Also, I would recommend Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines if you want another good narrative RPG experience albeit with an extra helping of jank.
The only two games I've pre-ordered
Fallout 76
Cyberpunk 2077
Never again shall I pre-order
I learnt my lesson after brink
@@cloroxusthestainlessone4324 I had lots of fun with brink when I was younger
@@jiffy6969 so did I but no fucker else did which killed it for me
I just wanted to say that I don't like the animations and needs of RDR2, I *love* them. It keeps me so immersed that I frequently go on slow rides, petting my horse, smoking and eating. I fucking hunt, camp and cook my own meals. It's great.
Cooking isn't really forced on you too. I for one, have my arthur underweight almost all of the time. The only thing I consume are tonics.
I agree, most of the things he lists as his biggest problems with the game are some of the main reasons I love it.
Hot take: as much as I love the story of RDRII, I wish it'd been thrown out in favor of a player-driven role-playing experience. Imagine the roles of Red Dead Online in single-player, fleshed out with the same care as the main story.
@@BlueisNotaWarmColour I think that could be done. The engine is there. Rockstar could quite easily make a standalone or spinoff from RDR2, but with a different storyline.
@rinkerthemaker nobody else can make it. Red Dead II already had all the systems (wanted, bounty, economy, etc.) but didn't commit to them and made them janky to serve the main campaign which let's face it nobody bought the game for the cutscenes
cyberpunk girl with that music hit me hard, kudos mr Cobbler
I disagree with the criticism of the small things or tedious things in RDR2. Every time I brushed my horse, pet it, protected it, and gained a better relationship with it made it feel so much more real to me. I didn’t even use the quick travel feature so I could enjoy the scenery and enjoy the atmosphere of the game. Those small details made RDR2 my favorite game ever, those small and sometimes monotonous tasks made the game so much more real for me. You
(SPOILERS BELOW)
And when my horse finally died at the end, it made me cry. I had never cried for a game before in my life. I felt a genuine connection to it and seeing it die was heartbreaking. It is the small things that make it what it is, a masterpiece.
RDR makes me emotional every time
Damn this might be your best video yet (imo). Really hit the nail on the head with the RDR connection.
Thanks! It was a big pain, there were lots of rewrites and I wanted to cover so much, but I'm glad you liked it.
When I first bought cyberpunk on day one I had the idea that this game would actually make me choose what i want to do, and I wanted to do was to challenge myself by not having any cybernetic enhancements whatsoever, Which I thought would be difficult because I thought that cybernetics would act as the games levelling system. So I boot up the game and go through the streetkid lightpath and thought to myself: “hey that’s pretty cool and unique I’m sure the lightpath has a great effect on the rest of the game!” Which it didn’t. Then, after getting through the intro and I was forced to get cybernetic enhancements because of the story, and in that moment I looked back on what I have just played, the glitches, the terrible frame-rate, the limited character customisation which didn’t even have some basic hair types for my character. And I that moment I knew, that this game was going to suck.
Reading the comments and seeing a lot of people saying "The game is good now" Its like none of you got the point of the video.
It’s reminds me of No Mans Sky players
Or maybe they believe in redemption? Some of us don't like to play god, you know.
Honestly I liked the eating, and cleaning aspects of rdr 2. You never needed to give him a bath, and whenever you wanted you didn’t need to clean your horse either, just run them through water. It gives players the choice to have a more realistic play through. I never once bathed Arthur or worried about his cleanliness and nothing bad came from it, and you can clean your horse and feed it while you’re riding it so I never minded that much either, other than that great video
I liked These... I liked caring for Arthur... I liked caring for my Horse... I liked making Arthur Happy... I liked rdr2...
Yeah me too man. People complained exactly like this when san andreas introduced the fat and muscle meters and having to maintain your character. I like that realism shit, but I understand why lots of folks dont like to go through the motions
Same but barely did I eat or sleep
Dude. I can't believe I haven't found this channel sooner
Fucking same here, man. Holy shit this video was SO well made and conveyed.
I once summed up my experiences with cyberpunk like this. Cyberpunk in the begining was like a empty pool. You jumped epecting greatness only to break your legs. Than after a few updates the poll started to fill up, you jump in again with reasonable expectations, and you realize that after some of the patches and the updates, and realize that the once empty pool has water, which is great! Until you realize it only goes your thigh
Watching this video felt like watching a tarantino movie
I was actually impressed by the call from a fixer during the funeral cause I had the option to tell him “fuck off this isn’t a good time” and he hung up. I genuinely thought it was scripted due to dumb luck