Cloudpunk
Released: April 23, 2020
Game Length: 10 Hours
Grade: B+
Expectations: With Cyberpunk 2077 being refunded after its 7 years of development, I wondered if there were a few more games who also decided to take refuge in the "Cyberpunk" idea. Well good news! Someone actually formed a convenient flow-chart for those looking to play an alternative title. While browsing the list, I decided to take a glance at the Ghostrunner trailer and voted against playing it for its Mirror's Edge quickness. Then I stumbled upon something unexpected. There was a game I have never seen or heard about called Cloudpunk. You mean I get to drive around in a hover car like in Fifth Element, something I wished I was able to do while playing Neo Cab? Sure, let's try it out.
Reality: One thing you won't be able to do is dive straight down, that's for sure. I guess you can always wait for something like Hover Cabby to pull a crazy maneuver like that. What you can do is drive around a vast city full of wandering people and a bunch of slow drivers heading down designated "roads" and highways. The pixelated graphics might deter some people from trying the game, but I found it rather charming. You play as Rania, a person who just moved into the big city and got a delivery job. The story supposedly all plays out in one night, but it was much better to do one delivery job with a couple side missions and "call it a night" back at your apartment. Yes, you have an apartment you can decorate with miscellaneous things as the story progresses... provided you pay for the upgrades. The story slowly evolves overtime as you are introduced to various characters and questionable figureheads. Then the moment will come when you need to make one final decision that essentially "ends" the game (even though you can still drive around talking to any strangers on the street you might have missed).
Story: I must say that my experience was certainly... unique. The individual events that happen in the game aren't necessarily bad. At certain points, I kind of felt relieved when the protagonist made the tough decisions for me. But as time went on, you could tell through the dialogue that the city was wearing thin on your female go-getter. She would eventually start lashing out, biting her tongue through harsh criticism and snarky sarcasm. This is all expected as you encounter "the strange" in the city - oblivious CEOs, corrupted cops, ignorant androids, and the occasional trash-talkers. Your adventure is less of a happy experience and more of a realistic scenario in the world that currently exists. They carefully weaved the current situation of the city into the narrative. Things like CORA being responsible for all the bad things happening lately, things falling into the mighty sea below, and how improbable it is for people to live outside the city are only a few things mentioned during each delivery. There are maybe a dozen "choices" you are allowed to make from a philosophical point-of-view, but none of them with any real lasting consequences. You can really see the lack of a flow chart when you thank merchants even if you leave without buying anything. The only major decision you will have to decide on is what kind of car you want to have for the rest of the game.
Vehicle: You start off with your standard issue HOVA and slowly unlock certain features as you progress through the story. Eventually you will be offered a new car from the dealership. Most of these features will allow you to move better, faster. You can also buy a few different kind of light trails. Moving around in a 3D space might take some getting used to. I once tried to switch the controls around, but I found its default setting with the right analog giving vertical, left analog giving horizontal, and triggers initiating speed being your best option. You don't have to let off the gas while applying the break. Your vehicle will automatically slow down while pressing both at the same time. It is possible to come to a halt on a busy highway and still check your map. As long as you aren't moving, there is a high probability cars will avoid hitting you and swerve into another lane. Whenever you are about to park your vehicle, press the 'A' button for automatic parking. You can get your vehicle beat-up pretty good, but eventually you will have to repair it. You can also go pretty far on one tank of gas, but it is always a good idea to have at least a half a tank before starting a mission just in case it requires you to act quickly.
Perspective: The major selling point of the game is making you feel like you are in a futuristic city. Let me tell you that this game excels at the aesthetics. There are numerous zones, all with their own building make-up. There is a good amount of cars on the road, more-or-less depending on which district you are driving through. Plenty of pixelated people, androids, and little robots that will pass you on the sidewalk or in front of stores. The music is fabulous. It will always be dark and raining (since the game technically happens all in one night). You can take elevators to the various floors in each district or ports that will transition to another area. They definitely worked hard to get their cameras just right. You can set the camera over your head, zoom in and out as far as you want, or have it pan across buildings. You can set your camera loose both on your person and car (even while driving if you feel daring). However, what really sold me into playing the game was the inclusion of a first-person camera. One month after its release, they patched in a first-person camera for your character. Then in October they added a first-person camera for your car. So if you ever get tired of playing the game a certain way, you can always switch things up by moving the camera.
Potential: Unfortunately the major drawback of the game has to be how limiting everything is. They build this massive world you can explore, and the best they can do is give you a car to drive, an apartment do decorate, maybe 100 different items to buy, a small amount of random items you can collect, and a story to explore. You cannot go inside any of the buildings other than your single apartment. You are given one chance to get a new car and you are stuck with it for the rest of your playthrough. How cool would it be if the game was multiplayer, people flying around with all kinds of cars, doing all kinds of jobs, with apartments spread-out in different parts of the city? But instead the game goes all-out with the final mission by making it "impossible to go back to the way things were." In fact, I had no desire to play anymore once I realized there wasn't going to be any more dialogue. I didn't even want to seek out those 80 punch cards without the operator yakking into my ear. The developers talk about adding things like race courses and a big story update, but it must be a slow process with it being 7 months after its release.
Miscellaneous Notes: I found it quite interesting that their menu setup distinguished between moving through your options using the analog stick and modifying that option with the directional pad. I also applaud it for automatically updating the controls if you assign something already applied to another action. The game locks you to the surface of the platforms without the ability to jump anywhere. So no, you can't jump into the sea down below. Although you aren't allowed to see people in your vehicle, you can press the 'X' button to unlock the camera and look around the front seats. There is no option to honk and headlights are automatically turned on all the time. There is no option to "change the channel" on your radio. You are allowed to resell the features from your car to a merchant if you are in a bind, but they do not have their own category in your inventory. I did have to turn up the volume on the music and turn down the annoying ascend/descend sound effect that happened every time you tapped the right analog stick even a little bit. Once you bought your decorations to your apartment, there is no way to remove them. Anything with a reflective surface does not reflect your character. Any sound effect will "hang" while browsing the map. You cannot sit down anywhere, not in your apartment or at food vendors.
Recommendation: There are going to be a lot of people out there who will take one look at this game and dismiss it for any number of reasons. It's pixelated graphics, limiting story, restrictive environment, lack of basic features, and dialogue would be any sound basis to avoid playing this game. However, the game is relatively cheap, accomplishes its task by establishing a world where you can drive around in a hover car, and learn more about the bustling city from a good sum of people in its various districts. I'd say buy it if spending a relaxing evening driving and walking through a cyberpunk city rising up to the clouds was something you always wanted to try.
1-1-2021