Game Diary: Monday August 12th - Saturday September 6th

Featuring: Cyberpunk 2077, Subnautica, Star Trek: Resurgence

FULL SPOILERS: Basic story knowledge is assumed 

This past week I finally finished up my Cyberpunk playthrough, clocking in at around 170 hours. I actually managed to complete the majority of available side missions this playthrough, as well as all of the NCPD scanner hustles and Fixer contracts. In fact, I finished all the minor gigs so early that by Act 3 I was pretty much out of stuff to do to keep busy while I waited for side missions to drop. I like the way Cyberpunk handles this most of the time, waiting a few days before new missions become available, but it did get a little tedious by the end of the game, when I started to feel in a hurry to progress the story. I enjoyed playing the Blue Moon mission for the first time, it was fun making friends with a big pop star and saving her life from a deranged stalker. I've never done this mission before because I think it's one of, if not the very last side mission that can drop before the end of the game, and I've never had the patience to wait for it until now. I also left the Venus in Furs mission incomplete, because unfortunately Meredith Stout just isn't my type. I was also surprised and amused to find that the Iguana egg I took from Yorinobu's penthouse hatched during my playthrough. It's supposed to take 90 in game days, so I guess at least that many passed. I'd long since lost count but I didn't think it had been that long. That was fun to find, though it certainly proves Vic's estimate of "a few weeks" wrong - but I've griped enough about that. 

I ended up romancing River, though I almost went with Judy. I'm not sure why I didn't, I think she might have been a better fit for the ending I picked considering she wants to go travelling and leave Night City. As you may have guessed I went with the Star ending, the only one of the main four I haven't seen before. I've only actually beaten the game with one character out of my previous playthroughs but I did play through the ending three times to see some of the others. This time it made sense to finish off with the Nomads, my V being a former Nomad herself, and while being inducted into the clan was a big moment for her, and meant a lot, I feel like a male V who romanced Panam would have gotten more out of it. I think that's what I'll do for my next playthrough, whenever that comes. Maybe I'll go streetkid next time, which is the only life path I've never played. The ending itself was cool. It was fun driving the Basilisk tank again, which you only get to do once, and briefly if you don't pick this ending. It sucks that several of the Aldecaldo's were killed during the mission, and V really felt responsible for their loss, beginning to lose her nerve and wanting to call off the raid. Of course, that doesn't happen. The others insist we push on, and we do. I always enjoy taking down Adam Smasher, but I wasn't expecting Saul to die in such a brutal fashion. I wish I could have spoken to Panam a bit more about it before moving on. 

Ultimately Johnny and V parted on friendly terms, Johnny going off beyond the Balckwall with Alt and the other freed residents of Mikoshi, and V going back to her life, though still on borrowed time. The clock may have been reset, but it's still ticking. Johnny's engram rewrote too much of her brain, and now her body is rejecting her own consciousness. It seems this might be an easier problem to solve than her original one since the Aldecaldo's have promised their contacts down south may be able to help, but somehow I doubt it. I think V knows her time is truly coming to an end and is resigned to simply live out her remaining months with the people she cares about. It's somewhat bittersweet, but still about the happiest ending you can get, aside from maybe the Tower. River opted out of coming along with us. I'm not sure if he actually would have if I'd pushed for it, or if he always stays behind. Either way I'm fine with the way things ended. They had a brief, bright romance, but I never really saw it working long term. 

So, that's that. I'm glad I was able to finally finish a complete second playthrough of this game without getting sidetracked by something else the way I usually do. I'm going to put Cyberpunk to bed for awhile now, so everything feels a little fresher when I eventually go back again. My last attempt at a playthrough was only back in January, and I only made it to the end of Phantom Liberty before getting distracted by something else. Next time I'm planning to mix it up a lot more. I'm going to play a male V for the first time, a streetkid for the first time, and I think I'll eschew netrunning for real this time. I've always wanted to try a Sandevistan, and they're not compatible with cyberdecks. I usually try to go non-lethal unless I'm in big trouble (or they really deserve it) but I'd like to try a blade build as well. Maybe mantis blades, or gorilla hands. We'll see. That's a ways off, anyway. 

A few weeks before I finished Cyberpunk I'd been having some work done in my house, in the room right next to the one where I do my gaming. Rather than try to play a cinematic story game with a bunch of hammering and drilling going on through the paper thin walls, I opted to play something a little chiller. I started up a new game in Subnautica. Subnautica is one of my favorite podcast games. There's almost no dialogue apart from recordings and voice logs. I love exploring, building out a base, gathering resources and aquiring new technology and vehicles. I also love the survival elements, the first few (in-game) days aren't exactly a struggle considering you have a small shelter in the form of your lifepod available immediately, and a bunch of advanced technology to service your immiediate needs, but it is harrowing to find yourself on an alien planet, alone, in the middle of the sea. I've played through the story mode several times and since exploration is really the driving force I don't get as much out of the game as I used to in my first few playthroughs, but I enjoy the opening few days when things are a bit more hectic and uncertain for Ryley, the silent protagonist. It was a good way to pass the time for a few hours but I doubt I'll return to Subnautica and progress this playthrough, at least not now. 

Finally, after finishing Cyberpunk I jumped into a game I've had my eye on for a long time: Star Trek Resurgence. As a lifelong Trek fan this game caught my eye before it released, but even in the trailers and promo materials it looked a little rough so I decided to wait for a suitable discount before I picked it up. Finally, over two years after release I was able to pick it up for 70% off. In short - I love this story - but the story is pretty much the only good thing about it. The animations are super janky, the combat and stealth mechanics equally so. The graphics look like an early PS3 era game that's been remastered - everything's nice and sharp, but it does not hold up to 2023 standards. Yet, in spite of all that I had a blast with this game. It felt like an episode straight out of the TNG era, though it focuses on a brand new ship and crew of characters. For the most part it plays much like a Telltale game, very "your choice have consequences", which I loved. The story fits perfectly into the Star Trek universe but in all the hundreds of episodes I've seen I've never felt so directly involved. I feel like all those hours spent consuming Star Trek helped me to get one of the best endings, simply by acting the way I knew a Starfleet officer should, though I certainly had some difficult decisions to make along the way. Overall, the gameplay and graphics were never enough of a turn off to overcome how much I enjoyed the story, and I think I'll return at some point to check out the other paths I didn't follow. 

 

 

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - Secret Agent V

FULL SPOILERS: Basic story knowledge is assumed

I've been going full steam ahead with Cyberpunk for the last two weeks, focusing on the Phantom Liberty quest lines. I was leaning towards putting it off for later and progressing the main story first, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I've played through the Phantom Liberty expansion twice before, once when it first came out and again at the beginning of this year, and both times I sided with Songbird. I'm not sure I'll ever play a character where it doesn't feel right to go with her, but I really wanted to see the other ending this time so I did some mental gymnastics to get my V to go the other way. 

My V is a young ex Nomad, dying, adrift and alone in Night City. She's desperate to keep living, but also desperate to be apart of something after losing her Nomad family and her best friend, so she goes along with the FIA. Even though she feels horrible about not following Songbird's plan, she's convinced herself its for the best, the only way to guarantee both of them live. I'm not sure this version of V truly believes that in her heart, or if she's just too scared to risk the help she's been promised by the NUSA government. She likes Songbird, and feels sympathy for her, but doesn't fully trust her. Of course, having played through the other ending I know she's right to have doubts. In the BETRAY REED ending Songbird eventually reveals that she has no way of helping V, just before she escapes on a shuttle to the moon to have her own life saved. She was using V all along, a fact which I was slightly surprised to learn is never actually revealed in the BETRAY SONGBIRD ending. 

Even as Song rages at V for betraying her and ruining her plans to save herself, she never acknowledges that us helping her would have meant sacrificing our own chances to live. There is a moment while I'm trading barbs with Songbird while tracking her through the abandoned Militech facility where she lambasts me for not helping her. I then point out that she also promised to help me, and at this point she seems to hesitate. The rage and hurt fades from her voice, replaced by guilt. She says she has to tell me something - but we're interrupted before she can go on. V and Songbird never return to this line of conversation, Song never elaborates on what she was about to say, but I believe she was about to admit here that she could never have helped V.

It's easy to call Songbird a hypocrite - and she is one - but knowing how she suffered it's hard to hold much malice for her. Knowing what she lost - her friends, her family, her home - and how she was abused by the government she worked for, forced to kill and break the highest laws, to reach beyond the blackwall and risk her own life and santiy (not to mention Armageddon) I don't blame her for being so desperate to get away. In my other playthroughs where I help her, I never even blame her for using me - and in that ending we never even get to see the fragments of her life that led to her current situation. I'm not sure how my current version of V would react if she knew Songbird was never going to help her, but she'll never know that. And in the end it doesn't matter. V ended up voluntarily giving up her chance to be saved anyway, when she granted Song's final request to die rather than be taken back by the NUSA.

So ended V's adventures as a secret agent. I imagine it all seemed almost fun to her at first - saving the President, code words and clandestine meetings, things a young Nomad kid could only dream about as she and her family rolled along the dusty highways. She found camaraderie, and a chance to save herself while doing work she was good at. A place to belong. Then the bodies started to pile up. People started to die by the truckload, both innocent bystanders and people she formed connections with. She started to understand the price of keeping the secrets of powerful people even better than she already did. In the end V decided to help Songbird after all, It was a turning point for her. I feel she's matured after her Dogtown adventures. She's more aware of the potential consequences of her actions and the things she chooses to involve herself in, and she's more confident in her skills. At the same time, she's also starting to unravel a bit. She's a little quicker to pull the trigger - or whip out her monowires - when faced with a powerful opposing force. A little less willing to spend time creeping around choking people out one by one. Whether a result of her experiences or her circumstances, V is changing - or changing into something else ...

Game Diary: Wednesday August 6th - Sunday August 11th

Featuring: Cyberpunk 2077

FULL SPOILERS: Basic story knowledge is assumed

Still working my way through the story, slowly. I'm lacking a good podcast game at the moment so Cyberpunk is having to sub in for one. Normally story games with a lot of dialogue don't really work for that purpose, but driving around hitting all the scanner hustles and fixer contracts has been working so far. I've decided to try and finish as much of the side stuff as I can in this playthrough. I've always found the number of NCPD missions kind of intimidating, even though they basically amount to "Go here, kill enemies, leave." there are enough of them for their icons to blot out the whole map, so I've never come close to finishing them all on previous playthroughs. I appreciate how nearly every one has some kind of little story, and a lot of them connect to each other or to the larger side quests or main story quests throughout the game. The amount of text in this game is actually crazy when you stop to examine it all. 

I've finished the Pacifica questline. Not sure if I'll go straight into Phantom Liberty or do Takemura's parade mission first but I'm leaning towards the latter. Phantom Liberty has always felt like a later game thing, a last resort to be taken up when V is nearly at their end. Not least because the number of scripted attacks V has goes up, and she starts talking like she's basically on her last legs, even when you're only halfway through the game. Either way I'm taking a little break to knock out a bunch of side stuff before I pursue either path. I have a ton of side missions available. I got a call from Judy that Evelyn took her own life mere minutes after I finished the Pacifica questline, so the next part of Judy's personal missions are available. I finished up the boxing questline as well, which was pretty fun but shorter than I expected. I have two more racing missions and the Sinnerman quests to do, as well as Ozob the clown and probably a bunch of other little ones I'm forgetting about. I'll probably screw around with side stuff for the next few days and continue with main stuff on the weekend. 

 Haven't been back to Anno: Mutationem yet since last week but it's still on my radar for now. 

  

Game Diary: Tuesday July 29th - Tuesday August 5th

Featuring: Cyberpunk 2077, Anno: Mutationem  

FULL SPOILERS: Basic story knowledge is assumed

Still on that Cyberpunk grind, for the most part. I finally got around to paying Rogue and kicking off the Badlands quest line, but not before knocking out most of the level one fixer jobs. I like the Badlands as an area, and I like the activities that take place there - especially since I'm playing a Nomad - but I'm not such a big fan of Panam as a character. I know, I know. People love her. I think she's the most popular romance option. And I don't dislike her. I like that she and V become friends, especially at a time when V really needs them. But - aside from not really liking a lot of her line delivery - Panam is pretty ... needy. You know what I mean. I'm sent to approach her with a way to help both of us and she immediately wrangles me into an additional revenge mission. Okay, fair enough. In Night City revenge isn't a dish best served cold, it's more like fast food. Helping a friend get even is like helping them move or picking them up from the airport. A bit of a pain in the ass? Sure, but usually not too bad of a time, and you know they'd do it for you. But then once the main path Badlands missions are wrapped up and you head home to the city, she starts calling in favors she hasn't earned with alarming frequency. Within 24 hours of our last meeting she calls asking me to help rescue her clans leader. Once that's done I'm barely back in the city before I get a call from her clan mate Mitch inviting me to his friends funeral - not strictly Panam's fault, but I feel obligated to attend to it immediately since I know this mission will disappear if I don't handle it before the next time Panam calls - which is imminent. 

On top of that I've got side missions coming out of my ears - Elizabeth Peralez cold calls, asking me to solve the Mayor's murder. A day after that's dealt with the Detective I worked with calls me up begging for help finding his missing nephew. One of my Fixer contacts calls me with a hit job, then the Peralez's need more help investigating a break in. My favorite sentient Taxi driver Delamain loses control of his subroutines so I have to go deal with that. Unfortunately, because I've triggered this mission earlier than I usually do and I haven't levelled up Intelligence enough, I have to choose between destroying him or his AI offspring, a choice I genuinely agonized over before ultimately deciding to set his kids free. All of this - including the Panam stuff - takes place over the course of about three days, in game. 

I knew that finishing the Badlands main questline was a trigger for multiple side quests, but I'm never quite prepared for the deluge that opens up. Now that that's all behind me the main story is at a standstill, waiting for me to call Mr. Hands and move things along. Takemura's next mission to infiltrate the parade is also available, I think that's something new since the Phantom Liberty expansion came out. Before that I'm pretty sure he didn't call until you've wrapped up the other two questlines - Pacifica and the Badlands - in their entirety. Since it ends with him kidnapping Hanako Arasaka I'm going to wait until I'm good and ready before starting it, yet again requiring me to head canon my way through in order to make sense of why this massive parade is politely waiting until I'm ready before it starts. This is what I was complaining about when I mentioned all the progression issues this game has. 

Aside from Cyberpunk I've also been playing a game called Anno: Mutationem, which is also in the cyberpunk genre. Weird name. Not really sure where the "em" comes in. When I google 'Mutationem' this game is the first result so I guess they just made it up for some reason. It's made by a Chinese developer so it's possible it's just a translation thing. Hell, maybe it's an SEO scam. If so it certainly worked on me.  

Pretty fun so far. It's a small indie team - AA, if that - but there's quality there. The art is a mix of 2D pixel and 3D environments and is actually pretty nice. The combat is solid. It's a 2D side scroller which isn't what I normally go for but there's some semi-open world exploration in there too. I'm about four hours in, not sure how much more of it I'll play but for now it's holding my interest.

Game Diary: Monday July 28th, 2025

FULL SPOILERS: Basic story knowledge is assumed

Nothing too special or interesting from yesterdays Cyberpunk play session. I completed the first part of Judy's questline over the weekend, which will branch off into the next part of the main quest in Pacifica. At least it would, if I had made the call to Mr. Hands to start poking around for me. I'm delaying that however, because I want to do Panam's quest in the badlands first, but I have yet to pay Rogue to hook the two of us up. It might seem like I'm massively over complicating things - and yes, I am - but it all makes sense in my head. 

The first thing I do after Jackie's funeral is follow up with Takemura to meet his contact. Then I head to meet Rogue, who requests payment for her services. I tell her I don't have the money - whether I do or not - because in my head canon V shouldn't have the money to pay for a job like this yet. In game, Rogue is requesting 15,000 eurodollars, an amount I could easily scrape together in under an hours worth of side gigs. But I suspect that if the developers weren't concerned about halting the players progression a request like the one V makes would cost a lot more. So I do the thing I don't like doing - I make shit up, and change the story in my head. 

Now Rogue actually requires 50,000 eddies. Of course, there's no mechanism for me to actually pay her that much, but I decide I won't go back to her until I've earned that amount. So, lacking the funds to follow this lead for now, V follows up with Judy to find Evelyn, which they do. So now I as the player have everything I need to pursue the Pacifica quest line, except that I as the player don't want to. So how do I reconcile what I want to do with what V needs to do? Once again, I make shit up and rearrange the story as I see fit. 

Having played through this part of the game multiple times, I know exactly whats going to happen when I call Mr. Hands. He'll tell me he needs some time to get what I need, then as promised he calls back after a day or so, having set up a meeting with people who don't like to be kept waiting. But I, the player, have other things I'd rather do, in spite of the urgency to follow this lead V would most certainly feel. So I don't make that urgent call, I just pretend V did and it took Hands, say, a week to get back to me rather than a day. A sloppy solution? Undoubtedly, but it's kind of the only way to keep myself from feeling both rushed by the story and like I'm wasting time doing side stuff while my character is rapidly dying. 

Which is all a very roundabout way of saying I spent my play session yesterday running around Watson doing side jobs and scanner hustles. I also visited Vic and upgraded my cyberware. I pretty much always go with a netrunner build when I play Cyberpunk and I had intended to do things a little differently this time, but I just can't help myself. Netrunner is too fun. I have been speccing more into melee this time though. In my previous characters I've never pursued the boxing questline because I never put enough points into the Body section, but it's pretty fun. I don't mind doing quests like that because they're pretty lucrative, and a good excuse to earn money to pay Rogue for the next part of the main quest. Same goes for Claire's racing quests. 

I'll probably be doing more of the same today, maybe some side missions as well. Running around the city getting into trouble is always fun.