Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) - Dystopian Video Game Review

I very nearly decided not to attempt a review of Cyberpunk 2077. I have been playing it almost constantly over a four year time period, but it saw me restarting the game several times after being deep into it. The issues with this game at launch were many, but years later it is not only in a much better shape, but had the release of amazing DLC titled Phantom Liberty. I love cyberpunk stuff, I've reviewed things previously here, so here is my attempt at doing written justice to this frankly amazing game.

The game is a first person shooter with driving and RPG elements to it. Mainly taking place in Night City, you play as V (female version voiced by Cherami Leigh), a low level mercenary who through a series of misadventures ends up with an artificial construct of a legendary rocker and terrorist named Johnny Silverhand (voiced by Keanu Reeves - The Matrix trilogy) who died decades previously during an assault on Arasaka (in this dystopian future as is the way with cyberpunk, large corporations rule the world) embedded in her head. With this construct unavoidably taking over her mind, V goes on a hunt to try and find a way to get rid of the construct before it kills her.

I loved this game, I loved the stories told here, I loved the missions, I loved the combat, and I loved the atmosphere. It is a bit of a flawed gem as it got so close to complete greatness but there are some elements that hold it back from a perfect score for me. It plays most like Grand Theft Auto I guess, but instead of driving being the focus, it is the combat and story telling that is the biggest thing. For my build, my V had the ability to hack enemies, uploading viruses to them, and even being able to force them to commit suicide or turn against their teammates. Combat is fast paced and full of great music and brutal and bloody kills. Missions are plentiful and run the gauntlet of cyberpunk style situation. Side quests include such topics as discovering a self-aware vending machine A.I, rescuing a Buddhist monk who had been spliced with tech against his will, and discovering a candidate for the role of Night City mayor is secretly being controlled by a shady group. There is simply too much to go into, I loved the story telling here, there are some really powerful moments. One minor complaint is the amount of side quests that task you with stopping crimes, these little moments are so numerous that at the games start the map screen is covered in the symbols for them.

Then there is Phantom Liberty, taking place in an area of Night City inaccessible in the base game, this twenty to thirty hour DLC features Idris Elba (Luthor TV show) as agent Solomon Reed. It felt like a half-step sequel to the core game due to the amount of improvements here. The story missions are much more involved and detailed, while combat encounters have been levelled up (such as reinforcements arriving during battles). In total, the game took me around a hundred and seventy hours to finish, it is a large game and one that never gets dull due to the intense atmosphere that almost makes you feel like you are in a living city. That is where some complaints come in. The traffic situation is one of the biggest peeves. In the distance the roads are full of cars, yet these fade away when you get close to them, making the city streets feeling a bit dead in terms of vehicles. In general the cars are barely needed, there was a later attempt to add combat to driving, as well as to make the police an actual threat, but it couldn't really be achieved. There are various radio stations featuring some really cool music, but the songs on the stations aren't many (originally you could only listen to the radio while driving, so tracks are limited, something that becomes apparent after they added the ability to listen to music anywhere you go).

This has been a bad review, I just can't put into words how much I enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077, I may even go so far as to include it in my top ten games of all time, despite its issues! It is that much of a nova game choom! Cyberpunk as a concept is something I hope happens in the real world, for now, I'm happy to have such an atmospheric game as this one to occupy my time. Something special, if with some obvious flaws.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for November 2023

It feels like I am constantly saying this, but the days and months pass so quickly nowadays, which may be down to me getting older, now being in my early forties. With a giant news inbox, let's see if I can get rid of some of those here.

Black Market Escape Rooms Inc have begun pre-production for an upcoming feature film centered around their award-winning horror escape experience, MurderCo. The film is to include MurderCo artists in order to provide an authentic portrayal of the experience. David M. Parks has been hired as Director of Photography, his previous work has featured on such platforms as Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Lifetime, Netflix, and the SyFy Channel. The story is set to include twists and turns, jump scares, dark humour, with a slasher style that the press release states will be '...both shocking and memorable, staying true to the MurderCo legacy'.

Death of the Dead is a horror comedy directed by Gary King and starring Christina Rose, Jack Abele, and William Lee. It came to VOD platforms VUDU, Amazon Prime Video and Flix Fling on November 28th thanks to Bayview Entertainment, with the press release stating it is like Karate Kid crossed with 28 Days Later. As the title implies, this is a zombie film, that has a karate school going up against a rival karate school whose members have turned undead after an accident involving toxic waste.

Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story came to VOD platforms on November 28th thanks to Bayview Entertainment. This documentary is of course about William Castle, described as 'the last great American showman', this tells the rags-to-riches story of the man who became known for his horror films of the 1950's and 60's in which he subjected the audience to participation through the use of such things as '...buzzing seats, flying skeletons, luminescent ghosts, and life insurance policies' much to their delight. Notable films of his include The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill, Macabre, 13 Ghosts, The Old Dark House, and Strait-Jacket.

Recently debuted on YouTube is Abel Kain's new adult animated short, Satan Saves Thanksgiving. In this, a young man, fed up with being obligated to visit his family during Thanksgiving, decides to ask Satan for help to prevent this. Kain did the writing, character art, animation, and male voices, while Lila Kain performed the female voices. The short can be viewed on YouTube via this link.

UK industrial project, Binary Order released a new full-length LP on November 28th, The Future Belongs To The Mad. This LP took nine months to create, and was written, produced and performed by Benjamin Banks. The press release describes the twelve track album as '...a sprawling, epic, multi genre soundtrack to our own oblivion'. Banks sums up his own thoughts on the album "This album is an expression of my own inability to find meaning or purpose in life. And the utter disdain and emotional distraught that comes from the accumulation of living like that year, after year, after year." Words I'm sure we can all identify with.

The Sixth Chamber have unveiled their latest full-length album, Beyond The Night Veil. Beginning with a live in-person recording of Transylvanian gray wolves (a cool touch), this leads into twelve tracks with themes including ancient Kemetic, Lovecraftian, funerary, occult, mythological and mystic, all placed alongside gothic rock, doom and retro metal. Special guest musicians include keyboardist Alan St. Jon of Alice Cooper/Billy Squier fame, Steve Jansson of Crypt Sermon, and Canadian violin virtuoso Lillian Liu. The album releases on Spotify and all major platforms by December 1st.

Every now and again I mention the JustWatch UK streaming charts for films and shows, usually when there is more than just one or two worthwhile things to mention. The chart I am looking at today was sent to me on 13th November, so may be out of date slightly. In the Top 10 Films for streaming in the UK, number two sees A Haunting in Venice, that has an aging Poirot caught up in a murder mystery that may have a supernatural explanation. In at number seven is Talk to Me, a film I've heard some buzz about in recent months. This is about a group of teens who discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, with unsurprising terrifying consequences coming to them.
Over in the Top 10 UK streaming shows, Attack on Titan is there at number eight, which will be a result of the final ever episode coming out. I really need to give that a watch, though with a ninety minute run time I will need to set some time apart for that. Number ten is What We Do in the Shadows, I really need to give that a watch as I believe it is on Disney+ currently.

Paralyzed with Fear is now available from Bayview Entertainment. This comes from director Glenn Berggoetz and stars Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th), Haidyn Harvey and Andrew Rabold. The synopsis states a 15th century demon is set upon a house full of women, with its aim to kill them all.

Described as the first ever sock puppet comedy horror, Stitches is coming to Bayview Entertainment. Conceived, written, built, puppeteer'd, shot and edited by three men during quarantine, this is about a group of friends on holiday who get caught up with an evil witch.

Finally for this month, Mad Angel Films have announced the release of the official trailer and Indiegogo campaign for Graveyard Shark. This is set in the small town of Willsboro Point, and is about a humanoid creature that hunts people in the town's graveyard. Cryptid hunter Abby Wescott teams up with Captain Issac Seyburn and a group of survivors to find and kill this murderous creature. For more info, check out the Indiegogo page.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 11th May 2023

My second news post I'm writing today (at time of writing), with me doing my blog in a different order. It's never meant to be a good idea starting with the shorter items and going onto longer, but I'm giving that a go today. Super tired as for some reason I can't sleep more than around five hours a night at weekends.

VIPCO and Bayview Entertainment have two physical releases in May. Death Metal is a film I have mentioned previously, and a review of it shall be dropping on this site next week. The other film is My Cherry Pie, this follows three criminals on the run, who accept an invitation from a stranger, Cherry, who lets them stay at the nice sounding Pleasant Creek. That place however is an abandoned hospital with a dark past, which is now the hunting ground for a killer dressed like a plague doctor.

Toxsyck have released an industrial sounding track, 'Death Wish'. The German producer duo state "The hypnotizing and cyberpunk'esque vocals suck you into a soundscape that feels like you're losing traction in time and space while the hard-hitting drops let your whole body shiver". The track is out now on all platforms from F!XT.

Finally for today, Cristian Carter's dark synth-pop project CAEV.R has announced latest single 'Deflect'. They say of the track "The single was inspired by people who shirked responsibility for their actions and instead played the victim, which is a frustrating and disappointing experience I'm sure many have gone through". Mari Kattman (COP International) provides vocals that Carter says was the ideal choice for the track.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday 18th April 2023

I've had a rare week this week when I could pretty much choose my own stuff to review. I can't say I chose the best films but never mind. Here today are three news stories plucked from my inbox. First a side trip into the world of cyberpunk.

I typically skip over the emails regarding cyberpunk sounding music. I love the genre but never feel its that good a fit on my horror blog. I was preparing to skip past an email about Nouveau Arcade, that was until I saw they have released a cyberpunk infused cover of Garbage's almighty track 'Only Happy When It Rains', which happens to be one of my favourite songs of all time. In terms of sound this is pure electronic synth based music, it takes the lyrics of the Garbage song but wraps them around an entirely different sound, creating a more epic sounding song. I do prefer the original though. Nouveau Arcade said of the cover 'We felt the desire to re interpret the lyrics to have a sound of vulnerability and feeling loneliness and isolation that we were experiencing as a society during the height of the pandemic'.

Wasteland is a post-apocalyptic thriller that takes place in a world ruined by a deadly virus. Scott Miller is a survivor who holds on to hope that one day his beloved Beth will return. This comes from Acort International and Midnight Releasing, the cover image reminds me a lot of I Am Legend. I actually reviewed this back in 2013, giving it a respectable seven out of ten I said of it "I...really enjoyed Wasteland thanks to some decent locations used, a solid story and great acting."

Finally for today, am light on details, but was contacted by Michelle Romano, the producer, and one of the lead actresses on Devanny Pinn's directorial debut of her true crime thriller Black Mass. The film will have its official screening at the Marche du Film in Cannes on May 21st. Included among its cast are Jeremy London, Lew Temple, Sarah Nicklin, Devanny Pinn, Eileen Deitz, Kathleen Kinmont, Jennifer Wenger, Lisa Wilcox and Susan Lanier.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall (2022) - Cyberpunk Video Game Review (XBox Series X)

I had fun with the isometric cyberpunk/fantasy video game Shadowrun Returns but have to confess I found it somewhat limited. It told a story that felt small in scope, while the game as a whole was finished within ten hours. Shadowrun: Dragonfall was originally released as an expansion for Returns, as such I went into this expecting a much smaller experience, not knowing that it was later expanded upon and released as its own game before 2022. I found the story to be far more epic, side quests to have become an essential and well fleshed out part of the game, and an overall playtime that was over double that of the first game. The world is the same as the first game, it is a cyberpunk future that has the added addition of fantasy creatures such as orks, elfs, dwarfs and monsters.

The game takes place in Berlin, Germany, which in the time of the game (around the mid 2050's I think) has become an anarchic free-state. You are a shadowrunner, part of a group led by Monika. Recently recruited, you and your teammates head with her to a remote countryside mansion, with the promise of an easy heist. Instead of a simple data snatch you instead stumble into something terrible, you discover a gigantic secret underground base populated by an army of soldiers, even worse, Monika gets her brain fried while attempting to hack into the place. The rest of you manage to escape, with your teammates grudgingly accepting you as their new leader thanks to one of Monika's last orders. You eventually learn that the underground base is linked to a great dragon that was allegedly killed decades earlier. Wanting revenge for Monika's death, and seeing it as your duty to stop this unseen threat, you and your team set-out to raise enough credits to pay the only information broker capable of getting you the intel that will give you a fighting chance on a return trip to the underground base.

Dragonfall is another isometric RPG, one that makes some improvements over Returns, but also some less good choices. Combat takes place over a grid like before, but unlike the first game where you had three action points with which to move around and use your weapons/powers, this time around you only have two. By the time the end came around this had been upgraded to three, but for most the game just having two ability points per character felt limiting. The first game had a weird imbalance between the first halves story heavy levels and the later half being full of action. This time around the balance is spot on. There is lots and lots of story which really makes Berlin feel like a living breathing place. The first game gave you a bar as a hub area, this time around you have a small town as your hub area, with missions accessed by the local tube train. Your hub town is full of all the shopkeepers you could hope for, plenty of side quests, and incidental characters who shed more light on the world.

Shadowrun Returns (2022) - Cyberpunk Video Game Review (XBox Series X)

Despite the title, Shadowrun Returns isn't actually a sequel, instead it is a video game adaptation of the Shadowrun board game. Further research suggests this may actually be a sequel after all, albeit, a sequel to a SNES/Megadrive game from the early 1990s. This game originally came out in 2013, but this year has seen the release of a remastered version of the game, alongside its two expansions (which were released as standalone titles). You may be wondering why a non-horror game is being reviewed here, that is for two reasons, firstly that dystopian futures are not too far removed from apocalypses (that are prime for being covered), secondly, I damn well love everything cyberpunk.

The game takes place in Seattle in the later half of the 21st century, a world where megacorporations run the world. So far so cyberpunk, the difference here is that the world of fantasy has been merged with it. Alongside hacking and cyberspace you also have magic and demons, as well as typical fantasy beings such as orcs, elves and dwarves. You play as a Shadowrunner (I think they are basically mercenaries) who has been sent a pre-recorded message from a former partner, Sam informing them of their own death. From beyond the grave they have requested that you bring their murderer to justice, with a large sum of money being the reward for doing so. It soon becomes clear that Sam was murdered by a serial killer, someone who has links to very powerful people who are set on irreversibly altering the landscape of the world.

So, Shadowrun Returns is an isometric tactical role playing game. Combat takes place on a grid system with your three action points allocated to moving your character around, shooting at enemies and using special abilities and items. The combat is basically the same as that of Gears: Tactics, but this part of the game has been merged with a more traditional RPG element. The game is split into chapters, each putting you and your team into a small area to either do some investigating or fighting enemies. This is dialogue heavy with conversations often being more detailed than you may expect, I kind of got Planescape Torment vibes. Rather than get experience points you instead are given karma points for doing actions such as completing mission objectives and surviving encounters. These points can be pumped into a series of skill trees that let you do everything from becoming better skilled at using weapons, to having better magic and better cyberspace skills. Talking of cyberspace, this is a whole different area of the game you can travel to optionally. Here you fight computer programs and can summon your own programs to fight alongside you.

The Ascent (2021) - Cyberpunk Video Game Review (X-Box Series X)

Whatever you may think of Cyberpunk 2077 (personally I'm quite enjoying it despite its faults) it can't really be argued it has pulled the whole cyberpunk genre closer to the mainstream. I hadn't really had much to do with that genre outside of Blade Runner but I really got a thirst for it and so had to try Neon Giant's new action RPG game The Ascent. As always for people who don't know, I happily class any kind of dystopian future as worthy of writing about on this blog, it sits close to the post apocalyptic genre after all.

The game takes place within an arcology on the futuristic dystopian world of Veles. People who have travelled to that world with promises of a bright future instead find themselves indentured to the corporations based there, often for life, in order to pay off the cost of their travel. You play as one such person, indentured to The Ascent Group. One day the corporation's all powerful A.I mysteriously goes offline, essentially putting it into administration. Initially working for stack boss Poone (voiced by Joplin Sibtain), who is attempting to consolidate power in order to stop rival corporations from taking over the archology, you eventually end up working for a rival group who are very interested in discovering just what happened to cause such a powerful corporation such as The Ascent Group to shut down.

The Ascent is an isometric overhead twin stick shooter with RPG elements to it. So many times nowadays games seem to just never know when to end, it was refreshing to reach the end credits here within around twenty hours or so, having done nearly all the side quests. The game takes place within the archology that consists of four levels to it. Three of these floors are huge and include no end of smaller areas within them. The archology feels like a real living world, much of the game's locations are made up of shopping districts and housing complexes. In a real breath of fresh air there are civilians absolutely everywhere, gun fights break out and they go fleeing for cover but always inevitably get caught in the gunfire. Thankfully you don't get penalised for killing innocents outside of some annoyed radio chatter, as there are so many running around that you can't help but clip some of them. I loved how lived in the world felt, add in a sublime soundtrack by composer Pawel Blaszczak and the cyberpunk feel is amazing. The music was key to my enjoyment, and the way it goes from downtime beats to suddenly bursting into pulsing electro synth sounds was always wonderful.

3FORCE Releases New Track "The Watchers" (2020) - Music News

With October obviously being the most hallowed month of the year for lovers of horror I am filling up my blog schedule with smaller news posts. I get so many emails that often I have to pick and choose what gets covered in my monthly news post. Things, like 3FORCE's new track would often not make the cut just due to lack of time. Sure, this music isn't horror, but anything with synth is always associated to me with the sounds of the eighties, the era that arguably included some of the most fun horror films ever created. While absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077, this track still reminded me that that game is due to arrive in November (even if it is sadly at the cost of crunch). Onto the actual news...

EDM/synthwave group 3FORCE have released a new track titled The Watchers. This four minute journey into the world of cyberpunk follows previous release Pursuit, in paving the way towards their next full-length album. The track is available on all platforms from independent synthwave label FiXT Neon. For more details on how to stream or purchase the track head here.