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Giantess-Cassie

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Its been a while since I did a game review and I waited on this cause i was hoping for updates to come out to flesh things out a bit.


Cyberpunk 2077 was definitely one of the most hyped games of all time. Which has set a extremely high bar and low margin of error for CD Project Red.

Based and taking extremely heavily from the pen and paper RPG Cyberpunk 2020 from R. Talsorian Games and written/created by Mike Pondsmith who I hold very highly as one of the top writers of Cyberpunk Science Fiction right up there with Neil Stephenson and William Gibson.


CDPR took Id say 80-90% of what Mike Pondsmith wrote and just changed the date. doing there own story lines and taking the fictional setting of Night City California and creating a Indredibly well created living breathing city that you could drive through the same area and not see the same thing twice.

But after that they missed the mark in so many ways. Blame the pandemic but so much of this was written before it happened that it just blows my mind that they cut out the heart of there own story line out.


I will warn you now there is going to be spoilers from here on out....


The big part of there marketing was that its a RPG where you can create "Your V" and yet when you look at the character creator and what was seen in the teasers to what you got to work with you really have very generic choices to the point where the NPCs of the city look more alive and vibrant than what your character will ever be. And this is beaten into you throgh the whole game if it wasnt for the modding community out there giving some vibrance to what you can do with "Your V" you really wouldnt want to use the picture mode to take snaps of your v till you can cover V up with various generic fashon and try to make the most of it.

Which i admit I had a lot of fun with despite having limatations and then really had a blast with the mods.


The story is really set in the setting the main story line was striped bare and so linear there isnt really much RPG element to it.

They used "Plot armor" so much in the core story line there really isnt much you can do and yet there id blatant signs they had intended to have a more. From betraying your fixer to ways you could do things the strip down hits you like a hammer so many points it would have been perfect to give you options and yet you pretty much are pulled through it like your playing on rails.

The main story line has a basic theme that is prevalent what I call Eastern block Cyberpunk which i have seen in many cyberpunk stories and games that originate in that region of Europe. "your screwed no matter what you do so just do it." kinda writing that I find terribly lazy.

The main story line has 3 main paths that your forced to do and choices made for you that are so predictable and boring I had to seriously question who had blackmail on who to let this story line be used.

Being forced to follow the path of dealing with the egosentric talking tumor of Johnny Silverhand and his weathervane sense of justice and saving the world that he pulls 180s on so much the things he was fighting against becomes "oh its cool cause this person is doing it" drove it to me that this writer really either had no editor or was pushed this way by production cause the inconssitancy was madning.

In the end "your V" is revealed to be "CDRP's V" cause any social choices you made were scorched away in most of the endings.


The secondary missions feel like they had an entirely different writer. You have choices that actually effect where things go from that point. This writing almost makes up for the pathetic main story. Helping Pamam, Judy, River and Kerry Eurodyne these stories really shine. These choices will open up possiblities in the endings you have access to but fall short in giving a really diverse series of endings.

Other side missions like Sinnerman Has great feelings of redemption and the core of the cyberpunk Genera powers that take advantage of the redemption.


The fixers for the most part and there very generic Fetch or kill missions Some are thought provoking but most feel like filler.


I did play through different life paths and other than one or two missions that are focused around that life path and then a few dialogue choices has little to NO affect on the main story and anything else in the game.


They took heavily on the original games characters and groups that Mike Pondsmith did all the work for them in the creation of the world and what lead to this point that a lot of that energy should have gone to game development and well writing a good solid story.

I am a big Keanu Reeves fan and his role as Johnny Silverhand the punk rock savior of the world.. even feels flat when he should feel angry it feels hollow when hes angst its dull as if the role was phoned in. Either his voice was heavily sound edited or it was a bad immatator cause it really didnt feel or sound right For a passionate for what he was doing while alive or as the AI construct.

So many of the other voice actors did an amazing job that it raises a lot of questions of the game development and how many corners were cut.


The game play is all over the place. The RPG improvement structure trying a few different builds. Ultmately really didnt change too much for me gave you a few different hacking options, could go terminator brute force your way through or ninja stealth with relative ease no matter what I chose for skills and perks

The AI is interesting it has moments of being brain dead and other points being rather well done the enviroment playing into effect where a enemy could be so focused on you that changes in the area like you killing one of its allies becomes a obstacle for them tripping over a body or fallen debreis. Others jumping over it or using that for cover gave me a moment of feeling there was thinking going on in the AI that gave me moments of what if there was this or that could have changed the outcome.

The Driving in this game is a tragedy for anyone that enjoys driving games every vehicle feels and handles about the same some have higher top speeds than others but if you drive a car they all feel the same you drive a motorcycle they all feel the same regardless if your on the road or off. that your driving on slick tires on a road of banana peels covered in gel.

The Police AI and crime system is so bad I wont go into it.


What really makes this game stand out is the city enviroment from the city center to the badlands this game really has the feeling of a living breathing city. The well to do having the gloss of chrome and neon then fading off in various directions Through each of the game plays I never used the fast travel system cause of this. I wanted to see the city. The people, the bars and shops I visited every one I could. This is going to be a standard for any open world game to live up to. At night it truly comes alive seeing various groups soclaizing around trash fires.. parties going on in the city center or concerts in some of the clubs. it feels like out of the 6 years of game development at least 4 was on the city alone. Granted there could have been more diversity in the advertising which again the modding community fixed that as well.

Many have seen the My V photos I took so far showing how I loved finding those rare jewels of the city. I plan on posting more in the future.


For all the easter eggs and stars that had there moments in the game like Hideo Kojima in a motel bar to seeing homages to movies like the Matrix, Terminator and Blade Runner (seeing the Roy Batty scene on a rooftop really blew my mind)

And of course seeing various characters from the Cyberpunk 2020 game like Rogue, Kerry, Rache Bartmoss and Lizzy Wizzy were great highlights for me.


In short if CDPR can fix a lot of the still lingering issues and maybe unlock some of the story choices that data miners have actually found still in the game just locked off it may become more than the dragging disaster since launch.

IF they would have just focused on the next gen systems and PC there wouldnt be as much bad press for this release catastrophe that was only made worse by the over hype.


I do love the game but... I have to be honest for all the hype it does fall short.. the story is dull the game play is scattered. But .. There are the bits here and there that have some redemption for this game that I hope in the near future they will fix and through DLCs bring out what was sorely missing from it.. Maybe they can still do a Witcher 3 and pull this out of the pit its in and make something of it that they hyped up for years.

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Wow its been forever since I posted a journal well not much happened between then and now has there? (please dont throw things at me or fill my replies with what rock was I under this entire time :P )

To be honest its been a busy roller coaster that I wont bore people to death with. As those that follow me have noticed with things I mention in my posts Its been a lot of ups and downs and having good friends to lean on have kept me strong and on my feet through all of this.

Taking another full trip around the sun. Yeah the day that was marked with me being spawned has come again LOL I promise I will be good today.... Till im caught :)


I just wanted to thank everyone that has helped me in the last year for helping me stay strong and making me smile when I really couldn't. It's all of you that helped me get to this point and I coudlnt be luckier to have all of you :)


:hug: thank you everyone and Here is to another 365 days of friends new and old :)

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Continuing on with my little game reviews. As my first one wasnt exactly the best game ever .. nor ever will be.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is amazingly quite the opposite.

I will admit I'm a Final Fantasy fan girl so I may be a little biased on this.

First a little history for me and the Final Fantasy franchise my first taste was Final Fantasy 3 (6 in Japan) played on a dusty SNES that my brothers stopped playing as they had the latest and greatest system to date at the time.

Ive often said that Final Fantasy in general is a masters class in story telling from 8 bit origins simple blocky sprites able to convey such powerful emotions and masterful storytelling.

When 7 was released they left behind the Nintendo systems cause of the limitations of the system to the Playstation if they had the ability that today's systems have back then Im certain it would have looked a lot like todays remake does.

For those that threw a fit that it wasnt exactly like the original.. you want to play the original DL it off steam or get the cart from a reseller no one wants to pay full price for a scene for scene direct copy of a game you all ready played. (yes that is also a jab at rockstar for making people buy GTA V over and over again for the new systems.)


From the very beginning the nostalgia was over whelming the opening sequence mimicing the original the flying through Midgar and the arrival at the train station sets the tone for the rest of the game. The mix of cyberpunk and steampunk resounding in the theme of corporate controlled bleak multi tiered city where the population falls either to the slums below or the wage slaves on the plates living in seemingly a modern paradise.


I will admit the main story is solid but there are parts where everyone but the main characters just knew what was going to happen even before Shinra played their first card and this is regardless if you played the original or not. The over all story though is very deep and compelling. Well developed characters that you either loved or hated at the start and then changed opinions as things progressed and learned more about them.

And so many have complained about character changes... yeah you know who you are and what the issue was. :P


Settings are breathtakingly rendered although so many times I found myself getting lost as the map system is ok but not perfect especially if your trying to find a hard to find location.

I confess I have stopped in areas and just took in the scenery there is so much detail at points you just want to stop and take in the beauty. Also for me the curiosity of how or what is going on as you observe the city from various advantage points.

You will be doing a lot of back tracking between areas which is partially brought on by a compulsion to look every where after you pick up your first orb of materia on the ground in a random corner.

Also the fact that there will be points of no return that once you cross that point you cant go back. Your team will remind you if you missed something on the way and give you an opportunty to go back and get what you missed.


The Game play gives you options between Classic, Easy and normal with hard mode unlocked after your first play through. I played in normal mode most of the way through and found yes easy is way too easy but for many things get very busy in the fights and having some level of strategy against the boss's The fights at times were fustrating cause you have a lot of area to cover in some of the fights and the camera doesnt allow you to see what is coming at you so a lot of moving and turning to see where each mob is and in some of the later on boss fights where there are a lot of mobs you will have problems but find it over looked after you learn to adapt to the situation.

I confess I miss the summonings of the original where you could call upon various beasts to do a powerful attack and soften things up despite the fact that each summons was like a minute animation to up to 5 minutes and dragged on a fight for hours.

The new system you dont get to summon them unless its under certain circumstances and at that only one you can bring in to fight at your side for a time before they leave after a massive ending attack that depending on the summons can really pitch the fight into your favor to the point the challange can be lacking.


The music and audio is amazing and as all good soundtracks are set to evoke powerful emotions and nostalgia for those of us that played the original. Voice acting is mostly excelently well done with a few exceptions,

The ambient sounds and dialog of the NPCs and background noise does get repetitive and so many of those you talk to only have 3-4 responses at most so that does get annoying at times.


The ending comes way too soon and this is only at most the first disc of the original 4 disc game in total and streched out expanding areas you just brushed over in the original that does add a lot to the feel of the setting. Although some will get squeamish as there is a cross dressing scene and a few LGBQ characters that I thought were wonderfully done but others could have issues. For me it was something that added more to the game and more reality to the setting cause it just fit so well.


I definitely look forward to the next issue when its released cause this level of story telling leaves you wanting more. As all good stories Regardless if its a movie, tv series, book or game the ending leaves you with a feeling of loss leaving that world not to return. Although in this case you have to wait to go back when the next issue is released.

For those that havent played the original I highly suggest playing it although if you dont want potential spoilers then you will have to wait.

anyone on the fence on playing the remake I highly suggest playing it regardless if you played the original or not it is definitely worth your time and money.

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And can I skip a couple stops? :)

Another Year has passed and yep its my Birthday. I will say the last 365 days have been nothing short of a roller coaster with a very long downward drop. But there is so much to go and going on despite it all.

I want to thank everyone for wishing me a Happy Birthday and thank you everyone that has supported me in the good times and bad. Ive said this many times before its the community of friends and everyone else here that makes me feel big :)

Really dont think I could ask for anything for myself with so much going on in the world I have a cousin in New York a RN that has come down with Convid-19 while helping others and being away from her Husband and children. And now with the recent tragedy here just miles from where I live in Minnesota. I think the only thing I can wish for is that a vaccine to be developed or better yet a cure for Convid-19 and that calmer heads and warmer hearts come together. Also that those that wish to make things worse by taking advantage of the situation to be caught and dealt with in the court of law

I hope its not asking for too much.


I hope everyone has a better day and many more to come :hug:

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 Ok thought for a while of doing game reviews just cause I thought it would be fun and put my mind to starting with the next game I played and unfortunately it was this one. Doom Eternal was one of the games I was looking forward to playing.,.... till I started playing it.
I really honestly was looking forward to playing this game but will say this is the biggest disapointment in the series and I know the staunch even rabid fanbase will be all over me for saying this even I'm surprised I'm actually saying this but...
This game is dull, sputtering, predictable chore to play.

Seems the game developers created a massive step backwards in this game going from a Doom 2016 which was a solid game if not a little repeitive with its coorador to arena and repeat play to...

Coorador and platform to arena and repeat.. extreme repetiveness on every level.

The platforming taking over a majority fo the game play and taking away so much from the momentum you could build up that it not only feels out of place but the developers attempt to strech out gameplay cause they simply ran out of ideas. So they copied the extremely difficult platformer Celeste and slapped it into the game. Not only does it not fit but it completely takes away any momentum you may develop. when most levels is platforming you start to think is it worth going after all the hidden items when it starts to become more of a chore to play the game after time progresses not cause of the difficulty but the game drags so badly that do you really want to go after another item that will just keep the mastochistic torture going that much longer?.  

The game play itself seems to have taken a step back as well cause you spend more time maintaining by constantly replenishing stores of ammo armor and health by repetitive actions in the middle of the streched out fights that in 2016 was more of a thrill even to a perpetual repetitive action akin to summoning material attacks in a final fantasy game, seems to take forever and slows down momentum in a game that provides "fast paced" action. Granted these moves only take a few seconds but when you have gameplay that reacts in fractions of a second this just becomes a nusance.
Which feels like a sputtering engine rather than a actual fast pace solid gameplay you go like crazy for 3 minutes of sputtering fast and not so fast then the engine overheats and you sputter through to the level to the next arena.

The maps look beautifully done but there is more interesting things going on in the background than the actual game play and not only does his game hold true to its coorador shooter roots but it goes into the extreme where not only are the paths very narrow even in the open air areas your punished for any level of deviation from the path set before you with a few gift off shoot paths to gather a hidden item which in itself becomes a carrot for some that no one will bite at cause it becomes too annoying to go after and the reward for doing so so low to even bother.  
When you die from leaving a path to a stone right off the path is a instant kill and invisible walls that you slam against in a arenas when you not only can jump high enough to reach it easily but not allowed cause.. well cause reasons. So you slam into an invisible wall and slide down the developers have it so strictly set up that any level of movement is to what is set up leaving any imagination forbidden.
The repetition even streches out through the actual fighting in the arena where the tiered fights are set up in waves of 3 to 5 spans leading up to a boss like character in the Doom Hunters or later on Marauders to punctuate the end of a arena fight. The level of predictability becomes so tangible that on the first time through the game you can almost predict what will come in each wave of a arena fight.
More than a few of the arenas had the feel that they were reskins of previous maps since they all had the same items jump platforms, gymnastic poles to swing from and portals to the opposite side of the map that it didnt matter if they were different in lay out they all played the same.
With a few occasions where they added in something to a arena that changed up the way it played giving a brief moment of something new that you would only see twice and then never again.

Then there is the story and the lore. Ok I know what your going to say this is Doom there is no story. Wrong in 2016 they had a nicely set up story told through items dropped through the game and was quite well thought out.
The lore in Doom Eternal I thought was really well done.. but the actual story of this game as they tried to force in was so all over the place you had to wonder if they were just trying too hard that they just didn't have a clue of what to do. So many missed opportunities and WTF moments.
A lot of the main story with the Hell Priests could have been done literally in the first two levels but rather than doing that the Siege engine that is the Doom marine just plods around not caring that his targets were right there and decided that it would be more fun to let them run away and not save the world right there.
Just like Dragonball but without the orbs to find to restore the world after the monster of the chapter is destroying as the main characters themselves wait cause they want a challenge.
So while Doomguy goes after more demons and dragging along the destruction of the people hes trying to save the story plods on.

As much as I thought the settings were well designed the characters took a step back from 2016 where i played on a lesser machine with lesser graphics seems more detailed and polished. Eternal they look rubbery cartoonish variants that lacked detail and the pop that you felt in previous games.
The AI was also sloppy you had the fodder that a few did actually try to evade and flank others would simply swarm in making it pretty easy to dispatch early on then with the ranged added in they would try to pin you down letting the heavy hitters grind away at you. Forcing you into the run and gun twitch game play. The Marauders being the only ones where you had to use strategy to work against creating a glaring difference in game play that clashed with everything else you've done up to there appearance. The Waves would wear down your ammo and health till a fodder enemy would spawn that you could use to resupply your ammo. Although in some areas wouldn't spawn making you run around waiting for a grenade to recharge so you could grind down a high level enemy since you couldn't use the chainsaw on them to get your resupply of ammo, Yes demons are filled with ammo like homisidal pinatta's. Also since the weapons are set up that 3 pairs of weapons shared the same ammo if you ran out of ammo for one you were out two choices rather than just one making things more annoying than challanging since it would seem that pockets are an optional item on armor and you could only carry a handful of rounds for each weapon as if the developers wanted you to place shots more precise rather than the run and gun twitch style that you have to do through the game cause running out of ammo happened way too soon most of the time.
Weapons were a secondary thought if that since they were EXACTLY the same ones you had in 2016 with a few changes to one or two of them to make them look a little different. and one optional new secondary fire to the double barrel shotgun that becomes a boss defeating mechanic later in the game to grapple you to enemies but not good enough to give you a reach to assist in the platforming.Seems they will copy Predator in armor and the new weapons but wont copy Batman with the grapple to get around.

Another thing I will say they did well besides the locations scenery is the soundtrack this is one thing that all the series had was a very solid sound track. It drives you the opening riffs you instantly could feel the action ramping up driving and powerful. Ambient sounds were brilliantly done and the sound effects were solid as ever even though many were the same from 2016.

I see so many content providers on Youtube ranting away at this game 10 out of 10 and screaming to the sky that this is the second coming but when a few I watched were rabid fans of the series or in a few cases were they were being financed by ID software to do the review if not both they lost a lot of credibility to me when the objectivity was lost from the start.
If you liked the game That's great I'm glad that you did but for me this was such a chore to play I literally got to the point of playing up to the next check point and walking away. 15 minute sections cause simply was so bored of the repetition that it made watching the convid-19 briefings on TV look more entertaining than playing till you got to the next checkpoint.
Grinding through the mind numbing grind was not worth seeing the 20 second ending that was so unsatisfying that is became "thats it? all of this grind for this?" Its almost like Bethesida got there hooks deep into ID after buying them up that there starting to suffer the slide that Fallout has had over the year.
At best I can give this a struggled 5 out of 10. If your new to this series purchase 2016 and ignore Eternal entirely or wait a year and get it bundled together at $20 so you wont feel ripped off playing full price for this game.

Can now say I played it and can delete it off my hard drive.
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