Maybe that xenophobia in cyberpunk has merit after all. First Deus Ex, now this.
Was this in HR? How the fuck do I not remember this? JESUS
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
RPS: Cyberpunk 2077's E3 demo has weak gunplay and unimaginative stereotypes
- Thread starter derFeef
- Start date
Was this in HR? How the fuck do I not remember this? JESUS
This is what this game has boiled down to for me. Defenders dismissing the complaints about the regressive undercurrent of CDPR and Cyberpunk 2077 because they're excited about the shiny toy.
This is my impression as well. And yet perhaps most damning of all, aesthetically it's not even very interesting! Cyberpunk 2020 was a product of its time (that time being 1988!), which puts us in fully regurgitated retro-futurism territory, extending even to the mechanics and mods at the heart of the game play, seeming like an antiquated conception of how we might in the future modify our bodies. And this is supposed to be happening in 2077? I honestly don't know what about it I'm supposed to find inspiring or cool, so far it just seems like kind of a mess or perhaps more of an attempt to avoid having to actually imagine a substantial future of any kind.
Last edited:
The More I learn about this game the More I'm disappointed by it. Not only is their a transphobic ad in the game but their treatment of PoC is and so far. Seriously the Voodoo Boys being white in the tabletop game but mostly Black in the video game is just so stupid and offensive.
This is why minorities need be hired More to avoid situations like this. Also, as person of color it annoys me to see some people say that we overreacting to this when they're the one's not going to be affected by stuff like this.
Wait really? Uh..that's interesting. And not in a good way.
This also is making me think back to the white corporate lady with the silent black bodyguard from last year's demo.
I'd love for this all to be an overreaction because I've been dreaming of an open-world cyberpunk game for years, but I'm worried.
That's not in Cyberpunk I think.
And if even, should everything be excusable because the setting allows it?
Well I found this in just a few seconds:
"Despite the biosculpting, tattoos, feather implants, and bones through their noses and ears, most members of the gang started as average white boys. Most are male, though female members exist as well. The females are often much worse, as they have twice as much to prove as the males. "
And then there's this too:
"This is a terrorist gang of drug dealers. They engage in weird magic rituals, and deal non-synthetic drugs to students near the University. Sadistic and pitiless, they will kill, torture, and rape for any reason or no reason at all. Victims will sometimes be warned with Chicken blood and feathers on their doorstep. Or not. Their motives and practices have no consistency. Mutilating and maiming victims is common, as is dissecting their body parts for rituals or to use to inspire terror. "
From the wiki.
Yes. I posted that before even. What do you mean exactly?
Again from the Eurogamer article: "The population is now largely black, and the major language is largely Haitian Creole. We're here to meet a man called Placide, of the Voodoo Boys gang, for a mission"
That's not white boys with biosculpting and tattoos.
Last edited:
I would love to play a game that explores transhumanism and body augmentation and how that ability has changed gender/sexual/racial/ethnic identity and culture in the future, and I look forward to playing the game and seeing how these issues are handled in the context of the game and its world, but it would be great if they didn't have some idiot running their social media to make me question their motivations at every turn.
It's almost impressive watching them squander good will as soon as they accumulate it
It's almost impressive watching them squander good will as soon as they accumulate it
This is going to get ignored because it doesn't play into the narrative that the posters want
It's not getting ignored but it's also waving away the issues just because "the game is not out". What's wrong with criticizing what the see and read now?
Same as the people ignoring the issues with all of this or continue to try and handwave it away.
People going to talk about what they can see or read.
Calling it a "white supremacist fantasy" because the enemies happen to be black is straight up hyperbole. We've seen V kill white enemies too.
Theres criticizing and then there's fear-mongering.
People keep saying that but it's wrong. They're mostly white guys; not all of them.
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything that was quoted? That tweet you seem to reference may seem harsh, but I don't feel competent on commenting how that person feels seeing the pictures.
I honestly don't get the hype it's garnering. It seems like CDPR has so much capital that anything they release is subject to hyperbole. They've released cinematics that are just that and a handful of art / stills and gameplay, which I honestly think looks uninspired. Then you have these tired stereotypes.
Even then, that still feels weird.
Based what people have seen in the demo, they're now 100% black and based out of the rundown slums (rundown even by Night City's standards). And there's an instance of the protagonist sarcastically referring to their accent (specifically how they pronounce "they").
I'm not making any final judgments until I've played it, but I can't help but look at the game and CDPR with some heavy side-eye right now.
I guess all the "CDPR doesn't understand cyberpunk" people also think the creator of Cyberpunk 2020 doesn't understand cyberpunk, because he's on the project.
It feels like a bunch of people want their own game rather than what already exists in the well-established Cyberpunk 2020 setting.
It feels like a bunch of people want their own game rather than what already exists in the well-established Cyberpunk 2020 setting.
Skin tints and such were in the original tabletop RPG. Though as you say its not really excusable. Will "It's not racist its a skintint!" be the racist version of "Shes a 1000 year old dragon!"
I think if we are all honest this game can never live up to the insane hype it has been generating for years now........I'll take serviceable gameplay if the rest is as fleshed out as it was in The Witcher III.
I would really love for the new halo game to launch and be a graphical master piece like the original was on the first Xbox. The footage shown has me worried. I think if they can blow people away graphically , the buzz can come back.
Fair point on Pondsmith. One has to assume CDPR's vision jives with his. And I won't suggest that CDPR or Pondsmith have to alter that vision.
But considering the tabletop game will be 30 years old by the time this game is out, and that this is set decades after the tabletop game, I don't think some advancement / evolution in the setting would hurt.
I don't think he'd work with CDPR if their visions didn't match.
We've already seen the setting advance, but I think the people expecting this to make cyberpunk into post-modern cyberpunk set themselves up for disappointment. This is based around classic cyberpunk tropes not about reinventing it.
Sounds very....., she does not seem to have seen the demo in person. She has based her conclusion on what other sources describe.
It's seeming like that. Which again, fair play, I won't say they have to change anything to please me.
But it is a little disappointing given how much time has passed and where we are these days as a society.
Is this supposed to make what they did less racist, all they did is make a mostly white gang now mostly black. Not only are perpetuating racist stereotypes of black people but they're also calling a Haitian group Voodoo Boys. They should have just kept them mostly white instead of creating this mess.
As a PoC I definitely find this offensive and if you can't see how this is racist/offensive than....
If they were keeping accurate to the tabletop game the Voodoo Boys would be mostly white and let's not act like the tabletop game did not have it's own problems.
Last edited:
There's plenty of amazing games that take themes, settings and genres to new levels. Stuff like VA-11 HALL-A for cyberpunk. AAA will always take fewer risks than smaller games can.
In many ways "classic" cyberpunk feels so dated these days that its largely like watching an action film from the 80's/90's (or the slavish modern homages to same). A product of its time. I suppose its inevitable as any speculative fiction set in the near future is obviously going to be heavily impacted by the radical speed of technological innovation. Classic cyberpunk sort of feels like planetary romance or ray guns and rocket ships, you can enjoy it for what it is but its all very much "genre work".
I'm black. I'm not arguing anything. I'm just pointing out a factual error that I think was based on the scan that I posted earlier in the thread. I have no idea what the racial makeup of the Voodoo boys is in the game. We'd probably have to see more than a cut scene or two to know so I won't form an opinion on that based on this.
This is very true. I love how in Shadowrun they keep having to low-key retcon current huge corporations like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft as long-lost subsidiaries of the current Shadowrun megacorps or how they had to redo the whole setting because ubiquitous wireless connections became a thing in the real world.
Not sure if that is representative of that cutscene, but that person on the right does not look like a "white boy dressed as a Voodoo person"
RDR 2 had weak gunplay overall and yet it's hailed as the GOTG by many here so it just depends on the person.
Witcher 3 combat wasn't the greatest but its still my game of the gen. At worst I think it will be similar to New Vegas with the gunplay not being the best, but everything else will be amazing.
Well it certainly is cool, and at least an honest attempt to be. And the reverse is true in say Japan, they put western type and elements on things in their culture because "it's cool/different".
And I think framing educated guesses about where future globalisation might lead, and what countries are likely to have influence, and a say in that future as some some dark/menacing/nefarious thing is incredibly dishonest. It's broadly just a repsresentstion or what sci fi does, make future predications about outcomes. Why focus on FEAR?
What if Africa has an sudden huge economic boom, and a sci fi is made about about a future 50 years from now with lots of African influence on the streets and corporations of a future city. Would you be going "oh it has that African look and feel to represent the fear and negativity about a possible African takeover." No way, if anything it's the opposite. Or at least simply a tangible smart approach to take.
As history has shown creators have never gotten their own IP wrong. Not even once. Nope never.
Yeah, bruh but I don't know any of the context, okay? Maybe something changed? Maybe nothing has changed at all? Mike Pondsmith said that CDPR got/understood his world without a lot of unnecessary changes so at this point I'm taking his word for it. It's why he agreed to work with them.Not sure if that is representative of that cutscene, but that person on the right does not look like a "white boy dressed as a Voodoo person"
As far as the disrespect of naming the gang "The Voodoo Boys". people should remember that these are gangs and their naming conventions aren't necessarily sensitive towards society's concerns. And this(last paragraph):
Guess they should have assembled a panel of the world's finest cyberpunk professors and had weekly reviews. For some people here, it's never enough.
I reached out to several freelance/ media people today and they all said the gunplay was good, and one even said, "...miles beyond any other open-world game." One said that it was hard to get a grasp on how good it was because they were watching and not playing... seems like it is going to be better than okay, if not great.
They all said the game is very gory which has me excited.
Yeah my expectations for this game being good is based on how the RPG mechanics play out: If it's an immersive world where your decision-making leads to a series of notable consequences along with exploring the moral ambiguity of V and NPCs, then it's the 2020 GOTY for me.
Based on the 2018 footage shown, gunplay looks at least good enough to me. I'm hyped for CP2077 over the tech RPG mechanics and exploring themes of dystopia, transhumanism, and post-modernism. Folks are looking at the wrong game if they wanted a GOAT-tier FPS.
If having the actual creator of the (specific) setting along with a AAA studio isn't good enough for you, I'm not really sure what to tell you.
Has been posted before, by me even. The source material is what it is, but CDP choose to handle it differently within the game.Yeah, bruh but I don't know any of the context, okay? Maybe something changed? Maybe nothing has changed at all? Mike Pondsmith said that CDPR got/understood his world without a lot of unnecessary changes so at this point I'm taking his word for it. It's why he agreed to work with them.
As far as the disrespect of naming the gang "The Voodoo Boys". people should remember that these are gangs and their naming conventions aren't necessarily sensitive towards society's concerns. And this(last paragraph):
What's with the tone? Can't we discuss this normally without getting called "bro" or worse?