Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club. Or should I say what up jooms?

We are here to chat about the first few hours of Cyberpunk 2077 up until we meet Dexter in a limo and take a step out of the car.

But first, any chance you caught the new trailer for Cyberpunk edgerunners 2 that came out yesterday?

[00:00:20] Speaker B: I have not. Because I still haven’t watched edgerunners1, so I have not watched. I have not watched the trailers.

[00:00:26] Speaker A: Well, fortunately for you, it is a standalone story from the game and standalone from the first season, FYI. So it’s not not related. So you can watch it without spoiling the first season.

Okay. And it looks sick.

Comes out October 20th and can’t wait. And I especially love that we’ll be still be playing 2077 when it arrives. So double immersion in Night City.

[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I’m going to start. I got to start Edgerunners the first one, so I’ll start that here soon so then I can be done with that before.

[00:00:57] Speaker A: It’s a nice companion piece for. For the game.

I also am realizing I’m starting to talk like the commercials in the game.

Reminder, we do go into spoilers here and there, so if you want to avoid that, start at one of our previous episodes, play along and come back to another one once you’re caught up.

So before even starting, I decided this was going to be a game that I play with my dualsense Edge, which I know you play most games on, because any FPS with a good amount of mobility and jumping and sliding or dodging or whatever, it’s just so much better to use the back buttons for those than taking your thumb off the thumbstick to make a movement and not be aiming throughout the whole interaction.

I’m assuming you’re using yours as well.

[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yes. Yes, I am. Yeah.

[00:01:49] Speaker A: Well, which difficulty level did you choose?

[00:01:52] Speaker B: I chose normal. Just normal.

[00:01:54] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:01:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:01:55] Speaker A: I had intended to play on normal as usual as well. However, when I posted on Reddit introducing this season, someone mentioned that there are so many side quests and small battles that will make you overpowered by the time you finish the main story if you follow through, you know, fairly consistently without getting majorly sidetracked. So I decided to go on hard.

[00:02:18] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:02:19] Speaker A: If I find it too daunting or time consuming from dying over and over, I’ll just knock it back down to normal.

[00:02:24] Speaker B: I was gonna say. Yeah, and if it’s for me, gets to that point where I feel it’s just a bit too Easy. Then I’ll. Maybe I’ll knock it up too hard.

[00:02:31] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it very much depends on how much you’re engaging in side quests and extra activities.

[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:02:38] Speaker A: But we’ll see.

Yeah. And then we get started and.

Well, that is a unique character creator.

[00:02:49] Speaker B: It is very unique.

[00:02:50] Speaker A: No clothes whatsoever throughout the process. Very saucy indeed.

I know. I heard, for example, Baldur’s Gate 3 allows you to run around naked in camp and things like that. But this is very in depth with its customization.

Hopefully nobody has ever thought on a long plane trip. Yeah. I think now’s the perfect time to start Cyberpunk for the first time on my switch.

[00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s a little awkward sitting next to people doing that.

[00:03:20] Speaker A: It doesn’t. You know, you got to look for that rated T for teen or whatever on the box. But, hey, physical media is going away, so good luck with that. Hopefully you know a little bit about a game before you fire it up for the first time.

I’m sure there’s got to be at least one story of a passenger sitting next to someone thinking, what the hell is going on over there?

[00:03:41] Speaker B: Exactly. What are you creating?

[00:03:43] Speaker A: Um, yeah, well, how did you design your V?

[00:03:47] Speaker B: So I went with female.

I did a female V, obviously. Female voice. I did.

I.

I don’t know how to describe how to. How I designed it. I don’t know. I just kind of.

[00:04:01] Speaker A: Well, I mean, you don’t need to go into the, you know.

[00:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah, the.

[00:04:07] Speaker A: The extra details, but, like, did you model it off anything? Did you just kind of. With the sliders? So.

[00:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah, no. So I, I. I kind of kept hitting.

I. I kept hitting like, the random. The randomized filter until I sort of

[00:04:21] Speaker A: found something that was like a good base.

[00:04:23] Speaker B: Yeah, like a face. Like a base that I liked.

[00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s a good.

[00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And then went through. And just some of it I changed. Some of it I didn’t need to change.

Just like the hairstyle was wanted. Hair color, I changed a bit.

I liked actually, on the one that gave me the.

Not the. I like this. It gave me scars, which I liked as well as, like, the bits of your robotics or whatever that stick out of your face.

[00:04:51] Speaker A: What it’s called Cyberware, I think the Cyberware.

[00:04:54] Speaker B: Thank you. Yes. The bit of cyberware that’s in the face, I kept some of that.

[00:04:59] Speaker A: I love all your options.

[00:05:01] Speaker B: Turquoise.

[00:05:02] Speaker A: Turquoise. Sweet.

[00:05:05] Speaker B: I love all the eye options that you could pick. Oh, yeah, that was cool. Yeah. Some of them are crazy. I didn’t go with, like, a Regular looking eye. I went with one that sort of looks regular, but it’s not. It’s definitely.

[00:05:19] Speaker A: It’s something that you don’t see. Yeah. Something that. That a real person isn’t going to have. Yeah.

[00:05:24] Speaker B: And then like, for females as well, I don’t know, maybe you could do it as males too. Like, different. There’s a ton of different nail polish, like, for fingernails. Like a whole bunch of different designs.

[00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.

[00:05:36] Speaker B: So I chose like a cool design on there where it had like some symbols on it, like some. Some cyberpunk symbols and all that. So that was cool. And then. Yeah, that was kind of. It was more of like I went off a base and then just changed a few little.

Little filters things here and there.

[00:05:55] Speaker A: Amazing. Uh, I think, you know, I.

It’s. It’s actually great to hear that you’re doing that because it’s completely different from my kind of approach to this.

But honestly, I think from what I think I know about our sort of other selections setting up our game here, that it really kind of makes sense in my head cannon here.

So. Okay. I guess first off, it was actually not as in depth of a character designer that as I was expecting, since there were essentially just three preset faces and two primary body types with some dimensions to be adjusted and mostly otherwise it was just more tweaking that kind of standardized base template. All good. Just thought it would let us design, you know, down to the nitty gritty details from scratch, which a lot of character creators do.

But. Yeah. So I decided I was going to more or less actually role play in this game, which I don’t think I do very often and kind of throughout try to make decisions and do things that I might actually do in this crazy, ridiculous, scary scenario.

So I designed my V to be a very loose approximation of myself. Still got nowhere near what I actually look like, but, oh, well.

And while I was tempted to add all types of tattoos and scars and cyberware lines in my face and the crazy eyes, I assumed we could do that in game, so decided to hold off on that as someone coming in from out of town. And I’ll probably get progressively crazier with all those physical details as I spend more time in Night City.

So I. My plan is to, like, immerse myself and say, okay, I’m getting more ridiculous here, so I might as well, you know, keep changing up my appearance from session to session.

[00:07:52] Speaker B: Okay, I get that. Yeah.

[00:07:55] Speaker A: But, yeah. So listeners, like, with Astral Chain in our season before, we want to see what you came up with as your customized V. So everyone post a screenshot in Discord once you find a mirror or use photo mode.

[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yep, definitely.

[00:08:09] Speaker A: Alex, I did get a look at yours as well, and I posted mine in there too. But very curious to see what everyone else is doing.

Um, and since there is so much modification to be had in this game, it would be great to see an update of how everyone’s V looks at the end of each book club section this season. Or at least every time you make a significant overhaul to the way you look.

[00:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah, let’s keep.

[00:08:33] Speaker A: Keep it PG 13, though.

[00:08:36] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:08:37] Speaker A: Keep the clothes on.

[00:08:39] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:08:39] Speaker A: But yes, this should definitely be fun to see. All the variety, both of what can be done in the first place and how people express themselves in something that came to mind while doing this too. And while I’m actually kind of against this idea, considering the dystopian society we’re practically already living in as it pertains to generative AI, is that it would be really cool in a bubble to upload a photo of yourself into the character creator and have the AI create you in game and then modify from there.

Of course, that feature would probably get abused to all hell by some, so best to just avoid it ever existing.

[00:09:19] Speaker B: It’s. Yeah, I find that funny. Like, that’s the thought we have now on this. What? Back in the day, you could.

You could do that. Like when they were first trying to start doing that, you could do your face and other things.

[00:09:30] Speaker A: No. Yes. Now it would be taken way too far, way too fast, and cause a lot of problems, probably even legal problems. I’m sure CD Projekt doesn’t want that.

Well, anyway, so that’s one portion of our customization. What stats did you choose, if you remember?

[00:09:48] Speaker B: Oh, so, okay, so I do remember.

Oh, my gosh. What are they?

Hold on.

What was. What are the ones?

Reflexes.

[00:10:01] Speaker A: It’s reflexes. Body Intelligence.

[00:10:06] Speaker B: Cool.

[00:10:07] Speaker A: And I think tech.

[00:10:10] Speaker B: Okay. Okay, so I can tell you. So you start at three, right? For everything.

[00:10:14] Speaker A: You start at three for everything.

Correct.

[00:10:16] Speaker B: And you start with what? One, two.

You start with seven. I think it’s.

[00:10:23] Speaker A: I believe it’s seven points. You can put in. Yes, correct.

[00:10:26] Speaker B: So I put everything to four.

So I moved everything to four, and that left me two. And so I put an extra one into body for just max health. I always, like, do that. Anything for max. Health wise.

Yeah, I always do one extra. So I did one extra into that for body. And I did one extra into.

I want to say.

I want to say Reflexes.

Yeah, I think it was reflexes. So body and reflexes, were it body and reflexes?

[00:11:04] Speaker A: Yep. Okay.

[00:11:05] Speaker B: Four and five were both at five for me, and everything else was at four.

[00:11:10] Speaker A: Gotcha.

Yeah, I put. I put one point each into body, intelligence, and tech, and then two each into reflexes and.

[00:11:19] Speaker B: Cool.

[00:11:20] Speaker A: Okay. I think I did this mostly because I thought when starting the game that I would want to lean into stealth and blades, which I saw one. One of each of those has that kind of something related to those.

[00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I get you.

[00:11:36] Speaker A: Anyway, which origin did you pick?

[00:11:40] Speaker B: Oh, the origin was.

Oh, my gosh. What was my origin?

What were the options again?

[00:11:48] Speaker A: It’s nomad, street kid, and corpo.

[00:11:52] Speaker B: Yes, I picked corpo. What am I saying? I knew that. Yes, I picked corpo. Yeah, I went corpo. That is my origin.

[00:11:58] Speaker A: So. So you are from. The very basic description that they give you a corpo is basically you’re part of a corporation or mega corporation already. All right, you want to give us the kind of rundown like, what happened? Actually, here’s a question before I even. Just to kind of lay it out. At some point in your prologue, did you end up with this montage that passes through time quickly?

[00:12:25] Speaker B: I don’t know.

[00:12:26] Speaker A: Maybe not.

[00:12:27] Speaker B: Oh, no. Yes, sorry. Yes, I did. Yes, you did.

[00:12:30] Speaker A: Yes, I did. Bring. Bring me from the moment you, like, open your eyes up until.

Up until this montage. Because it’s probably similar to the montage.

[00:12:40] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, so similar to the montage. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I do remember now. So similar to the. Before the montage. So before the montage, when I start the game up. So once I’ve created everything, I’ve got it all. I basically hit start. I start off.

My character is starting off puking into a sink.

[00:12:59] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:13:01] Speaker B: In an office building, and then looking up into the mirror and you see yourself.

And then Jackie calls. You talk to Jackie and, like, an employee walks in, and you kind of go, like, what are you looking at?

You can choose what to say. I think I chose, like, what are you looking at?

Something like that.

[00:13:25] Speaker A: This is. Jackie is the one that walks in. Or someone else.

[00:13:27] Speaker B: No, no, someone else. Someone random. Jackie is just, like, on the.

[00:13:31] Speaker A: On the phone with you.

[00:13:31] Speaker B: He’s on the mirror or on the phone with you. Yeah, interesting.

So you do that, and then you walk out of the bathroom.

Actually, in one of the explored around the bathroom, one of the bathroom stalls is like, four people, like, smoking.

Like, what do you want? What are you doing here? And you can just, like, shut the door. On them again, like, okay, walk away.

So then you walk out. You walk out of the bathroom.

And it’s also like. It’s a. It’s a bathroom, but it’s definitely. It’s like a coed bathroom for sure.

But you walk out and you walk out sort of into like down a hall into then like the main lobby area. And there’s like people all around. There’s a whole bunch of the little discs to grab for like information.

[00:14:18] Speaker A: Like Lord. Lord. Yeah, like lore.

[00:14:20] Speaker B: Little bits of stories, other things which. Yeah, I’ve read some of them for next episode. I’ll probably go over them more. I haven’t had. I didn’t have full time to like read. There was a lot and I didn’t have time to read through some are quite long to read through all of them. So I’m going to read through all those by the time next. Our next episode.

And then basically then your boss calls you and it says like, meet Jenkins in his office. Your boss is Jenkins.

So you’re.

[00:14:45] Speaker A: Sorry, Your boss is Jenkins.

[00:14:46] Speaker B: What a.

[00:14:47] Speaker A: What a name for a corporate bastard.

[00:14:51] Speaker B: Yep. So his name is Jenkins. And so I have to go to his office. But before I went to his office, I was exploring around and I’m in the.

The company is called Araska.

[00:15:01] Speaker A: Arasaka.

[00:15:02] Speaker B: Oh, Arasaka. Thank you.

[00:15:04] Speaker A: I don’t know why I hear that through the radios all over the place.

[00:15:07] Speaker B: Arasaka.

[00:15:08] Speaker A: I’ve heard it in Edgerunners. But yes, I believe it’s a Japanese. Wait, it’s your. Your part of Arasaka?

[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yes, I’m part of Arasaka, Yes.

[00:15:17] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:15:18] Speaker B: That is who I work for.

[00:15:19] Speaker A: I believe it’s a Japanese corporation that obviously has their. Their location there.

[00:15:24] Speaker B: Okay, it definitely is.

Um, so I was like walking around and then in the lobby and I think I sent this to you as a screenshot. In one of the lobbies is a giant like mech, which I thought was pretty badass looking.

[00:15:34] Speaker A: Like it had like a museum cordon off kind of thing.

[00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah. With like a. Yeah. With Arasaka behind it. So I was like, oh, this should be pretty cool.

So I end up like taking the elevator up. I go to Jenkins office.

As you get into Jenkins office, he’s like a big ass, cool executive office. But as you go in right on this like. And it’s one of those typical things like in movies where you walk into someone’s executive office and they have a giant ass TV behind their desk.

[00:15:58] Speaker A: Of course they do. You know, they’re doing so much work.

[00:16:03] Speaker B: Oh, like a big screen not tv, but yeah. And on there is like he’s ending a meeting and he’s like basically of a. It’s sort of like, it’s very movie ish of like, okay, well then if you know you to me, you know, use to me. And then all of a sudden like people just get shot in the meeting. In the cut feeds. It just like kills people in the meeting.

[00:16:20] Speaker A: The, the boss is killing people in the meeting.

[00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah, he’s not, but whoever’s. He’s. Yeah, he just instructs somebody to like, yeah. So it’s like, oh, okay.

[00:16:29] Speaker A: And then he tells me times were had by all.

[00:16:32] Speaker B: He’s like, okay, come over here, come sit with me.

You go over, just over to a couch in the office and you go sit with him.

And basically he goes and says, look, like he’s trying to get a one up in the company. He’s trying to make his mark.

And there’s another lady in the company, another boss, and her name is Abernathy, I believe.

[00:17:00] Speaker A: Man, they really chose some names in here.

[00:17:02] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Her name is Abernathy. Yes, Corporate rival Abernathy and he wants to remove her air quotes from, from the competition, basically from the picture.

[00:17:21] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:17:22] Speaker B: And, and if you tell him like, yeah, like, yeah, you need to stand up for yourself, defend yourself, he then basically tells you, okay, I need you to do my dirty work and go kill her.

[00:17:31] Speaker A: So you’re okay. Wow.

[00:17:34] Speaker B: And I’m not allowed to, let’s put it nicely, turn down the request.

[00:17:38] Speaker A: No, I mean otherwise you’re going to be the victim too.

[00:17:40] Speaker B: Yes, so I get that. He then gives me like a ton of cash, like €45,000 dollars or whatever they, I think it’s called Euro dollars.

[00:17:49] Speaker A: Yeah, they’re, yeah, Eddies Bucks. Eddie’s Eddies are the bucks of the Euro dollars.

[00:17:54] Speaker B: Okay, that makes sense why they called Eddies then. Okay.

And he says like, oh, hire somebody to like get the job done. Like you and somebody else hire somebody.

[00:18:05] Speaker A: Oh, you need a partner. Yeah, that’s a lot of money. I don’t not have that much money.

[00:18:11] Speaker B: Well, I’ll get to that.

[00:18:13] Speaker A: Okay, continue.

[00:18:15] Speaker B: So you leave the office and then there’s another guy like outside of the office who like calls you over and says like, hey, there’s this, we have a agent or an operative who’s undercover. And they’re not sure if he’s like being caught, like he’s being fed files, but he thinks they’re, they’ve kind of know that he’s an undercover. What’s it and they’re feeding him the wrong files. Should we pull him or keep him in there? And I said the option of keep him in there, see if he can still figure it out and get back on the good side.

And then like I go to my desk. I don’t remember. There was like little notes on my desk and other things, like little emails to read.

[00:18:51] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:18:52] Speaker B: But it wasn’t like too much. Then some of the useful stuff in my desk, like a medical card, some drug that helps boost stamina or other things.

And then after that you leave and you use.

Oh, you get to use. You get to go down to the garage and use the av, the automated vehicle, which are like sick looking futuristic vehicles where they’re flying in the sky. Like the side opens up. It’s very much like, it’s something for me. Like that’s from like Blade Runner or.

[00:19:26] Speaker A: I’ve seen elements hovering around. Yeah.

[00:19:29] Speaker B: So I get in one of.

[00:19:30] Speaker A: I have not been in one. That’s cool.

[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So I get in one of those and I’m going to a bar.

I’m going to a bar to go talk to Jackie.

So.

[00:19:45] Speaker A: So, yeah, I’m sure you’ll get here, but I do want to know who Jackie is to you.

[00:19:51] Speaker B: Jackie and me is like a good. It’s a friend from what I gather.

Friend. Yeah, okay, colleague. Someone you’ve worked with, know well.

[00:19:58] Speaker A: But is he, is he also a corpo?

[00:20:01] Speaker B: No, he is not a corp.

[00:20:02] Speaker A: He’s just a friend of yours from before.

[00:20:03] Speaker B: He’s a friend of you from. Yeah, he is not a corpo.

So you go there and you go, you get in the car and then you go to Lizzie’s bar. And what’s funny is like, she basically said the car says to you, like, oh, there’s no parking around. She’s like, just park anywhere. And you park on a roof and people get up to you and like start yelling at your face like, hey, you can’t park here. We’re playing basketball. Blah, blah. And then you like just beat the crap out of one and then the rest are like, okay, sorry.

[00:20:32] Speaker A: It’s like, okay, you’re just a standup citizen there, Alex.

[00:20:36] Speaker B: Exactly. I know.

So we go into Lizzy’s bar, then I meet Jackie. I have a good talk with Jackie. Like, just basically like, jackie, you don’t have to take the job. Yeah, shoot the shit. Basically, Jackie’s like telling him what I have to do and he’s like, don’t take the job. Don’t do that. You know, it’s like basically the end of you if you do do it or don’t do it, whatever.

And then out of nowhere, this group of gentlemen come up. They.

I don’t know what they’re called.

Forgot what they’re. Yeah. Actually, before they show up, you ask Jackie if he wants to help out and he says no.

He’s like, I don’t want to be part of it.

I forgot what they’re called. But it’s basically just a group who are part of the Arasaka. They’re Arasaka, I guess the thugs. They’re part of the Arasaka.

[00:21:32] Speaker A: They’re like corporation owned by Arasaka.

[00:21:34] Speaker B: And they come up to you and basically say, hey, give us the shard that you have and everything or else.

And so you kind of. You have to give in to them. Like, you’re such a big idea here.

[00:21:47] Speaker A: Like you’re all part of the same thing.

[00:21:50] Speaker B: I know. So. And then they take that and then they take all your cash as well. So then I’m left with like just over a thousand euro dollars.

[00:21:58] Speaker A: Okay. So does the president or CEO of Arasaka think you’re. You’re bailing on him or just. Or do you.

You tell them that you, you got robbed by.

[00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So they come in and they basically take it from you and they basically force you to tender your resignation from Arasaka.

[00:22:18] Speaker A: Do you know if it’s. Do you know if it’s their decision or the leader’s decision?

[00:22:23] Speaker B: I think it’s from the leader, the gentleman who runs.

[00:22:26] Speaker A: So why don’t he give you the job in the first place?

[00:22:28] Speaker B: Well, I think that was an under the table job from Abernathy because I think I’m not Abernathy from Jenkins because Abernathy is also part of Arasaka. So I think he just wants to take out a colleague.

[00:22:40] Speaker A: Okay. I am very. Oh, all right. It’s the pieces that are coming together.

[00:22:45] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. He wants to take out a colleague basically so he can obviously work his way higher up into the corporation and be the main person.

[00:22:53] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:22:55] Speaker B: So, yeah. So they basically come tell you that you’re resigning and they take all the money and the shard that they have. When you through all that information about that.

[00:23:04] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:23:05] Speaker B: Um, and then they start to threaten you more, but then Jackie kind of steps in and they back off.

Um, and then from there on then, then I get the, the whole montage.

[00:23:19] Speaker A: Then you get a montage and then it. Where does the montage kick you out into?

[00:23:23] Speaker B: Is it like a year and a half later?

[00:23:24] Speaker A: I think I, I Don’t know.

[00:23:27] Speaker B: I don’t remember.

[00:23:28] Speaker A: It might be different. I think mine was six months, but

[00:23:30] Speaker B: maybe it’s six months. Oh, maybe. Okay. Yep. Never mind. I think it may have said half a year later.

[00:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. Yeah, so it’s.

[00:23:36] Speaker B: Yeah, okay, so it’s six months later.

[00:23:38] Speaker A: So. And then from there, from six months later, where. Where does the montage spit you out?

[00:23:46] Speaker B: Spits me out in like an apartment complex that I.

[00:23:51] Speaker A: Where you live?

[00:23:52] Speaker B: Not where I live. No, it’s on a job with Jackie.

[00:23:57] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:23:57] Speaker B: It’s a gig.

[00:23:58] Speaker A: It’s a gig. Okay. It’s probably the same gig as mine. All right, let me tell you my. My origin story here.

[00:24:03] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:24:05] Speaker A: And we can get back to that.

[00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s fine.

[00:24:07] Speaker A: So I went with Nomad, which is the complete polar opposite. It sounds like from the corpo, never even been to Night City and have lived outside in the desert essentially, or even farther, who knows?

So anyone who played street kid, I’m curious to hear what that origin story sounds like for starters, but yes. So I went with Nomad, as I’m more of an outdoorsy person than a big city person and I’ve moved and lived in various states and countries over the years. Seemed fitting enough since I’m trying to roleplay.

The story starts again as I was looking in a mirror, kind of like you were. Didn’t throw up, which is nice, in a mirror of an auto mechanic shop.

And I ripped a patch that was sewn on my jacket off and ditch it. And then talked to the mechanic himself since he wasn’t doing anything particularly quickly for my broken down car. I moved him aside and hotwired it to get it started.

And then basically start telling the guy, I need to talk to Jackie, but my radio isn’t working.

And just like that, in that moment, the town sheriff walks in, trying to be all intimidating. But I kept brushing his comments aside until he let me leave the auto body shop without a scene, drive like a block and a half away to this radio tower in this really small town and got a hold of someone named Willie McCoy, who revealed to me, but not to my character obviously, that.

That I abandoned my. Abandoned my Nomad clan that’s called the backers with 2Ks.

The rest of them joined up. The rest of the Backers, when I bailed on them, joined up with something called the Snake Nation, which sounds like a gang of some sort. And my character before I was a part of it, just wasn’t having it, so bailed.

If only I could remember any of this. Stuff feels like I have amnesia, but that’s just. That’s just the real life meta me.

So turns out Jackie was my client.

So Willie gave me the geolocation data and I was off to meet up with Jackie.

And when I arrived, he spoke some Spanish almost immediately, so I knew we were going to be buds.

But this is actually the first time we’re meeting face to face, so.

[00:26:32] Speaker B: So, yeah, he speaks Spanish for me too.

[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I’m assuming that’s. That’s similar to the character anywhere.

[00:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:26:39] Speaker A: Um, so. So yeah, so we’re just meeting for the first time. We, like, both share a tiny bit of detail about ourselves to like, you know, create a bond for this job, because that’s the way Jackie operates. And we had to smuggle something into Night City, get to the border crossing. And I told the guard I didn’t have the Nomad clan backing.

You know, like, if you’re supported, then I guess you get more leeway because he let me go ahead. But then almost immediately afterward, we got ambushed by enemies from the corporation that owned whatever the packages that we had. So border guard tipped off the corporation and they swooped in and it sounds like, yeah, if I had said the name of the clan that was backing me that I was with instead of saying, I don’t have anyone, maybe those guys don’t. Maybe the border agent’s not so bold. Maybe those corporate sort of guards or enforcers don’t show up. But anyway, right away, you kind of see the ways that your choices and conversations can lead to different outcomes here. So that’s pretty cool.

And just like that, I was reinserted into that special brand of CD Projekt Red Storytelling, which made me even more stoked to continue playing this.

So I got Jackie’s driving the car.

I’m shooting outside of the window, like knocking off these essentially SUVs that are chasing us down.

And once we escape, Jackie comes clean that he was just going to cut and run without paying me.

But we decided to work together a bit longer anyway because, you know, we got through something difficult together. Um, instead of bringing the package that we’re. We smuggled in to whoever was paying for it, he, Jackie decided to open the crate.

And it had what he called a real life iguana inside. So I guess animals aren’t so common to see.

And it was basically in this metal cooler chest thing. Couldn’t tell if it was just super cold to keep it alive, but dormant, or actually just dead and on ice.

Certainly not what I expected to see in there. I was expecting a weapon or lots of money or something inside there.

And then just as Jackie was saying how he’d help me find a place to live in Night City, the iguana woke up and joined us in the conversation.

[00:29:11] Speaker B: Huh.

[00:29:13] Speaker A: I didn’t start talking. I should clarify that.

It just. Basically, I was looking at Jackie in the face in a different direction, and all of a sudden the iguana just pops into the screen and it’s just kind of hanging out, looking around.

So, yeah, it got fomo. It wanted to be included.

And I will say, up till now, I have not seen iguana again, so who knows what happens to it? Maybe it’s Jackie’s pet.

[00:29:37] Speaker B: Oh, maybe.

[00:29:39] Speaker A: Anyway, then as we shook hands, it dropped me into. Right, that massive montage of just doing all kinds of stuff and gave me control again a half a year later.

Didn’t really expect that montage to happen, but I suppose everything in between wasn’t all that useful to us.

So the next job right after that is in this apartment building for you. Was it also this job to save someone named Sandra?

[00:30:09] Speaker B: Yes, I believe it’s called the rescue.

[00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. It’s Sandra. She’s an abducted medical team person.

Yes, yes. Ends up dark very quickly with her body on ice, along with another guy. Okay, we’re in the same question.

[00:30:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, That’s.

[00:30:27] Speaker A: We’ve. We’ve converged the scavengers, tried to pull the valuable pieces out of her. Reminded me a bit of the movie Touristas where, spoiler alert for a very old movie. They were harvesting organs for sale on the black market. Not a pleasant sight at all.

Not a particularly great movie, but I think there’s a lot of this kind of black market organ stuff or cyber parts stuff going on here.

[00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah, Cyberwares. Yeah.

[00:30:55] Speaker A: And then I. I don’t know how you went through that. I. It’s obviously still kind of a tutorial. So it’s telling you how you can hack people and guards and stealth and choke people out and work your way around.

I just did that instead of shooting people. Yep.

[00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn’t shoot. I kind of. I hacked things and then. Yeah, right. Yeah. Was able to stealth most people. I said, I’d like Tom the hack on a couple of the guys. I was able to overheat them, set them on fire.

[00:31:22] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, yes, that. That.

[00:31:23] Speaker B: That’s a fun one. That’s a fun hack.

[00:31:27] Speaker A: And then. So you drop her off in the.

On the balcony, essentially, or you’re bringing her to the balcony and she gets picked up by basically the paramedics in one of those helicopter car things.

[00:31:39] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:31:41] Speaker A: Which I had seen that before in. In Edge Runners.

[00:31:47] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:31:48] Speaker A: And yeah. And then you kind of just leave her and go on your way. So I’m glad they didn’t try to shoot us because we weren’t the ones that did anything.

[00:31:54] Speaker B: No. But they got angry because I was standing too close. I was like waiting at the platform. Yeah.

[00:32:00] Speaker A: Standing.

[00:32:00] Speaker B: And I didn’t realize you have to

[00:32:01] Speaker A: like, scoot back up to the door. Back up.

[00:32:03] Speaker B: And it’s like, oh, okay.

[00:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, sir.

And yeah. But so she’s fine. They didn’t shoot us. Happy to see that.

And then we finally get back to Watson where we live and get to wind down and sleep, but there’s a. Some sort of lockdown going on.

[00:32:26] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:32:26] Speaker A: Do you. Obviously you also live in Watson because this is. Right.

[00:32:30] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:32:31] Speaker A: You’ve been ousted from your corporation.

And from there it’s off to the Ripper Doc to see if we have acquired a virus by plugging into Sandra.

[00:32:42] Speaker B: Sandra. Yep.

[00:32:47] Speaker A: Because, I mean, I didn’t see anything actually like, manifest on our character, but it seemed like they’re going through something.

Did you just start kind of wandering from here? Because it seems to basically open up at this point after the Ripper Doc.

[00:33:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I kind of. Yeah. So I.

[00:33:05] Speaker A: Even before the Ripper Doc, like, once you. What you like, you jump into your apartment. Like, I changed my clothes and.

[00:33:10] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I changed my clothes. I did.

[00:33:12] Speaker A: I took a shower. Which didn’t. I expected it to give me like a refresh of like, stats or like give me a stat boost temporarily or something. But like you fall asleep and then wake up.

[00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I was also. I’m not gonna lie, I think this was just because of one, the character building and two, I think because of Death stranding, I thought with the shower scene, they might have shown you more. I’m not wanting to, but like, just of. Because like we’ve seen it with Death Stranding and then like, as I said, with how the character building and everything

[00:33:40] Speaker A: was, you would expect that maybe a shower would be like a full on shower, which is pro and skippable. But like, no, none of that happened. Like, you just get like a five second scene of. Or like first person scene of water falling and that’s it.

[00:33:53] Speaker B: Which is fine. I think as I said, it was more of my expectation because after playing Death Stranding.

[00:33:57] Speaker A: Yeah, no, yeah, totally. I mean, dust training was all about Norman Reedus.

[00:34:02] Speaker B: Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, otherwise. Yeah, I did that. And then I walked around like the apartment complex a bit or whatever.

[00:34:12] Speaker A: Did you? I. I stopped off to box against a robot.

[00:34:15] Speaker B: Yep, I did that.

[00:34:16] Speaker A: And then pick up a side quest for that.

[00:34:18] Speaker B: I haven’t continued it after that yet.

[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And then go hang out at like the street food stand with Jackie. Did you do that too? Yeah, he’s. He’s just sitting there eating some noodles. Made me hungry.

[00:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:34:33] Speaker A: And so. Yeah. Oh, go.

[00:34:35] Speaker B: Go ahead. Yeah, No, I picked up something. Is it for tea? Bugger. It was another like modification for me that I picked up that I was.

Yeah, I cannot remember what it was called.

[00:34:45] Speaker A: I may have picked that up. You know, I haven’t done enough like. Or any modification. Like, I guess I’ve equipped some things but don’t recall at this point.

But yeah, like I, you know, you sit there.

Jackie says as he’s eating that he. We have a job coming up with Dexter, who has a major reputation in the neighborhood and was gone for a few years, but is back now.

[00:35:13] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:35:16] Speaker A: And then you get. Yeah, you get to just wander and. Did you go straight to the Ripper Duck? I did. Because it’s just so close.

[00:35:21] Speaker B: I did, yeah. I went straight to the Ripper Doc.

And yeah, basically I didn’t purchase anything extra because there are a few things you could purchase for. I think I had like 1400 credits or whatever. There was like something for a thousand or something. Yeah.

I think it was all the stuff that was zero, which was part of the mission, which was zeroed out. Yeah. Okay.

Which I forgot. One was something for your eye for

[00:35:46] Speaker A: a bit of scanning and created optic mod and a hand mod that basically enables the hud.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, you get the option to upgrade some of the other body parts as well.

I. I will say, I mean, without interacting with it a ton. I love the interface in the Ripper Doc.

Like, it’s just cool how the stat upgrades are integrated into the things you can potentially attach to yourself physically.

[00:36:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:36:16] Speaker A: You know, very immersive. I also got a.

Take a second to appreciate the name Victor Vector.

[00:36:22] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Some of the names are fun.

[00:36:30] Speaker A: And yeah, I mean you have a free option to go wherever you want. But I just went on and completed the last bit here and meet up with Dexter in the limo, which opens up a branching two part quest that will kick off our next section.

And based on the description of it, I think I actually recall seeing the meetup with Evelyn Parker that he described in a gameplay reveal video before the game released.

[00:36:58] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:36:59] Speaker A: It was like one of those extended like 10 to 15.

It could be someone else completely or farther into the game, but it sounds like what that was.

[00:37:07] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:37:08] Speaker A: Do you remember seeing that, too?

[00:37:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I do. Yeah. And I also picked. When I got out of the car and Jackie, like, asked you how it went and everything. I think I said my first off was, I’m gonna go see Parker first.

[00:37:19] Speaker A: I think I went the other direction.

[00:37:21] Speaker B: Okay. So.

[00:37:22] Speaker A: Because when I said the other one, it said, he’s gonna. Jackie’s gonna meet up. Meet up with you. But, yeah, I guess we’ll know when we see it and go through that Evelyn Parker mission if it was the one from the gameplay trailer way back when.

I’m excited, though. We’ll be rolling in Eddie soon, if Dexter’s telling the truth.

[00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And that will be nice because I’ve been to, like, I’ve been to some stands and I found a gun shop and all that too, but I was like, well, one, I don’t.

And two, like, I don’t have. Or if I do have enough, I’m like, I don’t want to buy anything just yet. I want to figure this all out and then see what I really need. Because there’s a lot of, like, modifications. Little modifications that you can buy for yourself. Weapons, everything, Tons. So, yeah.

[00:38:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, it’s. I suppose it’s like it was. For a moment, I thought it was going to be an odd breaking point for this episode because.

Because it was kind of like what feels like the start of a mission. But it’s really just like we’re about to open up the world in a way where we’re going down like a true big important task.

So I. Did you play much after this point, or did you call it a day?

[00:38:34] Speaker B: No, I kind of called a day. I haven’t had too much. I did a tiny bit of driving around, but I didn’t have too much time.

I was driving around, and then I was driving through, like, an alley, getting to somewhere. Oh, I will say before finishing or before getting in with Dex. I think when I was seeing the Ripperdoc, I got a side quest thing for now. Who gave it to me? Was it T bug? I mean, T bug someone for cyberpsychosis or cyberpsychos.

[00:39:00] Speaker A: Yes. Huh.

[00:39:01] Speaker B: So I have to take those down.

[00:39:02] Speaker A: That’s one of the fixers. Yep.

[00:39:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So I was actually gonna. On my way to go take one of those out. I haven’t. I haven’t got to that yet. I Was gonna do one of those first before I started on the main missions again. But I was driving through an alley and some guy like all of a sudden just started shooting at me.

I was like, what? So I got out of my car and I shot him. And then I slashed him with a katana and dumped him in a. And dumped him in a dumpster. Because I was like, why are you just shooting me?

[00:39:29] Speaker A: Well, they fired first.

[00:39:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the police started to come, so I got my car and drove off.

[00:39:35] Speaker A: Yeah.

So reasonable.

[00:39:38] Speaker B: Exactly.

[00:39:40] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I’m sure it’s possible to do all of the same side quests and all that, so I’ll try to keep the details somewhat vague, but you know, definitely some entertaining stuff here.

I did try to enter the boxing match in the neighborhood, you know that follow up to that quest.

[00:40:00] Speaker B: The kabuki or something.

[00:40:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, whatever that’s called. But kabuki is the neighborhood, I think, or the like sub neighborhood in the district of Watson.

So I got there, but it required a buy in of at least 4,000 eddies, or it could go up to 8,000 and I had like 350.

So put that quest on the back burner and I’ll get back to it next time.

[00:40:23] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:40:25] Speaker A: And then yes, there’s the fixer task to hunt down, track down 17 cyberpsychos and take them down, ideally alive.

So I did get to one. I don’t know if it was the same ally you’re talking about, but one that was nearby tried sneaking up on him to no avail. Multiple times. And he would basically just turn around, swarm me. He had some way to do like this. Three, like a lightning bolt shaped dash towards me in super speed.

[00:40:56] Speaker B: Whoa, okay.

[00:40:57] Speaker A: And. And barely took any damage for my base weapons, so I decided to come back later.

[00:41:02] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, I will see what this first one’s like. And if it’s like that, then I will. Yeah, hold off on that.

[00:41:07] Speaker A: I don’t know how much of that is related to being on hard mode, how much of it is related to being on not being upgraded and not having high quality weapons.

But we’ll see. I’ll try it again.

I did also, in some random neck of the woods, find a Buddhist monk who was all chromed out, but it was against his will because of a gang called Maelstrom, who are, I’ve turned out to find out, are just sadistic assholes who modify people that they kidnap for their own amusement.

And this monk sent me to find his brother at their hideout nearby.

And he asked Me not to spill any of their blood either. So I went along with it, hacking computers and floodlights to distract enemies, then sneak up and knock them out.

And then in the last room, a security camera is there to watch movements of a roaming guard. So I hacked into that good fun quest and set the monk free before he was victim of the, you know, modifications. I think he got out without any of them, which is good. And found a whole lot of cash around the place too.

Okay, so these side gigs are a good way to make money, obviously.

And I even found a sweet submachine gun called Fenrir that has ricochet capabilities and electric bullets.

[00:42:27] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:42:28] Speaker A: So that’s my primary gun at the moment.

I’m sure there are plenty of variations of things like that all over.

[00:42:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I have to look also see if I can find this quest or keep driving around looking.

[00:42:42] Speaker A: Yeah, let’s see. What else did I see? I also ran into a street performer who was just kind of jamming on a guitar.

No quest related at all. Just kind of like a cool world building thing.

Playing these really chill riffs on his guitar. Electric guitar. And despite the fact that he had very weird comments about collecting knees and wanting to trade jaws with you every once in a while, I just hung out and listened to his music.

[00:43:09] Speaker B: There you go. Yeah,

[00:43:13] Speaker A: there’s another one where I won’t tell you this because it’s too funny, but I picked up this side quest where a guy was just stumbling around screaming in pain and you need to help him, but it’s a. It’s. I. I’ll wait until you find it yourself and come back to me with it, because you can tell the devs had fun with this one. It’s just such a ridiculous thing to happen, but makes a lot of sense in, you know, the world of Night City here.

Hilarious. I was laughing the whole time.

[00:43:43] Speaker B: Okay, I’ll have to find that one.

[00:43:45] Speaker A: Um, and I did another one where I saved a doctor from a maelstrom hideout.

[00:43:50] Speaker B: Uh, wow, You’ve done a few. Nice.

[00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I just got sucked in and wanted to keep going. Um, and she wanted to keep helping her current patient, even though I. I let her finish her job. But I had just killed everyone else on the way in, so. Oops.

Um, and I think the last one, there’s one more quest quest related to that maelstrom gang where I had to find footage of their initiation ritual. And I tried to sneak in, but then got caught very quickly. And I had my first glorious usage of a red bladed katana that I found just before that and started just hacking them all apart. It’s a really fun weapon.

[00:44:35] Speaker B: There you go.

[00:44:36] Speaker A: Nice.

So, yes, trying to keep. Keep the story details light here but.

But there’s a lot of fun to be had with just kind of the random side gigs or jobs and I guess a couple of tidbits or tips that I picked up along the way.

So the, on the map, the green gigs are like these small moments you can find of something random but interesting going on that you can get some kind of reward out of.

While the yellow side jobs, as they’re called, are more fleshed out, secondary story focused, true side quests that might take more time and are generally even more interesting.

[00:45:16] Speaker B: Okay, and these ones with like the

[00:45:17] Speaker A: yellow side quests that you did, you know, it’s a combination. I’m just seeing anything that’s either one of those and just if it’s nearby, I’ll just drive to the next one.

[00:45:26] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don’t know

[00:45:28] Speaker A: if I’m going to be totally 100 exhaustive. I might, I’m enjoying this a lot so far. But, but that’s. There’s also on the map, blue NCPD scanner things called hustles that I haven’t tried yet.

I’m not sure even how to start them to be honest. But so yes, the green, I think their exclamation points are gigs that are lower effort with a little reward. The yellow ones are the side quest side jobs and then there’s the blue ones also. I don’t know if you’ve driven around enough to even need it, but the fast travel points start popping up all over the map.

[00:46:03] Speaker B: Yeah, they’re blue as well.

[00:46:05] Speaker A: You can’t just click them in your map and teleport there.

You have to walk to the closest fast travel terminal near to where you currently are and from there select another terminal on the map to fast travel.

[00:46:19] Speaker B: Okay, got it. Okay. That’s how it works.

[00:46:21] Speaker A: So avoid the frustration of like hitting X a million times on the map.

But yes, that that wrapped up my kind of run through this week. What are your first impressions overall of the game, Alex?

[00:46:39] Speaker B: I’m enjoying it so far. I haven’t gotten nearly as much into it as you. I haven’t had time, but I’m hoping now for the second section and all that I’m definitely have more time. So I’m going to definitely immerse myself more into it and do side quests and some other stuff. So.

[00:46:56] Speaker A: Yeah, even so, without diving in too far, it’s Still a nice kind of introductory phase to setting the stage for everything to come. Which there’s a lot to come.

[00:47:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m sure. Oh, I’m sure I just found this just a random little thing. So once we got that optic nerve and we could scan and get more. I would just scanned them by 20 random people and all of them had different names and I was like, oh my God. CD Projekt Red. Like literally named a million people name.

[00:47:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Unique name. Like maybe the character design isn’t so unique, but they just randomize, you know, all the stuff.

[00:47:34] Speaker B: But.

[00:47:35] Speaker A: Except for the main story ones. But the.

Yeah, no, they went all out and like a lot of them have some degree of backstory too. Like at least along the quest. And like this I. You know, before I ran to that cyberpsycho that just shredded me multiple times, I picked up a couple like of those notes on the ground and all the characters littered on the ground have story to them in that.

[00:47:58] Speaker B: So.

Yeah.

[00:48:00] Speaker A: Wild. But this is. This is your first CDPR game. This is what they’re like. So go back to Witcher 3 after this because it’s just like that. It’s great.

[00:48:09] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:48:09] Speaker A: Not immediately after. I know.

[00:48:11] Speaker B: No, no. But I think this is going to get me excited to play.

[00:48:14] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.

Any other first impressions?

[00:48:19] Speaker B: No, I just. I’ve. I’ve been enjoying it.

[00:48:22] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:48:23] Speaker B: Yeah. I’m excited to see.

[00:48:24] Speaker A: I will say also, and I guess I’m curious because I know you use your back paddles or back buttons for shooting in other games, but did you use that or the adaptive triggers here, like the L2 R2?

[00:48:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s L2 R2 still for me.

I don’t rematch because we just did

[00:48:45] Speaker A: the Ratchet and Clank Rift apart where I think you swapped over. But I think any PS5 era game that has. Yeah, that has shooting, I’m gonna be using the triggers for shooting. I love how the adaptive triggers do something when you’re driving a car and it shifts gears.

[00:49:04] Speaker B: Do they. In this one, it’s that. I did not know.

[00:49:06] Speaker A: So unnecessary to put that. But it’s so immersive because you like notice it both visually and you just like feel a little bit when the car shifts gears. It’s great. Love it.

[00:49:16] Speaker B: Okay, I’m gonna have to. I’ll just have to try that out.

[00:49:19] Speaker A: The tiny details are awesome.

[00:49:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:22] Speaker A: I know you’ve only done a little bit of it so far, but did you drive in first person or one of the multiple outside of the car camera angles?

[00:49:28] Speaker B: Outside of the car.

Camera angles is what I did. I didn’t do first person. I did. Yeah. Outside of the car. I’m not as good at first person for driving.

[00:49:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I, you know, I think it’s been a long time since I’ve played a game that has driving like this any. In any format.

But so like the right stick moving kind of the. Where you’re looking towards while the, while the left stick is, you know, turning but kind of floaty really throws me off. And like the first time I drove, which was from outside of the city into it, I was doing first person because like, hey, it’s a first person game. I think it makes sense, but it’s really tricky to get used to. I forced it more recently just for immersion and it’s definitely fun. But like in the car, the couple times I’ve been in a minor car chase trying to escape gangs following me, I’ve switched to third person because I can’t react quickly enough. Especially like when you’re going about to go down a hill and you just see the hood of your car take up 80% of the screen. It’s like, you know, you need more. More of a reaction time.

[00:50:37] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

[00:50:39] Speaker A: But I don’t know. And actually I’m curious what car you have too, because mine has like this little, you know, bobblehead dog thing that looks kind of like Batman with giant teeth.

[00:50:50] Speaker B: Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t paid that much attention. Oh no, I will get back to you on that.

[00:50:54] Speaker A: You haven’t done as much first person. Yeah, it’s interesting, but I’ll take a look.

Otherwise, I guess we haven’t quite seen enough of gameplay honestly to really make any statements or even take a step in any particular build direction since we’ve been on rails mostly so far.

So we’ll just have to hold our tongues until we’ve been let loose more.

[00:51:13] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.

[00:51:15] Speaker A: Notably absent this go around is Johnny Silverhand, who I expected would actually make an appearance fairly quickly.

I think he said that he thought the same.

[00:51:26] Speaker B: I thought he was going to be like one of the first characters you meet.

[00:51:29] Speaker A: Yeah, same here.

But no matter. I guess a rockstar should make a grand entrance and I’m sure we’ll get it.

[00:51:37] Speaker B: I’m sure he will. Oh, he will. I’m sure he will.

[00:51:41] Speaker A: Also something I laugh with myself about regularly while playing this is that I keep catching myself hitting circle to try to close out of or end a conversation.

But you’re not actually locked into conversations unless it’s a cutscene or main story moment, and you can just literally turn around and walk away.

So you can. You’ll have the text on the screen like you can. Usually you’re stuck in that, but no, not here.

And yeah, I think you kind of touched on it earlier. I do find myself hesitant to go down any particular build path quite yet, even though I. I know how much it will help, especially in combat, to obviously put our upgrade points in. I. I guess I want to find and try out more weapon types and mods before committing to something.

[00:52:32] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Same here. Yeah.

[00:52:35] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean, if. If my cyberpsycho encounter is anything to go by, I’m starting to think I’m really going to struggle in those fights if I don’t use at least some of my four available ability input points soon.

Do you have any inkling of what you’re thinking of? I mean, I don’t.

Hard to say. Yeah.

[00:52:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Hard to say. Just, you know, I’ll have to.

[00:52:57] Speaker A: I do tend to enjoy stealth builds in games where they’re available.

Same. And so I think being a netrunner build would be fun because hacking security cameras and enemy Chrome is pretty cool, but at the same time, I feel like I just want to go all out firefights or melee in this game because there are so many cool abilities to do that with.

[00:53:19] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:53:20] Speaker A: So I don’t know if I want to keep it so quiet all the time.

Decisions, decisions.

[00:53:26] Speaker B: There’s a lot of decisions. There are going to be a lot of decisions we have to make.

[00:53:29] Speaker A: There’s also, and I don’t know if we talked about this last time with our expectations, but I. You know, I mentioned as I watched the first season of Edgerunners, there’s this some kind of mod in the world called Sandevistan, which basically lets you slow down time or go super speed or something of the sort. I’m assuming that exists in this game.

So that would be cool to use in stealth. Like just zip in and kill someone they don’t even know you’re there.

[00:53:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that’d be cool.

[00:54:00] Speaker A: I don’t know if it’s like, do I prefer that? Or hacking.

Catch us next time for more information on our build development as it goes.

[00:54:08] Speaker B: Definitely. Yeah.

[00:54:11] Speaker A: Okay. Alex, I have some homework for us for the rest of the season.

[00:54:15] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:54:15] Speaker A: I want you to get back to me each episode with which radio station you’re playing in your car the most that week.

[00:54:22] Speaker B: Okay, I will do that.

[00:54:24] Speaker A: And that goes for you too, listeners. Let us know on Discord.

[00:54:26] Speaker B: What.

[00:54:27] Speaker A: What radio station you’re listening to. And don’t forget to send us your photo of your V.

So for next time, play until you finish the dreamlike moment in the motel.

Ooh, mysterious.

[00:54:41] Speaker B: Ooh, very mysterious. Yeah.

[00:54:45] Speaker A: And yeah, now that things have opened up a little, feel free, of course, to complete as many side quests and random shenanigans as you feel like.

So then you can save and quit and hang on for the following episode.

[00:54:58] Speaker B: Mm, definitely. Yeah. Thanks everyone for listening and yeah, excited. Hope you guys are excited as us to delve deeper into cyberpunk and start to upgrade more and gain more weapons and see which path that we want to go, what kind of build. So yep, thanks again for listening and have a good one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of any of games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts as well as our Discord and Instagram under the same name. Thanks.