Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Good morning, Night City.

Gotta love that intro as the game is loading, huh?

[00:00:07] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:00:08] Speaker A: Well, anyway, welcome back to the gaming backlog book club. We are here to chat about the Moments of Cyberpunk 2077 up until finishing the quest, Automatic Love, and then leaving clouds and debriefing with Johnny outside.

Reminder, we do go into spoilers here and there, so if you want to avoid that, start at one of our previous episodes, catch up and join us again when you’re ready.

Alex, do you want to kick us off with which radio station you’ve been listening to the most this time?

[00:00:36] Speaker B: It’s still Night City.

[00:00:38] Speaker A: Oh, is that for a lack of changing or because it’s your favorite one? After exploring them all, it’s been.

[00:00:45] Speaker B: I’ve explored not all of them a good amount.

That one’s definitely just my favorite, I think just because of the EDM music and then also, like, running around and you’re, like, killing people or whatever else doing stuff around that kind of, like, bumping and going off is pretty fun.

[00:01:01] Speaker A: All right, I hear you.

I’ve listened most to 96.1 Ritual FM, which is the heavy metal station, in a complete 180 from the jazz station last week, and the complete opposite end of my spectrum of musical taste. So, big fan of both genres.

This segment of the metal genre is a little beyond my taste, but it’s what we’ve got in the game, so I went with it.

But, yeah, after what happened to Jackie and with the failed heist, I had to get the anger out somehow.

[00:01:34] Speaker B: True, true, true, true.

[00:01:37] Speaker A: And after getting rudely acquainted with our unwelcome hitchhiker, I went to Victor to mod my appearance a bit, patch up the hole in my head with some new cyberware, and decided to leave the scar in my forehead that came along with the ordeal we just went through.

Um, and for good measure, change up my hairstyle, since I’m probably wanted by various groups and if I could disguise myself even a little bit, might as well. I’ll probably get some tattoos by the next time we talk too.

[00:02:05] Speaker B: Wow.

[00:02:05] Speaker A: You all in? Yeah, just.

[00:02:07] Speaker B: Yeah, you. You did some big. I. I didn’t really change anything appearance wise. Um, just modifications to cyberware.

[00:02:17] Speaker A: Okay. Oh, like the actual, like, functional cyberware?

[00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:02:21] Speaker A: Okay. Sweet.

And a bit of probably outfit switch outs, I’m assuming.

[00:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, outfit changes.

I have a cool.

What is it? Like a.

[00:02:32] Speaker A: You showed me that. Yeah, that’s a sweet mask. I have a red one and I like your white and gold one better. It reminds me of Ghost of Yote yeah, exactly.

[00:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s why. Yeah, I like it. I have that one in a pink one.

[00:02:45] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Fitting for this. Was it like neon pink, I’m assuming?

[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:02:51] Speaker A: Sweet.

Yeah. Well, listeners, we also want to see on Discord what your V looks like now. Have you made any major body modifications since last time? Always curious to see how people’s version of V evolves, but backtracking a little bit. So before leaving the apartment, I actually bought my first secondary vehicle after the default.

Do you have any other vehicles?

[00:03:20] Speaker B: I do. I have two others, but I didn’t buy them.

[00:03:25] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So I think I know one of them.

The one that I bought is a motorcycle called the Brennan. Apollo hadn’t even tried a bike before that. And the description said reliable, powerful nomad vibes, which spoke to my nomad origin sensibilities and decided to give it a go.

And, you know, what do you know? Buying a. I don’t know, actually. I’m curious to hear if this happened to you. But buying a vehicle through the computer gives you a side quest to go get in your vehicle in your apartment’s garage.

Ring any bells?

[00:04:04] Speaker B: No, I.

No.

[00:04:07] Speaker A: Would you like me to go down this little detour into the beginning of a quest?

[00:04:13] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, that’s fine. Yeah.

[00:04:15] Speaker A: I don’t know.

[00:04:16] Speaker B: You could buy them off your computer. That’s. Yeah.

[00:04:18] Speaker A: You know, I don’t know where else you can buy them, to be honest, but when you log into.

[00:04:21] Speaker B: I found a place, but it’s a different side quest.

[00:04:25] Speaker A: Okay, interesting. So, yeah, you can buy them straight from your. From the. Net menu of. I don’t know if you can buy it from any computer. Maybe. Maybe you can charge it to someone else’s account.

Unlikely. But I bought it from my apartment computer.

It gives me a side quest. Go down to the garage and once I get into my.

It didn’t have the motorcycle there, actually. It had a car, the original car.

And I got in and immediately got totaled by Delamain.

[00:04:56] Speaker B: Yes. Okay. Okay.

[00:04:58] Speaker A: This did happen to you.

[00:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah, this did happen to me. Yes.

[00:05:00] Speaker A: So it get. That gives you a task to go to Delamain HQ and have them settle the damage, which. What? You know, I’m curious what that’s all about. I didn’t go down this yet. I probably will sometime soon. Did you do this?

[00:05:13] Speaker B: Yes, I did. It’s a long side quest, but it’s actually pretty interesting.

[00:05:17] Speaker A: Okay. I. It definitely. I’m intrigued by it because it sounds like there’s more under the surface to it, so maybe I’ll tackle that this time around and we can chat about it next time.

I do enjoy my motorcycle though. And side note, actually after a decent amount of practice, I can say that at regular city driving speeds, I’m actually pretty good at driving in first person mode now.

[00:05:41] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:05:42] Speaker A: I’ve just been, I’ve been. I’ve been trying it, you know, next section of this game I’m going to try to start doing the actual fast paced chases in first person to see how I fare.

Maybe a little bit more crashing involved,

[00:05:56] Speaker B: but yeah, there might be.

[00:05:59] Speaker A: Have you done much first person driving or still all third person?

[00:06:02] Speaker B: No, I’ve done some first person on a motorcycle as well.

[00:06:05] Speaker A: I think it’s more fun and definitely more responsive. In a motorcycle you just have too much covering your screen when you’re inside the car.

[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, I agree.

[00:06:15] Speaker A: Maybe a convertible could be the right choice.

And also I suppose I found out the purpose for the in game photo mode screenshots that when you were viewing your gallery have this massive border around them.

There are things called smart frames on the walls of your apartment.

[00:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw this. You can. Yeah.

[00:06:39] Speaker A: And you can place the photo mode images in them. And I think what. What was cool actually is that you can actually it. It automatically syncs between the regular PlayStation native screenshots and the in game photo mode photos.

So you have all of them available there.

Like. Okay. I guess if you take a screenshot using using photo Mode’s button, it doesn’t save it to your PlayStation screenshots, but if you use the PlayStation screenshot button, it saves it into Cyberpunk’s photo mode.

[00:07:10] Speaker B: That’s cool.

Okay.

[00:07:12] Speaker A: Very cool indeed.

Yeah. Especially after we had mentioned offline last week that the screenshots we used for our episode cover arts are better taken with that share button instead.

At least there’s a real purpose.

And actually in this past week I also found some easter eggs hidden in photo mode.

Have you used it much?

[00:07:33] Speaker B: I have, but I haven’t really like dug into Photo Mode. I haven’t really changed much or anything.

[00:07:41] Speaker A: So if you scroll through all the poses.

I was looking for a sitting pose because after I did this cyberpsycho quest at a beachside cafe, it started raining and I wanted to sit under this desk in the not desk, sit under this deck, beach deck, in the sand with the rain and get a fun photo shot.

I didn’t find the sitting pose, not a single one, by the way. But I did come across a couple of poses that seemed familiar at a glance and then extra Familiar. Once I started reading their names and then they just kept snowballing. And I went through every single pose that’s available and there are plenty of Easter eggs in here. So of just the ones that I recognize. And there are probably more out there that I didn’t recognize. But tell me if you know what this line of thinking goes down. Black Mastodon. Blue Triceratops. Red Tyrannosaurus. Yellow Saber Toothed Tiger. And yes, the Pink Pterodactyl.

[00:08:45] Speaker B: Awesome.

[00:08:47] Speaker A: So it’s all of their, you know, and it’s been a long time since I’ve watched an episode of Power Rangers, but I’m assuming it’s the poses they do when they kind of are ready to fight.

[00:08:58] Speaker B: They morph. Is it before they fight? No, it’s probably. You’re probably right. It might be fighting or like when they do, like.

[00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.

So that was cool.

Then there’s also five different warrior poses as they’re called Thunder, Fire, Water, Lunar, and Love Warrior, which are from Sailor Moon.

[00:09:22] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:09:23] Speaker A: Which my sister loved as a kid, as did my wife. So I’m familiar enough with the franchise and I’ve seen enough episodes.

There’s also a pose that’s based on a quote from Sailor Moon which says, in the name of the moon, I’ll punish you.

So cool. You got double up there. There’s also one called Night City Knight with a K, which is essentially the crouching with a hand on the ground pose that every superhero ever does when they land from a significant height.

[00:09:56] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:09:57] Speaker A: You got to know what I’m talking about.

[00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a super. Yeah.

[00:10:00] Speaker A: I’m assuming the knight here means Batman, specifically.

[00:10:04] Speaker B: Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.

[00:10:05] Speaker A: Partially because he’s a superhero that does a crouch pose sometimes, but also because there’s another pose called Joker Stares, which is a little less difficult to parse out, which I have to assume is from the Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie because it’s him with his hands up in the air doing a weird thing with his legs.

[00:10:26] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:10:27] Speaker A: There’s also the Vulcan salute pose from Star Trek, which is called Fortune and Long Life.

There’s one called My Name is V. Just V, which is a Bond reference.

[00:10:41] Speaker B: Fee. Just fee. Okay, got it. Okay. Yeah.

[00:10:44] Speaker A: There’s one called V Shot first.

[00:10:48] Speaker B: Okay. Han Solo.

[00:10:49] Speaker A: Of course, it’s the classic Han Solo pose. Not the one of the actual scene is referring to, but. Yeah, yeah, the like half crotch with the gun in front. There’s one called he is the one.

[00:11:03] Speaker B: The Harry Potter. No, Neo.

[00:11:06] Speaker A: Neo from the Matrix. Because it’s where he’s, you know, standing but bent fully backwards at a 90 degree angle.

[00:11:14] Speaker B: I was like, there’s only like two, like, chosen slash. He is the one that I can think of. It’s either Harry Potter or Neo.

[00:11:19] Speaker A: And they had to go with Neo in this case because, you know, you got Keanu in there.

[00:11:23] Speaker B: That makes way more sense.

[00:11:24] Speaker A: And there’s one called Punk Fiction.

[00:11:28] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:11:28] Speaker A: It’s for Pulp Fiction, which is literally the Uma Thurman’s pose from the COVID poster of Pulp Fiction lying down in her stomach. Yeah.

[00:11:37] Speaker B: Okay. For a second, I didn’t know if it was actually gonna be Kill Bill. Like, instead, potentially.

[00:11:40] Speaker A: No. No.

[00:11:41] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:11:41] Speaker A: Nope.

It’s Pulp Fiction. It’s that like lying on a bed, I think is from COVID poster art.

And there are many other odd names that probably refer to other things that I’m just not familiar with, so probably could figure that out easily enough with the Google search. But hey, don’t care.

There are also a bunch of normal, regular old poses, crouching, whatever, whatever. But very cool to just kind of stumble upon all that.

I guess that’s my point for there.

Now, getting back to the actual story here, now that we have Johnny in tow, I went straight down the quest path. Since it was just two main quests this time around, did you do the same or did you start going down side quests?

[00:12:37] Speaker B: I did a couple side quests first and then did.

Then met. Yeah, and then I went and met Takamura.

[00:12:51] Speaker A: I mean, it’s hard not to just go all out and in every direction because we now have full reign of the entire map of Night City with all of the neighborhoods open and whatnot.

[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I started exploring and doing side quests as I came across them, but went with the main quest first. I.

So I suppose you can start there, but. Because that’s the guarantee where we have some overlap, but you start right away with playing for tying quest in our apartment in Watson.

Johnny tries to end you, but you take your pills and suppress them temporarily. And then you get that call from Takemura to meet up at Tom’s Diner, which made me hungry.

[00:13:35] Speaker B: It makes me, you know, I want

[00:13:36] Speaker A: like a proper dine, like, you know, a burger, a stack of buttermilk pancakes.

Because Takamura was sitting there drinking a coffee.

Of course. Why would I not be hungry?

And the waitress comes almost right up to your table too.

Man, games with food in them are my weak point.

And speaking of food, I did come across the pizza in a security office.

[00:14:05] Speaker B: Yes, you sent me the Picture. Yep.

So, back onto our theme of games.

[00:14:10] Speaker A: Back on track.

[00:14:11] Speaker B: Yep.

Games with pizza in them.

[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Who knows if that continues on, but at least as we touch on some pizza every once in a while, we should be good.

What was nice is that maybe not nice, but Victor the loudmouth, I guess, gave Takamura the scoop on your condition and the condition of the biochip.

But Takamura supposedly needs you alive, so we’re safe for now.

He does, however, want to know where Evelyn is, since she had relations with Yorinobu, and that was maybe the best lead.

I’m not sure how you went down this conversation path, but after stating the literal facts that I don’t know much about Evelyn’s intel resources or whereabouts for that matter, and try to start getting up to leave, Takemura sits me back down, saying he needs to know. Needs to find Yori to make him pay for the patricide we witnessed last time.

[00:15:11] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:15:12] Speaker A: Yep, that’s all sounds familiar. He needs proof to get his allies to take Yorinobu out and wear just the ticket.

As well as his only option since he’s also now a fugitive in a strange land he doesn’t know, with nobody to turn to.

Not a good position to be in.

[00:15:30] Speaker B: No, not at all.

[00:15:33] Speaker A: He’s. Yeah, he’s also being hunted by Yorinobu’s people.

Yeah, it sounds like just about as safe of an ally as you can find for the moment. So Takemura’s our new guy.

Can’t replace Jackie, but here’s what we’ve got.

[00:15:47] Speaker B: No one can.

[00:15:51] Speaker A: And just as I was about to say no, he brought up and reminded me of the excellent point that the relic is indeed Arasaka invented and. And made, and they just might know how to fix the predicament we’re in.

So I suppose partnering really is the best answer for us too.

[00:16:11] Speaker B: It most definitely is. Yes.

[00:16:15] Speaker A: After.

After Takamura leaves the diner, Johnny shows up small, talking about Night City not having changed. So I told him off and said to leave me alone.

[00:16:30] Speaker B: I did too.

[00:16:31] Speaker A: Did you do that too?

[00:16:32] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah.

[00:16:33] Speaker A: You know, of course, doing that probably makes you look a little loony, because everyone else in the diner just saw you talking to yourself, or at least thinking to yourself. But Johnny realizes we’re stuck together for the time being, and Semi apologized for being caught off guard by the whole situation.

[00:16:52] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:16:54] Speaker A: So he’s trying to not make good. He’s still kind of an a hole,

[00:16:57] Speaker B: but yeah,

[00:17:03] Speaker A: at this point, you’re able to kind of get up and freely move around if you Send a text to Evelyn here at the beginning of the quest. Automatic love. The message is unable to deliver.

She sure knows how to not be found.

[00:17:19] Speaker B: She is.

[00:17:20] Speaker A: Did you do the same?

[00:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I did, actually. Yes, I did send her a text. I think I sent. I sent.

I might have called or sent Judy a text first.

[00:17:33] Speaker A: Yes, I. And then know that I texted her, but I called Judy for sure.

[00:17:38] Speaker B: Called. Yeah, maybe it was. Yeah, it’s a call. So I called. I think I called Judy first.

Or maybe it gives you the option of calling Judy first before texting. I can’t remember. Um, but yeah, I definitely called Judy and then I did try the Evelyn text and got the. Yeah, yeah, like, unreachable number.

[00:17:54] Speaker A: And, you know, so we know where that stands. But then you call Judy. She’s shocked that you’re actually alive, for starters, and then doesn’t want to help talk about or help us find Evelyn.

But you just push on and ask to meet at Lizzie’s, which we know she already kind of semi lives there, works there.

And then right when I got there, the power went out where I live and the save file corrupted.

No, but I was super lucky that there was an autosave right after finishing a phone conversation in front of that, because I was able to restore properly and not lose multiple hours of playtime. I just had good.

But that was.

[00:18:44] Speaker B: That would have sucked.

[00:18:45] Speaker A: You know, like 20 minutes of just sitting on the edge of my seat, hoping I didn’t have to replay the game from the beginning.

[00:18:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:53] Speaker A: Thunderstorms.

[00:18:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:19:00] Speaker A: I’m very curious how you went about talking with Judy.

[00:19:06] Speaker B: Um, trying to remember. I went through more of, like, I was kind of.

I don’t know. Is there a way of saying, like, sort of compassionate slash. I don’t know, more of, like, I needed her help, but I didn’t go.

I know there was, like, an option to be pretty rude. I did not do that.

[00:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that doesn’t seem like the right course of action unless you’re really trying to be. Yeah, like that.

I was able to convince Judy I wasn’t planning to hurt Evelyn.

And that’s what I suppose got her to budge.

[00:19:41] Speaker B: I basically said that I’m just, like, looking for Evelyn. I need to ask her some questions. I need information from her. I’m trying to help her. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:49] Speaker A: She seemed pretty standoffish and also kind of protective of Evelyn, too. So that’s kind of why.

Then she gives you the cigarette case, indicating you could find a lead at Clouds in another part of town.

So that Kind of sets us off on the next portion of this quest. Did you chat with Susie Q, the owner of Lizzie’s, on the way out in the office?

[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yes, I did. The one who was yelling, who was in the argument with Judy.

[00:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah, she’s very rude and standoffish.

[00:20:17] Speaker B: Yes, she is.

[00:20:18] Speaker A: But kind of chilled out by the end of our conversation.

I would like her to pop back into this story, though, because it, you know, she. She’s got some sass that’s.

[00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:20:32] Speaker A: Entertaining enough.

[00:20:34] Speaker B: Also, in Lizzie’s bar, did you go into, like, that back room and pick up the Lizzie pistol?

[00:20:41] Speaker A: No.

[00:20:43] Speaker B: There’s a tech tier 3 tech pistol called Lizzie.

[00:20:46] Speaker A: Wait, maybe I did a tier 3 tech pistol. What color is it?

Is it a weird color?

[00:20:54] Speaker B: It’s pink. It’s just hot pink.

[00:20:56] Speaker A: Okay. I might have grabbed that actually and might have been using it for a while now.

[00:21:01] Speaker B: Maybe you grabbed it.

[00:21:02] Speaker A: Maybe I did and just didn’t recall the name.

Hopefully. Yes, I have been using a tech pistol that’s I think, iconic and quite like it.

[00:21:11] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it probably is that.

[00:21:14] Speaker B: I did tend down there, like in the room next to Judy’s, like, where

[00:21:19] Speaker A: they argue, like through the. Through her office area.

[00:21:23] Speaker B: Not.

[00:21:24] Speaker A: Or on the other side.

Oh, you know what? Nope, you’re right.

[00:21:27] Speaker B: You’re right.

[00:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s in, like, kind of the server room. Yeah, yeah, No, I think I must have that. Yeah, I love that gun. It very much helped me against a cyberpsycho later.

[00:21:38] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, I just got it. And that’s now my main pistol, I guess.

[00:21:42] Speaker A: Tangent here. Have you tried any smart weapons yet?

[00:21:45] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I swap. I swapped out during this section. I swapped out my hand cyberware from the power, like the ricochet amplifier to a smart option I haven’t quite gotten the hang of because it auto. It auto targets. It locks on when you see them out in the open. Then it auto targets and kind of tracks them down for a while and then it resets. I think the one I had when

[00:22:14] Speaker B: I had it, I had like, it was smart aiming. So if I aim down sight, it would. Yeah. Lock on to somebody. And then if I pulled the trigger and shot, like, even if I moved around, the bullets would bend and like, hit that person no matter what.

[00:22:29] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:22:29] Speaker B: And I don’t know, I guess there’s more to it with tech, I guess depending on the type of gun and other stuff too. I just haven’t got.

[00:22:35] Speaker A: Tech probably has another hand cyberware that matches up with it, but you don’t need it. Like the smart one. You have to have it, I think, um, to make it function. But the tech one’s great. Cause, you know, you just charge it up and launch bullets through a wall or through a container or whatever.

[00:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah, because you got it. It’s a tattoo on our hand, isn’t it? Through it. Yeah. Whatever it is.

[00:22:54] Speaker A: Well, that. Yeah. Okay, so. Yes, that. I think that’s the smart one, right? That we got as the smart.

[00:22:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:22:59] Speaker A: Hold on. So that must mean you did the side quest to go pick up the cash or the reward, right? From.

What was her name? Wakako.

[00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I did that.

[00:23:14] Speaker A: Okay. That’s where that came from. Yes. I also have that. I actually installed a smart cyber war to try that gun or a smart weapon.

[00:23:20] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:23:20] Speaker A: I installed that and then ended up, of course, like, almost right after going and doing the rest of that.

[00:23:26] Speaker B: Who.

[00:23:27] Speaker A: Yeah, she gives you that job to save the medic. Sandra. In the beginning. Very beginning.

[00:23:34] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So you get the money, you get the free cyberware with the tattoo, so.

[00:23:41] Speaker B: Which I’m so confused by it because you can upgrade it tiers. But when I look at the comparison, it doesn’t. Nothing. No writing, nothing changes. So I’m like, what am I upgrading?

I’m wonder. Oh, you know what I wonder if it’s to use those different types of weapons.

I bet if it’s Tier one, it won’t work on a Tier two weapon. I wonder if that’s what it is.

[00:24:03] Speaker A: This is a good question for Discord.

[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I know this is a good question for Discord. So on Discord, please tell me. I mean, I’ve upgraded it up to Tier two. I’m pretty sure Tier two plus, I

[00:24:12] Speaker A: have not upgraded that. Interesting. And now I’m curious.

[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:19] Speaker A: Did you go straight from Lizzies to Clouds? That’s what I did.

[00:24:24] Speaker B: Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

[00:24:29] Speaker A: And, you know, of course, it’s controlled by the tiger claws.

And the business that goes down at Clouds is seedy as hell, or at least it sounds that way at first, the way they describe it and market it. The receptionist explains the process and that the doll, who is a real person, mind you, has their memory temporarily wiped during the session, and the customer can do whatever they want.

This here is dystopia to the max.

But anyway, I chose we have to do this quest to move along with the story.

[00:25:08] Speaker B: So here we go.

[00:25:09] Speaker A: I chose sky, and she was actually more like a therapist, since she read all of my chip data and knew I had been killed and was dealing with that trauma, you know?

Okay, this this, I’m assuming the conversation was pretty similar.

[00:25:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s definitely similar.

[00:25:30] Speaker A: You know, after doing that and having a therapy conversation, it seems a lot less seedy than the alternative. I was thinking when we walked in the bar, but I. Then you use the safe word and get to start asking questions about Evelyn.

[00:25:46] Speaker B: Do you do that too?

Yes.

[00:25:49] Speaker A: I was able to get some info from sky by paying her 2,000 eddies. And then investigating Evelyn’s booth.

[00:25:59] Speaker B: I did that as well.

[00:26:01] Speaker A: Okay. The easy way the conversation checks probably would have been more difficult.

I would be curious what happens when you don’t explore Evelyn’s booth, but when you do, you find the blood and the security tape of her chip going on the fritz, and then you get to move on. How did you get into the VIP area

[00:26:26] Speaker B: in the back room? I knocked out a guy by stealthing him who was going to the bathroom.

[00:26:33] Speaker A: Okay, same with me.

[00:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:26:37] Speaker A: Then you just. Exactly. That is classic Hitman right there.

It’s probably the easiest way because otherwise you can probably gun yourself in there or something else.

And then you can talk to Tom, who was one of Evelyn’s friends, after talking to him. And he was very confused about the whole interaction. Like, why do I not know who you.

You go into the off limits back office area to find Woodman or Mr. Forest. I had to sneak up and choke a guard in one room. And then the security cameras guy found some good gear hanging around and more info about Evelyn’s issue in there as well.

As well as the locker room since she left without taking any of her stuff with her.

[00:27:29] Speaker B: Yep, I found all that. Yeah, I got all that.

[00:27:31] Speaker A: Okay, so you, like me, check every corner before going on to. What?

[00:27:35] Speaker B: Yes, I.

I think I knew this. Yeah, yeah, that’s how I play these games.

Check everything.

[00:27:42] Speaker A: And then, yes, there’s this.

[00:27:44] Speaker B: The.

[00:27:44] Speaker A: The pizza that I sent over to you, who was the security guy.

And there was even a weird balcony through a window that didn’t really lead anywhere, but I’m sure it was useful if you’re fighting your way through.

I then confronted Woodman. I’m curious what you did there.

[00:28:06] Speaker B: I confronted women at Woodman, and then I had, like, corpo.

Like corpo lines. Yeah, like a corpo way of talking to him. Basically saying, I don’t know. I basically got him. I can’t remember now. Basically got him to agree sort of with me. Luckily, it didn’t end up too tense, so.

[00:28:31] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:28:31] Speaker B: Kind of more just.

[00:28:32] Speaker A: Okay. So you’re able to, like, talk him down into whatever you need based on the fact that you were previously corpo.

Cool.

That’s like low, low stress. I’m sure there’s an option to fight.

[00:28:45] Speaker B: I definitely did not fight.

[00:28:46] Speaker A: I think I would have gotten into a fight, but because I had a dialogue option.

[00:28:52] Speaker B: I just remember it’s you. I threatened to call Arasaka.

[00:28:56] Speaker A: Oh, really?

Okay.

[00:28:59] Speaker B: I threatened to call in Arasaka because I’m corpo.

[00:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s.

That’s a hell of a threat right there.

Yeah. I don’t think this Woodman guy has. Has any desire to be tracked down by Arasaka. So there you go.

Wonderful. Well, I think I was only able to get out without a fight because I had completed a previous side quest multiple sessions ago where you take out a Tiger Claw nightclub owner over in Watson.

So I was able to ask Woodman if he wanted to end up like Shotaru, I believe his name was.

[00:29:37] Speaker B: I did that one. Yes. Yeah.

[00:29:39] Speaker A: And he. He knew all about it and said hell no, he didn’t. So I was able to just press him for more info.

[00:29:46] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:29:47] Speaker A: It even. He. He offered me a job after saying how much he liked how I carry myself.

[00:29:54] Speaker B: Nice.

[00:29:55] Speaker A: I turned it down.

And then, yeah, he told me how to find Evelyn with the sketchy ripper doc on Jig Jig street, which we were with earlier with Wakako.

So it’s time to sync back up with Judy now and figure out what’s next. But that’s a story for next time.

After riding the elevator back down from clouds, Johnny dropped a whole bunch of names I hadn’t heard before and said how important they were for both fixing our split brain issue as well as for him personally to exact revenge on Arasaka.

Did you get that?

[00:30:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I did.

All right.

[00:30:34] Speaker A: It’s very curious what pieces do line up and which don’t between our playthroughs.

[00:30:39] Speaker B: Yes. No. I, I.

[00:30:45] Speaker A: But yes.

So I will say, while I was hesitant at first in laying out the segment at the end of last episode, because this section only had two main story quests and our next section will have many more, it seemed like it was not divided well originally, but now, in hindsight, I think it was perfect because the open world is now truly open to us, and it seemed like the perfect moment to do tons of exploring, wandering, getting lost, and engaging in random shenanigans.

And I. Yeah, we’ll be totally happy to jump back into a blitz of a big chunk of the story next time. But anyway, did you knock out? What side quest did you knock out after or before playing these two?

Yeah.

[00:31:29] Speaker B: So I knocked out a few.

Yeah, I’ll say. Yeah. So I did the. I’m not gonna. I won’t talk about, like, the Delamain one.

[00:31:36] Speaker A: I just.

[00:31:36] Speaker B: I did the Delamain one. But I just want to say for the Delamain one, because I said earlier in this episode, I have three total vehicles.

One of those vehicles I found during this side quest.

[00:31:53] Speaker A: During the Delamain quest. Okay.

[00:31:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it is a really cool vehicle. I mean, I don’t know if you want to know what it is, but it’s just. It’s really cool. It’s supposedly one of the best cars in the game, I guess.

[00:32:03] Speaker A: Well, you answered my question. If it. If it was a helicopter, I would have wanted to know.

[00:32:08] Speaker B: No, it’s a car.

All right.

[00:32:11] Speaker A: No, I will tackle that this time.

[00:32:16] Speaker B: It’s an intriguing question. It takes you all over the map. I’ll just say that the quest. It definitely takes you all over the map. It’s also in that quest I found because you said you can buy cars online. I found a station, like a gas station station, where there was a computer screen. And I was like, what is this? And I opened it up and it was all the cars, like everything that you can buy. All the cars in the game.

[00:32:37] Speaker A: Oh, that must be the same as the net option on the thing.

Unless it’s someone like an entirely different.

[00:32:44] Speaker B: I think it’s the spec. I think it might have been the place or one of the places of the guy who specifically messages you. Who is the car.

[00:32:53] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe it’s there, but yeah,

[00:32:57] Speaker B: so, yeah, that was that one.

I did another one called Shoot to Thrill. It was a shooting competition.

Go back to where you live the way you live in. The gentleman who owns a shooting range on the first floor.

[00:33:10] Speaker A: I got that.

I got that call. That’s. That’s at Watson.

[00:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah, so. Watson. Yeah, so I did that.

[00:33:17] Speaker A: I did just. I did receive that. It’s just literally like a time trial.

[00:33:20] Speaker B: Shooting.

Yeah. I don’t know if you can get first place. I got second place, supposedly.

[00:33:27] Speaker A: Did you get anything good out of it?

[00:33:29] Speaker B: Eddie’s, I think first place, they said that there was a special.

A special pistol or gun.

So maybe you can get first place. I just didn’t. But I don’t think you can. I don’t think it’s one. You can be overdo either, so. But that’s okay. It wasn’t a. I don’t know.

[00:33:46] Speaker A: Is it worth my time?

Aside from the fact that the answer is yes to every single quest in this Game, I guess, yeah.

[00:33:55] Speaker B: If it’s to that. I mean, the only other way is to spoil it slightly and I mean, I haven’t even done it, but to Google to see that if you can get first place and what the weapon is and if it’s. If the weapon is worth it.

[00:34:07] Speaker A: Right. If it’s worth it to your particular build.

[00:34:09] Speaker B: I suppose maybe it is otherwise then. No, I did quickly.

[00:34:15] Speaker A: Did you. Did you go back and do the boxing match?

[00:34:18] Speaker B: That’s what I was literally about to say. Yes, I did the kabuki fight, so. And I wrote here, twins.

Not really question mark.

They’re not twins.

[00:34:27] Speaker A: It’s the same guy twice. That’s an accurate way to describe it. Yeah, it’s the same. And he keeps mentioning that too.

[00:34:35] Speaker B: It’s like, we’re not twins. It’s not my twin, it’s me. Yeah.

[00:34:39] Speaker A: It’s a very curious application of this whole concept of virtual bodies and cyborgs and AI and all the nonsense.

[00:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

[00:34:51] Speaker A: But hey, keep it interesting like that. I mean, the fact that they could gang up on you is a little iffy, but I’m assuming there are three more fights in this quest line, so I’m gonna assume they’re all equally out of the ordinary.

[00:35:07] Speaker B: Kind of seems so.

So, yes, I did do that. So that’s the only fight I did.

[00:35:11] Speaker A: But yeah, okay. Yeah, same. I have not found the next ones yet.

[00:35:20] Speaker B: I did a few others. I did one called Happy Together, which was back in Watson where you talk to your neighbor, try and calm them down. They’re like police outside.

I literally got this quest right as I came back out of the apartment. At the start, there were like two cops. You talk to them and they’re like, they know a guy in the apartment who’s kind of your neighbor and they want you to try and see if you can talk to him.

It’s a weird quest. There’s not much to it.

Yeah. I don’t know, it’s. It’s up to you if it’s worth it. I don’t know. It’s not massively, but yeah, if I’m

[00:35:57] Speaker A: there and it pops up, I’ll do it in the moment, but not gonna seek it out.

[00:36:02] Speaker B: I realized the. The car that I found in the delamaine thing has its own quest.

So I won’t say that, but separate

[00:36:09] Speaker A: from the one that, that I was thinking it’s like attached to it or like a follow up.

[00:36:13] Speaker B: It’s attached to it to get the car.

That’s what it is. Okay. All Right.

[00:36:17] Speaker A: No, it sounds interesting to me, so I will check it out.

[00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:36:20] Speaker A: Is that your primary car right now?

[00:36:23] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:36:23] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:36:24] Speaker B: For sure.

[00:36:25] Speaker A: I want to do it.

[00:36:27] Speaker B: And then one more small one I did was called the Ballad of Buck Ravers. It was a guy who was playing guitar, and then Johnny, like.

[00:36:37] Speaker A: Yes, I did that, too. That was.

[00:36:40] Speaker B: Okay. I’m sorry. Is it Red Samurai or is it Samurai? What was.

[00:36:43] Speaker A: I think the name of the band is Samurai.

[00:36:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Samurai. Right. Yeah. So you get the Samurai bootleg tapes from the vendor if you’re able to, like, court. Yeah.

[00:36:50] Speaker A: And I. I ended up just. Just for the fun of it, because I like that samurai logo. I bought all the rest of the apparel that the guy was selling.

[00:36:57] Speaker B: Did you? Okay. I think I bought one of the things. Yeah. Nice.

And then the last side quest. Well, actually, it wasn’t the last one I did. The last one I did was the ballad. But the biggest side quest I did was called Heroes, which was from.

[00:37:13] Speaker A: That’s the text from Mama Wells.

[00:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah, Mama Wells.

[00:37:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I did that, too. So I had to go down that path to see how it turned out.

[00:37:22] Speaker B: Chucky’s offendra ofrenda. Ofrenda. Ofrenda.

[00:37:28] Speaker A: Ofrenda. But, yeah, you know, she fortunately doesn’t hate us and invited us to the ofrenda in the first place, which is great.

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

So that was cool. That was a good one. I liked it.

I liked that. You got to go in the garage. You spoke to Misty. Kind of went down memory lane with Jackie.

[00:37:49] Speaker A: Did Misty come into the garage with you?

[00:37:51] Speaker B: Yes, I told her to come in,

[00:37:57] Speaker A: and she definitely explained, like, a lot of the sentimental value of the items he had in there, which is good, because I think if you were somehow in there by yourself, you miss out

[00:38:06] Speaker B: on all of that. So I picked up. Yeah. Out of all that, I picked up two items to take to the afrenda. I grabbed the book and the tequila.

[00:38:20] Speaker A: Okay. You and I are the same.

The belt definitely seemed like the wrong choice.

[00:38:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I did not grab it. Yeah, that was a. Yeah.

[00:38:32] Speaker A: The. Like, the meaning behind the basketball and wanting to get out of the Valentinos and all, that was good, but also, it’s like someone else’s victory, so I didn’t feel like it made the most sense. So. Yeah. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway. And his. And his bottle of super rare tequila were the two options I picked up, too. I think you can actually pick up all of them if you want. At first, I was like, I’m gonna wait till I see all These options before I pick one, in case you can only do one.

[00:38:59] Speaker B: So I picked those two.

[00:39:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you sort of were able to convince Misty to go to it, too. She was really trying to not go.

[00:39:08] Speaker B: So I.

No, I, in the end, basically told her, if you don’t want to go, don’t go.

Like the. Whatever that. That path. I didn’t push her.

[00:39:18] Speaker A: Okay. I. I didn’t. I didn’t push her, but I basically just was able to say, you know, you really meant something to him.

The rest of them should accept it.

[00:39:28] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:39:29] Speaker A: Something like that. And then there was a. After the whole of ceremony, Mama Wells makes a, you know, rude comment about her. And I just said, look, she was really important to Jackie.

Go talk to her.

And she didn’t actually physically go talk to her, but I’m gonna assume that happens in the story. Cause, like, come on, do it for. Do it for your son.

[00:39:52] Speaker B: Obviously, that’s different since I didn’t. Yeah, she didn’t come in for me.

[00:39:55] Speaker A: So she was. Misty was kind of hanging out in the. Sort of in the back, right?

[00:39:58] Speaker B: Not.

[00:39:58] Speaker A: Not way up front.

[00:39:59] Speaker B: But

[00:40:01] Speaker A: Victor was at the ceremony too.

[00:40:04] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:40:05] Speaker A: And. And some Valentinos as well, because Valentino

[00:40:08] Speaker B: is part of them, which.

Which I feel. I feel. I felt I laughed at because before I did. Before I went back inside, like, after Jackie’s garage, I went exploring around the corner, and there were Valentinos, and it marks them as bad guys. And I just took them all out with a shotgun.

And then when I walked back in there, Valentino’s in there. I was like, oh, whoops. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to do that. I don’t know.

[00:40:35] Speaker A: It would. Okay. No, it would have been terrible, but it would have been funny in a meta sense if they had all just turned around and attacked you at the ofrenda because of what you just did.

The gameplay systems would be at work heavily in that moment. But, no, it’s good that they didn’t. You got to show some respect in there.

[00:40:56] Speaker B: I put the book on the table.

[00:40:59] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:41:00] Speaker B: Out of the two, because it let me pick between the two. So I put the book down and spoke and then did a quote from the book.

[00:41:07] Speaker A: Okay, so he says a quote from the book.

[00:41:11] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:41:12] Speaker A: Okay. I chose to offer the tequila, which, you know, he pours a shot for everyone, and you have a toast and you say, smoke.

And I held onto the book to kind of take a look at my leisure. The nice part about playing this game, trying to go full immersion style is I actually have this book in real life that I received years and years ago from my grandpa as a gift.

So I may, you know, take a look through it once in a while.

I wonder if I can find the quote you’re talking about. I’m assuming so. Anyway, after talking to everyone else that was there, Mama Wells gives you the keys to Jackie’s motorcycle.

[00:41:56] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:41:57] Speaker A: Which of course, I accepted.

I’m assuming you accepted too.

[00:42:02] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:42:02] Speaker A: It is so fun to ride. It is fun, but also dangerously fast compared to the one that I bought myself.

[00:42:11] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, it is fast. Yes.

[00:42:15] Speaker A: This also makes me think how dangerous it is to do a wheelie because when you do this in first person, you just can’t see anything below your tire. Like, you gotta have a real flat straightaway if you want to do a wheelie.

Don’t suggest it in real life.

Definitely get some padding. But anyway, really cool motorcycle. Thanks, Jackie.

[00:42:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It was cool. Yes. Thank you, Jackie.

[00:42:46] Speaker A: Did you encounter and scan any of the murals that contain a collectible of sorts in the form of Tarot Car?

[00:42:54] Speaker B: Yes, I did. I’ve scanned about eight to 10 of them.

[00:42:58] Speaker A: Damn. Okay, I think I’ve scanned one. I’m curious what the purpose is, but I’ll keep scanning them as I pass by. There’s a part of that quest, actually that says to go talk to Misty and Victor about it. Did you do that yet?

[00:43:08] Speaker B: I spoke to Misty about them and she said like there’s a hidden. Basically there’s a hidden meaning in them.

But now it tells me to talk to Victor, but I wanted to find the other all 20 before going to Victor, so.

[00:43:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I will probably track them down too. I mean, the fact that they’re on your map doesn’t make it any more.

[00:43:31] Speaker B: No, difficult.

[00:43:33] Speaker A: So I will do that as I. As I’m in the area, but I’m not going to like beeline between them, I guess.

[00:43:40] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:43:43] Speaker A: Any other notable side quests to.

[00:43:46] Speaker B: No, not side quest, but I bought an apartment in Japantown.

[00:43:50] Speaker A: You did? That’s the one that’s like 30k, isn’t it? Yeah, I saw that and thought about it and then didn’t do it yet, but I probably will later. Is it different from your apartment in Watson?

[00:43:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:44:01] Speaker A: Has some otherwise, though. Pretty much.

[00:44:03] Speaker B: And. Oh yeah, it’s kind of. It’s.

[00:44:05] Speaker A: It’s not bad.

Cool. So you have a new sort of base of operations.

Not that I go back to my apartment that much, to be honest, but not neither.

But still cool. Cool to have.

So, yeah, I guess you can rack up places to live and vehicles. Did you see that there’s an apartment I think in like the corporate part of town that’s like 110k.

[00:44:30] Speaker B: I haven’t seen that one. I saw the one that’s like 80 or 90 or something. Yeah, that’s in downtown somewhere.

[00:44:36] Speaker A: I was in that area before I did the ofrenda quest.

And you can go into a clothing shop that’s like mostly suit kind of things. And I ended up buying this like white blazer and a hat of like a fedora type hat of some sort that I wore to the ofrenda.

[00:44:59] Speaker B: Very nice.

[00:45:00] Speaker A: Gotta keep it classy.

[00:45:02] Speaker B: I did not change my appearance.

[00:45:07] Speaker A: Very expensive. Close, but it was worth it.

Yeah. Well anyway, at this point we’re still pretty early in the game but do you feel like you have a semblance of your build taking shape or are you still pretty open ended?

[00:45:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so no, I think it’s more coming. I. I enjoy. So you have Sandevistan. Sandevistan, right.

[00:45:32] Speaker A: I still have Sandevistan installed. Yes.

[00:45:35] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:45:36] Speaker A: So because you have stick with.

[00:45:38] Speaker B: But I. Yeah, you can’t do the quick hacks. Correct.

[00:45:42] Speaker A: Yes. It’s a major trade for something that you can’t really use that often. It’s like a 50 second. It was originally a 55 and I upgraded it to level two and I have a 50, 50 second cooldown and you only get it the, the slowdown for maybe like 10, 15 seconds. So I’m not, I don’t love it. I like the effect but it feels like you can quick hack a lot more frequently.

[00:46:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m stayed with the quick hacks. You can actually also upgrade the quick hacks. Upgraded like one or two of them to tier two. So it does like more damage or further range or whatever I do with those because I, I like, I shut down the cameras or I join the cameras. I do a lot of the distract enemies.

[00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:46:25] Speaker B: I actually got the trophy for that one of like distract 30 enemies without being noticed.

[00:46:29] Speaker A: Oh cool.

That’s good.

[00:46:31] Speaker B: I’ll like distract one of them and then I can stealth one and then. Yeah. Go up the others.

[00:46:36] Speaker A: Oh, solid.

[00:46:37] Speaker B: I like the overheat which is fun.

[00:46:39] Speaker A: Oh, that like lights them on fire. I remember doing that a bit before I switched. Yeah.

[00:46:45] Speaker B: Huh.

[00:46:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it’s. I think most likely I’ll stick with Sandevistan and then try quick hacks if I do another playthrough.

[00:46:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I’ve definitely built it where I have more RAM. I think I have 8 total RAM now.

[00:46:58] Speaker A: Oh, multiple.

[00:46:58] Speaker B: So I can do multiple.

[00:46:59] Speaker A: Faster RAM refresh too.

[00:47:01] Speaker B: And faster RAM refresh as well as. Yeah, my netrunner is definitely going higher in my level. I forgot what it’s at. But then also.

What is it? There’s. There’s other, like. There’s like. It’s like sub levels of other ones and I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s.

It’s for mainly, I think using melee weapons and stealthing. It ups another.

There’s. There. I don’t know. There’s like so much in the menus, like so many. Like.

[00:47:36] Speaker A: No, there’s so many menus, like between your level up and then your perk. Like your. Your stats and then your perks that are attached to your stats with the skill tree. And then there’s the Cyberware and then there’s the.

[00:47:49] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:47:50] Speaker A: Guns themselves you can do crafting for and then upgrades.

[00:47:54] Speaker B: Okay. I was gonna ask you. Okay. So I know I have my cool. My cool is at, like, level nine.

[00:48:01] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:48:02] Speaker B: My intelligence, I think, is either a level eight or nine.

My body’s at eight and I think the rest are at sixes or sevens. But because I unlock. Cool. So then I have that second tier.

[00:48:13] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:48:14] Speaker B: Perks unlocked. Yep. Yeah.

Actually, no, you know what? It’s also. No, it’s cool and technical ability. I have both at nine.

[00:48:21] Speaker A: I think that’s what it is. I think every five.

I think every five up, like, level up points into your primary stats unlocks the next set of the skill tree within them. Love perks.

[00:48:36] Speaker B: Right.

[00:48:37] Speaker A: So you have two at level nine.

[00:48:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I have two at level nine. I have. Yeah. Cool and.

Yeah. And technical ability.

[00:48:47] Speaker A: Oh, and technical is for the quick hack stuff.

[00:48:50] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:48:50] Speaker A: Okay. And cool is for.

[00:48:53] Speaker B: Cool is for, like stealth.

[00:48:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Stealth type things. Yes. That sounds like a good route to go down.

Yeah. I have. I think I have five in technical body. And the other one, I have reflexes at 12 or 13.

Wow.

[00:49:12] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:49:13] Speaker A: And I have.

I have cool at maybe 10 to get that third tier of the skill tree or the second tier. I don’t recall. I think it’s the third tier.

Maybe it’s at 9, but it’s gonna be at 10 soon if it’s not over there. But yeah, so that’s. And I’m doing that primarily because of the stealth abilities there.

Reflexes gives me some.

I think reflex is the one that’s related to blades.

And I think cool is like sniper rifles. I don’t remember. There’s like a lot of mix and match kind of stuff going on, but I’m trying to get to a point where I can basically just be a jumpy ninja and. Okay, I still have the Mantis Blades. I’ll probably try something later.

[00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah, cool. Has focus, which I know I’ve put both into, which is for. That’s pistols, revolvers, precision rifle rifles and snipers.

[00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:50:10] Speaker B: Where plus 10 head shot, weak spot damage.

Yeah.

[00:50:17] Speaker A: So, yeah, I’m. I’m still like, I’m still exploring. I would say I may do a complete swap at some point, but as of right now, I’m definitely going into this, like, high mobility, reasonable amount of stealth with the sand devastan to slow things down. So I can’t stealth through the cameras, but I can kind of quick skirt around things.

And then I’ve got a double jump and a jump dash where I’m about to unlock a jump dash and then the blade. So with the blades, I now have the ability to deflect BL shots.

And if I do like a perfect deflect, it launches back at wherever, whatever I’m aiming at instead of just deflecting sideways.

The thing is, I haven’t found a particularly great katana or anything, so I’m.

I’m using the, what’s it called, Mantis Blades. But the Mantis Blades don’t do enough damage for me right now and I usually get kind of swarmed, so I’m not entirely sure I’m going to continue this way. I still. If I get a good katana at some point, I’ll probably take the Mantis Blades out and swap them for a different set of arms.

But I think I might end up with like a katana and a revolver kind of build at some point.

Okay, that’s just sort of what I’m thinking.

Obviously, I’ve used a little bit of, you know, the. I used a lot of Fenrir early on. I use a little bit of shotgun, but not really.

Mostly for a cyberpsycho that I couldn’t beat it with anything else. But then like right now, my katana.

[00:51:50] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah. I forgot where I got it, but it does more damage, I’d say.

[00:51:54] Speaker A: Right. Right now my gun loadout is literally the one that you pick up from the heist, I think. I think that’s the one like in Yorinobu’s room. I think I still have that. I have that. I have the Lizzie Tech pistol and then I have another pistol that’s a smart pistol and I swapped it out for a shotgun at one point. But yeah, I don’t know. That’s sort of where I’m at currently, but it may all change.

[00:52:20] Speaker B: Okay, I found, Yeah, I have Lizzie’s pistol.

Then I have a tier three shotgun I found.

[00:52:28] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:52:29] Speaker B: Which does a lot of damage.

[00:52:30] Speaker A: So you’re going. Okay, so you, you’ve gone a katana, stealth tech, hacking.

Stealth.

[00:52:39] Speaker B: I switch out the shotgun every now and then to like SMG or something else.

[00:52:45] Speaker A: So yeah, I’m just trying to like place in my head where your build is at. So your stealth and tech and hacking primarily.

And then you’ve got. You’re doing a bit of. You have a katana. Like if you’re up close and personal, but primarily using some guns.

[00:53:02] Speaker B: Yes.

Yeah. Do you think maybe that.

[00:53:05] Speaker A: Have you leaned as far as preferring power versus smart versus tech in any direction?

[00:53:12] Speaker B: So the shotgun I know is power.

[00:53:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think they start everyone off with power, like a lot of power options early on in the game and they kind of start dropping more of the other ones.

[00:53:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I know also because there are the.

There are other skills like the headhunter, netrunner, shinobi, soul engineer. Those were the ones I was starting to think of. I know I have Netrunner to at least 5, if not higher, probably 10. And I think I have shinobi, which is.

Yeah, shinobi. Oh, that’s associated with reflexes. Neutralizing enemies with assault rifles, SMGs and blades.

[00:53:48] Speaker A: That’s the thing where you get like little, not like achievements, but things start upgrading when you do. When you do things. I keep forgetting to even look at that part of the menu.

[00:53:56] Speaker B: At rank 5, it increases movement speed by 5%. I know I’m at least at rank 5. I think I’m at 10, which is minus 5% stamina cost from dodging and dashing.

So. But then my solo is going to start going up because it’s neutralizing enemies with shotguns. So if I keep using the shotgun, that’ll go well.

[00:54:16] Speaker A: Yeah, those names all ring a bell, but I really don’t have much.

[00:54:19] Speaker B: Yeah. But my netrunner is definitely probably the one going up the most because as I said, I like to quick hack the enemies. Like, I’ll do the quick hat. Okay. Overheat. Yeah. And then I’ll overheat two of them while they’re on fire and then just rush in, slash the other one, and then shotgun.

[00:54:36] Speaker A: I really liked when I did have. Have the.

The chip. I really enjoyed the reset optics, one that like turns off their eyes. But I felt like it didn’t last long. Enough.

[00:54:49] Speaker B: Yes. I’ve done that only a couple times. Yeah.

[00:54:51] Speaker A: But you can. You can swap out your hacks that are available, right? Like in your. In your. Yes.

[00:54:56] Speaker B: So if you. Yeah, so if you. I think upgrade enough, because I have a couple other hacks, but I think I have one that’s a tier three or a couple whatever that are a little high and I can’t equip them yet. So I think I need to.

Oh. Because I need to upgrade the.

Your. What’s it? The. Your. The main Cyberware in your head.

[00:55:19] Speaker A: Oh, yes.

[00:55:20] Speaker B: Thinking it’s called. You know, when you’re looking at your Cyberware map.

[00:55:23] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:55:23] Speaker B: It’s a tough one you have. It’s like it’s your chip, basically. Yeah.

[00:55:26] Speaker A: Right.

[00:55:27] Speaker B: You have to upgrade it to that tier to use.

[00:55:31] Speaker A: Gotcha.

[00:55:34] Speaker B: So you can upgrade, like overheat and all that. But if I have that main chip only at tier 2 or tier 2 plus, I can only get those to tier 2. Tier 2 plus, you can’t go. So that’s actually one of my. When I next log in, one of my first things, I need to find a Ripper Doc and upgrade that, because I have.

[00:55:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I think a trip to the Ripper Doc makes sense.

Have you explored many others? Like, I.

I like the. Being loyal to Victor, but at the same time, I’m curious how much stuff you can’t get by going only to him. Or if they all Ripper docs just

[00:56:05] Speaker B: have the same stock. I don’t know. I think they all have the same stock.

Yeah.

[00:56:10] Speaker A: So maybe it’s just a matter of going to wherever you are.

[00:56:12] Speaker B: Yeah. The other menu I’ve kind of slightly figured out, still working on is the crafting menu.

[00:56:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that one’s complicated.

[00:56:20] Speaker B: It is, but I mainly use it for crafting. So I can see, like, my tier one components. Tier twos to craft, like, tier ones. Because right now I’m not using any tier one stuff, really. So all my tier one components, I crafted tier twos, and then if I need to, I can grab your threes.

[00:56:35] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:56:36] Speaker B: The ones that confuse me are the weapons. Because it says you can craft using components. I’m like, is it crafting the weapon? Because it’s like, I already have them.

[00:56:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Do you want to craft another copy of the weapon you already have?

[00:56:48] Speaker B: No. I guess you craft it to then sell it. I guess the way to make money.

[00:56:52] Speaker A: Interesting.

So do you disassemble or sell your common items?

[00:57:00] Speaker B: I sell, like every. I go to one of those deposit box, I sell everything.

[00:57:04] Speaker A: So you’re crafting components to make next level components. But if you disassemble weapons that are at your at that level, you’ll end up getting a bunch of components at that level. So I’ve been level disassembling things with the level I’m at and then selling everything below it.

[00:57:26] Speaker B: Okay, gotcha.

[00:57:28] Speaker A: But yes, it’s all very complex.

[00:57:30] Speaker B: It is.

[00:57:31] Speaker A: Maybe it’s really not complex at all and I just haven’t sat to think

[00:57:34] Speaker B: about it, but I think it’s pretty complex.

The ones that are more.

Not more complex. Yeah, I guess more complex is the way to say it. Are like the weapon mods and stuff that I’m trying to figure out. Because not all weapons can do that and switching them out that I’m still figuring out.

[00:57:55] Speaker A: I do. Yeah.

Oh, you mean like the scopes and stuff?

[00:58:00] Speaker B: No, there’s scopes and suppressors that you

[00:58:03] Speaker A: can throw on and there’s like grips and other things. Yeah, yeah.

[00:58:07] Speaker B: Or there are some. Like for smart weapons you can add.

There are different smart weapon mods. Like your smart weapon could do plus 25% headshot plus blah blah.

Or when hits enemy has 50 chance of burn damage. Something like that. And then there are other mods that do other different things and I think you can swap them out, but not on every tech weapon. They’re like specific.

[00:58:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.

[00:58:33] Speaker B: Like, I think they’re specific to like a type.

Like if it’s like these are pistol ones, these are smg. I don’t know. I’m still figuring that one out.

Also don’t think I’m far enough in the game.

[00:58:44] Speaker A: That’s true.

[00:58:47] Speaker B: Have some of that stuff too.

[00:58:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I guess the other thing to note too is that you cannot disassemble iconic weapons.

[00:58:54] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:58:55] Speaker A: I think you can sell them, but I think it’s best to not do that because I did put one into my storage, an older one, and you end up seeing it, it’s on the wall in your apartment. So that’s cool.

[00:59:06] Speaker B: That’s cool. Also, iconic weapons are the only weapons you can upgrade.

Yes.

[00:59:13] Speaker A: Yeah. The only ones you can upgrade and you can. They’re the only. You can only find them. They don’t. You can’t buy them.

[00:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Which I was looking at the upgrades. I was like, it upgrades damage by like 2 and I’m like, I don’t really want to spend.

[00:59:24] Speaker A: I’ll just wait till the next gun.

[00:59:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was like, I’m swapping out so much right now. Like I’m not.

[00:59:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, good. Stuff.

[00:59:37] Speaker B: But yeah, no, it’s been great.

[00:59:40] Speaker A: Really, really enjoying it. Yes, I think that to sum it up, really enjoying it. And we still have a lot to

[00:59:45] Speaker B: go,

[00:59:48] Speaker A: so for next time, we want to avoid being too prescriptive in the order you play the next main story quest. This is an open world game, after all.

But because there is a lot to cover, we’re going to take two weeks to play through all of the Act 2 main story quests during this section. Things might, or rather will very likely start deviating a bit or even a lot between each person playing.

And I know we’ve already seen some main quests open up that seem to take us down various paths. And it sounds like there are four main sort of routes of investigation you have to go down to continue into Act 3, each of which involves a primary character.

So for additional reference, here are the four paths.

One starts with the quest Automatic Love, which we just finished, and ends with a quest called Double Life.

Another one starts with Ghost Town and ends with Life During Wartime.

The third path starts with down on the street and ends with Search and Destroy. And the last one starts with Maptan Pelen and ends with Transmission.

And there’s quests in between all of those as well. So play until you’ve gone through all of those quest lines and make sure you finish the quest called Transmission specifically.

Then save and quit and hang on for the following episode. But whatever you do, don’t start the quest Nocturne Op 5, 5 and 1, since that is the true transition to Act 3 and the point of no return to see the game through to the end credits. And we don’t want to do that quite yet because we want to play Phantom Liberty before we roll the credits.

So enjoy your time in Night City, folks. We’ll be catching back up in a couple weeks.

[01:01:29] Speaker B: Definitely. I hope you. Yeah, you guys are enjoying your time in Night City as much as we are. And yeah, the next section is going to be long, but it’s going to be a lot of story and a lot of fun. So looking forward to hearing what everyone’s got to say after playing one this

[01:01:43] Speaker A: section and then two of the next story quest.

[01:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, a whole lot of stories.

[01:01:45] Speaker A: It will be glorious.

[01:01:47] Speaker B: Yes, it will be.

All right, well, thanks for listening. Have a good one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of any 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 account under the same name. Thanks.