Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to season 13 of the Gaming Backlog book club. We just wrapped up season 12 which featured a face off between Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. Two games from the first times in our lives that we got our hands on a controller. And boy, that was a blast.

[00:00:15] Speaker B: Oh yeah, very nostalgic blast.

[00:00:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I’m still kind of just remembering what it was like to sit on the floor in front of a square tv.

Yeah, good times with you know, potentially no remote control.

What have you been playing since finishing those two all time classics, if anything,

[00:00:36] Speaker B: since we’ve finished them. Honestly, not too much. I haven’t had as much time to play or start anything up yet.

Still continuing on a few runs of Hades for me to get through.

[00:00:48] Speaker A: Please and thank you.

[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yes. Although his otherwise really not too much else.

[00:00:52] Speaker A: So. So I hear that. Yep. I. You know this was just a couple days ago so I.

I’ve just basically tacked on to my Sonic 1 and 2 marathon there with a bit of Sonic 3 and Knuckles that I need to continue on with, but maybe not quite yet.

Take a little breather and I really want to finish control.

Getting closer, but not quite.

Well, this season we are transitioning from the nostalgia of the highest quality of retro games to the extreme opposite vibe of just about the most futuristic setting we can find that doesn’t involve intergalactic space travel.

Yes, we will be playing Cyberpunk 2077, including its Phantom Liberty expansion.

This is the benefit of having a large backlog. You don’t have to boot a game backup to play an expansion. It’s all just right there ready for you.

[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yep, that is the. That’s the nice part. That’s one of the nice parts.

[00:01:53] Speaker A: You don’t need to worry about re familiarizing yourself with the controls or how any of it works. You just.

Right away.

[00:02:00] Speaker B: Right away. Yep.

[00:02:03] Speaker A: So for background, if you aren’t yet familiar with this game, Cyberpunk 2077 was released in 2020 when everyone was all locked up.

Developed by CD Projekt RED and published by CD Projekt for PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows and Xbox One. It was later released in 2022 for PS5 and Xbox Series X and S.

It is important to note that the past gen versions were playable on current gen consoles and was definitely the ideal way to play.

The video game is based on a tabletop board game series called Cyberpunk, which itself was influenced by many of essential works of cyberpunk fiction.

And although from a casual viewpoint, most people will probably think of Blade Runner, other Books, movies, manga and comics, including things like Hardwired, Neuromancer, Robocop, Streets of Fire and Akira all kind of play into the role of what inspired this franchise. It was released to high praise for its narrative, setting and graphics.

However, it was widely criticized due to myriad bugs, glitches and other issues that were everywhere throughout the game, but especially prevalent on PS4 and Xbox One.

This is largely thanks to its reveal years earlier and marketing materials up until launch, all combining to be one of the most hyped and anticipated video game releases of all time.

Probably Eclipsed now by GTA6 Coming up,

[00:03:35] Speaker B: but probably I was super hyped and excited for it for when it was going to release.

[00:03:43] Speaker A: Everyone wanted to play this game, me included, and they promoted it with such polished, amazing videos but failed to deliver at launch.

They in hindsight either needed to postpone the launch until the game was ready to run properly on past gen, or they needed to just cancel those versions and commit to being current gen only.

Well, they paid the price with lots and lots of refunds and the game being delisted for a while until they figured it out on at least the PS4 that I know of. But as with multiple CD project games before this, they polished and updated Cyberpunk and iterated on it until it became a version of the beloved experience that it is today. And you know, at least somewhat closer to that original marketing push. There is now even a sequel announced, but smartly no further details for now. I think they should keep it under wraps until maybe the year of launch.

Hopefully they keep quiet until they’re truly ready this time.

[00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I think they will.

[00:04:47] Speaker A: They’ll definitely learn from their mistake, you know, you hope so. Because if you can’t learn from history, then what’s the point?

[00:04:55] Speaker B: Exactly.

[00:04:57] Speaker A: That can be said about many, many things.

[00:04:59] Speaker B: Many, many things.

[00:05:00] Speaker A: It should apply to this too.

Don’t let history repeat itself if you can avoid it. And they can.

Yes, now that’s Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, the DLC expansion released in 2023 only for PS5, Windows and Xbox series consoles. Smart move.

The ultimate edition that includes the base game and the expansion released for Nintendo Switch 2 as well.

Which you know, just as it was with Witcher 3. Very surprising to see that be even possible on the Switch of any form. Obviously Switch 2 has a bit more horsepower, but still pretty wild.

[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. For such a large game.

[00:05:44] Speaker A: Large. And you know, I actually don’t know if I’ve seen what it looks like on Switch 2, but you know, it’s probably a bit muddier, but it’s. I’m sure it works well.

[00:05:52] Speaker B: I saw somewhere that it’s. Yeah, it’s still. It works well. It’s actually not. Not that. Not too bad.

Obviously nothing like you played on series X or PS5 or.

Yeah, right.

[00:06:05] Speaker A: So the gameplay for Cyberpunk 2077 is from a first person perspective and to many extents is a first person shooter. But of course in a more RPG format. Kind of like Fallout 4, which we played a number of seasons ago.

Being an rpg, there are many adjustable values and stats to modify our character. And considering the setting, there is a lot more body modification available overall down to even individual body parts. Don’t need to go into the details here. That was covered a lot at the time of launch.

The origin you choose when creating your character determines your starting location within the world and provides unique dialogue options and conversations.

[00:06:46] Speaker B: I like that. I always like games that do that.

[00:06:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, it’s kind of. I mean, you have three options here. Is this the same as Pokemon? Not quite, but there’s a little hint of it.

Combat goes down two overall routes. Being netrunner, which is essentially hacking, and Solo, which is Combat.

V is our character is very agile, so you’re able to move around and dodge hits quite nicely. Which can be improved upon through Cyberware implant upgrades that you have to have a Cyber Doc, I guess. Doctor. Cyber Doctor Install.

Sounds like something from the Matrix right here.

[00:07:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:07:30] Speaker A: And. Well, since the name of the game here seems to be very pro body modification and customization, weapons can be upgraded into various paths. There’s tech which can do things like go through walls. There’s Smart, which can have a homing feature, for example. I’m sure there are many other examples. And power with bullets that ricochet.

You can also play through the whole game without ever killing another human. So kind of like that lovely pacifist route in Undertale.

[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah.

That brings back memories.

[00:08:04] Speaker A: Nightmare flashback from the past.

[00:08:06] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:08:08] Speaker A: So yeah, yeah, enough said.

There are seven regions here. Night City is large enough. There is driving in the game along with radio stations and a wanted system. Kind of like in GTA as well.

Even something here, sort of random, but very cool. You can install implants to translate and understand the foreign languages that the NPCs use.

[00:08:32] Speaker B: That’s insane.

[00:08:33] Speaker A: Or you can just not do those implants and here be totally immersed in being in another country or neighborhood or something like that.

[00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah.

That’s so cool though.

[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah. This is one of the greatest things about the way CD Projekt Red approaches their RPGs, which I don’t believe you’ve played any of, if that’s correct.

[00:08:53] Speaker B: No, that’s not.

Giant Ass 1 is one of my biggest ones on my backlog.

[00:08:59] Speaker A: There you go.

Additionally, there are dialogues like most Western RPGs, where you make conversation decisions and everything branches off from each decision you make or each conversation choice.

Let’s see.

The story setup of Cyberpunk 2077 is that we play as a protagonist, V, who can be male or female, and whose design is highly customizable. As mentioned, V is a mercenary with one of three starting nomad, street kid or corpo.

No matter where you decide to start from, you end up in Night City, a futuristic dystopian metropolis somewhere in California.

Soon after you arrive, you are somehow fitted with a cybernetic biochip that has the cognitive details of a famous rock star named Johnny Silverhand, and the two of you begin battling over control of the consciousness in your body.

That doesn’t sound fun.

To fix the issue, you must work together with Johnny to separate your two consciousness consciousnesses.

It’s a bit of a tongue twister, so about as out there of a concept as you might expect from a cyberpunk futuristic technology setting.

I’m excited for it.

[00:10:20] Speaker B: I’m very excited.

[00:10:22] Speaker A: It is also kind of funny how we’ve ended up with another 2077 or 2078 game on our list after both Fallout 4 and Astral Chain, where we mentioned this being a curiosity as well. I don’t know how we keep landing on these, but this one’s right in the name.

[00:10:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes, it is.

[00:10:41] Speaker A: Outside of all that, what do you know about Cyberpunk 2077, Cyberpunk itself, and what do you expect out of it?

[00:10:49] Speaker B: I.

This is, again, like, it was a big game for me when it was first coming out, but I just never then got around to it because I heard of then obviously, all the people playing it, all the issues, and I was like, I’ll just put it off until they fixed it. And obviously the issues got bigger. So we said it was delisted for a while. And then. And now though, it seems that they’ve come back. They’ve.

They’ve really. I didn’t realize Phantom Liberty 1 was released three years ago. That was like last year or the

[00:11:16] Speaker A: year before when you get so lost in your backlog. This is how the years just keep passing. And we’re still not making any progress on this. It’s just getting longer.

[00:11:25] Speaker B: No.

Um.

So, yeah, now that. Then. Then, yeah, obviously we’re starting to hear that. Like, it’s so much better. They’ve fixed almost everything that they could. It’s like extremely polished. And this was probably when we were starting our podcast and looking, making a list of games. This is easily a top 5 game.

[00:11:48] Speaker A: Sorry we had to wait until season 13 to get to it.

[00:11:50] Speaker B: That’s okay. Hey, we started off with.

This is going to be one of like the big games, like our first game, Death Stranding, that we played.

[00:11:57] Speaker A: We can only do a big one every once in a while.

[00:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah.

I mean, Fallout 4 was big, but I don’t. It wasn’t as big as I think this will be. Because the story. If you just did Fallout 4 story, you could go pretty quick.

[00:12:09] Speaker A: I felt, well, I can give you a little bit of a preview and I believe this episode, this season will cap out around 13 episodes.

[00:12:17] Speaker B: Wow. Okay.

[00:12:18] Speaker A: Which will be by far our longest desk training ended up at nine.

[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it was nine.

[00:12:23] Speaker A: I believe Fallout ended up around eight or nine as well. So this will be a long one. We’re in full and it should be fun.

[00:12:31] Speaker B: It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m ready to just get immersed into Night City and I know it’s going to take a little bit to figure everything out, all the however many cool.

Hundreds of thousands of little things that you can do. And you said like weapon mods and the person mods, everything. But I think once I’m into it, I’m gonna get really immersed and it’ll be.

Do you put a good amount of hours into this? I’m gonna go for sure.

[00:13:01] Speaker A: I think probably well beyond the. The, you know, three to five shoot for.

[00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Or the how long?

[00:13:07] Speaker A: Or the how long? Yes.

Yeah.

I think this is. I expect this to be all consuming, which is why I’m trying to knock out some other games before we start that I’m in progress just because if. Yeah. If Witcher 3 was any indication for me, this is going to be a time sink in the best way possible.

[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And that’s the. I’m also. I’m very excited to. I’m excited to play this, see how the CD Projekt Red game is. And then maybe for me, personal wise, not straight in, but maybe in a few months or so from now get into Witcher 3, because that’s one I’ve never played.

[00:13:40] Speaker A: So. And it’s fantastic and definitely very high on my list and many people’s lists. And you’re right in time because they’re Going to release a new expansion to it after 10 years.

[00:13:53] Speaker B: Crazy good for them.

[00:13:56] Speaker A: So it’s, you know, it’s connecting to the Witcher 4, which will be coming out at some point in the future.

[00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that looks incredible. So. Yeah.

[00:14:03] Speaker A: But, but Witcher 3 is, is next level and many people criticize the combat. I thought it was serviceable and at least entertaining because there’s a bit of variety if you do things in certain ways anyway.

Yeah, yeah. This is going to be a good, well executed game. Do you have any initial thoughts on which kind of setup you might be going, like build type? I mean, I know we don’t know too much yet.

Or do you know about your origin selection you think you’re going to go with?

So the three options again, let me find that. Where do they go?

Nomad, which starts out in the desert somewhere. Street Kid, which I think is kind of like the gangs of the streets. And Corpo is literally working for a corporation.

[00:14:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So. All right, so I had a. I have a really good. I have a good friend who’s beat this game three times.

This is like his favorite game of all time.

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

[00:15:01] Speaker B: And he’s giving me like little pointers and tips. I think Corpo was the one he said is a really good build to start with if you want a good argument story. Yeah, yeah. But I’m going to. I’m going to. I’m going to look through.

[00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.

[00:15:15] Speaker B: And really see. Yeah. And see what I feel is like the one I really want to start with.

[00:15:19] Speaker A: So I long ago decided I was going to go with Nomad.

[00:15:23] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:15:24] Speaker A: Because I fancy myself a bit of a Nomad as well, having lived in many places all over the place.

But also I think I like the idea because I know I’m sure you’ll end up in that desert one way or another through the quests and all that. But, you know, using it as a starting point seems interesting to me.

As far as actual like combat build. I have no idea. They all sound great.

[00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:15:48] Speaker A: They all sound like. I would love to do a run, like a full playthrough as each kind of skill tree essentially. But I also know I won’t have time to do three playthroughs of this game for that or more.

So I don’t know, I think I’m just gonna have to feel it out.

But I know that I’ve seen like there’s the blades that pop out of the arms and there’s a cool katana of some sort, which I’m always kind of A sucker for. But then there’s also those guns that kind of go around corners and things. So just going to take it as it comes, I guess.

[00:16:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, same. I usually. I’m like. I like the, like, swords are a big thing. Like, that’s usually something I first pick, like in RPGs. Like, usually like.

[00:16:42] Speaker A: I wasn’t following you did. Yeah.

[00:16:43] Speaker B: You went mainly sword, right?

[00:16:46] Speaker A: For most of the game I was

[00:16:47] Speaker B: like melee, where it’s like I kind of do more stealthy. That’s usually what I pick in these games. So I’ll see though. But I mean, also I had the guns in Fallout, but yeah, if I get that. I mean, I’ve seen what the katana and stuff that you can get in there looks like. I was like, man, if I get that, I’m like, just. That might just be main thing.

[00:17:06] Speaker A: Glued to a katana for the game. I think that might happen to me too, to be honest.

But like, some of these guns seem really cool too. So, like different from a standard FPS. So I’m.

[00:17:16] Speaker B: I’m.

[00:17:17] Speaker A: I might just be dabbling in everything until I kind of settle in on something that works.

[00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:17:22] Speaker A: Believe you can probably respec at least once, if not more than that. So hopefully that’s, you know, if you don’t like the way you went, you can change it at some point.

Any other expectations? I’ve got a handful.

[00:17:38] Speaker B: I don’t know what else.

[00:17:41] Speaker A: Has your friend kind of cued you up?

[00:17:43] Speaker B: Not much.

[00:17:43] Speaker A: Just keeping that spoiler free.

[00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah, he’s been trying to keep it spoiler free, which is obviously. Which is great.

I mean, we might actually have him on for the final episode to get his take because as I said, he’s beat it three times. He loves the game. He’s done Phantom Liberty as well.

I think he’s 100% of the game now. But yeah, he’s kept it kind of spoiler free for me. I’m just. I’m just very excited to just see everything that’s in there because as I said, I’m sure there’s so much stuff that you can do.

[00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:18:16] Speaker B: And so, yeah, I’m excited to just have it be a surprise and learn. And I think I’m gonna spend.

I feel like for the first maybe hour more might be me just building my character up and figuring everything, like, specifically out.

[00:18:31] Speaker A: I think there’s a pretty solid character builder in this. Like most of these kind of, but, you know, more advanced than the Fallout one, for sure. I probably will spend an hour doing that as well.

Yeah. And, I mean, it sounds great to go in mostly blind.

[00:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it is. And yeah, I mean, it’s what I try and do for a lot of these games that.

[00:18:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I typically do that unless there’s surrounding materials around it. So I always told myself I would watch the Netflix anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners when I finally knew I was planning to start the game soon.

[00:19:10] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:19:10] Speaker A: Because years ago, I watched season one of the Witcher series on Netflix and then promptly started playing the Witcher 3.

And it turned out to be the perfect kind of vibe primer just to get me into the world of it. And there was this giant monster from the Witcher first season in a town square a couple blocks from where I was living.

So that was cool.

[00:19:34] Speaker B: Um,

[00:19:37] Speaker A: but yes, even though I know that I knew that that show was for the Witcher was based on the books, not the games, it was still kind of just a very cool way to get that background of the lore of the world to an extent.

[00:19:49] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:19:50] Speaker A: So I did indeed watch Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and because of that, I know some details about the world.

Edgerunners is a prequel, so there may be some spoilers I learned that I won’t go into for obvious reasons, but also because I don’t even know what is a spoiler versus what isn’t yet, since we haven’t played the game yet.

But based on what I saw, I learned some interesting things.

I didn’t quite figure out for sure whether it was everyone that did it or only certain people that have them, but it seems like the backbone of all this other cybernetic body modifications people do starts with a spine unit, so you basically have to have your whole spine replaced by a piece of metal.

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

[00:20:32] Speaker A: Painful.

Maybe not everyone, but it seems like that’s the thing for, like, a lot of the, you know, I don’t know, the things that would affect gameplay.

And basically that means literally implanting that full cyber spine to replace your own.

Don’t know how you do that without killing the person, but maybe everyone gets killed and revived and you implant enhancements into your own spine.

So on top of that, almost literally every body part can be swapped out.

And depending on a person’s tolerance level or experience with doing it, they can handle various levels of use.

So people that can’t handle their implants and don’t take the right meds to balance it out end up with something called cyberpsychosis, which drives them crazy and out of control.

[00:21:18] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:21:20] Speaker A: So keep yourself in check.

[00:21:21] Speaker B: Don’t go crazy, I was gonna say. Yep. Gonna definitely have to keep myself in check on that.

[00:21:25] Speaker A: People also seem to have these chips that look kind of like SD cards that they insert into slots in their neck with various features and purposes.

There’s a lot of slang specific to this world.

[00:21:39] Speaker B: Okay, that makes sense.

[00:21:41] Speaker A: You know, it’s a bunch of street gangs, it’s a bunch of, you know, whatever. So the principal one that I kept hearing over and over again was choom.

And I think it means something along the lines of cool dude or whatever. And then there’s another word called nova, which is basically like a cool.

I might have that totally off, but I’ll figure that out as we start playing. If you haven’t watched the anime yet, I do highly recommend.

Doesn’t have to be before this. Obviously the show was released after the game and you know, as a prequel. So it. It probably adds some depth to that too. It does have a super striking art style and really nice animation, really great music and sets the tone for the world super well. So you know, basically from the very beginning of the first episode. So do highly recommend it once either.

When you finish the section for the week and you want to keep. Keep exploring the. The environment. Might as well pop that on.

[00:22:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I am going to be. I will say whilst also playing this, I’m going to be reading the book.

So there’s a Cyberpunk book. Cyberpunk 2077 book called no Coincidence.

But it’s a separate story. It has nothing to do with the game.

[00:22:57] Speaker A: Same world.

[00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, same world.

[00:22:59] Speaker A: Like same timeline.

[00:23:01] Speaker B: Mm. But it’s just.

[00:23:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s just nice so you can kind of throttle and figure out where you are in the game and make sure you don’t like go too far ahead.

[00:23:09] Speaker B: It just doesn’t have. It’s not gonna have spoilers.

[00:23:11] Speaker A: Events of the game here and there but like the major ones that everyone

[00:23:14] Speaker B: gets basically like a. It’s like a heist. Heist novel of Group of Strangers. Solid in Night City. I don’t think I had heard of that. It’s supposed to be pretty good. So I got that not that long ago. So I was going to read that while also playing.

Yeah.

[00:23:28] Speaker A: I think my final expectation is that because this is a CD project game and I put a hundred hours into the Witcher and Witcher 3 and loved. Super loved it.

I expect a couple of things. Super immersive side quests that at times overshadow the main quest. If not all the time.

Morally ambiguous decisions that make you question if you did the right thing, Highly expect that to happen a lot here.

[00:23:57] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:23:57] Speaker A: Considering how dark anything Cyberpunk usually is, and an absolutely massive expansion in Phantom Liberty that gives it an extra wonderful dose of the main game all packed into a slightly smaller package, which I think if we scheduled it right, we’ll probably start to explore a bit of that expansion maybe two thirds of the way through the game. So we’re in for a treat if the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions from Witcher 3 are anything to go by.

So I have a question. I kind of have a bit of an expectation of what you’d say, but have you played a game like this before? Like, obviously, we’ve both played expansive open world games before.

We’ve both played immersive Western RPGs with create a character systems with dialogue trees and branching narratives and builds.

We’ve both played games with driving cars and motorcycles. We’ve both played some games in futuristic cyberpunk type worlds, even in our own podcast here. But I don’t think I’ve played at least anything that combines all of these elements quite like I expect Cyberpunk 2077 to do.

[00:25:03] Speaker B: I don’t think so. Um, I mean, yeah, obviously big RPGs. Like, I played Morrowind way back in the day, Elder Scrolls and Oblivion way back in the day, but nothing.

[00:25:15] Speaker A: Nothing with this.

[00:25:15] Speaker B: Nothing? Yeah, nothing that has like everything or

[00:25:18] Speaker A: the futuristic side of it all mixed together. Yeah, I think all of that is why I’m so excited for this and probably why everyone was so excited back in 2020 and a couple years before that.

[00:25:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.

[00:25:32] Speaker A: Well, what makes it a game you want to start up now? We’ve kind of already touched on it,

[00:25:36] Speaker B: but so there’s a couple things. One, it’s been a huge game in the backlog and I’m like one of my, as I said, top five excited about two.

One of the big things is that my friend who’s played and beat it quite a bit and doesn’t stop talking

[00:25:55] Speaker A: your ear off about it and doesn’t

[00:25:56] Speaker B: stop talking my ear off and also talk to me about. So just on Kickstarter they had the cyberpunk TCG game.

So he backed it and he was like talking to me through it. He’s like, you’re gonna play it, you’re gonna love it. So I’ve ended up backing the cyberpunk TCG game and we’re gonna play together. And that doesn’t come out until November, right at the start of November. So I think we’ll be finishing about when we’re finishing this up, finishing this right as it comes out, which is like perfect timing.

So I’m very excited to. I like card games, I like TCG games. So I’m excited to.

To play this. Like, he’s going to come over once we both have our booster boxes and stuff and open everything up and then play a few games together.

[00:26:35] Speaker A: So it sounds to me, Alex, like you’re going to have a lot of cyberpunk in your life for the next few months. You’re going to play the game, you’re going to read the book, you might watch the anime, and you’re going to play the card game after and you’re going to end up with cyberpsychosis. I’m worried for it.

[00:26:51] Speaker B: Probably. Hopefully not. But yeah, I will say, way back in the day when this first came out, I did have that, the Cyberpunk 27. I got the collector’s edition, you know,

[00:27:05] Speaker A: with the big motorcycle statue. Motorcycle statue.

[00:27:08] Speaker B: But I never opened it fully one because at that point I didn’t have the room.

And then everything happened with Cyberpunk. I actually ended up selling it.

[00:27:16] Speaker A: Oh, now it’s.

[00:27:18] Speaker B: Now it’s back.

No, I’m hoping.

No, it’s not gonna. That’s not gonna be a thing where I come back and be, oh, I wish I could buy and go rebuy that. No, I’m not going to do that now. Also, I think it’s a. Worth a lot more than when I sold it because it was during the D list time. Yeah, of course.

[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:27:32] Speaker B: And it’s packed in it. But no, it was a cool statue, but I don’t.

[00:27:37] Speaker A: Well, I don’t think.

[00:27:39] Speaker B: Oh, well, I’ll have plenty of other cyberpunks stuff.

[00:27:44] Speaker A: No, yeah, don’t worry about it.

[00:27:45] Speaker B: Nope, I’m going to.

[00:27:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, all solid reasons to get to it at this point in 2026.

I’ve also wanted to for a few years now.

I mean, always very excited for it before it came out. And then it hit the same roadblock as you and many others, but wanted to for a few years now. It keeps receiving marketing that I end up seeing or coming across like the announcement for the Switch 2.

So I just continuously see some mention of it somewhere on a fairly regular basis and it just keeps popping up and staying top of mind.

And honestly, even a detail as simple as that striking yellow box art catches my attention on my game shelf.

So every time I look over there, my eye goes to that first and I know, it’s been optimized as a game for a long while now and they fixed all or most of the problems. Plus it supposedly has an excellent story along with that Phantom Liberty expansion. So.

And I mean, come on, Keanu and Idris in the same game?

[00:28:52] Speaker B: Exactly.

[00:28:53] Speaker A: Can’t beat that.

[00:28:53] Speaker B: That’s just crazy. That’s awesome.

[00:28:56] Speaker A: Which, you know, call back to last season. We had talked about the movie sonic the Hedgehog 3 being a hint to this season. This is why obviously as they are the voices of Shadow and Knuckles in that movie.

But I’ve heard a lot of praise about their performances in this game which, you know, when you get full on actors with lots of experience into a game, you’re in for a treat in most cases.

Of course, voice actors deserve their time in the sun too.

I feel like they get a decent amount but excited for their performance here. And if I didn’t already have enough reasons myself to play it now, it doesn’t hurt that multiple people on our Discord server count it as one of their favorite games of all time. So yeah, yes, I’m ready to dive in.

[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:29:42] Speaker A: So since the story of Cyberpunk 2077 is somewhat loose considering the open world nature of it, we have found vague descriptions of key turning point moments that we can use as our save points before the next section. So for next time, play until after you ride with someone named Dexter in a limousine and get out.

So talk to Dexter in a limo, get out of the car, save and quit. Save and quit and hang. Hang on for next time.

[00:30:11] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:30:12] Speaker A: Join us to find out if Cyberpunk 2077 is still worth playing in 2026.

And before you get started, let us know on Discord what your expectations are for the game. Before you start, we’re curious to hear your thoughts.

[00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, very curious.

So yeah. So thank you everyone for listening. I hope you guys are who hasn’t played, who haven’t played Cyberpunk 2077 or are as excited as us to get started on this game and play along with us? Because this is. I think this is going to be a. It’s going to be a big one and I think it’s going to be a really fun one by the end. I think this will be high up the rankings potentially by the time we’re finished.

[00:30:49] Speaker A: I think so. I think we need to update our rankings too.

[00:30:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So yes, thank you everyone for listening and have a great one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of native 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.