Gaming

...it's the first time since FNV I really felt the writing in a game was gripping and interesting to me on a serious level.

Disco Elysium remains the undisputed pinnacle of videogame writing and voice acting for me, so if you haven't played it yet and are interested in a seriously moving and fascinating novel masquerading as a game I highly recommend it.

Cyberpunk has been seriously good as well, though. There are plenty of compelling characters and stories, and the evolution of the relationship between V and Johnny and the development of both of those characters has been enthralling.

It's gameplay is honestly decent enough as well...

I feel like the gameplay reminded me of Witcher 3, in a sense. It has some good ideas, and many elements and mechanics that could make it interesting and engaging are there, they just don't quite fit together properly, aren't balanced well and in the end combat ends up a little simple, flat and too easy. I have installed countless mods that affect combat, though, and now I'm at a point where it's seriously enjoyable.

Well, the mods do some heavy lifting for sure (I mean, the game is literally unplayable without the unofficial patch), but they can only fix so much. The game was - much like Cyberpunk - shipped in an unfinished state that is to some extent beyond the scope of repair for mods. The final third of Bloodlines is not great. You can tell they ran out of time and had to cobble together an ending somehow with what they had. It devolves into a series of combat encounters in a game that is not exactly famous for its combat gameplay. Compare the last sections of the game to Santa Monica to see what I mean; imagine if they were afforded the time to give the whole game the same amount of thought and polish as they could Santa Monica.

Still, much like Cyberpunk, when it's operating at full capacity it really hits the spot. Driving through the rain at night in first person through Night City gives me sort of similar vibes as walking the rainy streets of Santa Monica, listening to Rik Schaffer's phenomenal soundtrack. Both games nail the atmosphere, at least at times.

They're actually fairly similar, carried by their characters, stories, setting and atmosphere rather than gameplay.

I also have to mention the combination of Bloodlines cartoony art direction and the facial animation rigging of Source Engine. The characters are incredibly expressive for a 2004(!) game, it really holds up well.

Did not expect to be thinking about reinstalling that today, but here we are!

In the voice of Alistair Grout: Damn it all, now I'm doing it too!

Both games were too ambitious, really. They really are like kindred spirits. It's still unbelievable that Bloodlines is playable at all considering it was developed on an alpha version of the Source Engine held together with chopsticks and chewing gum and without any official devtools. It still bums me out we'll never get the true Bloodlines 2 that could have been. Bryan Mitsoda was the soul of Bloodlines and it won't be the same without him.

Cyberpunk was absolutely way too ambitious. But they've made substantial efforts to fix the stuff that was broken or bugged. It has become a very good game.

I genuinely love the game despite everything, and I think the experience is a worthwhile one, but I still think Cyberpunk has to be recommended with an asterisk and not as an unqualified very good game.

It's true that post-patches the game isn't the broken, buggy mess it was at launch, but I think the game has deeper running problems than that, to be honest.

The narrative CDPR wanted to tell is not suited for the open world game that their audience wanted, and the marriage between the two aspects is not natural.

The theme-park style open world is at odds with the immersion they want to sell and often undercuts your experience.

The story itself also has serious pacing issues, and some important side content is locked behind story progression in a way that makes the whole experience awkward.