Mike Pondsmith's most Cyberpunk city, ( until he gets to Tokyo, anyway)

[Sardukhar]

Mike Pondsmith's most Cyberpunk city, ( until he gets to Tokyo, anyway)

https://rtalsoriangames.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/inside-a-designers-head/


"People have often asked me what things have struck me as the most Cyberpunk moments in my life. There are a lot of them, but here’s one of the most impressive– the view from the highest building in Sao Paulo, Brazil. "

Here are some more shots from Mike's favourite CP city:

This is the view from Skye nightclub, one of the most famous in the world:

oh, look, Night City!

And lastly, just for some scale:

What are some of your favourite Night Cities?

 

[braindancer12]

70's/80's New York city

Growing up during this era was crazy..

It really looked like this. Decadence and degradation was everywhere. Times Square was filthy and the trains were filled with tags..

this is what parts of the south bronx looked like circa 1980,

The south Bronx used to look like a bombed out third world country. Robberies everywhere, harlem was a giant crack spot and you couldnt have a car that wasnt broke into

 

[Suhiira]

70's/80's New York city

Growing up during this era was crazy..

It really looked like this. Decadence and degradation was everywhere. Times Square was filthy and the trains were filled with tags..

The south Bronx used to look like a bombed out third world country. Robberies everywhere, harlem was a giant crack spot and you couldnt have a car that wasnt broke into

Good pics tho ... they "feel" like Cyberpunk 2077.

 

[Sardukhar]

Good pics tho ... they "feel" like Cyberpunk 2077.

Really? Maybe the combat zone..but even then, lacking in neon and tech. As for the rest of 2077, just too low-tech for me.

 

[thewarsend]

Yeah, most look more like something between combat zone and wastelands.. Still, nice pics though..

 

[Maelcom404]

It really looked like this. Decadence and degradation was everywhere. Times Square was filthy and the trains were filled with tags..

Reminds me of the novel "Street Meat" by Norman Spinrad, I'd love to have the same kind of setting in the subway of the combat zone.

Basically, it's the story of Maria, an ex-homeless bum who ended in the private-police in some way, she escort a rich-lady who love to take her dog to a real forest so he can pee,etc... by flying with an helicopter.

The dog wants sudently to piss, and the lady scream she's all "get on the floor, i don't want the dog to piss on me!", when they get out to make the dog pee, all the bums around comes, trying to get the dog to eat it, Maria shoot a few bullets, and the dog gets out, caught by a Bum, she ends up running after him, etc.... I'll not spoil everything lol

She ends in the Subway, which is descibed almost like the pic, ugly, stinking, armored everywhere, you can see bum pooping in some corner, the few "corpo" inside are all sticked to their guards, she's scared because the subway is like an underground city for the bums, once they can have a "ticket" to enter it, a lot stay in it, because it's a shelter, there is rats to eat, and it's less cold than in the outside, but she's not scared because of that.

She's scared because she knows that at 9pm, the subway's closed, the lights are turned off, and all "what you can't see " during day, get out of their lairs...

Once lights are off, the bums (and the worsts, since they all live underground) take the place, lighting fire, cooking rat, sometimes there are rape/murders/cannibalism, peoples covered with vomit/feces who hadn't took a bath for a few years at least, they take drugs, some sleep in the toilets (the kind of rotted toilet you don't want to use... we all know how it looks like, filled with crap, piss and used toilet paper, now imagine a lil worst lol), those people are scrawny, malnourished, dirty, crazy and perverted.

I'd love to have those kind of "underground hell" in the subway if I ends inside it when I shouldn't be there.

Spinrad really do a great job at describing cyberpunk's low end of society, "Littles Heroes" and this novel are really immersive, I'd say the street side is way better in Spinrad books than in Gibson's.
Case would look like a healthy person among them, that said, it's a "lower" social level bescribed, the one who have litteraly nothing, I'd figure there would be a lot in CP77.

 

[braindancer12]

Really? Maybe the combat zone..but even then, lacking in neon and tech. As for the rest of 2077, just too low-tech for me.

I picked 70's/80's New York city, because of the feel! Its dark, dangerous, full of gangs, graffities, dealers, its sure too low-tech, its the 70's/80's....

Its kinda like the discription of GTA 3 from Mike Pondsmith

Grand Theft Auto 3 is basically cyberpunk minus the hardware

 

[Sardukhar]

I picked 70's/80's New York city, because of the feel! Its dark, dangerous, full of gangs, graffities, dealers, its sure too low-tech, its the 70's/80's....

Its kinda like the discription of GTA 3 from Mike Pondsmith

Fair enough, fair enough. Although he also considers bright lights and neon essential. Tokyo for example:

I have no real problem with 80s New York..just not as Night City downtown or corporate center. Lacks the glow and snazz.

Anywhere else? Surprised @blank_redge hasn't given us some amazing LA images yet.

 

[braindancer12]

a quote from Mike about cyberpunk cities

There are two places that stick out in my memory. The first was Detroit. I was there at 5pm on a Tuesday and the streets were deserted. In mid downtown. Skyscrapers were boarded up, sealed to the third or fourth story against squatters and vandals. There was an abandoned monorail track running through town with graffiti all over the pylons. THAT'S a cyberpunk city.
The second place was in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Went up to the top of the highest skyscraper and looked out the observation deck. It was skyscrapers in an endless, dense packed array all the way past the horizon, in every single direction. Suddenly, the idea of a mega city became real to me.

 

[wisdom000]

80's new york here as well. Manhattan, Chinatown, you wanted Neon and bright lights it was there, you wanted slums and combat zone, shit, Harlem and the Bronx were right across the bridge... Hell, Times Square was seedy as fuck, but even it was filled with Neon.

Sao Paolo is pretty cool, as is Rio, both are pretty ideal.

I think it was Gibson who said that his version of the most cyberpunk city was Mexico City Mexico.

 

[wisdom000]

Fair enough, fair enough. Although he also considers bright lights and neon essential. Tokyo for example:

I have no real problem with 80s New York..just not as Night City downtown or corporate center. Lacks the glow and snazz.

Anywhere else? Surprised @blank_redge hasn't given us some amazing LA images yet.

Seriously, I have said it before, but if I can ever get you and Blank on GTA V at the same time, you need to let him take you on a tour of Los Santos, and let him point out how remarkably close it is to actual Los Angeles... Dude is the best video game tour guide ever.... in fact, we will steal a tour bus so he can do it in style.

 

[blank_redge]

Anywhere else? Surprised @blank_redge hasn't given us some amazing LA images yet.

Been offline most of the weekend. To contribute...

Google maps:

419 South Flower Street, Los Angeles, CA

Zoom all the way in to street view.

Pan up. Yes, up.

Then pan around in a circle.


Corporate Plaza (aka downtown Los Angeles.)

Another view of downtown. I'd hotlink the pic, but it's 1204 x 903. Kind of large.

 

[blank_redge]

I'll try to pick out some notable landmarks around the city...

The Capitol Records building:

The Westin Bonaventure hotel:

The Bonaventure is particularly interesting to me, because the first five or six floors are an indoor mall. It's like the template for an arcology building.

 

[blank_redge]

The US Bank tower (formerly Library tower):

 

[blank_redge]

Not a building, but a cool image:

Man-powered float, during the Nisei Week parade in Little Tokyo.

Japanese Village Plaza, Little Tokyo:

The garden, adjacent to the Cultural Center in Little Tokyo:

Chinatown, in its carefully constructed, neon-touristy tackiness:

 

[blank_redge]

The Standard Hotel:

and their clever logo:

 

[blank_redge]

More fun with Google Maps:

483 South Mapleton Drive, Los Angeles, CA

Go to Satellite View, then zoom in to one click before maximum zoom.

North and slightly East of the map marker?

Congrats. You have an aerial view of the Playboy Mansion.

 

[wisdom000]

sometimes I can't tell where reality ends and GTA V begins....

Then I realize I don't have an assault rifle shoved up the extradimensional space in my asshole and can get on with my day....

 

[VoitanRex]

Just google images Dubai, for a corporate exclusive zone.

And Hong Kong if you want to see NEON fucking everywhere.

 

[kanonite]

Damn, Sao Paulo at night looks perfect for cyberpunk.

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