Night City Wire, Episode 01!

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Hmm. My feelings toward the game after seeing this first episode are mixed for many reasons, because it seems to enlighten some dark zones in my assumptions list, and it's as promising in some points than it is disappointing in some other points ; if the game reviewers didn't add some substantial info about the gameplay, character creation, etc... I think I would've be mostly disappointed. I won't list my opinions in detail as we're close to the release date, but I wanna talk about the braindance because when I saw it I was caught off guard not for the good reason:

It seems that braindance is dividing the public to two distinct groups, and I can get it how people can like the concept, or the (impressive) visual effects, etc. but I'm joining the "disappointed" group. (Glad to see that other ppl in the forum seem to understand our negative opinion, too, I really appreciate that attitude.)

To be honest I've had a totally different vision of the braindance system and its use in the game and I couldn't believe it ended up in this (as I think it is from the video) : generic mechanics wrapped in cool designs. It's bummer since I get it that it costs big efforts in writing, coding, modeling... But I can't help it, I'm sorry. The first thing that came to mind after looking was "Am I going to play to a 3D video editor in flying spectator mode with some highlighted elements to check here and there in order to succeed ?? wtf ??"... So hopefully the situations will vary enough that we find some of these "investigations" better than others, it's my true wish. As it looks right now I don't really want to play braindance missions (even those which aren't related to these missions, I mean it feels weak and disconnected in term of narrative, so I don't believe it can make us want to feel implicated in these stories).

[EDIT] Also the main character seem to try too much to feel implicated, because the only information we get as a player are his dialogue ; the devs don't make advantage of the non-verbal communication, and we (players) can't read in his mind or feelings neither : we're left with a voice that is looking at his hands to make like it's feeling something. How many of you guys look at your hands when you're in stress or anger ? Nobody ? That's an early narration technique that has been used in full first-person-view games to try to send the feelings to the player, but to me it just feels odd and gamey. It just doesn't work well, and for these cutscenes the third-person view could have been more appropriate. Just my opinion.

Maybe further info will change my mind (I hope so !) ; Otherwise, I'm sure that the game provides tons of other fun things to experience, so I can forget about braindance and have my fun elsewhere.
 
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I want to make out with the Mox at the door (purple hair with bat) <3 Judy too!
OK, Judy was pretty hot...that was about the only thing I actually liked about the whole brain dance segment. :whistle:
And wow...I figured that the population density wouldn't be near what it was in the initial 48-minute demo but damn, I didn't expect there to be nearly none.
 
I'm curious as to what people wanted from braindance, what do you think could have made it better? Maybe there is more to it later on and that was just a glimpse but idk.
 
I'm curious as to what people wanted from braindance, what do you think could have made it better? Maybe there is more to it later on and that was just a glimpse but idk.
I like the idea of living through people's experiences/feeling their feels through braindance etc but I don't get the whole out of body view where you're looking at the person through an invisible camera lol
 
It was everything I wanted :cry:
Please, just focus on optimization and no more features. I don't want this to be an eternity project that will never be finished.

I just have couple questions for the next wire or the people doing reviews...

1. Kotaku reviewer said they were only given controllers to play with. My question: how is driving with keyboard and mouse?

2. One reviewer said you can gain a "wanted" status if you perform crimes in at least certain places... can you surrender to the police? Is it a game over state or will you be released (sentence skipped) like in old grand theft autos? Or will you just be gunned down and respawn like in GTA5?

ps. I just dont know if I will be around to play the game when it finally comes out.. It has taken too long.. :giveup:
 
I like the idea of living through people's experiences/feeling their feels through braindance etc but I don't get the whole out of body view where you're looking at the person through an invisible camera lol
Imagine it as a model that was artificially created with all the sensory information the recorded provided. You can see that part of the world around the recorded disappears when they're far away from there or not looking at it, which may prove that a little bit. Jude also said that the editor enhances the recording automatically, and that probably explains the out-of-body view and all. After all, even today we have AI algorithms that can upscale and image, create and image, create basically anything with enough training (the success is relative, but whatever). There is (or was) a website, https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/, but it doesn't seem to be working for me right now; basically, that's and algorithm that creates human faces.

In 2077, the technology to create or at least expand some recording or experience (especially with so much data, like sounds, smells, sensations, etc) is probably trivial, especially given the fact that the braindance was developed, like, in 2000s according to what quest designer said?

Still, that moment when we could hack into the monitor and see who was the shooter is kinda out of place, but... That's a video game. Too much realism is restricting and counter-fun.
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2. One reviewer said you can gain a "wanted" status if you perform crimes in at least certain places... can you surrender to the police? Is it a game over state or will you be released (sentence skipped) like in old grand theft autos? Or will you just be gunned down and respawn like in GTA5?
POSTAL 2 had that mechanic of actually going to jail (which was situated right in the police station in the same city), and the player had to throw matches to a fire alarm in order to trigger it, which opened the cells and you could make your epic escape through all the cops and everyone else. Could also obtain a police uniform in process, cool! The process got gradually harder the more you were caught, though, so first couple of times are no-brainers, but you had to try harder later.
 
Well the good news (I think) is that there will be more episodes. At least one more is confirmed, but I kinda get the feeling there may be several more episodes that focus on different gameplay elements. At least that would make sense.

Not sure if you saw but it looks like we'll have 3 episodes in all with the next one coming in 'a couple weeks'. Hopefully they will have more but that's all they are showing for now.

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I'm actually pretty excited for brain dance, yeah it's been done in Arkham Origins but it was still a fun mechanic so who cares
Detroit: Become Human had something similar as well. I'm kinda glad we get to play with that thing again, especially with all that "another person's" experience and sensations twist.
 
I'm curious as to what people wanted from braindance, what do you think could have made it better? Maybe there is more to it later on and that was just a glimpse but idk.

Could've worked as a "Cinema" mode to record your stuff and send in on a server, other players could buy it, you could make some eddies with it.

Could still be used as a detective mode.

Cdpr could've made a bunch of random "Braindance" records to explore the world and the lore, for the fun of it (as in strange days).

But, presented as is.
It looks exactly like the detective mode in Call of Cthulhu.
It's often the most boring part in the gameplay...

I don't really care about it, but for a first Wire, I'd expected something a bit more...

Dynamic?

Like a tour of Night City or something, the Braindance was a bit off with the pacing.

Now, about the wire:

They just threw at us an MTV-paced-edited trailer, a bunch of disconnected action gameplay video (the car chase looks fun, but that's just duck hunt, nothing really thrilling mechanic wise).

Wasn't bad, but didn't revealed anything we didn't kinda knew yet.

Adam Smasher looks fabulous tho.

Still curious about the various kind of build we'll be able to have in this game.

City at night looks great too.

Instead of throwing lifepath intros without context, IMO, it would've been a bit nicer to have each origin explained a bit, and what it change in game (no need to spoil, just present them, so you know what to choose).

RP reminds me a bit of Vampire Bloodline, which is good.

The part with V and Jaquie dressing up and sneaking in the Arasaka's tower looks delicious.

The game probably won't be the open RPG they said it would be, but the story looks nice enough to get a good time out of it.

All in all, they showed a lot without showing much.

About the NPC in the street, I heard they'll add them last, which may be understandable since they still work on it. But yeah, felt a bit empty.
 
I'm curious as to what people wanted from braindance, what do you think could have made it better? Maybe there is more to it later on and that was just a glimpse but idk.
After processing it a bit, what separates braindance from Arkham and the like is that you can embody a person and experience it from their point of view. It can give us great storytelling opportunities. And this made me love it. Since braindance is a record, I don't think there can be done much with it as far as mechanic of it goes. I like the analyze mode visuals, like it's made of particles and stuff... So yeah, it should stay in the game even if it's not something new gameplay-wise.
 
I'm curious as to what people wanted from braindance, what do you think could have made it better? Maybe there is more to it later on and that was just a glimpse but idk.
I hoped it allowed us to experience weird situations, like a justification for crazy minigames. But I can't say I'm disappointed, it's a little too similar to stuff we saw in other games, but it's fine.
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Not sure if you saw but it looks like we'll have 3 episodes in all with the next one coming in 'a couple weeks'. Hopefully they will have more but that's all they are showing for now.

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My bets are on the second in August and the third in late September/early October.

Nice found btw.
 
That was great! As usual I was blown away with the visuals. You guys have the best visual and technical artists in the game. \,,/ (i just hope the pop-ins can be fixed for stronger rigs)

Just 2 things that could use some work imo:
-The enemy AI from what I've seen and heard were still pretty dumb. Hoping for a difficulty setting(hardcore levels of peripheral vision for the enemies, coop tactics and reactability as if they were actually combat hardened)
-And melee animations are not that smooth and impactful. The sounds helps, but there's some kind of weird lag/pauses at the end of the hit

Sound design and voice acting sounded great! Nothing too exaggerated, all seem grounded in reality.
Braindance was niche but it looked like every detective gamer's wet dream. lol

Other than that, I'm already sold from the 2018 demo. I know what I want and it looked like i'm getting it.(playing a bunch of fps games now just to get used to the perspective)Looking forward on ep 2 \,,/
 
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I was extremely disappointed.
All i saw was a cluncky gameplay with on rails quick time events, insane LOD pop in, no gameplay mechanics besides few features that other games already and widely used, nothing revolutionary.
Extremely bad AI, unimmersive shooting, disconnected voice acting at times, a melee system that lacks impact, no words on actual gameplay possibilities, turfs clipping in the front of the cars and 3 backgrounds that it seems all end up witht he same mexican dude for whatever reason you want (that last part is the least of problems).
I think CDPR have maybe (still not confirmed) a talent in creating stories, but gameplay wise..this needs work because there's nothing extraordinary, actually it feels (from what you can see) kind of average.
Braindance is meh, I mean it's ok to have it fine, an interactifve subsitution of The division annoying holograms but that doesn't cut it for me.
The world looks great (still the pop in is atrocious) and very well crafted but that's not gameplay, it's eye candy. I can't see the same for every character tho, some are very detailed, others are not in par with the quality. Lipsync sometimes is an opinion, but that could have been a bug.
I honestly expected something a little bit more "original" and immersive in terms of pure gameplay, at least for the features shown so far. Definitely leveled flat my expectations by a long shot. Plus I hope the missions don't obviously splat in your face the 3 "solutions given by the archetypes stealth fight techie", trying to hide it a little bit making it less streamlined. It feels , so far, as a console game, an average one with a sprinkle of GTAv, some Deus Ex: mankind divided and a spray of sleeping dogs.

I wouldn't be surprised if this gets delayed to 2021. It's not even near being "mindblowing" or revolutionary , or perfect, especially talking about gameplay and animations while outside of cinematic events.

Also I don't understand how the various reviewers totally "forgot" to talk about the actual issues that would make them raise doubts in any other game and are clearly visible to anyone besides overhyped and delusional gamers.

TO add some thoughts to this detailed account after watching NCW E1 and two gameplay vids with no commentary:
  1. Lighting looks flat in some areas.
  2. Pop-in is obvious and draw distance is low as hell in Badlands.
  3. FOV is also low, hopefully there is an FOV slider.
  4. Chromatic aberration is ever-present, hopefully there is an in-game on/off toggle. I could get behind the use of chromatic aberration after using some drugs.
  5. If raytracing is used in the game I haven't noticed it at all.
  6. The world as a whole and objects in it (weapons, characters) don't look futuristic at all. When you read Neuromancer you get the sense of all the cool future things. But in the recent videos it pretty much looks like GTA-5 populated by folks with metal in their faces. Weapons, especially the assault rifle with a hideous kid's chamo akin to CS:GO skins is bad, really bad.
  7. Male V sounds and looks extremely generic, female V in 2018 gameplay vid had more charisma to her.
  8. If techie class (along with the spider things gameplay, sigh) was removed then it leaves you with two? Solo and netrunner? So much for multiple charcter classes (well I guess two counts for multipel nowadays).
  9. Music in all three videos was extremely forgettable. Deep Dive had at least one great guitar riff going for it. I assume it was Paul Leonard Morgan's work.
  10. NPC count looks very low. As in Bethesda levels of low.
  11. Suicide squad aesthetic (over-the-top color barrage when your eye fails to focus on any one specific thing) isn't my cup of tea.
 
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I am so glad to know that Int and Tech finally have two skill trees for each according to the latest review! Thank you, CDPR.
It's also good to know that gun play in 2077 feels awesome. LOL
 
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