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405 people found this review helpful
13 people found this review funny

Not Recommended

0.0 hrs last two weeks / 6.0 hrs on record

Posted: 8 Aug, 2020 @ 10:37am
Updated: 8 Aug, 2020 @ 10:48am

I'm a bit conflicted about Cloudpunk, but I'll go with a negative review since the negative aspects seem to outweigh the positive ones for now, and I'm not even sure If I'll be able to finish the main story.

What I liked:

Graphics and visual style. The game looks really fine and delivers that neon cyberpunk feel really well.
Atmosphere. It's fun just to fly or run around, Nivalis gives you a great metropolis feeling, very immersive.
Music. I mean it's no Vangelis, but still very appropriate and high quality soundtrack. I enjoyed it a lot.
Ambition. This is a pretty big project for an indie studio to take on, so I'm happy they were able to complete it successfully.

What I didn't like:

Gameplay. I can't help it, but the game is just damn boring. The problem is, when you make a game that consists entirely out of chill fetch quests, you should either turn it into a fleshed-out sandbox, or compensate for the lack of variety and challenge in some other way. Cloudpunk does neither. It took me a couple of hours to get bored from driving from A to B and back. Also, I wanted to play a cyberpunk adventure, not Euro Truck Simulator.
Story and writing. I honestly believe that writing is the weakest point of Cloudpunk. Can't say that it's abysmal, but the quality is very inconsistent and some cringe-worthy moments just straight made me want to turn the game off.

Main character, Rania, could've been interesting, but the writer decided to dumb her down in order to prolong the story. The part that pissed me off was when she was super interested in figuring out what the mysterious CORA is, even risking her life to find it out, and then when she meets an AI that literally tells her "I AM CORA", she goes like "Yeah whatever bye lol", because I guess the writer decided it's too soon to reveal the secret. They've also tried to emphasize how much of a strong and independent woman she is by making her unironically use terms such as "cultural appropriation" and getting offended because a guy used the word "man" to refer to the human race. I mean come on, she was totally fine without suddenly turning into a stereotypical social justice warrior.

Speaking of which, Cloudpunk handles social commentary very poorly. Most of secondary characters in the game are either extremely tired cyberpunk cliché, or silly over-the-top caricatures. Yeah, let's make an obnoxious streamer character who looks down on women and calls his fans "Bro-Brothers", how funny and original, especially for a cyberpunk game. How about a pompous CEO who is willing to pay for an illegal service because he dislikes pineapples in his pizza? Rich people are bad, amirite guys? Not to mention that the delivery is so bad that most of the time I wasn't even able to define whether what I'm hearing is supposed to be a joke or a dead serious dramatic moment.

Main story is incredibly slow and not engaging at all. There are no stakes, no risks, no motivation to proceed. Rania is supposed to be extremely poor and fleeing from some kind of debt collectors, always mentioning about how she can't afford anything and how tough her life is. Meanwhile, over the course of what's supposed to be one night you collect enough money to fully upgrade your car and fill your apartment with all kinds of cosmetic stuff. There's no feel of urgency or deeper meaning behind anything you do.

World building is also pretty lackluster. In this world people forgot what "Tokyo" is, but they still know about Arabic language for some reason. How come? Some guy throws away all his possessions in order to have a chance to look at the top level of the city - The Spire - because apparently it's impossible for a commoner to get there during their entire lifespan. Cool concept, huh? Yeah, Rania - a literal nobody from some village - gets there in a couple hours to deliver pizza. Fascinating.
Lack of purpose. As I said before, a good game motivates you to finish it either with a good story or good gameplay mechanics. There's no good story to be found in Cloudpunk and the main gameplay loop gets old really fast. The devs tried to give the player something to do by filling the map with points of interest, mostly consisting of more dumb dialogues and different ways to make extra money. Except the only ways to spend money are either to buy clothes (which is completely useless if you play in first person mode like I do) or to buy stuff for your apartment (which is also completely useless and not even interactive in any way).

In conclusion I can't say I hated the game, it certainly has great things about it, but I honestly wouldn't recommend it to my friends.

[b]What I liked:[/b]

[list]
    [*][b]Graphics and visual style.[/b] The game looks really fine and delivers that neon cyberpunk feel really well. 
    [*][b]Atmosphere.[/b] It's fun just to fly or run around, Nivalis gives you a great metropolis feeling, very immersive.
    [*][b]Music.[/b] I mean it's no Vangelis, but still very appropriate and high quality soundtrack. I enjoyed it a lot.
    [*][b]Ambition.[/b] This is a pretty big project for an indie studio to take on, so I'm happy they were able to complete it successfully.
[/list]

[b]What I didn't like:[/b]
[list]
    [*][b]Gameplay.[/b] I can't help it, but the game is just damn boring. The problem is, when you make a game that consists entirely out of chill fetch quests, you should either turn it into a fleshed-out sandbox, or compensate for the lack of variety and challenge in some other way. Cloudpunk does neither. It took me a couple of hours to get bored from driving from A to B and back. Also, I wanted to play a cyberpunk adventure, not Euro Truck Simulator.

[*][b]Story and writing.[/b] I honestly believe that writing is the weakest point of Cloudpunk. Can't say that it's abysmal, but the quality is very inconsistent and some cringe-worthy moments just straight made me want to turn the game off.

Main character, Rania, could've been interesting, but the writer decided to dumb her down in order to prolong the story. [spoiler]The part that pissed me off was when she was super interested in figuring out what the mysterious CORA is, even risking her life to find it out, and then when she meets an AI that literally tells her "I AM CORA", she goes like "Yeah whatever bye lol", because I guess the writer decided it's too soon to reveal the secret.[/spoiler] They've also tried to emphasize how much of a strong and independent woman she is by making her unironically use terms such as "cultural appropriation" and getting offended because a guy used the word "man" to refer to the human race. I mean come on, she was totally fine without suddenly turning into a stereotypical social justice warrior.

Speaking of which, Cloudpunk handles social commentary very poorly. Most of secondary characters in the game are either extremely tired cyberpunk cliché, or silly over-the-top caricatures. Yeah, let's make an obnoxious streamer character who looks down on women and calls his fans "Bro-Brothers", how funny and original, especially for a cyberpunk game. How about a pompous CEO who is willing to pay for an illegal service because he dislikes pineapples in his pizza? Rich people are bad, amirite guys? Not to mention that the delivery is so bad that most of the time I wasn't even able to define whether what I'm hearing is supposed to be a joke or a dead serious dramatic moment.

Main story is incredibly slow and not engaging at all. There are no stakes, no risks, no motivation to proceed. Rania is supposed to be extremely poor and fleeing from some kind of debt collectors, always mentioning about how she can't afford anything and how tough her life is. Meanwhile, over the course of what's supposed to be one night you collect enough money to fully upgrade your car and fill your apartment with all kinds of cosmetic stuff. There's no feel of urgency or deeper meaning behind anything you do.

World building is also pretty lackluster. In this world people forgot what "Tokyo" is, but they still know about Arabic language for some reason. How come? Some guy throws away all his possessions in order to have a chance to look at the top level of the city - The Spire - because apparently it's impossible for a commoner to get there during their entire lifespan. Cool concept, huh? Yeah, Rania - a literal nobody from some village - gets there in a couple hours to deliver pizza. Fascinating.

[*][b]Lack of purpose.[/b] As I said before, a good game motivates you to finish it either with a good story or good gameplay mechanics. There's no good story to be found in Cloudpunk and the main gameplay loop gets old really fast. The devs tried to give the player something to do by filling the map with points of interest, mostly consisting of more dumb dialogues and different ways to make extra money. Except the only ways to spend money are either to buy clothes (which is completely useless if you play in first person mode like I do) or to buy stuff for your apartment (which is also completely useless and not even interactive in any way). 
[/list]

In conclusion I can't say I hated the game, it certainly has great things about it, but I honestly wouldn't recommend it to my friends.

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22 Comments

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Mightylcanis 30 Jan @ 11:37am

Thanks for saving my money and my time

lionpup 31 Jan, 2022 @ 9:40pm

Slogging through this chore of a game. Completely agree with everything in your review.

FireFox 29 Jan, 2022 @ 3:37am

Hey guys did you know the main character is from the Eastern Peninsula (a.k.a. the Middle East)?

But don't worry if you forget, because every time you make a delivery, the characters will remind you. In every god damn conversation.

reed 13 Sep, 2021 @ 9:25pm

Thanks for the warning brother. I have completely ditch EA/Bioware/Bethesda/Blizzard/etc for the last 5-10 years due to their greed, lies and slackavist pandering. Now looks like I'll be a ditching this could've being fun lil' gem. Shame to see gaming going down the drain like everything else.

puddin pie 27 Aug, 2021 @ 11:08pm

if I avoided SJW in AAA content there'd be almost nothing to play lol. it's bad enough everybody i know in RL got that bs what-cha-ma-doosie stuff in their shoulders which is really impossible to look beyond.

Socio political stuff in games is easy and i can deal with just fine and is definitely not a deal breaker.

anyways, i respect this guys opinion even if i disagree.

Wolfranger 19 Jun, 2021 @ 9:36am

Yeah, it was interesting in the beginning and could overlook the woke political commentary for a while, but the game didn't keep me hooked and eventually I had enough on-the-nose dogma (finally quit at the point where they did an absurd caricature of Stephen Crowder as Glen Bo).

catchby84 6 Jun, 2021 @ 1:04pm

I agree with an early point you made in that from what ive seen im just glad a indie developer was able to achieve what they set out to do! I still will get it but solid review.

Smash4686 25 May, 2021 @ 12:10pm

That just sounds annoying and preachy.

zyx3ys 12 Mar, 2021 @ 11:59pm

unfortunate...another game ruined by sjw bullshit

Davaretta 18 Feb, 2021 @ 1:10pm

The moment she started whining about ''cultural appropriation'', I was done with this game.

They should start putting stickers all over these games:

[[ WARNING: CONTAINS SJW CONTENT. MAY CAUSE HEADACHES, VIOLENT URGES, LOSS OF IQ POINTS ]]

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