That was one of the things I liked about Blade Runner- it depicted a future that was chaotic, filthy and disgusting, kind of like cities of today are chaotic, filthy and disgusting, in stark contrast to the insanely clean and perfect Star Trek vision of the future.
I've always felt that Mirror's Edge presented a more accurate of a cyberpunk dystopia than the ur-example Bladerunner. The city in that is like a perfectly run Singapore, with only hints of riots and war in the past, and data couriers being the only opposition to the system. Our tyranny will be clean and commercialized, because that's what sells. I used to think it would look "family friendly" too but in a society that's conditioning us to accept MAPs and tranny story hour, that's gone out the window.
Deus Ex disagrees. Of course that's also the game where...
The totalitarian globalist technocracy sitting at the point-of-convergence for unchecked corporate & gov't power, and the UN army which serves as their public enforcement arm, are unambiguously the bad guys.
The far-right militia guys who have been designated as terrorists and who you are encouraged to kill on sight turn out to be good guys fighting for the interests of the people against said technocracy.
The avant-garde Situationist-style leftist rebels you run into later are pretty useless in a fight and will themselves agree that they'd all be dead without you, unlike the militiamen above who keep on trucking after you pummel the crap out of them in the first couple levels.
Literally every media outlet is under the control of the technocratic conspiracy, even the one that seems 'based' and on the side of freedom at first glance.
Perhaps most importantly, the game doesn't judge you for your actions and consistently gives you a huge degree of freedom to do whatever you want to do, all the way to the ending(s).
Yeah, I can see why Jacobin might have a problem with all that.
The push for the parts recall in Human Revolution reminds me so much of the push for the bad today. And not taking it was the correct choice too because the corps had a backdoor implemented in the new part. Lol
Sure is. But as the other poster said, the Squeenix games are pozzed. Augs Lives Matter and a general pivot to 'racism bad' are the order of the day in Nu-DX, where the 2000 original talks about the Rothschilds and has actual deep insights & criticisms to offer about political systems & philosophies, even (perhaps especially) Western liberal democracies.
Yeah, the Augmented Rights Coalition. Who are STILL shown to be good guys with a righteous cause at their core, suffering only from the (mis)guidance of the Illuminati plant. You meet their founder and he's shown to be an unambiguously good guy, the implication being that there was nothing wrong with the group until the Illuminati put Marchenko in control - IOW, what saner BLM defenders will say about tge riots while ignoring the org's actual ideology or how its founders explicitly identify as trained Marxists, done unironically.
Plus the game's best ending involves them getting what they want re:aug control legislation. Unlike previous games where you get a choice of who to side with and each faction gives you wildly different outcomes, MD's endings are variations of one ending determined by whether you pass or fail certain conditions.
Anyway, DX1 did this 'good org subverted by conspirators' thing much better in 2000 with Silhouette, the avant-garde rebels I mentioned previously. The game doesn't go out of its way to get you to agree with them in every regard but methods and there's signs of them being under Illuminati influence even before they're outright absorbed by the Illuminati in Invisible War.
DX1 is just flat out written better. I don't think the SquareEnix writers intended to put in modern-day woke messaging, they just weren't very talented and were incapable of anything else.
"If Eidos Montreal gives a crap about black folks and diversity/inclusion, they would stop using that image to promote the game," tweeted Manveer Heir, a designer at the game studio Bioware Montreal, located just down the street from Eidos.
'Don't try to spread hate, thanks' says Eidos's brand manager responded to Heir, saying the art was created before the Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013. He called it an "unfortunate coincidence."
"Of course I'm a visible minority myself, and understand the current tension," Andre Vu tweeted. "I get your point but we never use BLM, we don't reference to the current issues happening in the world. Don't try to spread hate, thanks."
I like to think of DX as true prophecy. In that the original writers would probably vehemently disagree with some of the conclusions that we come to regarding what they meant - and maybe they really just wanted to stuff in as many weird-sounding conspiracy theories as they could - but they were unknowingly tapped into a hyper-awareness of truth that made the game both feel realistic and become prophetic. In other words, if it's based it's accidentally so because that's reality.
It was also anti-corporatist and not "anti-capitalist fiction". Usually the theme is anarchistic and otherwise it's crime (science) fiction by people being technophilliac and technophobic at once (Ted Kaczynski comes to mind, PBUH). Whatever fucking "Marxist intellectuals" did you dig out from your ass?
This, but of course a leftist can't tell the difference. To them all capitalism leads to corporatism. (but it's also supposed to lead to Marxism, so does that mean Marxism is an extreme evolution of capitalism?)
It's also got a very anti-consoom message usually.
I think this is ironic though because Cyberpunk at its core was initially about a “nerd” that did a lot of drugs and had a hot Asian robot-ninja girlfriend. All the extra bullshit about corporatism or socialism or whatever was tacked on after
They're essentially likening it to Punk where "it was only cool when it was fringe and underground" and modern commercialisation means the original message has been lost.
They're not wrong but then a lot of indie/geek/nerd topics have ended up that way, as geek-chic became the in thing with posers, and many not for the better as they needed to be dumbed down for normies.
Companies don't care though as they only chase money these days and burn through franchises to try and get it.
The dystopia we have now is a far cry from the cool tech-fantasy-shit in Gibson books.
Cyberpunk wasn't a genre of anti-capitalist fiction, it was a sub-genre in SciFi literature that was interesting for a decade because most of the mainstream SciFi at the time was trope and fucking boring. Eventually matured and was integrated as part of the greater genre.
The anti-capitalists seized on it since it aligned with their fantasy evil corporations Luddite attitudes. But they also latched on the Brunner's earlier fiction which is the origin of modern cyberpunk.
As for "Blade Runner", more film nerds like the movie than others. Nobody want's to live in that world or fantasize about Telsa's joke of a truck.
And most sane Gen-Xs aren't nostalgic about fantasy material things, we remember a time with some goodness that wasn't completed fucked up yet by the greedy Boomers in charge...
While that's true, its true of almost every genre right now.
Lovecraftian horror is being used as a backdrop for real world politics and "racism bad" despite the entire point being unknowable and uncomprehendable horrors instead of the familiar.
Tolkien, who the most agreeable message of his work is industrialization is pretty ugly/bad as well as solid divisions on good/evil, is being used by mega corporations to increase their market shares and blur the line on who is a good person or not.
I can guess 2 of these 3 examples would be heralded as a good thing by the people who whine about "Cyberpunk is being ruined by capitalism!" in articles like these. Which is the context needed, the hypocrisy of saying the truth now.
Lovecraftian horror is being used as a backdrop for real world politics and "racism bad" despite the entire point being unknowable and uncomprehendable horrors instead of the familiar.
Give it time and there will be more identities than masks of Nyarlothotep.
As someone who did read it, I can spare you the trouble & say it's basically as another poster said in this thread: the 'Rage Against The Machine' types have gone mainstream and, in an exceedingly rare moment of self-reflection, can't honestly say they like what they see in the mirror. Though of course, they're quick as usual to blame capitalism and literally anyone but their 'democratic socialist' selves for it.
Yesterday’s cyberpunk fans, as it turns out, have become today’s final bosses — offering broken promises of escape from COVID-induced lockdown and our real and present dystopia.
Ah, the wondrous age of the internet. Where someone can take a wet, runny shit on a webpage and charge people to advertise on it, and advertisers will line up to pull out their dicks and jerkoff on those pages because they're all whores.
Well, yes.
Because we've already got the cyberpunk dystopia.
We just didn't get the aesthetic with it, and people resent that.
We were looking FORWARD to eating ramen at a stand on a trash filed street on a rainy, neon lit night.
That was one of the things I liked about Blade Runner- it depicted a future that was chaotic, filthy and disgusting, kind of like cities of today are chaotic, filthy and disgusting, in stark contrast to the insanely clean and perfect Star Trek vision of the future.
Same reason Star Wars was liked compared to Star Trek. The Falcon [and more] was a mess while The Enterprise was all neat and tidy.
I've always felt that Mirror's Edge presented a more accurate of a cyberpunk dystopia than the ur-example Bladerunner. The city in that is like a perfectly run Singapore, with only hints of riots and war in the past, and data couriers being the only opposition to the system. Our tyranny will be clean and commercialized, because that's what sells. I used to think it would look "family friendly" too but in a society that's conditioning us to accept MAPs and tranny story hour, that's gone out the window.
Too clean.
Instead, you have to go to San Francisco to eat tacos outside a truck on a street strewn with poop and used needles.
Ha… they thought newspapers would be a thing.
Deus Ex disagrees. Of course that's also the game where...
The totalitarian globalist technocracy sitting at the point-of-convergence for unchecked corporate & gov't power, and the UN army which serves as their public enforcement arm, are unambiguously the bad guys.
The far-right militia guys who have been designated as terrorists and who you are encouraged to kill on sight turn out to be good guys fighting for the interests of the people against said technocracy.
The avant-garde Situationist-style leftist rebels you run into later are pretty useless in a fight and will themselves agree that they'd all be dead without you, unlike the militiamen above who keep on trucking after you pummel the crap out of them in the first couple levels.
Literally every media outlet is under the control of the technocratic conspiracy, even the one that seems 'based' and on the side of freedom at first glance.
Perhaps most importantly, the game doesn't judge you for your actions and consistently gives you a huge degree of freedom to do whatever you want to do, all the way to the ending(s).
Yeah, I can see why Jacobin might have a problem with all that.
The push for the parts recall in Human Revolution reminds me so much of the push for the bad today. And not taking it was the correct choice too because the corps had a backdoor implemented in the new part. Lol
Is Deus Ex really that based? I just recall it from the Never Asked for This meme and the glasses.
Sure is. But as the other poster said, the Squeenix games are pozzed. Augs Lives Matter and a general pivot to 'racism bad' are the order of the day in Nu-DX, where the 2000 original talks about the Rothschilds and has actual deep insights & criticisms to offer about political systems & philosophies, even (perhaps especially) Western liberal democracies.
You mean a movement hijacked by extremist terrorists who also serve as puppets of the conspiracy?
Yeah, the Augmented Rights Coalition. Who are STILL shown to be good guys with a righteous cause at their core, suffering only from the (mis)guidance of the Illuminati plant. You meet their founder and he's shown to be an unambiguously good guy, the implication being that there was nothing wrong with the group until the Illuminati put Marchenko in control - IOW, what saner BLM defenders will say about tge riots while ignoring the org's actual ideology or how its founders explicitly identify as trained Marxists, done unironically.
Plus the game's best ending involves them getting what they want re:aug control legislation. Unlike previous games where you get a choice of who to side with and each faction gives you wildly different outcomes, MD's endings are variations of one ending determined by whether you pass or fail certain conditions.
Anyway, DX1 did this 'good org subverted by conspirators' thing much better in 2000 with Silhouette, the avant-garde rebels I mentioned previously. The game doesn't go out of its way to get you to agree with them in every regard but methods and there's signs of them being under Illuminati influence even before they're outright absorbed by the Illuminati in Invisible War.
DX1 is just flat out written better. I don't think the SquareEnix writers intended to put in modern-day woke messaging, they just weren't very talented and were incapable of anything else.
Also:
The original games also literally had the Mass Effect 3 ending before ME was even a thing and it did the 3 way choice right.
Yes. The newer games are not though
I like to think of DX as true prophecy. In that the original writers would probably vehemently disagree with some of the conclusions that we come to regarding what they meant - and maybe they really just wanted to stuff in as many weird-sounding conspiracy theories as they could - but they were unknowingly tapped into a hyper-awareness of truth that made the game both feel realistic and become prophetic. In other words, if it's based it's accidentally so because that's reality.
The older games will ram an entire bottle of red pills down your throat then ask if you want seconds.
Spoilers, they're suppositories.
It was also anti-corporatist and not "anti-capitalist fiction". Usually the theme is anarchistic and otherwise it's crime (science) fiction by people being technophilliac and technophobic at once (Ted Kaczynski comes to mind, PBUH). Whatever fucking "Marxist intellectuals" did you dig out from your ass?
This, but of course a leftist can't tell the difference. To them all capitalism leads to corporatism. (but it's also supposed to lead to Marxism, so does that mean Marxism is an extreme evolution of capitalism?)
It's also got a very anti-consoom message usually.
The Marx-Marxism is about abolishing money and all private property.
And such communism actually has been tried - by Pol Pot.
(Now the Great Reset promises retaining money but abolishing private property. And you will be happy.)
That movie was a real hidden gem.
So glad to see it getting some appreciation out in the wild.
Explain.
Just watched a trailer, is it really The Terminator: Virtua Boy Edition?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-dCEp_ktPXY
...or Albert Pyun's original Nemesis.
It's almost like the leftists who "Raged against the Machine" became mainstream or something.
But that's just CRAZY...
The fuck you talk about lol
fantasy land.
Heck, CP77 is aggressively leftist sometimes (combined with some generally shitty writing) and it's still not good enough for them.
I think this is ironic though because Cyberpunk at its core was initially about a “nerd” that did a lot of drugs and had a hot Asian robot-ninja girlfriend. All the extra bullshit about corporatism or socialism or whatever was tacked on after
I feel like I had a stroke trying to read that. What the fuck is that supposed to say? I need a translation.
They're essentially likening it to Punk where "it was only cool when it was fringe and underground" and modern commercialisation means the original message has been lost.
They're not wrong but then a lot of indie/geek/nerd topics have ended up that way, as geek-chic became the in thing with posers, and many not for the better as they needed to be dumbed down for normies.
Companies don't care though as they only chase money these days and burn through franchises to try and get it.
The dystopia we have now is a far cry from the cool tech-fantasy-shit in Gibson books.
Cyberpunk wasn't a genre of anti-capitalist fiction, it was a sub-genre in SciFi literature that was interesting for a decade because most of the mainstream SciFi at the time was trope and fucking boring. Eventually matured and was integrated as part of the greater genre.
The anti-capitalists seized on it since it aligned with their fantasy evil corporations Luddite attitudes. But they also latched on the Brunner's earlier fiction which is the origin of modern cyberpunk.
As for "Blade Runner", more film nerds like the movie than others. Nobody want's to live in that world or fantasize about Telsa's joke of a truck.
And most sane Gen-Xs aren't nostalgic about fantasy material things, we remember a time with some goodness that wasn't completed fucked up yet by the greedy Boomers in charge...
While that's true, its true of almost every genre right now.
Lovecraftian horror is being used as a backdrop for real world politics and "racism bad" despite the entire point being unknowable and uncomprehendable horrors instead of the familiar.
Tolkien, who the most agreeable message of his work is industrialization is pretty ugly/bad as well as solid divisions on good/evil, is being used by mega corporations to increase their market shares and blur the line on who is a good person or not.
I can guess 2 of these 3 examples would be heralded as a good thing by the people who whine about "Cyberpunk is being ruined by capitalism!" in articles like these. Which is the context needed, the hypocrisy of saying the truth now.
Give it time and there will be more identities than masks of Nyarlothotep.
As someone who did read it, I can spare you the trouble & say it's basically as another poster said in this thread: the 'Rage Against The Machine' types have gone mainstream and, in an exceedingly rare moment of self-reflection, can't honestly say they like what they see in the mirror. Though of course, they're quick as usual to blame capitalism and literally anyone but their 'democratic socialist' selves for it.
Ah, the wondrous age of the internet. Where someone can take a wet, runny shit on a webpage and charge people to advertise on it, and advertisers will line up to pull out their dicks and jerkoff on those pages because they're all whores.