juv3nal

It's not a make or break requirement IMO, certainly not the virtual reality part. It might (...maybe?) be a requirement that hacking is a thing that can happen in the world, but it's certainly not necessary that the characters participate in it.

My understanding is that part of cyberpunk is that there needs to be some kind of institutional something (usually megacorporations) to be punk against. Post-apocalypse, those institutions are typically going to be much less powerful/relatively toothless compared to what they were pre-apocalypse so it waters down the punk aspect of things. Not that I would rule out the possibility entirely, but it would take a particular type of post-apocalyptic world. You can absolutely have noir in a cyberpunk world. Blade Runner is basically gussied up noir. If there's a reason Tex Murphy doesn't qualify, it's not because it's noir. I've played them but I only vaguely remember. Offhand, I'd say Tex Murphy is maybe too silly/lighthearted? There's an element of grimdark to cyberpunk, although there are exceptions, of course (before anyone jumps in with "but but but Snow Crash")..

Not to say that this "justifies" it or whatever, but homicidal sex-worker is a trope that has some backing in the source material. It's been ages since I've read Neuromancer, but I'm pretty sure there's a side anecdote about Molly working as a meat puppet and "waking up" in the middle of a session which ends with her killing her "client".

oh if we're going to get into old stuff: Circuit's Edge (G.A.Effinger/Budayeen licensed) Neuromancer earlier SNES/Sega Shadowruns Ghost in the Shell licensed stuff, depending on how cyberpunk you consider GitS to be Snatcher Arguably things like Uplink to some extent (there's a bunch of Uplink-alike hacker sims whose names I find utterly indistinguishable) edit: some googling later, apparently the "Hacker Evolution" series, but maybe there are others. was the Christopher Walken Ripper cyberpunk? It was vaguely near-future sci fi, I think.

I'm guessing you mean sort-of current? There's cypher although that's a text adventure that reportedly has shoddy translation issues. Oh I guess the Syndicate shooter reboot kind of counts. never played it though.

Bloodnet was good (I especially liked the multiple choice character generation which yeah I know they cribbed from another game, but still), but I remember the combat being pretty punishing. I remember there was one npc who was an Umberto Eco reference (the guy from The Name of the Rose who talks in nothing but quotes) which blew my fricking mind at the time.

As an IGF nominated finalist, they're getting on Steam, it's just a matter of when:

If you talk to your dog, it's basically him talking to himself and he seems pretty calm and relaxed. But I guess maybe he could be terrified on the inside and just doesn't want to freak out his dog?

All the supernatural stuff in KRZ isn't really commented on as being creepy by Conway (the protagonist) as far as I've played. Which has the effect of giving me the impression of either "hey this must be sort of normal or expected for this game world" or "he doesn't think there's anything to worry about, I guess I don't need to be worried either" so the way he's portrayed is kind of the opposite of unnerving. It's dream-like rather than in any way nighmarish, I'd say, but I haven't put that much time in, so maybe things take a turn later.

I adapted an older poem of mine into Twine. Don't be fooled by the multiple links, it's entirely linear.

I love it. The visual style is really appealing, not just the way objects/backgrounds are rendered (which is awesome because it vaguely reminds me of nosepilot), but the neat way the camera shifts its focus from foreground to background in the one scene where you approach the house, then go inside, then look past the tv and see the barn.

I dunno, I think you're mixing two things together here (tutorialization/reminders/hints versus difficulty). I'll generally play a game on easy (I mean I'll start on normal and shift down once I die/fail a bunch of times in the same spot, so I guess it has probably happened that a game can be legitimately easy enough on normal that I haven't had to do this, but nothing comes to mind...on games where it doesn't let you switch on the fly, I'll pick the easier setting right away), but I still have little patience for over tutorialization/reminders/hints. I feel like the real way forward for difficulty is something like Left 4 Dead's AI Director/dynamic difficulty if it's done right. I mean it's probably impossible to please everyone with an algorithmic approach, but properly tuned I think you could please the vast majority that way.

Yeah, I mean back catalog is one thing, but if I'm buying a new box, I probably want to play new games. Outside of indie stuff (for which linux support seems to be stronger), how likely is new stuff going to run on linux? Seems to me not very unless the steam box is crazy popular.

If there's exclusives I want, and assuming the prices are not ridiculous, I suppose I will get both eventually. I certainly didn't plan on it going that way this generation, but that's what ended up happening anyways. I doubt I'll go for either on day 1. I have a group of friends I play coop stuff with on ps3, so it seems likely that we'll migrate as a group to ps4.

That is like the whole plot of FC3 in an animated gif.

In terms of raw time spent, I have to say Borderlands 2 even though it's not the game I'd say I respect or admire the most. A large part of that is due to being able to play most of it coop with RL friends I otherwise don't see that often. And after a day at work, I often am not in the mood for anything particularly challenging (either intellectually or gameplay difficulty-wise).

amazing render of Walt by a Q Games (pixeljunk folks) artist

I find if you have a good position to snipe from super far away it's a piece of cake, but any time I have to get in close, while it's still pretty easy to clear the base, doing so undetected can be a huge challenge (though not one I generally find myself re-trying; I usually just take the lower xp and roll with whatever happens).

I use pretty much the same and am already using the AMR but I'm looking forward to the non-signature version of that so I can put a silencer on it. Also a better assault rifle (eventually, the signature one I guess). edit: I only played the demo of JC2, but I felt like sneaking + takedowns wasn't a viable thing in it?

All upgrades crafted, and pretty much every non-story thing on the first island done. Even with the largest wallet, there are way too few buyable things and too many chests in the world for it to make any sense for me to track down all the chests. Guess I have to do some story quests to get access to that second island (and some more skills) now. Maybe there'll be a reason to track down those other chests when the next tier of weapons unlocks.

crocodiles are still terrifying though. I suspect it is literally impossible to see them before they have you qte flailing for your life. I've certainly never seen one until it was already on top of me. Also you mention that you did this after you finished the game, but I posit that sharks are a lot scarier when you only have 2 life bars and are worried about running out of breath while diving for a relic or something. I mean all the wildlife is generally less scary by the time you're levelled/geared up.

Depends. I'm going for them all because I still have things to spend moneys on, but from what I hear that isn't really an issue later on.

awwwww

rainstorms are terrifying because you can't hear wildlife sneaking up on you. On that same note, I don't care how good the music might be because I need it off to hear komodo dragons hissing at me etc.

Congrats!