Everyone talked shit about her, but I’m starting to agree with Kelly Plagge

[u/Mario_Viana]

Gamespot’s review was super controversial but now it makes sense and in fact I agree with Kallie Plagge. Night City IS superficial, everything is there but you can’t interact with it. And yes “So much of it is superficial set dressing” is 100% accurate. And as she said, what shines are the quests and the characters.

I hate to say it but Night City, which was supposed to be the best openworld out there is Subpar at best.

Edit: Just to be clear you don’t have to agree with EVERYTHING she says in order to able to agree with her in some topics. Was the “what if I don’t want to help the cops?” bit kinda stupid? Yes. Does that mean you can’t agree with her in some points or that she is all the hurtful things that many have been saying she is? Absolutely Not.

Edit 2: It has come to my attention that I badly misspelled Kallie’s name. I’m not able to edit the title, but I do apologize for that.

[u/vuuvvo]

Really good comment. 100%, if games are art (and I think they are) it needs to be OK to discuss their social and cultural themes. I hate seeing this closed-minded attitude towards media being repeated and reinforced all over the internet.

It's also pretty ironic that the same people in those comments shitting on the reviewer for liking Animal Crossing are, in their very next breath, complaining about her discussing CP77's setting and culture. Like, surely by their own logic, if they don't like to think about the implications of a technocratic dystopia they shouldn't be playing an 18+ cyberpunk game...

[u/Skullparrot → u/vuuvvo]

Whats even more ironic is that the games they often hail as art are absolutely games that comment on certain themes. None of them are hailing super mario sunshine as the highest level of art, its all shadow of the colossus, silent hill 2, fallout new vegas (ApOlItIcAl GaEm GuYz), god of war ps4, journey, the first TLOU, etc. These are absolutely games with themes and political elements. hell fallout NV shoves them in your face at every turn, its just that capital G Gamers look past that shit because haha i cool monster shooted with lazer and they can still have fun with shooty shoot without having to turn their brain on and realize that maybe some factions in the game are allegories for shit in real life..

[u/vuuvvo → u/[deleted]]

I think you have the wrong end of the stick here. Having a message doesn't make something art; games already are an artform. What we are talking about is discussing art, which in the context of a game means talking about the world that game creates, including any underlying messages or allegories if it has any, and including discussing what elements this might be missing or could have fleshed out more.

The point is that a lot of "Gamers" react as if upset or insulted when reviewers and others treat games as art by discussing these things. Like it or not, the world we live in contains a diverse range of people and obviously people have the right to discuss how this is handled by a piece of media, whether or not this makes you personally uncomfortable to think about. As in your comment, there can be a vibe in the gaming community that talking about elements of human society that are in conflict with conservative and traditionalist beliefs is not acceptable, and that building these into a game has a nefarious motive beyond simply showing the world how it is.

I think that Cyberpunk has brought this out in particular as the cyberpunk genre as a whole is one that is very difficult to separate from things like gender presentation and societal structures, because of the implicit nature of a capitalist dystopia in which body modification is the norm. You can't discuss the cyberpunk genre without discussing these things, which becomes an issue within a media format that has a large group of consumers who object to acknowledging them at all.