REVIEWED: Cloudpunk Is The Baby Sibling of Cyberpunk 2077 and There’s Nothing Wrong with That #Review #GamingNews #video – redcarpetreporttv.com

Cloudpunk is in a weird place. This open-world RPG is a beautiful game in its own right and its been fun to play, but if you make a cyberpunk theme game in 2020 youre going to draw comparisons to Keanu Reevess latest thing well see him in next month.

Developed by: Ion Lands

Published by: Merge Games

Available for: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC

When you first start cruising the skies of Nivalis, youll feel like youre a childish game wrapped in a Lego-themed acid trip. Spend some time with Cloudpunk and youll see how deep it actually is. This open voxel art world is quirky and gorgeous in its own way. Buildings can go up to 1000 feet, trains run throughout the city, and youll just spend a lot of time taking it all in while driving your flying car.

As bright as Nivalis can be when its night is warmed by the glow of neon framing even the smallest details of the city, theres a grime to it youll get to see. Playing as a delivery driver named Raina, the jobs you take will lead you down paths that reveal conspiracies, cults, and a criminal underworld.

Cloudpunk does peel back its narrative information slowly. My first hour was spent mostly talking to the people in the city which I never felt was leading me in the overall path I needed to go. Yet once the main story started to iris my paths in the game, the narrative was fantastic. As the player, youll make dozens of little choices that deliver heavy themes of anti-capitalism and questioning the establishment. Decisions youll make in the game affect every character you see and meet so dont take anything lightly.

In a game as deceptively simple-looking as this, attention-worthy characters are often an afterthought in development. Here youll get to know and shape Raina through dialogue that shows how meticulously fleshed in a result that comes away feeling like Blade Runner if it had more Arabic influences.

The gameplay is simplistic. Drive the car, deliver the package, talk to the people. Even mandatory parking to get out of your vehicle is done by a single button push. It can at times get repetitive but every time I felt like I was in danger of getting bored exploring something new unlocked and either thought it was too off the walls not to pay attention or it showed me a new part of the city. Especially when it gets into weird territory like human/robot love. Much of the game is parallel to a walking simulator but the design never truly lets it feel that way.

After 15hrs with the game, I never felt like I was or needed to bulldoze my way to an ending. It is truly about the journey in Cloudpunk. There are simply too many good layers to this world and at no time do I feel a need to bulldoze my way to roll credits. Cloudpunk might be looked down on because of its similar design choices to CD Projekt Reds Cyberpunk 2077 but what you get is a rich experience that can stand alongside even the best technical behemoth games of 2020.

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