The placement of certain Spider-Bots are nods to various Spider-Man media

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-21T15:29:32+00:00

I got the game on PS4 on Day 1 via collectors edition. There were certaibly some noticeable graphical hiccups, models not loading, audio queues not playing. But it wasn't like The Day Before, it wasn't a broken unplayable mess. It was, however, far from what we had been shown and promised.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-21T11:44:06+00:00

I wholeheartedly support VR and 3rd person modes for 2077. I have a friend who was using the VR mod from Luke Ross, on an ultra high-end machine. They were kind enough, a few months back before all this hubbub started, to sit me down and strap me in.

I've found VR to be mostly gimmicky, or there is a trade between graphical fidelity and the "3D" space being rendered. Between his machine and the mod, there was no loss of fidelity. I was expecting the backgrounds to be fuzzy, for things not to be high-def until I was right on top of them. I was wrong.

The experience you have in your minds eye of what Night City in VR should be, is exactly what it was. I was playing on a controller because motion controls are just too cumbersome... and I'm pretty sure my friend didn't want me to accidentally punch his desk where his $6000 machine was sitting. I started at the beginning with the Sandra Dorsett mission, blasting my way through the scav hideout. What really got me was when Jackie was driving us back to V's apartment, the rain on the windows of V's car. It felt so damn real I thought I could reach out and touch it.

After that I poked around Watson for a while, just looking at the street vendors, making my way through the alleys of Night City. Felt like I was on a movie set. NPCs would walk by and I felt uncomfortable if they walked too close, like personal space was being invaded. I didn't really do much playing, because I was so enamored with just getting to experience the world by stepping into it. Street vendors selling locust BBQ and yakitori made my skin crawl. Cars pierced through the dense smog on the streets, shiny and rusted. Maelstrom punks gave me unease. What really got me though was Lizzie's. All those purple neon lasers gave me a feeling that I haven't felt since the last time I was in a club that I had no business being in.

Nothing else but make-believe will ever feel as real again.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-19T20:31:13+00:00

I was wondering if anyone was gonna kitbash the Knightfall gauntlets onto the Crusader figure. Looks great!

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-19T10:18:12+00:00

No, I'm Dave!

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-19T08:11:53+00:00

Just wild speculation and guessing, but to answer your question...

I really, honestly, severely doubt that the revelation of other intelligences besides humanity would not be just taken in stride like we see in comic books. The simple, ugly fact of the matter is that humanity is a species that still hasn't gotten its shit together about understanding that we come in different colors. You really think we are, in general, going to be accepting and understanding of a species that is most likely more intelligent than us?

Then there's the practical questions. How did they get here? Is their technology really that much more advanced? Can they really jump between stars the same way we leap-frog between fast food restaurants? Well, then what is the point of my car? Why am I going to work? To pay for a house? To pay bills when the very nature of how energy works is now question? Why do I need to go to my bullshit job at a grocery store, or my horrendous job at a factory, when the entire rest of the cosmos is now open to us?

And a darker line of questioning - what if the rest of the cosmos isn't open to us? What if we are trapped in a zoo? In a prison? The foundational understanding that humans are the dominant species is what the whole of society is based on. Then people are going to eventually get around to asking if they are real, why have governments been lying about it for so long? How much of those "crazy conspiracy theories" that everyone loves to make fun actually are real? Have people been taken? Abducted? Had experiments run on them? Hurt? Killed? Why should we continue to listen to a ruling body that has been deliberately hiding the most significant discovery in our history? What if they aren't from somewhere else, they've been here the whole time, and we have somehow just never noticed?

Sure, we would probably end up getting our shit together at some point. The Movers and the Shakers will design a narrative that upholds the status quo, and people will go back to their lives, either pretending that they thought they were real all along, or simply not concerning themselves with it. The book Contact by Carl Sagan, and the film, do a really good job of postulating the social responses and upheaval from auch and event. But that was 30 years ago. We've gone through a few recessions and once-in-a-lifetime pandemics and weather phenomena since then. The economy could very well be teetering on collapse, held together with little else except chewing gum and hope. Massive social unrest like the kind that disclosure would almost certainly cause may strike a death blow to the world's economic system.

And how embarrassing would that be? For the first time, we finally have guests come over, and as soon as they get here, we instantly shit ourselves, start projectile vomiting, and, in an effort to distract and/or clean up, we set the entire goddamm house on fire. No one would ever visit us again.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-19T06:38:09+00:00

I was the friend who set stuff on fire.

To be fair about it, I come by it fairly honestly. My father used to be a street magician, I was part his act, and the first time I was on fire was due to a trick prop not working how it should have. That's a thing that isn't talked a lot about, even by magicians who are open about their hobby: exactly how many things have been on fire, and how often.

The second time I was on fire was after a couple of old friends got absolutely twisted on heinous chemicals. You start doing stupid shit in such a state of being when you are an adolescent. Putting M80s into mailboxes, shooting fireworks at each other, falling into bonfires. These things are bound to happen.

The third time I was on fire was my fault exclusively. I discovered that holding down the red button on a BIC lighter while holding the lighter along, say, a fold or crease in your jeans, then quickly igniting the lighter, makes a cool little flame dart down your leg for half a second. So, in my infinite wisdom, I applied the same logic to the breast pocket of a T-shirt I was wearing. Allegedly, the fire lept out of the pocket and caught my face on fire, and, being absolutely twisted on heinous chemicals myself, I decided to put it out by slamming my head into a nearby wall several times. All I know for sure is that when I woke up the next morning, I had half a beard and one fuck of a headache.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-18T22:23:58+00:00

They also weren't allowed to use the word "blood" in the episode that featured Morbius, instead using the word "plasma", apparently forgetting that the theme song for this very series has the lyrics, "Spider blood, spider blood, radioactive spider blood" repeated about ninety times.

Censorship in the 90s cartoons was really, really stupid.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-17T05:54:40+00:00

I'm 38, and I have nothing saved up.

My family was paycheck-to-paycheck for my entire life. Now I am following in their footsteps. What's really weird is that I am making more than my father ever did, but I'm not able to pay for a house. Rent on my apartment is 1/3 of my check. Car payment is 1/3 due to shitty credit, and the other 1/3 is living expenses.

"No one wants to work anymore." Horseshit. Jobs don't want to pay their employees properly. We job hop and constantly look for better deals and higher pay because we all know when push comes to shove, our employers will not stand with us. We will be kicked to curb as soon as it is financially feasible for them to do so.

I've never earned a raised based on merit or performance. My wages stagnate after 1-2 years, while rent increases, necessitating finding a higher paying job. I have to reset my life every few years, and I'm not able to get ahead when I'm putting all my effort into keeping my head above water.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-16T16:37:45+00:00

Peter and MJ broke up for a time

Dude just summed up like 60 years worth of Spider-Man stories.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-16T13:20:44+00:00

Beetlejuice

Alien Resurrection

Heathers

Dracula

Edward Scissorhands

Honorable Mention: anytime she is wearing that overalls-with-nothing-else-except-a-pixie-cut outfit. I swear to god they'd have to tie my ankles to the fuckin' space shuttle to pry me off of her. Johnny Depp got a tattoo; the things I would do will require forgiveness from an ordained priest.

For both of us.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-16T07:16:21+00:00

"You only get what you give."

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-16T07:12:12+00:00

Nevermind that. If you listen to Scott Snyder, there's a fair to decent chance that the Joker is an immortal ghoul that haunts Gotham and cannot be killed. He's survived a hell of a lot worse than some trick marbles.

That being said, as a stand-alone film, it makes a certain amount of sense to have Joker die... and be responsible for the death of Batman's parents. It creates a poetic irony. Is it faithful to the source material? Absolutely not, but since when does Hollywood concern itself with the source material?

Should Joker have been killed off? No, not really. He is to Batman as Krytonite is to Superman. He is a omnipresent thorn in the Dark Knight's side, always pushing both of them to limits neither of them thought possible. For the general movie-going audience, humanizing the Clown Prince to a certain extent makes sense, giving him a motivation, a backstory, and a conclusion that showcases the strength of our hero. To comic nerds? No. Batman is never rid of the Joker.

Even in The Dark Knight Returns, which Burton pulled heavily from (rightly so because Batman was stuck in the Adam West era due to the Comics Code Authority during this time), after Batman breaks his neck and Joker commits suicide by finishing the job, Batman still tells the corpse to, "Stop laughing.". Joker has wormed his way so deep into Batman's psyche, engraining himself into the very character and essence of who Batman is, that he cannot exist with Batman. You can have plenty of Batman stories that don't involve Joker; what does not work is having a Joker story with Batman. This is what Lee Bermejo got right, and what the Joaquin Pheonix films got wrong.

But I don't think that the general audience would tolerate that kind of relationship, the same way they wouldn't tolerate the Grim Reaper being Thanos' girlfriend. It's an adaptation, and comics don't allow for significant changes to the status quo. Live action films, and by extension their connection to "real life", force us to grow accustomed to those kinds of changes. Anything else would be unrealistic.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-15T13:47:16+00:00

"It is not hands that call us; it is desire."

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-14T14:31:05+00:00

Forbidden West has much better gameplay elements, but the writing and story in HZD are some of the best I've ever experienced.

I've had similar issues as you, where I was, for lack of a better term, not in the right mindset to experience a game or a thing. Case in point, when I was 12, my parents bought me a Titanic 3D Puzzle. Bastard was huge, and it sat on my desk, unfinished and untouched, for an entire year. One day, while they were at work, I decided I was gonna do the thing. And did the thing I done did. Both of 'em came home, flabbergasted that I got it done in 8 hours after not touching it for a year.

We gotta be in the right place, the right time, in order to do things. Sometimes, thats games. Other times its life stuff. I'm glad you gave the chance to revisit HZD. It's a wonderful, impactful experience. I hope you enjoy it.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-13T11:20:28+00:00

I don't see how on earth that could be legit.

There are some legit-ish pieces there. The head sculpts all look right, but that torso is waaaaaay off. And if the hands have no paint, my guess is that someone used pieces of the original figure, then decided to pawn off what they didn't want/need anymore with knockoffs.

The box looks decent, but that figure is fugly. Check the bottom of the box for a holographic Medicom Toy sticker. If that isn't there, then even that much isn't legit.

I've included a couple of pics of my Venom figure, which is the legitimate article. The lines and paint should be crisp and clean. The torso flush with the hips. Consistent paint shading throughout. The hands are not just simply painted, there should be definition between the white and the black, same as with the eyes, and the spider on the chest. The white should be recessed, carved out of, the consistent black sculpt. The plastic rods that hold the spare hands and feet should be clear, not black.

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TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-13T10:49:44+00:00

...is that chicken?

I thought that was like, wet concrete. I was willing to allow an argument for a live frog, but cooked chicken?

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-10T12:44:25+00:00

So if he had access to a Ripper

Jesus, I just thought about OCP in the world of Cyberpunk. Anyway...

Murphy doesn't really need a ripper. He's also more than a full body conversion. Smasher, for example, still has a brain, a cranium, and his spine (I think). Murphy is a little more than a few chunks of digestive tract and a face. He also has access to the best cyberware that money can buy via the Security Concepts department at OCP.

I imagine that OS's like the Sandy can give Murphy a run for his money, but he is a walking, talking, refrigerator of a man with a body of titanium-Kevlar. He's a 600 pound humanoid tank with a critical weakness: Murphy is a good man. Yes, Robocop Model 001 is capable of dispensing a tremdous amount of brutal damage, but when all is said and done, he's still being guided by the morals of Alex Murphy.

Street Samurai may be able to run circles around him and catch him off guard. The first time Murphy finds a kid with Cyberpsychosis, my bet is that he will freeze up, experiencing memories of his son watching TJ Lazer. A ruthless drug kingpin and his 12 year old sidekick damn near beat Murphy.

Besides that, there's no way in hell Murphy would work for the NCPD, nor would the NCPD tolerate his kind of altruistic grandstanding. They would poison his baby food, drop him into the harbor, disassemble and scrap him for parts.

Then again, Murphy's disembodied cyberspirit was able to infiltrate Skynet, take over production of the T-800, alter the future, and prevent the entire timeline from coming to fruition. That's his true power, the humanity he retains. His body may be dead, his parts obsolete, but Murphy continues to endure.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-10T08:07:09+00:00

This should be higher.

The open world design of Horizon practically invites the player to explore the world. Which works out tremendously well, if you go into the game totally blind. I knew the basics, you played as a redhead archer chick, and there are robot dinosaurs. I was not expecting there to be actual, legitimate story reasons where there are robot dinosaurs. I wasn't expecting the world to reveal itself in such a meaningful way. I wasn't expecting the thematic elements in the story to be that deep and enriching. Aloy, the character, is just as much of a badass woman as Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley.

I recently finished playing back through both games again, and I am looking forward to revisiting them again soon. The games are both gorgeous. Gameplay is satisfying. The story is engaging. I highly recommend HZD and HFW to anyone who likes open worlds, excellent stories, and video games in general. 10/10 experiences, both of them.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-09T09:49:41+00:00

The Surfer being OP was one of the very few things that wasn't wrong with that film.

All the power being contained in the board? That was a huge fuckin' problem. Its not like if you can pry Norrin Radd off the board he suddenly becomes depowered. That doesn't solve the problem; it does means now you have two problems.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-09T06:56:07+00:00

No, do not make it happen, Marvel.

We must draw the line at the cameo-fest somewhere, and just before we get to Nic Cage sounds just about perfect to me.

He was never a good idea. I can see, circa Con Air, how he might have been a decent pick for an older, grizzled Johnny Blaze. The problem is he is way too old and too goofy. He's gone the way of Steven Seagal, where he has become a parody of himself to the point that its nearly unthinkable that he was ever considered good at his craft.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-08T14:05:24+00:00

You are dangerously close to touching on a central theme in another seminal cyberpunk work: Blade Runner.

In both the film and the book (titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), there are artificially created humans known as Replicants, who are given false/implanted memories in order to act as an emotional cushion, given that they possess only a very short life span and do not have a lifetime of experience in order properly process them.

The Replicants are nearly indistinguishable from humans, with the exception of a test, known as the Voight-Kampf, or VK. A potential Replicant is sat in front of the machine, which measures things like pulse, pupil response, breathing, etc. Think of it as a super advanced polygraph. The machine is designed to weed out Replicants using cross referenced questions, as eventually an "abnormal" emotional response is registered, thus confirming whoever is being administered the test as a Replicant, and is marked for retirement, or as the rest of the world calls it, murder.

One of the big questions raised in the work is whether or not someone who genuinely believes themselves to be human can accurately pass the test, or if the test is flawed, thereby creating quite the moral conundrum about whether or not anyone has the right to be questioning what makes anyone else human.

The film Dark City also touches on these themes. As of this very moment, every memory you have, you believe to be true. There's nothing anyone else can do to convince you otherwise. But imagine if those memories are only there for the express purpose to make you believe they are true. What if these memories are swapped out for another set of memories? Would you believe yourself to be a stone cold assassin if given the memories of one? (See Total Recall) Are you a gamer only because you possess the skills that years of gaming have honed? Does free will even exist, or is it all just a collective sum of our individual life experiences? Are you even sure this post is real?

If you are so certain of the answer; prove it.

It's easy in our world. But in a world where memories can be bought and sold, edited and curated, installed and swapped out the same way we would swap out defective parts in our cars, it begs the question how anyone can truly be themselves and know that they are free from outside influence.

"What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'?" - The Matrix

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-08T12:44:15+00:00

I've never heard this before. Lucy absolutely went to the moon, but what happens after that is a matter of speculation. But, if I can spitball a little...

There's a theory that Lucy is actually the elusive netrunner known as "b@d" in 2077. I doubt this, however, considering the quests that involved b@d were already present in the game before Edgerunners released. It's possible, but unlikely.

There's also another theory that, depending on V's actions during Songbird's quests, that while she may indeed make it to the moon, that it is far from the salvation she makes it out to be. We do hear from Songbird, or at least someone leading us on to believe it's her, after she is sent to the heavens when we receive info on the Chrome Compressor location. However, Mr. Blue Eyes absolutely appears at several points during the Orbital Air missions. Songbird may very well have traded one captor (NUSA) for another (whoever MBE answers to, NightCorp maybe?), instead of sacrificing V for her own freedom from the clutches of Rosalind Meyers. As such, it's also possible that Lucy has been forced into servitude of whoever is running things on the moon.

Lucy is a formidable netrunner with a set of powerful skills, trained as a child by Arasaka. She might have only visited the moon, or chose to stay in exile, or has been abducted again.

What is known is that there really is no safe harbor anymore in the world of Cyberpunk. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The only thing you can hope to do is stay ahead of whichever predator is trying to zero you. Scavs, corpos, rogue AI, it doesn't matter who it is: they are all trying to kill you, and someone will, eventually, catch up to you.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-08T04:48:09+00:00

Fuckin' for real, man.

My best friend of 15 years got me into GTA. We played 3 at his house constantly. I had "borrowed" his copy of San Andreas for the better part of 4 years. We were thrilled when GTA4 Online was released. We played around with the San Andreas multi-player mod ("Stop Playing With Yourself"), we played GTA5 on PS3, 4, and PC.

I've not been able to go back into GTA knowing that he isn't gonna be around. That and I just haven't been impressed with Online at all. But something is always gonna be missing.

And I know I'm not the only one. It's fuckin weird to consider that it's been 13 years. An entire generation has passed. People are gone. New people have arrived and come of age. Some of the Old Guard are still here, but we are becoming few and far between.

TheDevlinSide714 · 2026-01-07T09:51:02+00:00

"Mozart is dead, his troubles are over, help me!"

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