Cloudpunk (2020)

I spotted this beautiful game in a sale on PS4. Really glad I bought it. Until towards the end I found out that the steam version of this game is a much more complete and less buggy game (I'll cover that later).

In Cloudpunk you play Rania, a delivery driver in a world that looks heavily inspired by Bladerunner and Fifth Element. You drive, or rather fly, a vehicle called a HOVA. It's your first night on the job and you meet all sorts of people who each have their own idea about the city. Through talking to NPCs and completing various missions for the Cloudpunk delivery company, you build up a bigger picture of what the city is really like. About all the strange goings on and it's up to you to get to the bottom of it.

The game itself is very charming and stylized. The pixel style really lends itself well to the futuristic neon look. And for the most part it controls well (except for the weird sweeping camera angles when parking and leaving your HOVA. What's that all about?)

As I said earlier though the PS4 version isn't as complete as the Steam version. This is in part due to it being a port. To give you an idea of just how much more complete the steam version is; the PS4 version of Cloudpunk has 31 trophies (including platinum) while the Steam version of Cloudpunk has 79 achievements! That's over half more achievements than the PS4 version!!

This lead me to believe that I was also missing over half of the dialogue and NPC interactions within the game. After a little bit of searching I found out that the PS4 version was actually a VERY buggy port and although it had had a few significant updates, I myself was still experiencing lag every time I loaded the next map. When moving to the next part of town in your HOVA the entire screen kind of sticks for a moment. Very frustrating. If I had known this was a half finished port I definitely wouldn't have bought it on PS4.

If you are interested in playing this game and have the ability to play PC games, I would HIGHLY recommend buying this on Steam instead. Aside from that, it's a great game, with a good sense of humor and self awareness.

EDIT: I don't know how I managed to miss commenting on the sound! Voice overs weren't the greatest but In some ways it's what gives the game it's charm. However, the soundtrack for this game is awesome!! It's another thing that drew me in to buying this game. It's definitely befitting of the futuristic pixel vibe. Just wish the music would play more often. Perhaps this is another bug for the console versions?