Cyberpunk Things

After watching the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay video, playing Deus Ex and watching some other cyberpunk themed games, I've decided that I need this stuff in my life. I'm taking suggestions on games, movies, tv series, anime, whatever. Assume I've seen nothing and played nothing other than the Deus Ex series. Also, I don't normally go back and play retro games unless they are called Super Mario World, so unless it's magically insanely good, you can leave those suggestions out.

Both of these are on Steam, both are excellent. Based on the Pen and Paper RPG. You don't have to play the first one in order to play/enjoy Hong Kong.
Shadow Run
Shadow Run Hong Kong

Rainsmercy wrote:

Both of these are on Steam, both are excellent. Based on the Pen and Paper RPG. You don't have to play the first one in order to play/enjoy Hong Kong.
Shadow Run
Shadow Run Hong Kong

I might have one of these on mobile. Are they short? Long? I don't normally enjoy playing games with a lot going on on mobile though. Steam might be a better fit.

The book Neuromancer by William Gibson is pretty good, and unless I'm mistaken is an inspiration for a lot of cyberpunk themes coming after it.

Also it's interesting to see the vision of the future of someone writing in the 80s compared to the effect of modern technology so far, three decades later.

There's an ebook available, dunno about audiobook.

Also, I never played it, but does Syndicate fall into this category? I remember it being in the "flawed but with some good stuff" column. Has the cyber part but not sure if has the punk part.

For anime, I'd start off with Cowboy Bebop, Psychopass, and Princess Principal

William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Linda Nagata and Richard K Morgan are my go-tos for Cyberpunk books. Gibson and Sterling pretty much founded the genre, with the ground-breaking novels. (They were not the absolute first to try it, the roots go back into the 70’s, but they put the complete vision in place and carried it into the center of SF themes.)

Neuromancer - This launched Gibson’s career in 1984 and is THE seminal Cyberpunk book. Stylish, written largely in images and glimpses, it’s poetic and a bit obtuse. Genius stuff. First book to win all three major SF awards in the same year. Start of a trilogy.

Schismatrix Plus - Bruce Sterling’s 1985 novel, the only one set in a world he’d previously described in stories, which are included in the Plus edition. Great stuff, more on the social/economic prediction side but stuffed with cool techs. Sterling is more of a prognosticator, building worlds from plausible predictions; Gibson is a poet who takes trends that lead to cool ideas and runs with them.

Tech Heaven - Linda Nagata, 1995. First of four books that deal with nanotech as a societal and personal change agent. Great stuff.

Altered Carbon - 2001, Richard K Morgan - This book and many of his later ones deal with a simple, dystopic setting, one of a powerful minority with a stranglehold on power that openly oppresses the majority, and the people who get caught up in the machinations for and against those in power. Takeshi Kovacs is a retired super-soldier who has turned to black market mercenary work. These are dark works, violent and in some ways misogynistic, due to the setting. By far the darkest of the four authors here.

Mermaidpirate wrote:

Also, I never played it, but does Syndicate fall into this category? I remember it being in the "flawed but with some good stuff" column. Has the cyber part but not sure if has the punk part.

I forgot about that game, I did play it (the 2012 version). I liked it a lot.

I'll have to check out those books for their availability on Audible. I think I still have 3 credits, but I have like 2 Witcher books and the first Kingkiller book to get through first. I no longer have my hour-long ride to work, so finding time to listen has become difficult.

Batman Beyond. Why more people haven't stolen its Cyberpunk Noir setting is beyond me.

Burning Chrome is a collection of William Gibson’s short stories, including “Johnny Mnemonic,” which is dazzling. It was made into a horrible movie with a $30MM budget with Keanu Reeves after attempts to find $1MM to make it failed.

I loved Bruce Sterling’s and William Gibson’s The Difference Engine, which is cyberpunk in the Victorian era of Lady Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. It is dense and an absolute beauty of a book.

There is a pen-and-paper RPG called Cryptomancer which is a kind of fantasy setting which uses for-realz OpSec concepts executed with crystals. That’s a poor explanation but look into it for sure. I haven’t played it yet but look forward to it.

Altered Carbon was made into a Netflix series last year, too.

NathanialG wrote:

Batman Beyond. Why more people haven't stolen its Cyberpunk Noir setting is beyond me.

My favorite incarnation of Batman.

Also second the nominations of Shadowrun Dragonfall and Hong Kong. Hong Kong isn’t on mobile, I believe, but I’d recommend PC even if they were.

They took Batman Beyond off Netflix didn't they? I think it's on that DC app now...I had it on my list for a while and never got around to it. It was one of my favorites growing up and I'm not big into comic book cartoons.

I’m going to take another opportunity to plug the Murderbot Diaries. It’s technically more traditional sci-fi than cyberpunk, but the mentality and tactics of the main character combined with the themes of uncontrolled corporatism are thematically more cyberpunk than a lot of stuff that’s actually branded as cyberpunk.

If you like adventure games, I'd recommend Observer, Technobabylon* and especially The Red Strings Club. If you like strategy, Frozen Synapse. If you're into top down shooters, Neon Chrome and Ruiner.

For anime, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is essential.

*Might run into your retro clause though, it isn't old, but it sure looks like a looks like a point and click from the 90:s.

*snip*

IMAGE(http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/transmetropolitan/1-1.jpg)

That's A Certain Scientific Railgun, a part of the Magical Index universe of stories. The magical side of it is more fantasy and myth, this side is more cyberpunk.

Couple of off-the-beaten track cyberpunk books for you:

Greg Egan's Diaspora is the logical end-point of cyberpunk. It covers the post-Singularity, after we've downloaded our consciousnesses and society exists entirely in software, made up from individuals with cosmic time-scale lifespans.

Charlie Stross' Accelerando is another good pull. It deals with The Singularity as it's happening.

Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash is a great read. I second the Shadowrun games and would even suggest some of the books. Never Deal with a Dragon, while not epic cyberpunk, was a lot of fun (along with the entire series). They did some great world building with that world. The pen and paper RPG version is a lot of fun too.

NathanialG wrote:

Batman Beyond. Why more people haven't stolen its Cyberpunk Noir setting is beyond me.

I wish this was more popular too. I loved Batman beyond the show. I want a game, a movie, and so much more from this IP

Lanthos wrote:

Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash is a great read. I second the Shadowrun games and would even suggest some of the books. Never Deal with a Dragon, while not epic cyberpunk, was a lot of fun (along with the entire series). They did some great world building with that world. The pen and paper RPG version is a lot of fun too.

I'd save Snow Crash for after a cyberpunk binge, as it successfully lampoons the genre into submission.

I remember Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired being decent. And double down on the Gibson.

The Kovacs stuff didn't really feel like it was cyberpunk itself, more cyberpunk adjacent, at least until the third book.

Transmetropolitan is a great series. Well worth a look in today's political climate.

Where would I find Batman Beyond? is it only on the DC app now?

Robear wrote:

Transmetropolitan is a great series. Well worth a look in today's political climate.

I want to second and third this. That series is so very good.

KozmoOchez wrote:

Where would I find Batman Beyond? is it only on the DC app now?

Yuck looks like it's a pain now to stream. I thought it was on a service a year or two back but don't see it now. I know some time back i streamed them all. Damn a good fun show.

Thanks for all the ideas!

KozmoOchez wrote:

Where would I find Batman Beyond? is it only on the DC app now?

Yup, looks like only on the DC app. You can't even buy it on Amazon.

Just started Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix. It's definitely hitting the (cyberpunk) spot in some of the episodes.