As a significant other, I think one of the most important aspects of a relationship is supporting your partner’s hobbies and interests. I also have quite the issue with spending money to support said hobbies.
Jackson, my boyfriend, can attest to this trait. One such case involves the new xbox. For Jackson’s birthday, I bought him the Xbox Series X. With this purchase came a plethora of new experiences for the both of us.
On the weekends especially, we spend quality time together by playing video games ( or rather, he plays video games and I spectate). It has become one of my favorite past-times and something I spend the week looking forward to.
Over the past month, I have gained significant amounts of knowledge on new video games that I have never been exposed to before. I personally can’t give a detailed review of the gameplay of these video games, but I can give a review about how it feels to be the backseat viewer of them.
The first game I want to talk about is Cyberpunk 2077. Let me just start off by saying this is hands-down my favorite game to watch Jackson play. The biggest thing for me about these video games is the art style.
I want to be entertained as I watch the screen from behind my boyfriend, sitting on a twin-sized dorm mattress for hours at a time which makes the visual appeal of a game critical. The bold style of cyberpunk paired with the amazing resolution of the game is a dangerous combination.
As Jackson fought what seemed like hundreds of bad guys, the neon lights and industrial vibe just brought the whole city together. I’m pretty sure at one point I got stuck in the trance of the game and a couple of hours went by before I even realized it.
The characters just seem so realistic and the dystopian set up of the city allows one to become fully immersed in the fictional world. I found the bright colors paired with the darkness of the city to be a niche blend that was very entertaining.
Another aspect of this game that I love is the overall plot. The main character, V, is this rough and tough outlaw of sorts that lives in a futuristic world where everyone has been modified and upgraded through cybernetics.
When starting the game, V is recruited to hijack this upgrade that would essentially immortalize whoever it is installed in. This character really toes the line of bad guy and becomes one of my personal favorite characters from this game.
Even though he goes against the institution and breaks a lot of laws, I found myself rooting for him and holding my breath whenever tense moments of the plot came up. It became hard not to audibly gasp when he was shot at, just because it really is so immersive.
I became rather attached to this character through the hours of gameplay and squinting without my glasses on to watch my boyfriend run around the city, which leads me to the next positive thing about this game: the person playing is given a lot of freedom in the plot as well.
In this game, you can pick your own dialogue and actions in many cases throughout the main plot-line which dictates the way the story plays out. My boyfriend personally enjoys going through the open-world and finding side objectives as he advances the main storyline.
I found this portion of the game pretty interesting as I watched him navigate the streets of Night City, the futuristic town that the game takes place in. Trouble is always waiting around the corner here and the sun never rises.
Whoever plays also has the option to call your car to you whenever you want. In Jackson’s playthrough, it led to a few glitches that I thought were really funny. Once, it got stuck on a light pole of sorts and we could just hear it revving loudly trying to get to V.
These moments did help to lift the doom and gloom mood of the game and main plot, making it seem more lighthearted. Both my boyfriend and I became rather emotionally invested in the game’s characters, especially V’s initial side-kick named Jackie.
I won’t spoil the plot of the game, but I will say that Jackie is the character that resonated with me the most and the one that made me the most emotional. Watching Jackson play, I felt so silly getting so attached to a story that I wasn’t really involved in at all, but it was rather difficult to not sit on the edge of my seat through the climatic action.
The only complaint I can really think of for this game is just how goofy the character comes to look. None of the “armor” that you collect really goes together and sometimes the weapon you have can look really unrealistic.
I know this isn’t huge on gameplay, but I’m not invested in how easy the game is to play. I’m interested in how the game looks as you play it. The mismatched clothes and occasional hot pink shotgun really just takes away from the whole aesthetic of the game.
Overall, I would rate this game a nine on a scale of ten, taking away a point for the fashion disaster.
