Nivalis is absolutely breathtaking to behold, with gigantic skyscrapers topped by a swirling sea of clouds that look ready to engulf the city in an ionic thunderstorm at any moment. I dreaded every moment the game told me to leave the hovercraft – in fact, the on-foot sections are so boring and rote I’m almost convinced Cloudpunk should have taken the Driver approach, where the whole game takes place inside the car.Ī huge portion of that comes from the fact Cloundpunk so effectively executes the city and all related visual aspects. With a fixed camera perspective and only movement keys plus one interaction button available, the walking part of the game feels detrimentally lean – there is nothing fun about slowly running around large environments just to talk to one person, then run all the way back to your parked car. The on-foot movement, meanwhile, is absolutely unforgettable. While the turbo and turn upgrades work quite well, the vertical upgrade is virtually unnoticeable – the car will still stutter when going up or down and stop for seemingly no reason mid-ascent, which alongside the VERY tight altitude ceiling, makes 3D flight extremely unenjoyable and restrictive. While initially sluggish and slow, its turn speed and vertical movement can be upgraded (and a turbo function added) with the money you make completing jobs. The hover car has a nice weight to it, making it rather enjoyable to drive as you ebb and flow through the Coruscant-like traffic. The gameplay itself is extremely simplistic, divided between driving a hover car in three dimensions and walking on foot to talk to people. That’s not a bad thing, as it’s what Cloudpunk sets out to do from the start. Between delivering packages and ferrying people around in a very big city divided by zones, you will get small snippets of larger happenings, including terrorist attacks and an underlying technologic subplot tied to the city’s arcane infrastructure, yet the plot fully embraces the idea of “a day in the life of a commoner”. It’s just a shame that there couldn’t be more to actually do among those beautiful, sparkling towers above the clouds.What starts off as a normal courier job… never stops being a courier job, though glimpses of a larger plot abound and take more shape near the end of the game. The ability to just visit and fly over that huge, neon-soaked city of Nivalis is quite an accomplishment and for some, that will be enough to make it worth playing. Cloudpunk looks gorgeous, especially in first hour of playtime. But there still must be gameplay, and what is attempted must be followed through on. This Switch version has also undoubtedly lost some of its polish in the port from PC. As an Indie game, I can forgive Cloudpunk for being smaller, simpler than a AAA blockbuster, and it would be unfair to judge it by the same standard. That should come as a shock to absolutely no one. So, in the end, Cloudpunk is no Cyberpunk 2077. Overall, even the simple pleasure of exploration in Nivalis wore off quickly once I realized there wasn’t much new to discover. Only the Hollows and the Ventz, underground areas I visited a couple of times on my missions, offered something different in their foggy and run-down appearance. Avalon Heights, presented in the story as the upscale neighborhood, looked exactly like everywhere else. Going to Little China, I saw nothing to denote that it was more Asian or Chinese than any other part of the city. Or even the many districts of Nivalis, which would seem to offer distinct urban landscapes, ended up all looking and feeling the same. It won’t win any awards for originality and the inconsistent voice acting will test your patience often, but Cloudpunk’s narrative was decent enough to keep me engaged till the end. At the same time, a mysterious AI entity named Cora approaches Rania, who must eventually make a choice that could decide the fate of Nivalis itself. Rania finds herself involved in a missing-person case, as she helps Huxley locate and save a young girl named Pashta. It’s a large cast of distinct characters, and the story begins to get interesting, if cliché. Story comes to you in the dialogue of NPCs along the way - among them Camus, your AI side-kick an android Private Eye named Huxley or Control, the grizzled yet kind dispatcher whose voice becomes a source of security for Rania in the big, bad city. The missions are given in a linear fashion, and together comprise the overarching narrative of Cloudpunk. Your job is to take on delivery missions from a man named Control in Dispatch, and completion of each mission entails successfully taking packages from pick-up to destination. A story-based adventure game, Cloudpunk has you play Rania, working her first night as a delivery driver for an underground courier service called Cloudpunk.
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