First by accident, then on purpose, I played only cyberpunk games this month. Mostly. This was a pretty good idea, as it narrowed down the selection even more and allowed me to finally play games I have wanted to play for years.

Sludge Life – ‘tude the game. Great style and music, simple (collect-a-thon-y – if you want) gameplay. Mostly vibes, really. Is it cyberpunk or something else distopian? Eh, cyberpunk-y enough, like Umurangi Generation. Bonus points for how gender selection is implemented. Not going to spoil it :)

Retro cyberpunk? Why not! Quadrilateral Cowboy is a puzzle game with proper command-line interface. It is not a hardcore programming game, like some other games that hurt my brain, that part is easy. Add classic Brendon Chung style and you have a pretty good time being cube, doing crimes.

I said that Metroid Prime: Hunters was a bad idea, but what I did not mention was that I played Liberation Maiden before and loved it. I even went back and replayed some levels to get unlocks, because I liked the paint-and-shoot gameplay. Not sure if it is called that, but it is an apt description.

Warp Shift is a neat puzzle game that kinda lost me in the end, so I finished it with a guide. It is on me, because I got anxious every time I played it for no reason. Weird brain stuff, it happens.

Claustrophobia and loneliness, visual style and music aged quite well and was tastefully updated for Metroid Prime Remastered. But there are clunky parts, no doubt about it. I am not sure how much of that is due to age, and how much of it is due to the specific task the developers had in front of them: translating Metroid from side-scrolling 2D to first-person 3D. I wonder if Prime 4 is in a similar situation: knowing Nintendo, they will probably fight against any conventional and quality-of-life change that goes against what they perceive as tradition. But let’s all agree that changing weapons and visors is no fun.

Loading Story is short and free and, um, sad, question mark.

What if you just want to shoot some dudes? But do it in style, you know? Severed Steel is the answer! And what an answer it is: shoot, jump, slide, destroy the level itself, and all that in stylish slo-mo. What not to like!

Neon Struct: Die Augen der Welt is not an indie Deus Ex. It is more of an indie Thief set in a cyberpunk world. There are some elements of an immersive sim, but it is mostly a stealth game. What I did not expect is that there are a lot of social areas where you can walk around, talk to people, and do the occasional side quest. And there are also consequences to your actions: it is not a deep system, but the game acknowledging what you have done is a pretty cool touch.

Unfortunate name aside, I bet if Master Reboot was been released today, it would not have those action scenes. Puzzles, jump scares, sure. But first-person platforming? Nah. It doesn’t ruin the game, far from it, but I know that I didn’t get the whole story because I was annoyed and didn’t go back to find more collectibles.

Also finished a bunch of Picross games: Picross S8, Picross S: Genesis & Master System Edition, Picross: Lord of the Nazarick, Sanrio Characters Picross, Kemono Friends Picross. There are two problems with branded games (except Genesis & Master System Edition): color schemes that can be hard to read, and the fact that if you have characters drawn in one style, puzzles will look very similar.

In the end, I really liked having a theme for a month. There are still a lot of cyberpunk games I want to play, so I will probably come back to this theme. But for next month, something else.