????Positive Aspects:
- Unique art-style.
- Great atmosphere.
- Amazing voice-acting!
- Interesting storyline!
????Negative Aspects:
- A game not for everyone as it’s basically just a walking simulator.
- Despite being excellent as far as voice acting goes, Rania’s voice lines were a little pale and stiff compared to the other ones.
▶️Introduction
Cloudpunk is a storyline focused walking simulator set in a futuristic city called Nivalis. Your goal in this game is to deliver packages using your HOVA which is basically your vehicle. It is a beautiful title to try out before Cyberpunk drops as it just oozes with atmosphere in every corner. The game was developed and published by ION LANDS .
Release Date : 23rd April, 2020
Last known update: 27th October, 2020
????Small-talk:
An amazing game hiding so much atmosphere behind its simple game mechanics!
Smalltalk
Truth be told, I thought that this would be another mediocre “atmospheric” walking simulator, but I was so wrong, the game has a totally unique world with its problems and you can learn stories from every perspective in this world. Speaking of the world, it is a rare occasion that a city can feel so alive, everything is just spot on. The game manages to tell an amazing story with great and unique characters.
????Gameplay:
Yes the gameplay is pretty simplistic, the best way to describe the impact of this game’s gameplay mechanics would be to mention Euro Truck Simulator. Yes it isn’t the best comparison and the games differ in so many ways but keep in mind that both games have a simple task and that is to deliver things. That’s basically the entire thing.
Delivery missions:
Well as mentioned you are a delivery driver for Cloudpunk, only rules are to deliver the packages and never ask what's inside of them. You start off with a pretty bad HOVA (vehicle), it is slow and only offers basic features. After collecting your package from the HQ or another Nav point you will have to drive through the highways of Nivalis most of the time. This may sound like an easy task but trust it isn’t as easy as you may think, the entire traffic resembles the streets of India where it's basically a luck game if you’re going to crash or not. The best way is to fly real low in order to avoid unnecessary accidents. After avoiding all of the crazy Nivalis drivers you will have to park your HOVA on a parking lot, you cannot leave your HOVA on a random location as they are programmed to only accept the traditional parking spots. After doing a perfect parallel parking maneuver you will have to continue on foot in order to successfully deliver the package to the corresponding customer. A small dialogue will trigger which will probably give you some ideas of the person, after that the delivery got approved and you will get paid. There usually isn’t a time limit which means that you can casually explore the locations, in order to trigger more useful dialogues and find items that you can sell in the future to a trader or use these items in order to fix random lifts that are broken in the city of Nivalis.
Open-World and driving around:
There are other secondary things you can do after completing a mission. You can easily upgrade your HOVA or even buy a new one. There is a decent variety in order to improve your HOVA, you can make it faster, more efficient or even buy bumpers in order to pay less in order to fix it. Outside of that you can find various Punch cards for Evelin which is an android that lost its memory, by collecting these items you can help her regain her lost memories. The city of Nivalis offers the chance to buy and consume food which is a pretty nice addition. The Open-world mechanics aren’t amazing but they do have a charm that will probably keep you interested for a while.
Other aspects:
Really loved the recent cockpit view addition that was included in the latest update.
You do have an apartment in Nivalis that you can decorate with various objects available. I decided to buy the stylish aquarium.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2281475610
The game does have a decision system, no idea if it is impactful but it does give you options.
[/list]
????Story:
Due to the Steam character limit I had to move the Storyline section . If you would like to check that one out as well be sure to click down below!
Cloudpunk Storyline section!
????Graphics / Audio:
Cloudpunk makes use of the well-known Unity engine which in all honesty is a pretty popular Indie game engine that usually works pretty fine.
- Graphics:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2281475790
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2279179691
- Audio / Soundtrack:
The Voice-acting is truly a masterpiece, every character talks in a unique way while being totally indistinguishable, you could recognize a character just by the sound of his voice. Literally all of the voice-actors are crystal clear which is rare for an Indie game. Only a small nitpick I have is with the main character Rania, there are some rare occasions where she does sound a little out of place, other than that I can’t really hide it but this game truly touches perfection with the voice-acting and amazing soundtrack.
⚙️Performance:
In Game:
- AMD Ryzen 7 3700 X, 32GB Ram, Nvidia RTX 2070 Super: I was running the game on Maxed out settings in 1080p while maintaining buttery smooth 160 fps.
- AMD Ryzen 5 3500 U, 16GB Ram,Vega 8:
I was running the game on the Lowest settings in 720p while maintaining a solid 30+ framerate.
Bugs / Glitches / Crashes:
I had absolutely no problems with my High End Pc but I do have to mention that Loading times, random freezes and some pretty rare crashes were a small problem with my low end Vega 8 device. Keep in mind that I finished the game in 8 hours using my main PC and played around for 1 hour with the Laptop.
[/list]
⚖️Conclusion:
Cloudpunk was a big surprise for me, the atmosphere is spot on and it just consumes you, I always wanted to start dialogues with all of the characters and I was actually getting sad sometimes for making some drastic decisions. The game is truly great, obviously it does have some minor flaws, the entire walking simulator thing isn’t a thing everyone is willing to play through but that is obviously not the game’s fault. Lastly the performance on low end devices leaves a lot to be desired but still this game is a wonderful experience!
????Overall rating: Save ( Very good. Buy at full price, 70-90% )
Date of the Review: 10.11.2020
Zitat:
Visit SaveOrQuit.com for detailed game reviews, posted daily!
