This time around I decided to roll with a male V--for some weird reason I remember the voice acting as being kind of...off, I guess, but this time I feel like it's fine. I went down the Nomad path because it had been quite awhile since I opted for it (and, I just kind of like the nomads). Sadly, I didn't alter my playstyle much (which, it's kind of hard to do anyway thanks to the abundance of skill points that you pick up if you're a completionist)--V's mostly sneaking and occasionally submachinegunning down some baddies. I am trying to be a bit less uptight about failing at sneaking and then just letting things turn into a shootout. I've also had less remorse over blowing up all those conveniently located tanks of explosive materials. Boom...limbs everywhere! I'm also planning on giving the Kerry romance a try--it's the only one I've never experienced.
Is it just me or does anyone else find the age difference with Kerry to be...weird? Kerry's supposed to be in like his 70's or 80's (and yes, I acknowledge that the technology in the game is supposed to help prolong lifespan and keep people feeling and looking younger) but he looks like he's in his 40's or 50's. It just feels a bit creepy to me. Buuuuut, it's the only romantic path I have yet to do, so I'll just shove those feelings off to the side.
Surprisingly there has been some new content added that I somehow missed in my last playthrough. A strange mission that I couldn't remember popped up and offered up a chance for V to track down a stolen vehicle. This vehicle was apparently being used by some corrupt NCPD officers and then had been stolen from them. River Ward asks V to track down the vehicle and learn about the circumstances around how these corrupt officers were able to obtain the vehicle in the first place. V has to track it down and engage in a heated gun battle with the current occupants (a Maelstrom couple with some ambitious street dealing dreams) to liberate it. Once V has gained ownership he learns that it has a special feature--namely the new CrystalCoat technology that allows you to personalize the paint colors of certain vehicles--and has to track down some software to fix a bug in the system (basically raid a 6th Street occupied garage and download the file). The car you get is definitely one of the best--a Yaiba "Semimaru"--that is fast and highly maneuverable. The CrystalCoat feature is kind of fun and allows you to change the look of a vehicle on a whim. There's another car mission to recover a special Rayfield model known as a "Mordred" that was owned by none other than Yorinobu Arasaka. In this mission you can choose whether or not you keep the car (umm, duh? Who's not keeping it?). If you do keep the car you will be attacked by a few carloads of angry Arasaka agents at a random time. It's totally worth it though as the Mordred is comparable to the Semimaru.
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| Male Nomad V with his lizard friend and the Rayfield Mordred. |
I've also only played through the Phantom Liberty expansion once, so I'm enjoying re-visiting it. It's so much more action-packed--the intro missions with President Meyers reminded me of that. I think I'm going to opt for a different ending this time around too--last time I went with (umm, spoilers, I guess) the ending that turned out to be sort of depressing (I mean, the other endings are sort of depressing too...) with V returning to Night City (sans cyber-abilities) only to find out that without all their fancy chrome they're going to be surviving, but not necessarily living that big time life envisioned by Jackie. We'll see how things shake out.
I also purchased several games from Steam's summer sale that I have yet to check out, but am saving them for the future. Happy World Cup, happy gaming, and happy summer (especially to the teachers out there)!
