I was expecting more from this game after watching those gorgeous trailers, but in the end, Cloudpunk disappointed me big time. It's a game where basically nothing happens, there's no climax to the story and there's no intriguing or memorable gameplay sequence. You just float around in your flying vehicle called a HOVA or walk on foot from one point to another delivering packages for Cloudpunk, a shady no questions asked delivery service.
The story tries to touch upon all of the clichès that come with every cyberpunk/dystopian setting, but honestly, nothing happens. During some missions, you can also choose between different options that might affect one character or a group of characters' fate, but again, nothing matters, and nothing really changes. Rania, your character, still stays the same, Cloudpunk still gives you delivery jobs and the world doesn't really change.
Maybe I missed something. Maybe this illusion of choice is what the game actually went for. However, I don't think that cause the voice acting and dialogue between Rania and the rest of the characters are all serious like what you are doing matters, but it doesn't. It's just a 10-hour long journey to nowhere.
The city of Nivalis is big, but unfortunately, it is not just one big city you can fly from one side to the other. No, it is broken down into many sectors, each requiring a loading screen, which kinda breaks the pace of the game. Also all of these sectors, apart from the lower underground sector, look kinda the same and you have no idea where you are.
Once you get a mission from Control, you just fly towards the waypoint you see on your mini map, which in itself it's not good as icons move and shift around making finding a parking space quite annoying. Once you park, you get out of the vehicle and run around trying to find your contact or the package or the drop off point. Then back to your HOVA to start the whole loop again. This is fun for the first 30 minutes, but it gets very samey and extremely boring the more you play the game, cause again there's no real incentive for you to do so.
The game has an economy where you earn money after each delivery, but apart from using it to refill your car with gas or repair damage, there's no point to it. Yes, you can buy some upgrades for your flying car, but you can do just fine without these upgrades in the first place. The same goes for your apartment, you can buy some cosmetic stuff to decorate your apartment, but since you'll only go back there a couple of times during the story, what's the point?
As for the presentation on a PS4 Pro, the performance was atrocious with really janky frame-rates and a god-awful rain effect which basically was a transparentRain.png file constantly moving in front of you completely undermining the whole experience. Luckily, they have patched this awful effect out recently, but the damage was done. Sometimes, when you are flying up high or you are on foot overlooking a part of the city, the vista can be quite something, but those moments were extremely rare for me on the PS4 Pro as they were undermined by the awful rain effect, screen tearing and low draw distance.
Cloudpunk really disappointed me in all of the areas that it had to offer. For that reason, it is really hard for me to recommend this game to anyone.
