What would you say are the best old-school cyberpunk video games?
Note that I don’t actually care if it’s the “best”, I’m just looking for some fun older games to play. So give me something better than Raid 2020 and I’ll call it a win.
I’m thinking things like:
- Snatcher (1988)
- Blade Runner (1997)
- System Shock 2 (1999)
- Deus Ex (2000)
And just to prove they don’t have to be GOTY contenders…
- Slave Zero (2000)
- Shadowrun (1994)
- X-Kaliber 2097 (1994)
So yeah, give me some recommendations from the NES/SNES/N64 era (I’m not convinced there’s anything worth playing from the ZX Spectrum/Commodore 64 era). Maybe some Arcade (MAME) games too? I can’t think of any cyberpunk arcade games.
I’ve never played Omikron: The Nomad Soul or BloodNet before. Not sure if they’re worth my time.
Nobody is going to say it here? I really, really like Syndicate. The original one.
Beneath a Steel Sky (1994, Amiga & MS-DOS) of course. You can get it for free at GOG among other places as it’s freeware now.
Good idea! Have you played the sequel Beyond a Steel Sky? I haven’t heard too much about that one.
Nope, in fact that’s the first time I heard about that!
Slave Zero was great. Good soundtrack, good art for the time, fun gameplay.
Loved that game. I liked how they were able to preserve the sense of scale so you actually felt like a giant robot in a city even though gameplay-wise it was all just platforming.
I found Omikron absolutely awesome when I played it back in the day. Also loved Outcast (1999) which - to me - has some similarities in feel, but the latter is decidedly not Cyberpunk.
Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy (2005, same game, different name depending on region, also by Quantic Dream like Omikron) is up there as well.
Tron 2.0 (2003) might be up your alley - look up playing it today, there’s quite a few unofficial fixes, mods and enhancements.
Neuromancer (preferably the Amiga version, slightly better graphics) is interesting in its own way, though it certainly doesn’t feel “modern” the way your examples above do.
Uplink (2006) could fit as well, it’s played wholly from the perspective of a hacker’s console. (Apropos that, I only just found/saw Quadrilateral Cowboy (2016) myself, gotta have a look.)
Cyberpunk Arcade… Hm, Vivaldia…? ;-)
Ah, that brings back some memories!
Tron 2.0 is a Monolith classic. For some reason I thought they were no longer around, but the excellent Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is also one of theirs. Another great series (not related to cyberpunk) from them is No One Lives Forever. The first one had a bonus music CD with some great 60s inspired tracks.
I remember spending a lot of time with Uplink. It does make you feel like a movie hacker! The devs, Introversion, have a lot of interesting and original games. Defcon is inspired by the movie WarGames (with a hacker for the protagonist). Darwinia is about AI life, very original.
I loved Tron 2.0. it did such a fantastic job of extending the universe defined by the movie. Going to the Internet, a backup archive, a low-powered PDA, and fighting a virus/corruption were all great ideas. I hate that Tron: Legacy squandered those ideas by saying “oh, the grid is just a computer game Flynn wrote” rather than it being a visual representation of actual computer technology. I probably should’ve set my avatar to a Tron 2.0 disc and not a Tron: Legacy disc…
Thanks for those other suggestions!
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t watch Legacy.
Do the european releases of contra count? (probotector) im a bitch for run’n’guns
Lol, that’s right. It’s the exact same game with just a sprite swap of the characters, right? Nice!
Power blade series on the NES has to be my first encounter with cyberpunk after Total Recall. Amazing soundtrack too.
Awesome, thanks!
Honestly, Neuromancer on the c64 (could have been on other platforms) was pretty damn cool at the time.
I always had a soft spot for DreamWeb.
Syndicate.
Wasted many hours on that in my youth
Not 20 years old, but if you’re willing to look at 10, I’ll always shout out the often-overlooked Remember Me by DONTNOD, back before they did Life is Strange.
It’s a 3rd person action-adventure game set in a cyberpunk future where everyone has a cybernetic implant called the SenSen in their brain to allow all their memories to be uploaded into cloud, so they can revisit them whenever they want. Of course, this technology is the property of one corporation, Memorize, but I’m sure they wouldn’t do anything evil with the ability to read and store every memory of every person connected to the system, right? You play as Nilin, a former memory hacker with some bad amnesia, who is broken out of prison by unknown benefactors with their own agenda. Navigate the streets and slums of 2084 Paris, avoiding hit squads and breaking into memories to piece together your own fractured past.
Definitely a solid B-tier game, it didn’t blow anyone’s mind on release, but it’s decently fun to play, has an interesting story, and the atmosphere of the cyberpunk city is just perfect. Plus, it gets pretty damn cheap come sale times. I can’t recommend it enough for anyone with a love of cyberpunk and mid-tier games with heart making up for the lack of budget.
