WINTERROSE'S CYBERPUNK 2077 PLAYLIST

So... if you accepted 'Sinnerman' from Wakkako, then you know you're meant to meet up with some fellow paying to have a serial killer assassinated. This is the fellow that if you've been looking at the newscasts in game, some producer means to crucify him for some BD, and the killer WANTS to be executed this way for his sins.

Thing is... the quest begins with a car chase. You have to chase an NCPD transport through town to a standoff where you can kill the guy, or go on with his exceedingly weird and deranged redemption arc. Now... I did the whole thing once. And on my second playthrough, I mean not to do it again. Life's too short for that kind of frustration.

And this is one of 'THOSE CHASES' Where as soon as the world twigs to the fact you're actually chasing someone, it throws every possible vehicular and pedestrian obstacle at you. Like Exploding Dick guy at the beginning of the game. That one actually threw a nun and a classroom full of kids at you. I like driving nowadays, but I hate that thing where the game throws every goofy obstructive trope it can at you. It's like I fell out of Cyberpunk and into a Zucker/Abrams movie.

I start looking for mods to skip the driving sequence, or just mark 'Sinnerman' as complete after six attempts, and being painfully reminded why I hated this gig to start with. And then I realized, "HEY! I got that perk that opened up vehicular quickhacks. I'm meant to kill this guy. LET'S JUST SELF DESTRUCT THE VEHICLE INSTEAD OF CHASING IT!"

You don't just get to self-destruct the NCPD transport. Which is even more frustrating. We gave you this new ability. But we didn't bother to write or produce the alternate outcome of your using it. You don't get to Emergency Brake the fleeing NCPD truck or Self Destruct it with your intended assassination victim inside... cos plot reasons shut up and chase him like we told you to.

What feckin' good is the ability then when I actually damn need the thing?

This should be easy. This is one of the things I was paying for with the DLC wasn't it?

Jablonsky: What's your name? V: "V." Jablonsky: Well let me tell you something- THERE HE IS! FLOOR IT! LET'S GO! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!" V: "Yeah, frag this."

<<send:SELFDESTRUCT.EXE.INITIATE>>

The transport explodes in a shower of fiery armor plate and gobbets of serial killer. V: "There. Done. Where's my eddies?" Jablonsky: "But... you... I wanted to see the light go out in his-" V: "You are creepy, obnoxious, and crazy. Eddies. Now. Before I decide your lights need dimming."

OR:

Jablonsky: What's your name? V: "V." Jablonsky: Well let me tell you something- THERE HE IS! FLOOR IT! LET'S GO! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!" V: "Yeah, frag this."

<<<send:EMERGENCYBRAKE.EXE.INITIATE>>>

The NCPD Transport screeeeeeches to a sudden halt, spinning halfway across the intersection pointing in the opposite direction it was traveling.

V exits Jablonsky's jank-ass pavement princess of a pickup truck as the cops start to boil out of the transport. V's eyes pulse with a blue light in her irises, and the cops drop to the pavement in a shower of sparks, limbs twitching as their implants short circuit. Crossing the intersection, she doesn't look at the officers down. Not her gig, not her monkeys. "JABLONSKY. MOVE YOUR FREIGHT." she shouts.

Jablonsky, realizing he wasn't entirely prepared for what his money was buying here gets out of the truck and crosses to the merc. The killer he's dreamed of executing looks dreadfully and pathetically human in the back seat. Worse... Stephenson looks... greatful? What kind of happy crap is this?

The Merc reaches in and hauls Stephenson to the pavement by his prison jumpsuit. V doesn't even look at the fellow. Just hauls out what looks like one bitch of a Malorian combat pistol and aims it at the killer's head. The red laser dot doesn't even quiver on the bridge of Stephenson's nose.

V stares, still as stone into Jablonsky's eyes instead. "This him?"

Jablonsky feels a hot torrent down his pants leg that puddles around his shoes. He can't speak.

V doesn't move. "You on the pavement. You Joshua Stephenson?"

The killer pushes himself up to his knees and nods weakly. He's serene. Smiling even. "That's me. Did the lord send you?"

V shakes her head. "Fraid not."

The killer does finally look saddened at that. There's sirens in the distance. Getting closer. V looks supremely unconcerned. Stephenson looks grave. Which is appropriate. "Then you do what you came to do, Ma'am. Father... into thy hands I-"

The bullet fairly takes Stephenson's head from his shoulders. It rebounds off the transport and rolls to Jablonsky's feet. Jablonsky lets out a terrified scream. He didn't know he was capable of a sound like that. The world is very silent around him. He can't hear anything after that deafening shot. Even the sirens have gone quiet. Just a high whine and V's voice.

"There you go. You look in his eyes if you want to. But you better make it quick. The cops aren't gonna be happy with you. Transfer the eddies before they arrive. You don't want me mad at you too."

And then the merc vanished in front of his eyes.

He'd heard of thermoptic camoflage before. But... Jablonsky dropped to his knees, unable to look at the grisly prize he'd bought. All that nonsense about two graves and vengeance becoming horribly clear to him all at once. As he initiated the money transfer, he wondered idly if that producer he'd seen on TV would need a replacement for the BD they were going to shoot. If the cops didn't zero him first. It's not like his prospects included living out the week anyway.

So this morning I'm feeling that my playthrough 2.0 of Cyberpunk 2077 is more than a bit bloodthirsty. I delete a lot of gangers on sight with this Feral StreetKid character I'm playing. 6th Streeters, Scavengers, Tyger Claws, Maelstrom. Anyone who shoots at me (OR MY CAR) first. I'll stalk em and quietly put a throwing knife into em. Then while looting their bodies, if they're still laying there twitching and only MOSTLY dead, they get a bullet to the head. And I feel a BIT bad about some of em. Occasionally, I'll feel like I'm crossing the line from videogame protagonist to virtual serial killer whose timing belt has snapped in a fairly significant way. I've happened on Scavengers just watching TV and having a barbeque on a grill. And I drill em anyway. I mean, Scavengers are organleggers and butchers, so I don't feel too bad about messing up their relaxing fun day. Especially after seeing their victims piled up by a dumpster in an alley nearby. But looking at a cute ganger girlie kinda twitching on the ground cos I wirelessly stared a short circuit daemon into their wetware? Yeah, I feel a twinge of guilt for a moment. Now that guilt's not as bad as Star Wars Galaxies 20 years ago when I was given a mission to go kill some lunatics outside of Corel City on Corellia. At first I'm like, "Hey, that's not a problem." I was a gunslinger. I tooled right out there with my blasters cos hey, that's just biz. But I get there and I stopped cold.

Those guys didn't seem like lunatics. They were just swimming in the river. Milling about on the riverside. And I couldn't do it. I abandoned that mission. Cos I'm not an asshole. I'd feel terrible about going down there and busting their shit for breathing on a nice day by the water. Arasaka corpos in Cyberpunk 2077 however… I went to a police bounty posting and found some Arasaka mercs and a work team by some dump site. They'd waxed a whole group of pinks and for whatever reasons Corpos have. I zeroed all of em but one. The guy who looked like the squad leader I didn't do immediately. But Arasaka did my partner and has caused me no end of grief in game in a pretty personal way. "Now… There's a reason I didn't kill you, chummer. If you live, I want you to tell them. Tell them I'm coming. All these dead gangers your people have no doubt been monitoring while I cut a path through the city? I pretty much kill them on sight. But that's just cos they're butchers and rapists, human traffickers and not averse to shooting at me. But that's just biz. I'm not some gonk vigilante. I'm a professional. It's not personal.

Arasaka and all your little soldiers though?

I'm pissed with you.

And you're all going to see the extent of that. See this dumpster here? All of your dead team-mates are in there. I put them in there after putting a bullet through each one's left eye. They'll be pretty ripe soon. So listen carefully. Remember this part. This concerns you.

While their corpses are voiding themselves all around you in the stinking dark, I want you to remember my message if they find you in time. If they care enough about your worthless replace-able life to come and find you. If their actuarial tables dictate that you're worth a recovery op. Remember this.

Tell Yorinobu Arasaka a vengeful ghost is coming. Tell him that nothing will save him from its wrath. And in whatever hell he might believe in, I will be his chiefest tormentor. Tell him that what I will do to him will make his strangling his father to death seem the sweetest of kindnesses. Tell him that.

And if you die in this dumpster choking on your own horrified vomit with my message on your lips, I'm sure he can have his techs rip this memory from your rotting brainware. Waste not, want not and all that.

Now…

In you go."

There’s some kind of near-future cynical hypercapitalist vibe running here.  I’m not gonna say I get what sounds like some mix of atheist motivational speaking and what’s plainly samples from Monty Python’s Flying Circus and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  This isn’t a comment.  This is a vibe.  And I can kind of feel it all around me in the streets of Night City.  Like a lot of things, we don’t need an overarching meaning here.  It’s a vibe I’m rebelling against as the audio opens up with, “We now take control of your life.”  Hell with your ultramonetary success.  Come say it to my face.

Oh no, romance-able pals and lays.  I’m just fine.  Just dealing with more of that invasive brain nano cancer with an asshole’s personality engram in it.  How are you today?  Just thinking about me?  That’s sweet of you.  Excuse me.  I need to shoot back and think really short circuity-vibes at someone right now.  Talk atcha later, Boo.

I’m stressed, lot going on in my head right now.  I’m stressed,  Tired like I’m already dead right now.  No you won’t break me whatever you say.  Put on a face and pretend I’m okay but I’m Stressed.  I don’t have time for your mess right now… But yeah, this strong horn and big band sound behind the more modern R&B Bluesey feel has that 1940's-1960's hard luck story hittin the bricks and pounding the pavement for a fix to a bad situation. I can almost hear Joel Robinson on MST3K going, "HONNEEEYYY WEST!!!"

In Westworld, this was a preprogrammed set piece where the hosts pulled off a bank job in town.  In Cyberpunk?  Nah.  This is V and the Aldecaldos pulling off their train job and dealing with all the goons that pop out when you get the thing stopped.

BONUS: The Bank Heist Scene from Westworld Season 1

Something you want to know about Cocteau Twins and their singer, Liz Frazier, is that to a large degree, the lyrics aren’t usually meant to mean anything or even make sense.  They’re words and phrases she used to choose that sounded good to sing along with Robin Guthrie’s guitars and the band as another instrument.

This isn’t meant to be hear as any statement or lyric linked to events in the game.  It’s a feeling.  It’s a punk riff and a mood.  And older Cocteau Twins from the early to mid 80’s are less about the ambient and more the kind of punk that was going to turn INTO ambient.  And it belongs in my car or coming out of a radio on the street when I pass one in Night City.  Old Punks Unite!

I don’t know that this is any specific moment in the game.  It could be a love scene with one of the romance-ables.  Ir maybe the strings lend it the feel of a sweeping John Barry James Bond swanky love theme.  Or it could just be one of those moments where you stop and appreciate the view at some remote spot.  Pausing in your efforts.  Taking time out from the world.  Leaving it all just for a day. 

Personally, even though I’ve not seen it yet since my two V’s so far have been women, I wonder if this would apply to the Panam lovescene in the middle of the storm.  The world disappearing beyond the walls of that desert shack while the winds roar outside.  I’ve got a mod installed to let me romance her in my second playthrough.  We’ll see how it goes.

Breathing in your sip of gold I follow all your little lines I like to watch a thousand times I want to feel you here I like to watch a thousand times I make a shrine for you

Time out from the world Leaving it all Just for a day

You like there's a dawn Hold me and round Take us a day? Here I go I'm going back On every word you ever said I'm dreaming of another time Yesterday my alibi We changed the world just you and I I make a shrine for you

In Westworld, there’s the bit where you get off the train in town, and are confronted with how life here is brutish and short, with nout between you and the badlands where main street ends.  And honestly, this could be the badlands outside of town over the bridge.

There’s a kind of incidental paralell of imagery when it comes to CP77 and Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’.  Our moment with Dex in the No-Tell Motel particularly and our subsequent return to consciousness, such as it is, afterward.  There’s an ongoing need for ‘bloody vengeance’ recurring over and over.  And even given their meteoric rise into prodigious ability and resources over the game, V feels like an ongoing hard luck story to me.  

Though honestly, I get the idea that EVERYONE in Night City may be the same in that regard.  Maybe life is so cheap because on the average, it’s brutish and short anyway.  Why wouldn’t you live it without regard when your dystopia guarantees that on the average, unless you’re a 1%-er, you won’t see 40.  So you chrome up, live fast and hard, leave a pretty corpse and a drink named for you.  

I was going somewhere with this, I think.  Look.  It’s more an atmospheric noir-grindhouse bit of music.  Not all of these are going to be lyrically relevant.  Honestly, sometimes, it’s more just the emotional feel and pull of a bit of music that feels right.  And I think this is one of those.

BONUS: The Opening of Kill Bill this got used for. (WARNING: Extreme Violence)