Oh yeah, I forgot this was a game, and not just some fever dream after watching the old directors cut on DVD in the early hours.Ĭloudpunk is the in-game moniker of an illegal delivery service that operate beneath the all-seeing all-controlling iron fist of CorpSec. You register your HUD and take notice of the guy on the HOVA’s comm who wants you to do some deliveries. Mesmerising is the word for those first ten minutes or so of unfiltered awe – they actually made a flying-car Blade Runner world – but slowly, eventually it subsides and you can function again. You squeeze the accelerator, your tail-lights glow with that long exposure flare of Akira motorbikes, and your HOVA sets out into Nivalis intricate neon-lit skyscrapers slide past, clouds drift below you, bright flickering advertisements catch your eye from every angle and the soft mesmerising Vangelis synths stimulate that small part of your nerd brain and says, you know what punk, you’re gonna fit right in here. You will have a grin from ear to ear as you are dropped immediately into your Fifth Element-style flying HOVA car and work out the aerial controls (I prefer inverted, who knew) and a nerd’s dreamscape unfolds over you. That’s not to say its downhill from there, it really isn’t, but you can only have that first overwhelming sense of pure geeky cyber wonderment and joy once.
![cloudpunk new hova cloudpunk new hova](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b-1aJo9sEfM/maxresdefault.jpg)
Your very first moments with Cloudpunk are undoubtedly it’s best.
![cloudpunk new hova cloudpunk new hova](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-qQ8TzZfwXU/maxresdefault.jpg)
You don’t have to be Roy Batty to experience all those moments for yourself in Cloudpunk. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.’ I watched neon signs glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. Cloud-framed skyscrapers glistening in the pouring rain, HOVAs on fire across the breadth of Nivalis.
![cloudpunk new hova cloudpunk new hova](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PrZOI0fFfWI/maxresdefault.jpg)
‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.