Cyberpunk 3776 Review

About the game: “Cyberpunk 3776 harkens back to the glory days of arcades. It all begins on a post apocalyptic earth and proceeds into space. Your journey will be a metaphor about life and death, a road that every person has to walk down alone. The only choices you get while on your path to the inevitable end: keep your head up high or forfeit.

This game features a bold, unique and dark atmosphere with seven original stages. Each of them includes a unique boss that will challenge your skills and require it’s own tactics. Cyberpunk 3776 boasts hours of breathtaking action, ship upgrades, floating healthpods and great voice acting by Nico Uusitalo.”

I must admit I love my side scrolling 2d shoot em ups, they’re something you can play and play. I got the chance to check out Cyber Punk 3776, made by Peter hann, I was quite eager as I read some mixed reviews, indie games can be quite controversial and I think this stems from the fact people forget an indie game is usually someone’s idea of a game without huge commercial backing. These aren’t the next big game studio releases that often have huge budgets in the millions.  So we really have to take this into account when reviewing them! Is the idea good? And well executed? But the graphics lack, well – sometimes you get that with indie games! Anyway – here’s some screenshots. and let’s jump in to this quick review!

The first and most important thing I find that you need to look at with these sorts of games? Mechanics, they can make or break a game. They’ve got to be well balanced to ensure a challenge that urges you to carry on, without resulting in you getting annoyed, because it’s “impossible to play”. I feel this is something Cyberpunk really put the time and effort into, they made sure they got this right. The general feeling of the game from a quick play gives me a few opinions. I had lots of interesting moments, but the speed and pace of the game kept me in control, which is nice when compared to side scrollers that slow the movement down resulting in a slow and dull experience…. *falls asleep*

In terms of actual game setup, you fly a ship that slowly get’s upgraded through the seven stages of the game, it’s simple. But it’s an effective game system, I mean why would you change something that works for so many games? They’re could be a more “interesting” way to execute this, but I did love that you got points which allow you to upgrade whatever you want. It enables players who might not have a huge skill cap to just grind points vs needing skill alone, which the game definitely caters for.

Now moving onto some more “visual” comments, I simply love the audio and graphics, given the game is set in a “Post apocalpytic” era, the graphics really felt grungy and a little punky which blended nicely given the back story. During the actual game, the pilot tells you the story of the game which really adds a little bit more depth. Audio also kept me enticed into the plot, however, I would have loved some higher BPM audio! But that’s total personal preference. And the audio really does sound great! Combined with the graphics it’s an interesting game to get immersed into.

Overall what you get with a game like this? Interesting graphics, moderate replayability, and a slightly interesting storyline. I personally like the flow of the game, I did find a few slight niggles. For instance, the health pickups are slightly annoying, and the price tag is a big ask for 7 scripted stages of a game. But once you take away those two little niggles, it’s a fun game to get into if you like classic scrollers. And something that is playable on just about anything.. so a great filler game!

I wanted to thank Peter for providing us with this game to give our thoughts on! We think people will enjoy this game too! And from the little time I spent playing it (which will soon be a lot more) I wanted to say you’ve created an interesting and original game, that is awesome to play.