It’s a bit of an odd feeling when a game almost dumps you in a way into the middle of a character's life. It felt like at moments in Cyberpunk I was not getting the full story. I was somewhat late holding the bag wondering now what needs to be done. Quite an interesting way to go about things.
Other than expecting lots of shooting in Cyberpunk. I had no idea what kind of activities to expect. I was not expecting right away I'd be smuggling of all things a live animal. Having to get past checkpoints, bribe officials, and flee the law. Things ended up being a lot more eventful than I was expecting the first few moments of the game to be. At least it all started somewhat slowly.
The story starts from all places in a repair shop. The news about my car is also not good. Granted I'd fully expect to get taken advantage of in the middle of nowhere. In the kind of place where it seems like you are hiding from someone.
I had enough of the guy claiming to be a car mechanic. I did a quick fix that ended up working to both his and my amazement. I was looking to get things resolved quickly as I was already late for a job. A job at the time I was not fully aware of where it would end up taking me let alone what it was till, I got there.
For whatever reason I rather enjoyed this car than a lot of others in this game. This was my nomad car. There would be a period after when I'd be going without this car for a while. The time spent driving or stealing other cars just made me appreciate this car even more.
As if my car was not working right not was not already a bad omen in how my day was going. In my attempt to get out of the shop let alone the shady little town I found myself in. The local sheriff showed up to bust my guts. He hates trouble and I looked like trouble to me.
I had no idea who he was. I did not care who he was. I did not want to know who he was. All I knew was he was slowing me down and was not going to be of any use to me whatsoever.
He on the other hand suspected I was a nomad setting up camp nearby. Perhaps he was worried I was about to raid their decaying town of what little life it had left. Maybe he was just looking to get paid off to leave me alone.
All I did know was that I did not want to give him any reason to give me any more trouble than attempting to block my way of getting out of the town I now felt I was being trapped in. After a bit of talking and some back-and-forth banter, he agreed to let me go. I ended up speeding 100 MPH out of the town creating as much space between him and myself as I could as quickly as I could.
There was just one small issue with my attempted escape. I could not get my phone to work out there in the middle of nowhere. I needed to tap into a cell tower and get some details. After all, I was rather late for a smuggling operation, and I had never worked with the person who had the package before.
I was quite shocked to interact with many computer systems in Cyberpunk I'd be pulling a wire out of my wrist. Then connecting said wire to the system in question. I’d then need to hack it. I then needed to hope the system in question I was connecting to was not infected with something nasty creating quite a massive headache for me on my end.
After talking with a contact who wanted nothing to ever do with me again. This ended up being quite a repeating theme as I went further into things with quite a few different people in this game. I found out where the package I needed to pick up was.
It was kind of nice getting used to driving around in the middle of the desert. Lots of long roads and not a lot of things to hit other than pushes and a powerline if I went off the road. Once I made it into the city, I'd have to be far more careful in my driving than I would be all the way out on the open road in the middle of the desert.
The one thing I did not need when trying to smuggle things into the city was a guy who looked like he belonged to a biker gang and was up to no good. As it turns out that is exactly the kind of person that would be holding the package, I needed to smuggle in.
The guy's name was Jackie and for a while, we would end up doing further jobs with each other. This is, however, one of those parts of the game regarding him where it felt like there was a lot more that went on in the background that I never got more than a couple of hints at for story purposes.
That is, however, getting ahead of ourselves. For now, this was my first time as far as I'm aware interacting with Jackie. He was not sure at all of my smuggling skills, and I don’t blame him for how things went down.
I ended up driving an unknown package into a checkpoint. At that checkpoint, it seemed like everything was set up. We had paperwork for the package that told them we were up to no good. That then required me to go inside and have a chat with an officer.
I’m not sure how many laws I ended up breaking in the short span of five minutes. It, however, had to be quite a few. I soon found myself in a room where I was expecting to bribe a border officer. Not only did he take that bribe. As soon as we left, the officer stabbed me in the back.
I guess I did not answer things correctly for the guy to think I'd be an annoying person to backstab at the time. Not far from the checkpoint came the police rolling on us. It was clear to them I was attempting to smuggle something into the city and even after letting me in with paperwork and paying a bribe, it was not good enough.
I’d ended up needing to shoot my way out of the situation I found myself in. Along with needing to escape in a car that would end up getting quite badly banged in our fleeing attempt.
You would think about all the trouble I went to not have issues with the police. Along with all the trouble the police were going to. That I'd be smuggling something so bad that it would warrant such things. Like drugs, guns, explosives, and perhaps even stolen technology. All my guesses of what was in the box were not even close to reality.
Final Thoughts
I ended up smuggling in an Iguana that was kept on ice. I have no idea why such lengths were gone to get it in. Why was everyone so after it? All I do know is I've now finished my first job of many with a guy named Jackie.
This was not a bad first adventure to have in this game. It also made me wonder about the kinds of trouble I'd shortly be getting up to next. It’s funny how quickly one goes from smuggling to killing in a game like this. All to make a name for myself in the short term.
Other Content
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Cyberpunk 2077.