Choices Don't Matter

Being a cab driver (well, rideshare driver) in a cyberpunk setting sounded like a really cool narrative hook -- listening to people describe the petty human problems endemic in a Blade Runner-esque world. But Neo Cab's demo lost me pretty quickly.

For one thing, the main character would not shut up about her best friend Savy. Like, this girl has almost nothing more to her personality or motivation than her interest in said friend. It makes the protagonist come across as a shallow and degrading caricature of a person.

That single-mindedness kind of leads into my other problem, which was that the "gameplay" of Neo Cab didn't really seem interested in my input. Many games with dialog choices (like Mass Effect) frustrate me because the response I want to pick isn't an option; but Neo Cab takes it a step further, by sometimes presenting an option that I can't select based on the main character's "emotional state" which I might or might not have any control over.

I don't think it's a bad thing for a game to tell a character's pre-determined story, infused with a deliberate personality -- and it's also not a bad thing to give the player options for pointing a character in a personalized direction. But the "you can't choose that" mechanic in Neo Cab feels like the game trying to have it both ways, and that just ain't gonna work.

What I played of the demo barely hinted at intriguing subplots with an auto-pilot company named Capra, and with Savy's backstory (which some rudimentary web searching reveals is a central plot point). But based on how much the first 20 minutes had already rubbed me the wrong way, I don't anticipate the rest of Neo Cab being any good for me.

Progress: Didn't finish the demo.