NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy – Review
The average playthrough of NMP takes about four hours, making it a short game that focuses on story and worldbuilding rather than gameplay. You’re an AI designed to do something, but your developers (and potential employers) aren’t exactly on the same page about what that something is. Instead of merely coping with your own existential crises, Sike, you’ve been left with everything under the sun. After all, the company you work for is quite cyberpunk.
You’re trapped servicing a city full of extremely realistic individuals, so you can pretty much always expect to anger someone or feel the repercussions of your actions. As long as you aren’t abandoning the people who are supposed to be your friends, things run far more smoothly when you choose not to bear the repercussions yourself.
Don’t automatically accept people as friends though. It’s possible that the slick, greased-up guy who loves his son is the only honest person in the city, and the journalist you’re programmed to distrust because, as a “corpo AI,” you know that journalists are bad for business. I adopted a homeless girl and did everything I could to change her life, too. Pleasant experiences.
The thing is, there is only one manner in which our stories and decisions will be similar: in the end. That is my main complaint about the game: a lack of meaningful options. If your decisions in a management game don’t matter, then there’s not much purpose in having one. What I mean is that no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to save yourself, and that’s the worst part.
