I’ve been a player on CS for about 3-4 years, with large gaps of time in between and not a lot of time to play them. But in the past 7+ months, as free time allowed, I have been playing the game quite a bit.

In the realm of Cyberpunk/modern day M**s I really feel there is no equal. The combat system is fairly amazing, which any hack n slash game would be lucky to have, but CS is more than just combat. The non-combat skill options are fairly diverse from the standard CP classes of Ripperdocs, Deckers (the Matrix is real dope, and well done, definitely giving a different experience from playing a character), Thieves, to skills/classes you don’t find in many CP games, like weapon-smiths, ammo loaders, scavengers and armor crafters. For a good, but not totally up to date list of skills and advantages that you’d have at the disposal in c-gen go to: http://cs.vv.com/game/skills.html and click on the corresponding menu links at the top to get to other information in that realm.

The coded money making systems are stand out in my mind as well. In CP games that don’t rely on looting, and don’t have a “salary system” of some sort, I‘ve found the basic, available to all money earning systems tedious. No one wants their character sitting in a room hitting “work” every 4 minutes, to get a pathetic hourly wage (though there are employment options like this). As mentioned in the previous review, the main source of income, are package delivery jobs that pay fairly decent. There’s not a guaranteed amount you can earn per day, but if you keep doing them consistently, with the bad and good days, you’ll have a nice amount of credits/money to get your character all the gear they need. Besides that, there are all sorts of other coded employment/money making options that you have to find out for yourself, and with a bit of exploring and lucky timing, you’ll eventually find them.

One thing that heavily differentiates the game from other CP M**s, is that in Character generation (C-gen), you are given enough points to create a character that’s good and capable at what you’ve chosen them to do, straight out of the gate. Then it just becomes a matter of getting the right gear, building IC connections and such. I won’t lie, if you create a combatant, comparatively the older combat characters have the advantage of gear and earned skill/stat points through their time, but really, if you just want mindless killing, it’s not the place for you, but if you want combat that has an emphasis on style and being a means in the course of RP, not an ends of itself, than you’ll probably play at least one combat character if you choose to play on CS.

The Character generation system is divided into three levels. To get your player slot, you will need to submit a character bio, but after that, the following C-gen paths apply:

Basic: There’s no history required, bare minimum of descriptions and such, and you get into the game with no approval needed (not entirely sure as I’ve never played a basic char). But the amount of given stat/skill/advantage points is less than they are in the other two c-gen paths.

Standard: This path requires a history/bio of your character, with skills/advantages justified within the story, a public history (like what’s known about you, this will appear accessible in game and added to), and descriptions.

Advanced: Same as Standard, but you are held to a higher standard for approval, and are required to submit an RP scenario. For your trouble you’ll have more advantages to choose from like weekly pay checks as a corporate employee or as a criminal, starting gear/money, and the choice to become a mutant (that have all sorts of great/unique abilities, of course at the disadvantage of probably being a pariah).

This structure I find, allows for the broadest appeal for all the player types there are out there, and allows players a change of pace (like creating a basic, to play in a much riskier style, and not worry about the X amount of hours you spent writing bios and building your character in c-gen).

To be truthful, newbie friendliness is not quite there yet, but I will say that most players, if you ask them OOCly (OOC = Out Of Character) they will help you out, and you’ll find it’s only their character that’s the prick, by design. GMs and other Admin members are usually very helpful as well. How to make CS more newbie friendly is a topic that has recently been discussed and we all want to try to make things easier for new players.

There is definitely a learning curve attached to many different things in game, but if you put in the time to learn and play, no doubt it’ll be a rewarding experience. Right now, in the summer, the traditional slow time for the game, you’ll find around 10 players on most of the time, with 20-25 during peak times. We definitely have a decent base number of active players during these slow months, but the more the active player base grows, the more interesting and inclusive plots can be run, not to mention fresh perspectives and styles are always good for a RP driven game like this.

I definitely recommend giving the game a shot, if pure Cyberpunk (i.e. none of that Shadowrun elf, dwarf and magic stuff)/sci-fi themes are your thing or maybe you’re looking for a more “modern” setting.

To check out recent and past logs hit up the unofficial forums many players post on: http://thekab.com/cs/index.php