I.C.E.'s Cyberspace.  The only cyberpunk game I ever saw that actually reflected the cyberpunk literary genre (and yes, I've owned all the others mentioned on this thread).

Quote from: daniel_ream;477658I.C.E.'s Cyberspace.  The only cyberpunk game I ever saw that actually reflected the cyberpunk literary genre (and yes, I've owned all the others mentioned on this thread).

This was my favorite too. I didn't care for most other ICE games (Rolemaster and Spacemaster were just too much detail) but Cyberspace utilized a more streamlined version of the rules. It was still a little more "technical" than I usually prefer my games, but the level of complexity helped to make it "feel" more like Cyberpunk.

I also really enjoyed the default setting. It was the first cyberpunk game I encountered that used a real world city as it's setting (San Francisco, which is also my favorite U.S. city, so I am sure that helped a bit). Shadowrun, which is not "pure" cyberpunk, used Seattle as a default setting. It came out that same year (1989) but I can't remember which game was actually published first.

Quote from: Adapt;477665It was the first cyberpunk game I encountered that used a real world city as it's setting (San Francisco, which is also my favorite U.S. city, so I am sure that helped a bit).

That's a good point and having the world keep a semblance of the familiar's important to me. SR4 isn't too far off, but the magic bits do tend to pull things away from "true cyberpunk". I think I may just use SoF and wait to see how good Genesis Descent is. If it's as good as it looks it might be, I'll snag a copy of CP2020 and roll with that.

IME, cyberpunk games work best in whatever city you're most familiar with OOC. There's an incredible level of verisimilitude you can get when you play with a bunch of people who are all from the same city, roleplaying characters in a future version of that city. Streets names are meaningful, RW maps are useful, and you know how city life ebbs and flows, all of which imbues the game's world with a vitality it's hard to attain otherwise.

In the Shadowrun 4e game I played, I shot a cop in an alley near to the Second Cup at Danforth and Jackman which led to a frenzied chase down the Danforth and into the Scarborough z-zone between Main and Dawes north of the Danforth (in real life a slummy collection of old houses) when my partner's car broke down. I could picture every block we went past, even as it would be in 2072.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;477695IME, cyberpunk games work best in whatever city you're most familiar with OOC.

Absolutely right IME as well. The best Cyberpunk games I played were run by a guy who had picked the French city we lived in and basically built a futuristic and desperate version of it for his sandbox. The results were amazing.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;477695IME, cyberpunk games work best in whatever city you're most familiar with OOC.

The trouble is, nobody over here would take Budapest seriously as a CYBERPUNK!!! metropolis, ever. That includes me, my friends, and everyone else I know. Béla the Hacker doesn't work. Boostergangs prowling District 8 doesn't work. Random people casually packing a gun really doesn't work. The city lacks the extreme edge that makes CP go. The result would either be heavily satirical, or horribly embarrasing (Shadow Hungary, a locally developed SRUN supplement, was the second).

So, we play in the exotic lands of the U.S. of A, which, as far as we are concerned, is a fantasy setting with a lot of familiarity from accurate and thorough sociological portraits like cop shows and action movies. The US is great because everyone is already armed to the teeth over there and happy to open fire at the slightest provocation, so it doesn't break anyone's suspension of disbelief when we add a little chrome and bad hair to it.

Quote from: Melan;477742The trouble is, nobody over here would take Budapest seriously as a CYBERPUNK!!! metropolis, ever.

I probably would have had a hard time getting my hometown taken seriously as well. Back when I used to run cyberpunk games, I lived in a very boring, very unremarkable suburb. I did a campaign that was set in Los Angeles, which was thirty minutes away by car on a good day. It was definitely more fun than using an imaginary city, but for some reason it didn't feel much more like "home" than when we used distant cities like San Francisco or Seattle.

On a somewhat off-topic note, I have run a few different post apocalypse campaigns that centered on the ruins of my hometown. That was a lot of fun.

Quote from: Melan;477742The trouble is, nobody over here would take Budapest seriously as a CYBERPUNK!!! metropolis, ever.

If I can make Cyberpunk 2020 and Cybergeneration work set in Knoxville, TN then Budapest doesn't seem so impossible IMHO.

Cyberpunk 2020, it was the first and I think the most iconic of the lot. Having said that, I think you could run an awesome cyberpunk campaign with The Mutant Epoch rules. It would have a decided biotech feel but I see that as a feature not a bug (pun intended).

My review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Yn9qub1bU

I thought Zaibatsu was a neat little free cyberpunk RPG. Runs fast, plus combat feels desperate and dangerous like it should in the setting. I think it would be fun to adapt it to the Cyberpunk 2020 setting (it wouldn't be too hard). Regarding CP2020, it may be dated now, but I agree with the approach of running it as a retro-future type of thing where tech and society didn't develop the same way they really did. I like what I've seen of Technoir so far too.

Iron Crown's CyberSpace.  It's the only one I ever tried, but it worked great.