Reviews of one of the most anticipated games of 2020, Cyberpunk 2077, are out, and the general consensus seems to be the game looks beautiful and has a ton of interesting content, but is marred by bugs and a lacklustre story. Reviewers haven’t had a lengthy amount of time to dive into what the game really has to offer, and any performance metrics currently out in the wild are just a preview of how the game runs due to the Denuvo DRM protection included with the review copy, which can impact performance. It’s kind of a mess.
Gizmodo has requested its own copy of the game to see how it performs with a few different GPUs and over cloud gaming platforms, but we have yet to receive a review code. So instead of getting down and dirty with frame rates, ray tracing, and bandwidth, I’ve put my heart and money into something that can’t possibly disappoint me this holiday season: a $US70 ($94) MS Paint Ugly Sweater.
Just look at it! Does it not bring back memories of creating janky memes to share with your guildmates in your Ultima Online forums? MS Paint is part of the Windows legacy, and it’s a surprisingly versatile tool, too — a quick way to crop and add text to images, or if you’re this 90-year-old woman, create incredible works of art. It deserves a tribute. This sweater is it.
The Xbox Gear store has two other nostalgic sweater styles: the Windows XP and Microsoft 95 logos. Those of us who are old enough to remember using either of those beloved operating systems can simply look at the sweater and hear the Start Up jingles (the sound of holiday cheer!). And compared to other ugly sweaters lurking in the isles of Target and Walmart with passé images of reindeer and Santa Claus, these are, quite frankly, more attractive and unique.
Waiting for my sweater to arrive in the mail is bringing me more joy than waiting to get my hands on Cyberpunk 2077 at the moment. It’s going to keep me warm and comfy, totally impress my friends at our next holiday Zoom party, and according to Microsoft, my purchase guarantees part of the proceeds will be given to Girls Who Code, a nonprofit dedicated to closing the gender gap in the tech world. A minimum of $US50,000 ($67,175) will be given to Girls Who Code, Microsoft said. Get a cool sweater and support an organisation with a wonderful mission? Sign me up.
I’m not saying you should buy one of these sweaters instead of Cyberpunk 2077. But I am saying it could bring you more happiness if you’re trying to decide what to spend your money on first this holiday season. Considering the amount of bugs in the game, even with a patch that’s already been rolled out to (hopefully) fix those issues, it might be best to hold off. You also might want to wait for more performance tests to come out, especially if you are torn between playing the game on PC versus GeForce Now or Stadia. While we wait, I’ll enjoy my MS Paint Ugly Sweater.