Steampunk or Cyberpunk

Clockwork robots or scrapyard robots?

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ríomhaire

ríomhaire

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steampunk20desktop.jpg


or

cyberpunk.jpg



I for one am rather fond of Steampunk. Some day I want an old-fashoned study lined with books and a large, hardwood desk with a steampunk styled desktop to shoot my aliens on in style.

Edit: For people who don't know Steampunk is advanced (or presest) technology in a Victorian style fashon. Clockwork and steampipes is what you want. Everything is made of wood and copper pipes and clockwork. It's clockwork robots and steampowered airships. Bioshock and Penny Arcade: OtRSPoD is Steampunk.

Cyberpunk is scrapheap technology. Exposed wires and holograms. Some resistance stuff in HL2 is Cyberpunk, especially Dog. Blade Runner, the Matrix and Deus Ex are Cyberpunk.
 
Cyberpunk... It's got everything better. SS2 for example.
 
DEATHMASTER said:
wat .
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Steampunk is Victorian era style advanced technology. Clockwork robots and steam-powered airships.

Cyberpunk is advanced technology that looks scrounged together from a scrapheap. Dog in Half-Life 2 is Cyberpunk. I think the phrase "high tech and low life" is used to describe it. And by that I mean I think I read that on wikipedia.
 
Both are styles that have happened only in movies and/or will never happen in real life.


Steampunk examples: BioShock, Final Fantasy VI, Treasure Planet, Golden Compass.

Cyberpunk examples: Deus-Ex, Half-Life2, Crackdown, Tron, Babylon A.D. ShadowRun (Genesis version)

...oh and Little House on The Pararie . They had hi-tech carriages and computerized hay-bails. Plus during those times, they had super-advanced AI humanoid slaves that looked human, but weren't.
 
Steampunk is awesome, wish we had more movies and video games that used it.
 
Screw you steampunkassbitches. Cyberpunk is where it's at.
 
Without Cyberpunk, there would be no Steampunk. At least as far as the formulation 'X Punk' goes anyway.

Of course, both are pretty awesome. My feeling is that Looking Glass Studios were responsible for both definitive gaming 'punks': Thief (especially The Metal Age which has 'the clock-work droids you are looking for') and System Shock (which has a protagonist with all kinds of implants, and a Neuromancer inspired plot and Cyberspace world).

However, both -punks have their moments of suckage. Steampunk robots are awesomely cool and awesomely stupid at the same time. Something like Thief handles it better because it's generally a 'magical fantasy' world, whereas the pumbing minigame in Bioshock is, despite 'magical plasmids', just a mild fantasy version of the 1960s, hence the bile that Yahtzee validly got to spit its way (I think it may be described somewhere on Wiki as 'biopunk'. I'll still go with calling it Cistern Shock). Meanwhile, Cyberpunk yanks my chain because there's just something naggingly shite about Tron and Ghost in the Shell, and because it's possible to sell these to people.
Saturos said:

Cyberpunk examples: Half-Life2
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No way is HL2 Cyberpunk. At the most, there is a cyberpunk influence in the idea of Transhumanism, but that's so far from being a central point to the game. I may be wrong, but 'Cyberpunk' to me should be associated with the Protagonist, when HL2's Resistance and player character seem to be on the side of low technology, fighting against a the transhumans.
 
kupocake said:
Steampunk robots are awesomely cool and awesomely stupid at the same time.
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Indeed. Ever since I was introduced to the idea of a clockwork robot (on a trip to this robotics exibition which was mostly made up of statues and puppets of famous film robots but also gave a little interesting history information) I've thought having a robot that is purely mechanical is an incredibly facination idea. This is why I keep mentioning clockwork robots. Because I love them.

On the other hand, as you said, they're pretty stupid too. The idea of having complex AI derived from just gears and springs and clockwork is absurd. It's possible of course, theoretically, but ludacrysly impracticle.


Also, why the hell does google image search throw up loads of Star Wars Steampunk when searching for Steampunk. Star Wars Steampunk is just gay.
 
I think steampunk is waaaaay cooler then cyberpunk is
So yeah steampunk
 
ríomhaire said:
Also, why the hell does google image search throw up loads of Star Wars Steampunk when searching for Steampunk. Star Wars Steampunk is just gay.
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They are not the clockwork droids you are looking for?
 
hippiepunk bitches!

hippies whit big flower machineguns and giant monster afros!

now seriosly

the thing about both is that they can be very repetitive and turn into cliche quickly

like whit steam punk you have the same exact stiled technology and such,and yeah I know thats the point of it but its like if in every science fiction movie the tecnology and style looked the same

just like cyberpunk that stick to its street computers stuff and brain implants that is also getting repetitive

I think steampunk have the problem that since its based on ancient stuff people will not variate it that much
 
Both can be awesome or stupid. All media will be judged on its own merits.
 
kupocake said:
Without Cyberpunk, there would be no Steampunk. At least as far as the formulation 'X Punk' goes anyway.
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Steampunk came way before cyberpunk. The term was around since the 20's.

kupocake said:
No way is HL2 Cyberpunk. At the most, there is a cyberpunk influence in the idea of Transhumanism, but that's so far from being a central point to the game. I may be wrong, but 'Cyberpunk' to me should be associated with the Protagonist, when HL2's Resistance and player character seem to be on the side of low technology, fighting against a the transhumans.
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I had a feeling people would disagree, but I was tossing around whether or not to throw it in anyways just to see what responses I would get. HL2 did have all that techno music though, and the Combine are partially cyborg. I guess HL2 is more like Mad Max/dystopian and not cyberpunk/dystopian. I'm not even sure what you would call styles like that and it's not dystopian. That's a whole different idea altogether.

BTW, the movie A.I. was another good example of cyberpunk.

EDIT> Also, so is Shwarzenegger's Running Man.
 
Very hard to decide. I think I find the steampunk aesthetic ever so slightly more appealing, but then I've seen/read more cool cyberpunk stuff than steampunk - Blade Runner, Snow Crash...

Screw it, I'm plumping for cyberpunk.
 
Cyberpunk all the way. Steampunk does have a more awesome visual aesthetic though.

ríomhaire said:
Cyberpunk is scrapheap technology. Exposed wires and holograms. Some resistance stuff in HL2 is Cyberpunk, especially Dog. Blade Runner, the Matrix and Deus Ex are Cyberpunk.
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Some cyberpunk is scrapheap technology. Sometimes it's also super-advanced transhumanist technology, or a lot of other things.
 
I love Steampunk. Although sometimes it seems to be all aesthetic. Of course, I don't really know a lot about it, but from my limited experience, the stories I've seen in the Cyberpunk vein have been deeper.

I still prefer Steampunk :arms:
 
Even though cyberpunk is better, heres some sweet steampunk art.





 
The Thief universe has a steampunk setting with magic elements. So obviously steampunk wins.
 
I love both but still prefer cyberpunk. Cyberpunk works IRL, steampunk unfortunately does not.
As for games I think that Bioshock is not steampunk at all, it is some kind of hybrid between two subgenres - dieselpunk and biopunk. Half-Life 2 certainly have quite a few cyberpunk influences, low life resistance using hi-tech stuff to fight transhumans etc.
Damn, Marc Laidlaw should write some new cyberpunk book.

I would love to write a story with my own new punk subgenre - stempunk, something like biopunk with hi-tech stem cell biotech.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel...
 
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