(Disclaimer: The Steam version of this game was gifted to me by fellow GB user @aloyalroyal. Thanks again!)

A common thread connecting all good science fiction is that they have a kernel of truth about the present, if not based on any current events in particular than at least capturing the pulse of everyone's anxieties or hopes about where the future might be heading. Neo Cab is all about being part of the gig economy at a time where facing job discrimination and a lack of security are the least of your problems; as protagonist Lina makes her way to the glowing city of Los Ojos to move in with a formerly estranged best friend, her slight trepidation towards her bold new life decision becomes all that more pronounced when said friend vanishes after their first meeting, leaving Lina without a reliable place to sleep as she ferries strangers around an unfamiliar city. Thinking on her feet, and on your feet as the player, she juggles her finances, her emotional well-being, and her ever-paramount customer feedback rating - that letter less for pride's sake, more due to the "stay 4 stars or higher or you're outta here" ultimatum from her Uber-but-somehow-worse employers, who aren't even the villains of the game - as she negotiates both the neon-lit roads of Los Ojos and the conversations with her often unpredictable "pax," or passengers.

It didn't take long for me to realize that Neo Cab was one of those games. The type that turns the screws with regards to decision anxiety and branching paths, forcing you away from paths if certain variables aren't high enough, and overall creating an experience that doesn't so much offer joy but a whole selection of emotional beats, for better and worse. I'm sure you're familiar with the type - Papers, Please is the oft-cited example, though you could point to Telltale's The Walking Dead as laying the foundation for Indie adventure games built on tough choices - though Neo Cab is a little more lenient than most. It's theoretically possible to hit a game over state by taking on too many ungenerous fares or mismanaging your cash by spending a night at the bougie Babylon Hotel or getting dinged by one of Los Ojos's finest for stopping in a zone designated for Capra Cars, your automated chief rivals; however, it's just as easy to bounce back from these mishaps, especially if you do decide to start over. There's a limited number of characters you can pick up in your cab, and it doesn't take long to know which ones are reliable 5-star givers or even how to handle the more high-maintenance folk to improve your chances of a paycheck-preserving perfect rating. Money goes towards refueling costs - there are recharging stations in every district, though the ones on the east side of town tend to demand more per "bar" - and finding a bed for the night via the "Crashr" app, but being in the right part of town at the end of your shift can mitigate much of the incurred costs. You can't be generous and give free rides to every sob story that passes through your cab, but you can let your empathy get the better of you occasionally without suffering for it later. It's not the type of dreary narrative where it's set up for you to fail, because it has some kind of pointed jeremiad to present against the ills of modern society et al and is letting that define the emotional arc of the game. Heck, I reached the game's conclusion in one attempt, and I'm terrible at adulting.

In Neo Cab, you don't actually do any of the driving. That's all Lina. What you are in charge of is guiding the conversations in ways that not only appeases the client but keeps Lina's own mood swings in check. The UI regarding the latter is presented to you in-world by a trendy new device called the Feelgrid, which broadcasts the user's emotional state like a mood ring or maybe that Super Princess Peach DS game - red for agitated or anxious, blue for depressed, yellow for elation, and green for just chillin' - and your responses and the responses of your pax will make that colored light dance around a spectrum of hues. This has significant effects on the present conversation because it will add or remove available dialogue options based on your mood: there's a tutorial early on where Lina gets incensed at a passenger bringing up the hated megacorporation Capra, running through a set of dialogue choices that are railroaded because you're too angry to pick the polite or neutral responses, until you eventually calm down and can turn the atmosphere around. However, the game rarely deigns to treat Lina like some kind of emotional wreck either: she's evidently been hurt in the past, and is obviously a bit stressed given her current circumstances, but proves to be even-keeled, witty, empathetic, and good-natured when she's not being pushed around. Building game mechanics around emotional states has run into narrative and characterization issues in previous games - see the above Super Princess Peach, for one - but feels naturally integrated here. I also liked the game's look, though it took a while to come around on it: the detailed character portraits frequently emote, but in a slightly stiff way that reminds me a little of the TV show Archer and its semi-realistic character designs.

When I think of Indie adventure games with a cyberpunk theme, my mind immediately races to games like VA-11 Hall-A, Technobabylon, and 2064: Read-Only Memories, and like those games Neo Cab has a certain progressive streak that works in its favor, dovetailing with its already emotionally intelligent themes. Lina herself is a woman of color, which adds that much more peril to situations where she's pulled over by cops or trying to get a read on the apparently crazy person in the back seat, and there's a prominent non-binary character who can become something of a prickly confidante if you choose to visit them a few times. Likewise, the game's themes follow the already relatable (gig economies, social media) to those that might be a prominent issue in a few years (self-driving cars pushed by dubious corporations, privacy invasive technological trends), and handles them adroitly, giving various viewpoints their turns to speak. One example is when you pick up a couple on a date: the guy, very much the archetypal tech bro, is condescending but polite and is instantly in your corner when it comes to human drivers and the way they're being treated by the corporate-run media, while his companion is an AI programmer who feels safer in the automated vehicles and is already regretting this blind date. You're inclined to agree with the tech bro because he's ostensibly on your side and is, pragmatically speaking, the one who is going to rate you at the end of the journey. Yet you could just as easily turn on him and his touchy-feely "I don't like to think of myself as the boss" Google middle-manager nonsense to side with the more down-to-earth AI-loving woman, even if she's gunning for you to lose your job. (It is, however, always important to know how far to push these pax if you want to end the night still gainfully employed.)

On the whole, there's much to commend Neo Cab and the way it handles its story beats, but the essence of what it is and what it's trying to accomplish will always be something I'm generally Not Into. The anxiety and uncertainty of the real world is often why I escape into video games to begin with, and while I'm not going to stand on a YouTube soapbox and say that games can't be political or have difficult themes or messages or reflect cold, hard reality - because that all stopped being the case at least as early as 1980's Missile Command, a game about delaying nuclear catastrophe that you'll always inevitably lose - there are certain emotional states that I try to avoid putting myself in deliberately, especially from the media I've elected to spend my free time with. I suppose seeing Lina trying and failing to keep out of those same states is perhaps the most relatable part of Neo Cab. I sort of knew all this uncomfortable antsiness would be a factor going in - I did watch the Quick Look - but I try not to let my own depression get in the way of a strong narrative game. If nothing else, Neo Cab is for sure one of those. (Side-Note: I was also pretty happy to see some familiar faces in the credits too - Bruno Dias and Felix Kramer, for instance, who have been on Giant Bomb a few times each.)

Rating: 4 out of 5.