Fans of science fiction will undoubtedly have heard of the cyberpunk genre. This genre bloomed and thrived through the 80s and 90s and had in it's core a dark vision of a futuristic age where man and machine are closer than ever to becoming one. Here, megacorporations run entire territories and have their own private armies. The individual is neglected to a survival role in this society, often being forced to kill or be killed. Generally, the heroes in these tales are of the anti kind, performing questionable deeds, often hackers with the ability to download their conscious minds into cyberspace.

Medicine is also in a very advanced state, and it's not uncommon that humans beings replace limbs and various other organs for cybernetic implants, not only if they need to, but also if they want to. These are seen as enhancements to expand on the natural abilities of the human body, and there's usually a black market on the streets for such items.

Cyberpunk is nowhere near as prevalent today as it was in the previous decades. But why?

One could argue that as technology advances, what seemed futuristic, now has a much more retro futuristic feel. For example, would you use a cable to connect your brain to the matrix if you could just use wi-fi? Science fiction transforms into reality everyday in little things like this. Granted, we still don't have the flying cars, but cyberpunk becomes much less believable when it's characters use cold steel robotic implants and you know for a fact that science in the real world is trying to grow limbs using stem cells instead. It seems that the underlying dystopian themes of cyberpunk still remain today, but without the focus on technology and Man uniting as one. Such is the case on Mirror's Edge, Bioshock, Crackdown, Riddick, or Infamous to name a few.

If you're interested in cyberpunk, there's some cool stuff you can watch and play. The cyberpunk genre is well represented in anime movies for example, and I can remember some off the top of my head. I'd recommend Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed 2004, Appleseed Ex Machina, A.D. Police, Cyber City OEDO 808, The Animatrix and Akira.

There are also a few games that fully explore cyberpunk themes, but most are a bit old now. You have Deus Ex, Syndicate, System Shock 2, Snatcher, Rise of the Dragon, Beneath a Steel Sky, Bloodnet and Shadowrun. Still if you're just craving retro-futurism, it doesn't get any better than Mass Effect.

In conclusion, it's a shame that a kid nowadays will read William Gibson's Neuromancer and probably find it ridiculous. Personally, it made my imagination run wild and I must say that I still love it to this day. Also, take Blade Runner. It completely blew me away when I was a kid. But I'm sure that the younger crowd will be incapable of perceiving it as I did at the time. They don't do movies like that anymore, instead relying on the special effects to replace imagination. Feels tragic, but would we go back? What do you think? Comment below guys. :)