I've tried this about ten times now and I just cannot figure what to do, as in which keyboard commands to use.

Yes, there is an on-screen menu. I can see how to rewind, fast-forward, move, etc. I can see how to switch from visual to audio mode.

What I cannot see is what freaking key to hit when I need to scan something! Tab no longer works for scanning things in Braindance mode. If I aim at the phone, what key am I supposed to hit to start scanning? I can't figure this out and it's driving me nuts.

I'd love to play it, but this is getting ridiculous

You don't tap any key.

Try to fly around or move your camera into the right position and the scanning will start automatically. Maybe try to aim a bit above or under the actual item, sometimes this does the trick if pointing directly doesn't do anything.
When you found the right position and it starts scanning DON'T MOVE. Pause the recording if necessary.

Cyberpunk 2077: An Exercise in Frustration

I'm trying that.. I've got to the point where I am literally screaming at my computer. I have absolutely no idea to do this. I've watched some video walkthroughs. I'm looking at a security panel in visual mode and literally nothing is happening. All I can really do in braindance mode is play forward and back, stop and start, and move the camera. I can change modes. But I can't seem to scan anything.

I don't know if I'm supposed to stop the action when I'm scanning, or how to hold the camera in place to stop it from moving away, or anything. If I don't stop the action, the camera just swings away, so there is no way to scan.

I'm been playing RPG/Action games since they started way back when, and I've never found myself so bewildered by a game's commands.

Pause the recording and hold the camera in place until the scanning is completed. A completed scanning usually triggers some dialogue.

It's really just that:

- Switch to the right layer.
- Point at the highligted things and find a position that triggers the scanning.

Btw. you can't scan anything that isn't highlighted (It's not a real sandbox for us, even when Judy describes it as such).
Sometimes it helps to fast forward or rewind a bit to get a better frame for scanning, especially if it's an item that "moves" in the recording, like a phone or a gun that gets swung around or a moving person.

once inside the BD, using different sight layers, look at the timer. There are little lines over parts of the timer. in those time spaces, there is something to find and examine. If you scan something and not in that time space, it probably wont show up as a scanable item. Most of the required items can only be scanned in it's appropriate time slot.

It's horrible. what could have been a really unique and incredible part of the game, left me so frustrated, I just want it all gone. 2 BD's I had to look up solutions. I scanned the missed items many MANY times, even in the proper time slot without them illuminating or being able to be selected. I had previously scanned the other required items out of sequence and it completely ruined the BD questing.

Like all quests, if you get them out of sequence, you can presume it will never complete..
Save before you enter any quest.

um... the game tells you exactly how to do it. Unless there's a glitch, all you do is point the cross hair at it.

I never have any real issues. I have had to look up one but overall its easy.

The one in the lab, the lab coat. I spent almost an hour trying to figure that out. even with a video. It just would not trigger as an item to be highlighted. The other one, in the hallway of the cafeteria. the trophy would not highlight. again almost an hour. i was toggling views and then it just like randomly decided to show.

I like the idea of Braindance sequences and absolutely love the futuristic cyber-glitch-whatever art style they have, it totally nerds me out. Having said that, I found the controls to be somewhat non-intuitive and that I often hit the wrong button more often than not unless I carefully thought about it and/or consulted the on-screen button reference. One problem with that though is that it does not look very good at the low resolutions I must play the game in, so you see the button but the key press is sometimes digitally garbled. In other words, game is definitely not "optimized" for 1280x800 resolution. :)

The game has 2 scanning keys, TAB and CAPSLOCK. TAB only works momentarily as you hold it down whereas CAPSLOCK is a toggle that turns on and off each time you press it. You have to use CAPSLOCK in braindance mode basically.

I think one of the problems the game has is that whatever they implement in the game they have to make it work on both PC and on console, on keyboard, mouse, and game controllers. This naturally puts limitations as to how many buttons are available across all of these platforms and what type of user interfaces are needed to present a single unified gaming experience across all of them. One could say this is my nice friendly way of saying "PC gaming controls are neutered due to compatibility with consoles" and I couldn't deny it.

Sadly, just about any game that is developed for multiple platforms dumbs the controls down to the lowest common denominator for consoles. Even Witcher 3 did that. Fortunately in many cases it is possible to hack around it with custom mouse software (ie: Logitech Gaming software custom macros and/or LUA scripts), or with AutoHotkey or similar. Sadly I don't think most gamers use these types of customizations and are stuck with what is built into a given game.

It's also possible to customize the game's controls by hacking some XML config files that ship with the game but that's more custom nerdout stuff.