I thought the writing was either boring or straight up bad all through HR, and the gameplay was like a series of optional rails rather than anything truly free form like DX1 was. The praise it got speaks more on the current state of games like this rather than it being anything truly great on its own. Yeah it blew away IW but it's still barely in the same conversation as DX1. We had discussions ad naseum here years ago about how fucking meandering and aimless the plot and Sarif/Adam relationship was, but yeah... It certainly nailed the cyberpubk look, but theres a lot of things they can improve on with a sequel. Hopefully unchained by last gen consoles so we get some legit open worlds.
For my money, the problem is DX:HR's plot feels like a footnote in a broader, more interesting narrative. The Illuminati clearly have their fingers in several pies, but very little of it really changes the underlying situation or ties back to your current objective. As I said a while back, you undercover major revelations whose only function is to point Jensen to the next plot point. This crops up in sidequests as well, where crucial information about Jensen's past takes some digging to unearth, but doesn't really come up once it is. There's a nonzero chance that Adam could've ended up at the endgame summit anyway, just by being Sarif's head of security.
Separate from but contributing to the problem is the lack of a compelling villain. As mentioned, the Tyrants just aren't interesting as enemies; Namir at least should have been a foil to Jensen, after nearly killing him in the prologue, but there's nothing approaching acknowledgment of this. Zhao is closest to a central villain, but makes Bob Page look subtle and charismatic - and her activities are basically a power play in the shadow of another power play, which itself is an offshoot from Page's power play, which is what really started this whole thing in the first place.
I actually liked some of the characterization in DX:HR, and think the core of 'Adam plus mission control team' were handled reasonably well, Adam's backstory issues notwithstanding. There's a decent flexibility to how recurring characters treat Jensen, many of whom are multifaceted and themselves fairly interesting; there's a reason the cutscene battles were so popular. But there's just not much meat to your opposition, and the plot feels artificially in the shadow of much bigger goings on, like it adamantly refuses to deviate from a preset course. The return to Detroit would've been a fine place to pivot to a broader confrontation with the Illuminati, but it never quite manifests and Zhao just can't carry the slack.
There's one other problem I had, sort of with the overall presentation, and I'll use a comparison with DX1 to elaborate. On the return to NYC in DX1, the streets are deserted and what few NPCs are around mostly try to stay out of the police's way. The Free Clinic in particular is basically deserted, with just a few homeless people waiting out the night. Emails explain how the situation has deteriorated, and a nurse remarks that the clinic is closing. A line still sticks with me, one guy commenting that JC's "got the look on you... man who's runnin' outta friends."
A comparable return to Hengsha shows the Hung Hua practically empty, with like one or two NPCs milling about. One guy's sitting alone near the bar and I was hoping for some explanation of what happened. Did Belltower run off the staff? Was he just some guy trying to get off the street before the angry foreigners with guns - thugs in uniform who refuse to learn the language - made an example of him? Sadly, his comments were generic NPC banter, something about "go away" or "what do you want, lao wai?" The space wasn't used for storytelling, it was just... space.
The point is, DX1 was rich with detail and worldbuilding, and those minor touches sometimes felt absent in DXHR. And I say that as someone that loved HR, even with its problems; bought it, bought the DLC, bought it again for the DC, gifted it several times on Steam, don't regret a penny. They got pretty close - close enough to where I'm still comfortable calling it Deus Ex, with all that would imply - but I hope they get closer next time.
I really can appreciate what this game tried to do, and the setting honestly is cool. But there's so many problems I can't really justify playing anymore. The game can have a character give me guff for going into the women's restroom, but it can't recognize that I found the 47 emails saying "HAY GUYS WE'RE A SHADOWY GROUP THAT RENTED OUT A FEMA FACILITY SOMEHOW," meaning when Adam constantly goes around going GRAAAAH THOSE FEMA BASTARDS he sounds like an idiot. And he found out the deep dark secret about his parents, and his reaction was -- nothing. And everyone jitters around like Fry after 299 cups of coffee.
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
I really can appreciate what this game tried to do, and the setting honestly is cool. But there's so many problems I can't really justify playing anymore. The game can have a character give me guff for going into the women's restroom, but it can't recognize that I found the 47 emails saying "HAY GUYS WE'RE A SHADOWY GROUP THAT RENTED OUT A FEMA FACILITY SOMEHOW," meaning Adam constantly goes around going GRAAAAH THOSE FEMA BASTARDS like an idiot. And he found out the deep dark secret about his parents, and his reaction was -- nothing. And everyone jitters around like Fry after 299 cups of coffee.
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
To be fair, this game is kinda old at this point.
I'd imagine the next installment* would rectify at least part of the issues mentioned.
*Deus Ex Universe? Something? I don't know. Sure would be nice to get maybe a single line of news after almost 4 years. Maybe they're still busy fixing the Director's Cut on PC like they said 2 years ago, then delivered a small patch and haven't spoken of since.
The Fall is the phone game that they ported to Steam, maybe it was in a humble bundle? Can't remember it being given away.
DX: The Fall was in the base level of the recent Squeenix Humble Bundle.
As for the average mook being extraordinarily hardy, the only thing I know is that stun-guns result in an instant KO, and tranq rifles require a headshot to result in an instant KO. I assumed that the sniper rifle is similar in that a direct headshot results in a one-hit kill...but I haven't done a lethal playthrough yet.
An upgraded pistol got me one shot one kill on everything but the heaviest enemies, and they just needed two to the skull to drop.
The biggest disappointment I had was that HR really had fuckall to do with any of the interesting groundwork the original DX had. There are some cameos and weak references, but nothing that represented connective tissue. Augments as a means of controlling the people is interesting, but already dealt with in the last game with kill phrases. Yeah, it's on a wider scale here (the populace rather than UNATCO), but the idea is pretty much the same.
What I would really like is a game that has you right in the middle of Page's break from the Illuminati. Don't even bother with multiple endings because we know what the status quo will be in DX. Not only that, HR's choices were incredibly weak. Just give us a good story about being caught between divided loyalties, and a really great level structure with secrets galore, and I'll be happy.
I think trying to tie HR into the same universe as the original games was a mistake. They should have done what the Torment: Tides of Numenera team did: "Torment"-the-franchise means a certain kind of game style, and the setting is immaterial. So, I think that "Deus Ex" should have just meant "open-world gameplay in a 15-minutes-before-the-apocalypse cyberpunk setting", and Human Revolution should have focused on that without worrying about Bob Page, Illuminati-as-presented-in-original-DX, and all that other stuff.
Honestly, that's kind of how I approach HR anyway. The links are weak enough that I can just think of it as an alternate-world story.
(Other than the crap bosses and the crap ending, I loved HR so much.)
HR's choices weren't weak, so much as the results were completely toothless. The actual choices it gives you could be interesting in a franchise where we don't know what's going to happen, but since we know how it's going to turn out anyway, it just turns into 'choose your own flavour of futile hope'.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
hmm 4 bucks to upgrade to the DC right now (instead of the old 5 dollar thing they got rid of)
Haven't played HR since it first came out, kinda thinking about replaying it, worth it to get the Director's Cut? (It still sorta bums me out that this was a payed upgrade)
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Generally it's more of a sidegrade than an upgrade IMO.
Apparently the DC is based on a very old version of the game that leaves a lot of stuff broken and breaks a bunch of other stuff for good measure, most infamously the screen tint that created the "black and gold" look that they kept going on about. They said they would do something about it, but then didn't, and at this point it seems unlikely to ever get fixed.
I got the DC a while back, and was disappointed. The boss fights are slightly better, but it's not worth the money. The commentary track seemed self congratulatory instead of talking about the hard decisions (For example, they talk about how many art assets they created and how hard they worked, instead of stuff like why they made the decision to make the boss fights the way they did). Graphics also suffered a downgrade, as others have said.
Overall, the DC just made me even more cynical about the dev team. That stunt of plastering their photos all over the ending credits was already bad enough...
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
oh.
well then that is fucking stupid
I'm glad I asked first!
Wait, was the DC a visual downgrade on the consoles, too? Because that would explain why it looked weirdly not great.
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I will agree that the fact that your main character has almost no reaction to any of the many conspiracies he discovers or that there are like no changes in dialogue whatsoever was a low point for me in this game.
Apparently the DC is based on a very old version of the game that leaves a lot of stuff broken and breaks a bunch of other stuff for good measure, most infamously the screen tint that created the "black and gold" look that they kept going on about. They said they would do something about it, but then didn't, and at this point it seems unlikely to ever get fixed.
So I just filled out Square Enix's survey. I won't post everything I wrote, but I selected Deus Ex as my favorite series of theirs, so my follow up question was:
Tell us in your own words what you DO NOT like about Deus Ex?
And my answer:
"I played Invisible War way after it was initially released. In fact, I marathoned DX and DX:IW leading up to DX:HR's initial release. I thought it was terrible in every conceivable way. It was an irredeemable mess. So every single thing about DX:IW is what I do not like about the Deus Ex series."
Which is not just smarm. I think it may be the worst game ever made.
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
edited March 2015
This probably doesn’t apply to most people in this thread but: don't get the Director's Cut on 360.
It took me hours of reloading and deleting corrupted saves to get through the dlc portion of the Director's Cut.
Then once I got out of the dlc area the problems persisted, like the game was confused about which of two different versions of the level to use.
And because they didn't give the director's cut its own id in the Xbox Live system it can never be patched because Live can't tell the difference between the Director's Cut and the vanilla game.
To offer a second opinion, I quite liked the Director's Cut. At last check at some of the visual issues have been corrected (floor textures being the most glaring one), and the improvements to boss fights and DLC integration made it worth the $5 for me. DLC gizmos spice up the gameplay considerably; auto-unlock devices ease the pressure to bump up hacking as early as possible, and remote bombs are fun for both lethal and nonlethal purposes (they make a great distraction). While the plot still has big problems, placing the Missing Link in the game proper helps the story feel more cohesive - Burke is a solid arc villain, and the content fleshes out some larger plot points, such as the chain of events from the prologue attack to the biochip rollout.
Relinking the page with my specific impressions for anybody that missed them, including the revamped boss fights and other things I noticed.
Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
edited March 2015
I really liked Human Revolution, though that was never really due to the plot or characters
(Though I did have a soft spot for Malik, and the interactions between Adam and his handler, and the way the relationship between him and Sarif developed. There's some smarter writing in there!)
The conversation battles you get into were the best writing in the game, where characters never felt stupid and were always try righting to get what they want, and the greater world and the ideas it presents are more interesting than the lame cameos and ties to the original game. I don't care about the plot of Deus Ex meaning this game doesn't matter! Not really. I care about the ideas and the themes and the choices presented, even at the end where it's just three buttons, because I liked how big and broad thinking it was. Shit, I even sort of liked the use of stock footage and shit, like it's fucking metal gear or something
I even liked the final level, even though I knew it was kind of a cop-out! The last "boss" is awful, and all the boss fights except the camo guy are lame as fuck, but I liked the areas and the exploration you can do, and the different options for dealing with situations
It ain't perfect, but it hit me where I live, and it was way better than it had a right being. I look forward to another proper Deus Ex video game!
As long as it's not by the guys who fucked up that new Thief game. Forget that
I can honestly say the orange or lack thereof wasn't a huge deal to me; jittery NPCs with canned dialog animation notwithstanding, the game still looked pretty good. The second battery recharge apparently only happens on normal, with hard limiting you to just the one battery that fills from empty. There may have been other adjustments here and there - as mentioned I think the boxguard during the construction yard fight deploys further from its allies, making a pacifist run easier, though I could just be misremembering from the original - but I've been meaning to go through again and take a closer look for more differences.
It's worth pointing out that I get nitpicky about DX:HR because I care about what it tries to do, and I think that applies to most people in the thread as well. The closer something gets to being truly great, the more issue I take with its flaws, and the more invested I get in bouncing my opinions off of other people. Deus Ex wasn't perfect even by the standards of the time, and I can understand seeing it as especially dated nowadays, but it still has some strong fundamental design that deserves recognition. I half-jokingly put it on a pedestal, but I don't want an unassailable cultural icon; I want an important example that people in game development should study, and use to pave the way to even better design.
Human Revolution took notes from that design, and I love it both for that and on its own merits. But I hope it's the starting point for future games in this vein, and not the final word.
I really can appreciate what this game tried to do, and the setting honestly is cool. But there's so many problems I can't really justify playing anymore. The game can have a character give me guff for going into the women's restroom, but it can't recognize that I found the 47 emails saying "HAY GUYS WE'RE A SHADOWY GROUP THAT RENTED OUT A FEMA FACILITY SOMEHOW," meaning when Adam constantly goes around going GRAAAAH THOSE FEMA BASTARDS he sounds like an idiot. And he found out the deep dark secret about his parents, and his reaction was -- nothing. And everyone jitters around like Fry after 299 cups of coffee.
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
Interesting.
I haven't even been able to get through Dishonored once yet. It bores the hell out of me. Conversely, I think Human Revolution is by far the best Deus Ex, even considering it against the first game.
I really can appreciate what this game tried to do, and the setting honestly is cool. But there's so many problems I can't really justify playing anymore. The game can have a character give me guff for going into the women's restroom, but it can't recognize that I found the 47 emails saying "HAY GUYS WE'RE A SHADOWY GROUP THAT RENTED OUT A FEMA FACILITY SOMEHOW," meaning when Adam constantly goes around going GRAAAAH THOSE FEMA BASTARDS he sounds like an idiot. And he found out the deep dark secret about his parents, and his reaction was -- nothing. And everyone jitters around like Fry after 299 cups of coffee.
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
Interesting.
I haven't even been able to get through Dishonored once yet. It bores the hell out of me. Conversely, I think Human Revolution is by far the best Deus Ex, even considering it against the first game.
Man... what. Play the first again.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
I really can appreciate what this game tried to do, and the setting honestly is cool. But there's so many problems I can't really justify playing anymore. The game can have a character give me guff for going into the women's restroom, but it can't recognize that I found the 47 emails saying "HAY GUYS WE'RE A SHADOWY GROUP THAT RENTED OUT A FEMA FACILITY SOMEHOW," meaning when Adam constantly goes around going GRAAAAH THOSE FEMA BASTARDS he sounds like an idiot. And he found out the deep dark secret about his parents, and his reaction was -- nothing. And everyone jitters around like Fry after 299 cups of coffee.
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
Interesting.
I haven't even been able to get through Dishonored once yet. It bores the hell out of me. Conversely, I think Human Revolution is by far the best Deus Ex, even considering it against the first game.
How do you approach Dishonored?
I'm just asking because it's a game with a LOT of ways to go around, and it strikes me that it wouldn't be that hard to lock yourself to a run style you didn't much like thinking it was the "right" way to play.
Have you tried summoning a rat to possess it and use it to deploy mines into a horde of enemies? That might be fun.
What I love about the original DX is that it's big, and there are secrets right under your nose from the very start. Digging around the sewers in Hell's Kitchen and finding a secret MJ-12 base that isn't part of a story level is a powerful thing. There's a good chance players never knew it was there, but its inclusion was masterful: the enemy is literally just under the surface. That's the kind of thing I wanted from HR - the Illuminati connection waiting to be found by the intrepid sleuth who dared scratch at the veneer of what's presented to them. I get why they didn't 'waste' space doing that, but I think it would've added to the paranoia. Hopefully something like that will be added in the next one.
I also can't help but wonder if the future games wouldn't be better off as 3rd person titles. I see what R* can cram into GTA V in terms of sheer seamless real estate and I can't help but think that size would be interesting to see shrunk down in area (one city, or several smaller ones), but with those savings applied vertically with interiors for sewers and skyscrapers. And since HR already uses a 3rd person cover system, it's not that big of a stretch. They could add Shadowrun-esque car chases to the mix as well.
Deus Ex 1 not only has fantastic writing and characters, but its world feels alive. It's still an immersive experience to this day. The way you can enter a nightclub kind of by accident through a hole in the wall, and then find secrets and hidden places everywhere, it's just really cool. Human Revolution had a tiny bit of that but the side quests inevitably made sure you hit every bit of content they designed in the hub worlds, and they never felt as organic as DX1 did after the glossiness wore off.
Nightslayr brings up a good point with Rockstar as they're one of the few devs since DX1 that has made convincing and lived in open worlds, like RDR.
I never connected to the original Deus Ex the way so many others did. Part of that was that I didn't actually like the writing/story all that much; it felt too much like "Let's put, like, every single conspiracy theory and trope in there!" Another part was that I wanted to play the game as a stealthy character, yet the stealth never played as well as it did in the Thief games. However, while I liked Human Revolution (including the DLC portions as part of the DC), I very much missed the larger areas; everything felt too claustrophobic.
My ideal Deus Ex would combine the size and scope of the first game's locations with refined stealth gameplay that feels and plays as well as Thief.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I really can appreciate what this game tried to do, and the setting honestly is cool. But there's so many problems I can't really justify playing anymore. The game can have a character give me guff for going into the women's restroom, but it can't recognize that I found the 47 emails saying "HAY GUYS WE'RE A SHADOWY GROUP THAT RENTED OUT A FEMA FACILITY SOMEHOW," meaning when Adam constantly goes around going GRAAAAH THOSE FEMA BASTARDS he sounds like an idiot. And he found out the deep dark secret about his parents, and his reaction was -- nothing. And everyone jitters around like Fry after 299 cups of coffee.
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
Interesting.
I haven't even been able to get through Dishonored once yet. It bores the hell out of me. Conversely, I think Human Revolution is by far the best Deus Ex, even considering it against the first game.
Man... what. Play the first again.
Doubtful that will happen.
DX1 took me 35ish hours to complete. I don't dislike the game at all, but the game just felt excessively long and somewhat pointlessly repetitive after awhile. I feel that after 10-15 hours, the gameplay stops evolving entirely and it's essentially the "look for crates to climb on."
Okay, that's a bit unfair because it really is a great game but I really felt the length of it.
Conversely, Human Revolution is like 40ish hours and didn't feel like it. I loved every moment of it and found it properly engaging throughout despite the thinly-veiled gameplay contrivances.
I guess it comes down to personal opinion but Deus Ex was great but eventually bored me, both when it first came out and a few years ago.
A part of it is because System Shock 2 was amazing and Deus Ex rather paled in comparison. In a way, adding NPCs made the world less interesting. I found it hard not to compare the two and wish I was playing System Shock 2 instead. Which I completed twice, after its initial release unlike the zero times I completed Deus Ex until very recently.
Then you have Invisible War, which I suffered through in its entirety, and made me want to stab myself in the abdomen or something.
I really can appreciate what this game tried to do, and the setting honestly is cool. But there's so many problems I can't really justify playing anymore. The game can have a character give me guff for going into the women's restroom, but it can't recognize that I found the 47 emails saying "HAY GUYS WE'RE A SHADOWY GROUP THAT RENTED OUT A FEMA FACILITY SOMEHOW," meaning when Adam constantly goes around going GRAAAAH THOSE FEMA BASTARDS he sounds like an idiot. And he found out the deep dark secret about his parents, and his reaction was -- nothing. And everyone jitters around like Fry after 299 cups of coffee.
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
Interesting.
I haven't even been able to get through Dishonored once yet. It bores the hell out of me. Conversely, I think Human Revolution is by far the best Deus Ex, even considering it against the first game.
How do you approach Dishonored?
I'm just asking because it's a game with a LOT of ways to go around, and it strikes me that it wouldn't be that hard to lock yourself to a run style you didn't much like thinking it was the "right" way to play.
Have you tried summoning a rat to possess it and use it to deploy mines into a horde of enemies? That might be fun.
I find it hard to play games like this other than as a stealth melee pacifist. It's how I played DX1 and DX3, and System Shock, and so on.
I never connected to the original Deus Ex the way so many others did. Part of that was that I didn't actually like the writing/story all that much; it felt too much like "Let's put, like, every single conspiracy theory and trope in there!" Another part was that I wanted to play the game as a stealthy character, yet the stealth never played as well as it did in the Thief games. However, while I liked Human Revolution (including the DLC portions as part of the DC), I very much missed the larger areas; everything felt too claustrophobic.
My ideal Deus Ex would combine the size and scope of the first game's locations with refined stealth gameplay that feels and plays as well as Thief.
I think that's a part of it.
I also felt more connected to Jensen as a protagonist, than JC Denton. Jensen comes across as human, and someone I can empathize with. JC is not a character easy to empathize with.
Human Revolution is kind of a sad, emotional story. The first Deus Ex is more of a post-human power fantasy that takes conspiracy theory to the extreme. It's comes across a bit puerile at times, as does JC Denton.
I dunno. I feel like Human Revolution has a far more engaging narrative. DX1 just doesnt grab me that way, and never did.
Deus Ex strikes me as what Kingpin could have been with a little more complexity.
I'll tell you this about Deus Ex: Invisible War: For all its flaws, I loved the soundtrack. No surprise - I love the DX and DX:HR soundtracks, too. I like the fairly mellow main soundtrack, and I like the more aggressive Kidneythieves music used as NG Resonance's music.
I prefer to think of Invisible War as a Sociopathic Child Murder Simulator.
You can literally kill a pre-teen by throwing a coffee cup at her head, then tell her weeping uncle to fuck off, and then later lie to her mother about how her daughter is doing. I know you can do this because I accidentally did this in my playthrough (though Freud says there are no accidents).
And while the above anecdote redeems the game ever so slightly, it isn't enough and the game is just a piece of shit with 2-3 minute agonizing saved game load times. It loads the entire level again every time you load a save and it does it roughly the same way diwnloading video porn on a 2400 baud modem worked once upon a time.
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Separate from but contributing to the problem is the lack of a compelling villain. As mentioned, the Tyrants just aren't interesting as enemies; Namir at least should have been a foil to Jensen, after nearly killing him in the prologue, but there's nothing approaching acknowledgment of this. Zhao is closest to a central villain, but makes Bob Page look subtle and charismatic - and her activities are basically a power play in the shadow of another power play, which itself is an offshoot from Page's power play, which is what really started this whole thing in the first place.
I actually liked some of the characterization in DX:HR, and think the core of 'Adam plus mission control team' were handled reasonably well, Adam's backstory issues notwithstanding. There's a decent flexibility to how recurring characters treat Jensen, many of whom are multifaceted and themselves fairly interesting; there's a reason the cutscene battles were so popular. But there's just not much meat to your opposition, and the plot feels artificially in the shadow of much bigger goings on, like it adamantly refuses to deviate from a preset course. The return to Detroit would've been a fine place to pivot to a broader confrontation with the Illuminati, but it never quite manifests and Zhao just can't carry the slack.
There's one other problem I had, sort of with the overall presentation, and I'll use a comparison with DX1 to elaborate. On the return to NYC in DX1, the streets are deserted and what few NPCs are around mostly try to stay out of the police's way. The Free Clinic in particular is basically deserted, with just a few homeless people waiting out the night. Emails explain how the situation has deteriorated, and a nurse remarks that the clinic is closing. A line still sticks with me, one guy commenting that JC's "got the look on you... man who's runnin' outta friends."
A comparable return to Hengsha shows the Hung Hua practically empty, with like one or two NPCs milling about. One guy's sitting alone near the bar and I was hoping for some explanation of what happened. Did Belltower run off the staff? Was he just some guy trying to get off the street before the angry foreigners with guns - thugs in uniform who refuse to learn the language - made an example of him? Sadly, his comments were generic NPC banter, something about "go away" or "what do you want, lao wai?" The space wasn't used for storytelling, it was just... space.
The point is, DX1 was rich with detail and worldbuilding, and those minor touches sometimes felt absent in DXHR. And I say that as someone that loved HR, even with its problems; bought it, bought the DLC, bought it again for the DC, gifted it several times on Steam, don't regret a penny. They got pretty close - close enough to where I'm still comfortable calling it Deus Ex, with all that would imply - but I hope they get closer next time.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
This just made me want to play Dishonored again, really. And hope for a fully-realized sequel.
To be fair, this game is kinda old at this point.
I'd imagine the next installment* would rectify at least part of the issues mentioned.
*Deus Ex Universe? Something? I don't know. Sure would be nice to get maybe a single line of news after almost 4 years. Maybe they're still busy fixing the Director's Cut on PC like they said 2 years ago, then delivered a small patch and haven't spoken of since.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
An upgraded pistol got me one shot one kill on everything but the heaviest enemies, and they just needed two to the skull to drop.
Silent, too!
The pistol is pretty badass.
Why I fear the ocean.
Deus Ex wasn't on the list but they said there would be something about it before year end.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
They should get the voice actor for JC; "My hair is augmented."
What I would really like is a game that has you right in the middle of Page's break from the Illuminati. Don't even bother with multiple endings because we know what the status quo will be in DX. Not only that, HR's choices were incredibly weak. Just give us a good story about being caught between divided loyalties, and a really great level structure with secrets galore, and I'll be happy.
Honestly, that's kind of how I approach HR anyway. The links are weak enough that I can just think of it as an alternate-world story.
(Other than the crap bosses and the crap ending, I loved HR so much.)
Haven't played HR since it first came out, kinda thinking about replaying it, worth it to get the Director's Cut? (It still sorta bums me out that this was a payed upgrade)
Overall, the DC just made me even more cynical about the dev team. That stunt of plastering their photos all over the ending credits was already bad enough...
well then that is fucking stupid
I'm glad I asked first!
Almost as low a point as that final level.
So it's a lot like the Deus Ex GOTY edition!
I kid.
Tell us in your own words what you DO NOT like about Deus Ex?
And my answer:
"I played Invisible War way after it was initially released. In fact, I marathoned DX and DX:IW leading up to DX:HR's initial release. I thought it was terrible in every conceivable way. It was an irredeemable mess. So every single thing about DX:IW is what I do not like about the Deus Ex series."
Which is not just smarm. I think it may be the worst game ever made.
It took me hours of reloading and deleting corrupted saves to get through the dlc portion of the Director's Cut.
Then once I got out of the dlc area the problems persisted, like the game was confused about which of two different versions of the level to use.
And because they didn't give the director's cut its own id in the Xbox Live system it can never be patched because Live can't tell the difference between the Director's Cut and the vanilla game.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Relinking the page with my specific impressions for anybody that missed them, including the revamped boss fights and other things I noticed.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
(Though I did have a soft spot for Malik, and the interactions between Adam and his handler, and the way the relationship between him and Sarif developed. There's some smarter writing in there!)
The conversation battles you get into were the best writing in the game, where characters never felt stupid and were always try righting to get what they want, and the greater world and the ideas it presents are more interesting than the lame cameos and ties to the original game. I don't care about the plot of Deus Ex meaning this game doesn't matter! Not really. I care about the ideas and the themes and the choices presented, even at the end where it's just three buttons, because I liked how big and broad thinking it was. Shit, I even sort of liked the use of stock footage and shit, like it's fucking metal gear or something
I even liked the final level, even though I knew it was kind of a cop-out! The last "boss" is awful, and all the boss fights except the camo guy are lame as fuck, but I liked the areas and the exploration you can do, and the different options for dealing with situations
It ain't perfect, but it hit me where I live, and it was way better than it had a right being. I look forward to another proper Deus Ex video game!
As long as it's not by the guys who fucked up that new Thief game. Forget that
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
It's worth pointing out that I get nitpicky about DX:HR because I care about what it tries to do, and I think that applies to most people in the thread as well. The closer something gets to being truly great, the more issue I take with its flaws, and the more invested I get in bouncing my opinions off of other people. Deus Ex wasn't perfect even by the standards of the time, and I can understand seeing it as especially dated nowadays, but it still has some strong fundamental design that deserves recognition. I half-jokingly put it on a pedestal, but I don't want an unassailable cultural icon; I want an important example that people in game development should study, and use to pave the way to even better design.
Human Revolution took notes from that design, and I love it both for that and on its own merits. But I hope it's the starting point for future games in this vein, and not the final word.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
Interesting.
I haven't even been able to get through Dishonored once yet. It bores the hell out of me. Conversely, I think Human Revolution is by far the best Deus Ex, even considering it against the first game.
Man... what. Play the first again.
How do you approach Dishonored?
I'm just asking because it's a game with a LOT of ways to go around, and it strikes me that it wouldn't be that hard to lock yourself to a run style you didn't much like thinking it was the "right" way to play.
Have you tried summoning a rat to possess it and use it to deploy mines into a horde of enemies? That might be fun.
Why I fear the ocean.
I also can't help but wonder if the future games wouldn't be better off as 3rd person titles. I see what R* can cram into GTA V in terms of sheer seamless real estate and I can't help but think that size would be interesting to see shrunk down in area (one city, or several smaller ones), but with those savings applied vertically with interiors for sewers and skyscrapers. And since HR already uses a 3rd person cover system, it's not that big of a stretch. They could add Shadowrun-esque car chases to the mix as well.
Nightslayr brings up a good point with Rockstar as they're one of the few devs since DX1 that has made convincing and lived in open worlds, like RDR.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
My ideal Deus Ex would combine the size and scope of the first game's locations with refined stealth gameplay that feels and plays as well as Thief.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Doubtful that will happen.
DX1 took me 35ish hours to complete. I don't dislike the game at all, but the game just felt excessively long and somewhat pointlessly repetitive after awhile. I feel that after 10-15 hours, the gameplay stops evolving entirely and it's essentially the "look for crates to climb on."
Okay, that's a bit unfair because it really is a great game but I really felt the length of it.
Conversely, Human Revolution is like 40ish hours and didn't feel like it. I loved every moment of it and found it properly engaging throughout despite the thinly-veiled gameplay contrivances.
I guess it comes down to personal opinion but Deus Ex was great but eventually bored me, both when it first came out and a few years ago.
A part of it is because System Shock 2 was amazing and Deus Ex rather paled in comparison. In a way, adding NPCs made the world less interesting. I found it hard not to compare the two and wish I was playing System Shock 2 instead. Which I completed twice, after its initial release unlike the zero times I completed Deus Ex until very recently.
Then you have Invisible War, which I suffered through in its entirety, and made me want to stab myself in the abdomen or something.
I find it hard to play games like this other than as a stealth melee pacifist. It's how I played DX1 and DX3, and System Shock, and so on.
I think that's a part of it.
I also felt more connected to Jensen as a protagonist, than JC Denton. Jensen comes across as human, and someone I can empathize with. JC is not a character easy to empathize with.
Human Revolution is kind of a sad, emotional story. The first Deus Ex is more of a post-human power fantasy that takes conspiracy theory to the extreme. It's comes across a bit puerile at times, as does JC Denton.
I dunno. I feel like Human Revolution has a far more engaging narrative. DX1 just doesnt grab me that way, and never did.
Deus Ex strikes me as what Kingpin could have been with a little more complexity.
You can literally kill a pre-teen by throwing a coffee cup at her head, then tell her weeping uncle to fuck off, and then later lie to her mother about how her daughter is doing. I know you can do this because I accidentally did this in my playthrough (though Freud says there are no accidents).
And while the above anecdote redeems the game ever so slightly, it isn't enough and the game is just a piece of shit with 2-3 minute agonizing saved game load times. It loads the entire level again every time you load a save and it does it roughly the same way diwnloading video porn on a 2400 baud modem worked once upon a time.