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Deus Ex and Alpha Protocol [chat]
Jacobkosh
Gamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
Gamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
Two great tastes that taste great together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxi7JRJrod4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uOA3IqJDdY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxi7JRJrod4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uOA3IqJDdYApothe0sis wrote: »override367 wrote: »it's late enough where this video is making me laugh hysterically
I have never seen any footage of that game past that port
No idea why it's so beloved
Is the latter a burn or a question?
Question. Like, I was with the sequel up until the ending. That was a pretty cool game, I should revisit it someday and actually finish it (and not do a non-lethal run). But no one's ever shown or explained to me why Deus Ex is so great.
override367 wrote: »Apothe0sis wrote: »override367 wrote: »it's late enough where this video is making me laugh hysterically
I have never seen any footage of that game past that port
No idea why it's so beloved
Is the latter a burn or a question?
Question. Like, I was with the sequel up until the ending. That was a pretty cool game, I should revisit it someday and actually finish it (and not do a non-lethal run). But no one's ever shown or explained to me why Deus Ex is so great.
intricate well thought out plot and characters with multiple paths and outcomes, consequences and tough choices
along with lots of ways to do your missions, tons of environmental flavor, etc
good conversations and concepts and whatnot, Deus Ex 2 is a pale shadow of Deus Ex, hardly worthy of sharing the name
Human Revolution is a worthy prequel with a crap ending
I never played Deus Ex at the time and only scratched the surface much, much later, but the free-form approach to progress (stealth things, shoot first, etc) coupled with the malleability of the story progress and the outcomes seemed to be pretty important in game design. Here's a mission, approach it in one of several ways, each of them valid and fully available, the outcome might be one of several things, etc.
Games still struggle to offer multiple ways of achieving something that aren't just multiple ways of killing whoever is in your way.
override367 wrote: »Apothe0sis wrote: »override367 wrote: »it's late enough where this video is making me laugh hysterically
I have never seen any footage of that game past that port
No idea why it's so beloved
Is the latter a burn or a question?
Question. Like, I was with the sequel up until the ending. That was a pretty cool game, I should revisit it someday and actually finish it (and not do a non-lethal run). But no one's ever shown or explained to me why Deus Ex is so great.
intricate well thought out plot and characters with multiple paths and outcomes, consequences and tough choices
along with lots of ways to do your missions, tons of environmental flavor, etc
good conversations and concepts and whatnot, Deus Ex 2 is a pale shadow of Deus Ex, hardly worthy of sharing the name
Human Revolution is a worthy prequel with a crap ending
Wash I should add that while I really like HR and think it is a well-made game in its own right that added some cool and interesting ideas of its own to the mix, a huge part of what made the original DX great that very few games since have replicated was the sheer size of the mission areas. Several square blocks of New York, Paris, and Hong Kong to explore as you wanted, fully populated with NPCs and secrets to discover.
The combat areas, like a level set in LaGuardia Airport, were vast, sometimes, almost as much as a square mile in size, and the interior and exteriors were all part of the same map. So where HR gave you choices that were kind of pre-ordained - you could take the Shooting Choice and kill people or take the Stealth Choice and avoid them with an airvent - the size of the original gave you flexibility. You could make noises to draw guards out of guard shacks into dark corners of the parking lot, or come in from the roof, or just walk straight past almost all the non-mission critical areas and just beeline for the most important thing in the level (although obv you'd be missing some bonus gear, weapons, xp, and so forth if you did this).
The game had a genuinely complicated story that wasn't spoonfed to you - to really understand every aspect of what was going on took a lot of exploration, hacking into emails, and paying attention to ambient conversations. The effect of this is somewhat muffled in 2014 by the voice acting, which is sometimes very great but is often of the caliber of most video games of the late 90s/early 00s, but if you were to remake DX with new graphics and a new voice cast and the same script it would quickly be apparent how progressive and intelligent the writing really was. It's also pleasing to me because it's very rigorously science-fictional; the writers did their history homework, they did their biology, they did their computers, and the sci-fi technologies presented all play fair within the general conceits of the setting, and there's a lot of real-world knowledge and literacy on display; people in the game talk about Robert Anton Wilson and Stanislaw Lem and Kant and there's an ongoing subplot with a pastiche of a modern-day detective thriller novel. So many video games bug me because they feel like they were written by people who only play video games. DX doesn't.
I also think it creates a very palpable sense of paranoia. HR did this a bit, too, but kind of let that element dissipate in the second half of the game. I wrote about this recently, but I think the secret to making players feel paranoid is, paradoxically, by letting them transgress on other people. In both DX and HR, there are parts of the game where you can break into people's apartments and root through their stuff and hack their emails and steal their candy bars and just generally be a bit creepy if you want to. And some of these peopel are totally ordinary and then randomly one guy in the apartment building will have, like, laser tripmines guarding a closet full of military assault weapons. And you're like "WTF? Who is this person? What are they hiding? Why is someone with enough guns to outfit a regiment living in a dingy tower block?" Being an invisible stealth badass feels great at first, but then peeking into people's secrets makes you wonder who else might be hiding something, and it makes you realize how vulnerable you are.
override367 wrote: »override367 wrote: »Apothe0sis wrote: »override367 wrote: »it's late enough where this video is making me laugh hysterically
I have never seen any footage of that game past that port
No idea why it's so beloved
Is the latter a burn or a question?
Question. Like, I was with the sequel up until the ending. That was a pretty cool game, I should revisit it someday and actually finish it (and not do a non-lethal run). But no one's ever shown or explained to me why Deus Ex is so great.
intricate well thought out plot and characters with multiple paths and outcomes, consequences and tough choices
along with lots of ways to do your missions, tons of environmental flavor, etc
good conversations and concepts and whatnot, Deus Ex 2 is a pale shadow of Deus Ex, hardly worthy of sharing the name
Human Revolution is a worthy prequel with a crap ending
Wash I should add that while I really like HR and think it is a well-made game in its own right that added some cool and interesting ideas of its own to the mix, a huge part of what made the original DX great that very few games since have replicated was the sheer size of the mission areas. Several square blocks of New York, Paris, and Hong Kong to explore as you wanted, fully populated with NPCs and secrets to discover.
The combat areas, like a level set in LaGuardia Airport, were vast, sometimes, almost as much as a square mile in size, and the interior and exteriors were all part of the same map. So where HR gave you choices that were kind of pre-ordained - you could take the Shooting Choice and kill people or take the Stealth Choice and avoid them with an airvent - the size of the original gave you flexibility. You could make noises to draw guards out of guard shacks into dark corners of the parking lot, or come in from the roof, or just walk straight past almost all the non-mission critical areas and just beeline for the most important thing in the level (although obv you'd be missing some bonus gear, weapons, xp, and so forth if you did this).
The game had a genuinely complicated story that wasn't spoonfed to you - to really understand every aspect of what was going on took a lot of exploration, hacking into emails, and paying attention to ambient conversations. The effect of this is somewhat muffled in 2014 by the voice acting, which is sometimes very great but is often of the caliber of most video games of the late 90s/early 00s, but if you were to remake DX with new graphics and a new voice cast and the same script it would quickly be apparent how progressive and intelligent the writing really was. It's also pleasing to me because it's very rigorously science-fictional; the writers did their history homework, they did their biology, they did their computers, and the sci-fi technologies presented all play fair within the general conceits of the setting, and there's a lot of real-world knowledge and literacy on display; people in the game talk about Robert Anton Wilson and Stanislaw Lem and Kant and there's an ongoing subplot with a pastiche of a modern-day detective thriller novel. So many video games bug me because they feel like they were written by people who only play video games. DX doesn't.
I also think it creates a very palpable sense of paranoia. HR did this a bit, too, but kind of let that element dissipate in the second half of the game. I wrote about this recently, but I think the secret to making players feel paranoid is, paradoxically, by letting them transgress on other people. In both DX and HR, there are parts of the game where you can break into people's apartments and root through their stuff and hack their emails and steal their candy bars and just generally be a bit creepy if you want to. And some of these peopel are totally ordinary and then randomly one guy in the apartment building will have, like, laser tripmines guarding a closet full of military assault weapons. And you're like "WTF? Who is this person? What are they hiding? Why is someone with enough guns to outfit a regiment living in a dingy tower block?" Being an invisible stealth badass feels great at first, but then peeking into people's secrets makes you wonder who else might be hiding something, and it makes you realize how vulnerable you are.
The reason I think the HR guys "get it" is they really captured that feel a lot (as you say, much less towards the end where the game is much more focused on COMPLETE THE PLOT), you run across something that just makes you want to know more. Randomly finding an organ harvesting clinic hidden in Detroit for example - but even the mundane shit just adds so much to make this feel like a fleshed out world
If you go through Adams e-mails you see that he broke his bathroom mirror and a new one is on back order even though he's requested a new one multiple times. If you hack the building manager's terminal you'll see the mirror was ready ages ago and she's deliberately fucking Adam over because she dislikes him. Thankfully the game lets you rectify it whenever Adam is wrongedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whtNHRYJnrU
Every time people post Alpha protocol videos they are so different from my play through it blows my mind.
The range of choices an consequences in that game is still kind of mind blowing.
I still need to get the director's cut upgrade on DX:HR. I hear it got much better with the bosses and such.
That actually reminds me - @evilbob or anyone else who is a DX:HR person: are there any other major changes to the Director's Cut besides the bosses, or is that the really big one?
It's worth noting the DLC is half off right now on the 360.
Base game is $5 used everywhere.
Alistair Hutton wrote: »Being a douche is not optional in Alpha Protocol. The question is what kind of douche you are. You have full and unlimited flexibility in choosing your douche options. In the middle of a conversation you have the choice between punching in the face, slamming head off desk or breaking bottle over back of skull. The full panoply of douchness.
http://youtu.be/VUydx57te9sAhahaha I never did the douchebag options with everyone so the Madison St James stuff in that video is hysterical.
Alpha Protocol is weird because the choices you make are not super obvious videogames choices.
This means people don't realize they are actually choosing anything, and are instead just choosing what seems funny/snarky etcet.
I have seen several 'wait WHAT can happen?' conversations if you explain the possibilities.
Half of the audience was not really aware, not ready for the game they were playing.
Most of the games with choice give giant heads up (Sometimes even with a 'this is important!' popup) on decisions that matter. And then usually you choose between 'pet the pupy' and 'eat the puppy' instead of 'I think the best way to convince this dude is to project strength' or 'I need to sweettalk this guy'
You can skip at least 2 missions, you can add or remove or change final bosses, about half the cast can live or die, your friends can be your enemies and vice versa.
It is still a flawed game, the opening mission is very long and very linear outside of dialogue options, and the final mission is extremely long and shooty and has a bullshit fight. The decision to make a statbased fps is interesting but many people hate it (The correct way to shoot someone in AP is to take cover, aim for half a sec and fire slowly, not strafe or rush Doom/CoD style).
It is also unbalanced as fuck, with pistols being godly.
There are also some really weird bugs, like the 'on quick load all the enemies despawn' bug that is relatively prevalent.
Jacobkosh on
+1
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
am I kawaii
*translator's note: kawaii means cute
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
Oh hey, unjailed for real this time.
Agreed.
I'd also add that collaboration is a huge deal. I recognize that I work best extrapolating or riffing off of someone else's idea, finding all the logical offshoots rather than dreaming up the core concept myself. All my best guitar work on the record my band did eons ago was on songs that our bass player did the primary writing on. My best RPG campaigns came out of stitching background details the players developed with an otherwise mediocre Planescape module. Etc.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
I always found it a little upsetting that I spent most of the time with one cell that auto recharged and only filled up for big events.
Deus Ex is great though, what Jake said about the plot not being spoonfed to you was very true. You spend a lot of time going "WAIT, THAT'S A NEW DEVELOPMENT WHO IS THAT GUY WHAT AM I DOING THIS FOR" and it really took right up to the very end to piece it all together.
Now I have to decide, once I finish my MtG binge and finish skyrim whether I'm going to mop up DX:HR or Alpha Protocol.
all ur best posts consist of empty quoting me and so on
This must be in the OP.
So apparently one of the things about parenthood is you don't get to sleep ever again.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
hopefully you will have luck like us and babby-tomica will be sleeping through the night at 2-3 months
Nah, you'll be back to normal before you know it - two, three years, tops.
On the plus side, extreme lack of sleep impairs forming memories, so once you're past the 'no sleep' phase, you won't really remember just how miserably hard the lack of sleep is. You started the hallucinations yet?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1H9VlnKQVFI/VAOUbRKuMfI/AAAAAAAAByM/6acU4xq9lwQ/s1600/2014-08-29-31+Situation+Report.png+HIGH-01.png
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
But mostly, stockpile candy bars for use when necessary. For some reason there's only a finite number of them though, which is slightly silly.
This is a phenomenon I don't think gets enough attention from either creators or the wider public. Too many people are really invested in the idea of auteurism; someone here on PA once even claimed that video games could not be art because art was made by auteurs, which I think was an astonishingly terrible definition that manages to exclude, like...most of the Renaissance? Almost every movie ever? But that idea is out there, in the air, in part because of the stereotype of creative people as loners (or because of the more accurate reality that it's sometimes hard for people who are heavily invested in a thing to share credit).
I think there are people who are just great creative catalysts; you feel more energized just having them in the room, or see things from a perspective that might neve have occurred to you on your own. I think that's actually the secret to a lot of great stage/film direction: the director might not be the guy who wrote the script, and, unless he's a super prima donna like Kubrick or Michael Mann, he might not be the guy dictating every minute twitch of an actor's performance, but he or she kind of catalyzes and focuses everyone else's energy toward the goal.
I think I'd probably sooner play Deus Ex than pretty much anything new, especially with the relatively recent hr texture packs and stuff. It's really great and hasn't aged quite as much as it might have. The gameplay is pretty solid.
The story is as Jake says, really mature.
You have to make your own fun in those kinds of games.
He's actually a really good babby so far, he only gets fussy when he's hungry.
So, every two hours
easily the best item you can get for your safehouse
Auditory, yes.
Still waiting on the visual ones.
yeah I sometimes dream video game features WHAT OF IT
maesk sense 2me
I hear that, not trying to be all like *yeah well* but god those over night feeding are brutal when kiddoroar was born we were living in my mil's attic. That walk up and down to get his bottles was BRUTAL at 4am half asleep
Never realised Brayko supported Scottish independence. Feel bad about killing him on my latest playthrough now.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
this is 4 u if u hav not experienecde
Yep. You give them a baby, they can return it in six years or whatever when it can play with Lego