There any significant difference in dialogue or outcome from not harming the guys on the way to meet the leader? I was avoiding them all but it got to be very time consuming and boring (it's why I stopped playing) and if I start again I just want to clear them all out then loot the place unabated.
Talos Rucker thanks you for going easy on his men when you meet him if you didnt kill anyone, not sure if there is any other differences, since I usually play non-lethal anyway.
Doubt it matter much for anything else than the "No Kills" achievement though.
Hmm well I was trying to do non-lethal but he definitely told me about the guys I killed (even though I'm sure I only knocked them out/tranq'ed them). Maybe I should switch over to a lethal run.
0
Options
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
It is actually pretty easy to slip through Golem City unnoticed if you spec hard into invisibility and battery, and you can ghost through 99% of the place
...I mean, it was already ruined...but this certainly didn't help:
I'm afraid the title is a bit clickbaity, but considering that there's a hold on DX development, it's just shy of being almost true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwB1bhsLB_c
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
0
Options
mastertheheroProfessional Video Editor & Book AuthorRegistered Userregular
edited January 2017
This is definitely a bummer to hear. Honestly, for me, MK Divided was a complete fail. I have zero interest in playing it again even though I've technically started the game again.
In terms of gameplay, without question, Mankind Divided is a super game. It really makes you feel like an ultra, augmented commando as you sneak through enemy bases using all of your augs at your disposal. (At least, that's my playstyle.)
But in terms of story and world, it was an utter fail. There was nothing interesting for me in Dubai and Prague was a total snoozefest until the Red Light district opened up. The details for advertisements and world building were excellent, but the locations, characters, and overall plot just had nothing there. The game felt very shallow and never gave me a real reason to care or a reason to choose one character over the other.
Also, the fact that we were limited to Prague as the hub world was extremely disappointing for me. What I liked in Human Revolution and even the original game was that you got to explore a variety of different levels and cities. You got to go to Detroit, Hengsha, Montreal, freaking Antarctica. You could see extreme cases of poverty and also a utopian vision of what the future could look like. I mean the Tai Yong medical office building still leaves me in awe and actually made me glad there was a gold hue to everything.
Golem city was wonderful in terms of showing poverty, but once you got back to Prague it just felt so constrained. Which is ironic because the levels in Human Revolution were extremely linear.
Ultimately, I think they needed a stronger story and a more compelling location. I know that probably isn't what led to lackluster sales, but I couldn't see myself recommending anyone else to play Mankind Divided after playing it myself.
masterthehero on
+5
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
That's a pity. As "smack you over the damn head" with it as it was, the message was especially important today.
...I mean, it was already ruined...but this certainly didn't help:
I'm afraid the title is a bit clickbaity, but considering that there's a hold on DX development, it's just shy of being almost true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwB1bhsLB_c
"Yeah, RIP."
PSN: Waybackkidd
"...only mights and maybes."
+1
Options
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited January 2017
I'm not surprised. I just couldn't get into MD as much as the original.
The story was clumsily told and the characters generally not that memorable or interesting.
The gameplay was good but also very much more of the same.
And yeah...the lack of multiple hubs was a big letdown.
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
Eh?
I thought MD was pretty good! I don't think it broke new ground but it was fun, and the story did go places even if it didn't wrap up properly
It just needed more of what was there (and it seemed like they were obviously going for sequel bait)
My biggest complaint of MKD was that it was clunky, especially on the console. None of the control set ups felt right for the kind of game it was. Like, it was a first person shooter but instead of building on the controls that other FPS had done, it tried to reinvent the wheel and came up with something square and rough. Too many times I would die from bad controls.
And the story, like many said, wasn't strong. Too many plots seemed... predicable, which isn't what you want in a game about conspiracies being real and spies being spies. The message was great, which makes it one of the games I think everyone should play, but maybe not on consoles.
0
Options
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I thought MD was pretty good! I don't think it broke new ground but it was fun, and the story did go places even if it didn't wrap up properly
It just needed more of what was there (and it seemed like they were obviously going for sequel bait)
Yeah I enjoyed it too, still preferred HR. That said MD wasn't IW levels of bad or anything.
I'm a bit surprised by the news as I was under the impression MD still sold quite well. Maybe not?
While I know that in MD they were trying to show you the poverty gap/racism there was one thing I could never get out of my head, namely that in HR they made it pretty clear the vast majority of people who had augments at the time were the wealthy and the elite. So, like, in MD I was more "Hah! That's what you get bourgeois sons of bitches!" and less "Those poor people."
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I thought MD was pretty good! I don't think it broke new ground but it was fun, and the story did go places even if it didn't wrap up properly
It just needed more of what was there (and it seemed like they were obviously going for sequel bait)
Yeah I enjoyed it too, still preferred HR. That said MD wasn't IW levels of bad or anything.
I'm a bit surprised by the news as I was under the impression MD still sold quite well. Maybe not?
While I know that in MD they were trying to show you the poverty gap/racism there was one thing I could never get out of my head, namely that in HR they made it pretty clear the vast majority of people who had augments at the time were the wealthy and the elite. So, like, in MD I was more "Hah! That's what you get bourgeois sons of bitches!" and less "Those poor people."
?
Did you miss the street gangs with augs? The homeless suffering without Neuropozyne? Panchea using augmented construction workers?
Most of the cutting edge augs were incredibly expensive, but the average person seemed pretty able to get them easily.
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
That was a thing, but the whole theme of MD was people able to afford augs making natural humans obsolete.
You could be at the pinnacle of your skill in your profession or trade, but it didn't matter one bit since some random Joe with money could get an aug to do what you do only better than you ever could.
I feel like the message in MD could have been more home hitting if the ghettos were full of natural humans instead of augmented humans. Though with the ending of HR there wasn't really much they could do about that.
Plus the societal problem in MD would at best last a generation and at worst two. I mean augmentation wasn't genetic. Whereas if the reverse scenario was the case you'd be facing an nearly unsolvable human crisis. Far more powerful IMHO.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I'm not sure what point you're making, to be honest. Remember, the people who rule the world in Deus Ex aren't augmented*, and for the most part are incredibly suspicious of the technology.
HR was about how the backlash to change can be more dangerous then whatever can be explored.
MD was about how the powerful exploit fear of minority groups to further their influence, and how opression will lead to violence, always. The augmented might die out in a generation, sure, but that's still millions of people, reliant on medication, maintenance, and security; people who no country in the world will take due to actions beyond the augs control. That already is a massive, nigh unsolvable humanitarian issue.
Yeah, as much as I enjoyed playing Mankind Divided, it felt like it took the flaws of Human Revolution - chiefly the fact that it felt like a sidestory in its own plot - and merely exacerbated them, in the process losing a bunch of things that game did right. I can't really remember anything anybody actually said in MD, whereas HR had a bunch of quotable lines. It's telling that Jensen and Pritchard had better back-and-forth in System Rift than anybody else in the base game. Prague was fun to explore but no substitute for a change in venue, and both UI and inventory management felt like clear steps backward; far too many things had 'hold E' as a prompt.
If I had to chalk it up to one thing that ultimately sank the series, I'd point to the 'Deus Ex Universe' concept outlined in the video. Frankly, that sounds like a terrible idea. The first game didn't have a broader universe to draw on, it was simply a well-executed story that stood on its own merits. HR's narrative stumbles could have been, and largely were, forgiven by the fact that it was a new team taking a stab at revitalizing the series; the hope being they would take dangling plot threads - Illuminati power struggles, Jensen's past - and build on them over time. Instead they just made another episode in the Adam Jensen Show, complete with a 'to be continued!' and electronic old men complaining that they would've gotten away with it if not for those snooping augs.
Honestly, it feels kinda like my issue with the new Star Wars movies, where there's this broader narrative that doesn't fit neatly into a single, stand-alone flick. The plot lasts long enough to hit character beats and big events, without much care about how it comes together. Incidental characters, like the guy that plants the bomb in the opening of MD, have these deep backstories that require DLC to flesh out, while people actually critical to the story in front of us are underdeveloped, paper thin, or just dull. Deus Ex doesn't need a broader universe to draw from, just write a straightforward a-to-b-to-x-to-7 conspiracy story that doesn't require tie-in novels or lousy spinoff games to explain who everybody is.
It's too bad, really. There was room for more storytelling as they built up to covering the first game again, but I think someone high up the food chain was too interested in franchise potential.
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
I think its strongest parts involve the character-centric questlines with the swerves, and the environmental storytelling. Like, the way they placed things around the world that informed you of the way certain characters lived their lives and everything, there were some very moving moments
+4
Options
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I'm not sure what point you're making, to be honest. Remember, the people who rule the world in Deus Ex aren't augmented*, and for the most part are incredibly suspicious of the technology.
HR was about how the backlash to change can be more dangerous then whatever can be explored.
MD was about how the powerful exploit fear of minority groups to further their influence, and how opression will lead to violence, always. The augmented might die out in a generation, sure, but that's still millions of people, reliant on medication, maintenance, and security; people who no country in the world will take due to actions beyond the augs control. That already is a massive, nigh unsolvable humanitarian issue.
*Well, except for good ol' Bob Page.
In HR it was the augmented people creating an insurmountable poverty gap between themselves and natural humans. In MD the tables have been turned and you're supposed to feel sympathy for the augmented despite the fact they were screwing over the rest of humanity without a second thought just a few years prior.
You still felt sympathy for them, I mean I'm not heartless. If you had the money to get augmented to stay competitive then that's a pretty easy choice to make. It's just that based on the setting of the first game augmentation was propelling the world to a far, far worse future and that is what was in the back of my head the whole time I played MD.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
0
Options
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure what point you're making, to be honest. Remember, the people who rule the world in Deus Ex aren't augmented*, and for the most part are incredibly suspicious of the technology.
HR was about how the backlash to change can be more dangerous then whatever can be explored.
MD was about how the powerful exploit fear of minority groups to further their influence, and how opression will lead to violence, always. The augmented might die out in a generation, sure, but that's still millions of people, reliant on medication, maintenance, and security; people who no country in the world will take due to actions beyond the augs control. That already is a massive, nigh unsolvable humanitarian issue.
*Well, except for good ol' Bob Page.
In HR it was the augmented people creating an insurmountable poverty gap between themselves and natural humans. In MD the tables have been turned and you're supposed to feel sympathy for the augmented despite the fact they were screwing over the rest of humanity without a second thought just a few years prior.
You still felt sympathy for them, I mean I'm not heartless. If you had the money to get augmented to stay competitive then that's a pretty easy choice to make. It's just that based on the setting of the first game augmentation was propelling the world to a far, far worse future and that is what was in the back of my head the whole time I played MD.
Most people working the physical jobs were not paying for those augs themselves. The companies that they were working for said "Hey you need to be augmented so get these augments or get fired" So they were either forced to get these augs they never asked for or be jobless. Then shit went down and they were jobless anyway and now augged with a neuro addiction.
If they had the money to be augging themselves up for fun they probably weren't working these jobs in the first place.
I think you may have missed/overlooked a big chunk of the story there.
DemonStacey on
+5
Options
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Well this sucks balls! I liked MD quite a lot and was pretty excited to see where the story went in part 3 of the series. The gameplay was great too.
I'm not surprised. I just couldn't get into MD as much as the original.
The story was clumsily told and the characters generally not that memorable or interesting.
The gameplay was good but also very much more of the same.
And yeah...the lack of multiple hubs was a big letdown.
Just couldn't get into it.
Yeah, I just picked it up this winter sale. I really liked Human Revolution, but this....I can only play it in 10-15 minute chunks before I just get too bummed and have to stop. Quit playing right after the prologue.
You know those those movie sequels that, despite getting the same main actor and maybe the same props and sets, feel like they should have been direct to video? That's what MD feels like to me.
The writing in HR felt like it was divided between a B team Goofus and A team Gallant. Goofus was in charge of the overall main plot while Gallant filled in all the gaps the best he could.
rant/
Intro
Gallant- Does great job establishing the world as you walk around your workplace.
Goofus- Decides to give it the same intro as Double Dragon where a large man punches a hole through a wall to kidnap your girlfriend by slugging her in the stomach and carry her off.
Mood
Gallant- Show Jensen trying to adjust by using his robot arms to indulge in human vices like whiskey and smoking. This was plenty and subtly effective in conveying the idea.
Goofus- Decides it's too subtle and adds something. "His arms are so strong he cracks the shot glass he was trying to gingerly hold! He is now a tragic strong monster! Like the Hulk!" *plays with Hulk action figure*
The lore
Gallant- Sticks in really smart side conversations how augmentation is unofficially becoming mandatory since non-augs cannot compete with the labor market, with the expensive drug treatments turning them into indentured servants.
Goofus- Has people treating hacking out their limbs and eyes like getting a new iPhone.
Plot progression
Gallant- Some really great, organic details in all of the email conversations.
Goofus- Has Jensen be a total idiot during boss cutscenes (the Chinese CEO was painful to watch).
Final Act
Goofus- "ZOMBIE AUGOCALYPSE!"
Gallant- "........"
What bummed me about MD was that it felt like they fired Gallant and handed the whole thing over to Goofus. They had such a good theme going with the tension between augs and "obsolete" humans in a global labor market with nuanced touches. Then they ruined it all with that dumb zombie augocalypse ending. Now when they need tension they just keep falling back on "the incident" instead of anything applicable to the real world. Nuance is hard!
I haven't found a single well-written or amusing email either. Just two guys talking about how they think a building is haunted
Intro
Gallant- Would have smoothly and organically used to intro to convey the state of affairs to the player.
Gallant- Memorable characters like Sarif who is ruining humanity but you can't help but feel for since he actually, naively thinks he's improving lives with progress. Also great barbs between Jensen and Pritchard.
Goofus- Lame barbs with...some military guy? Later you meet up with...some woman? "Buzzcut" and "woman" is all that comes to mind for them. I can't remember the names of MD characters after one week yet I can remember all the major HR characters that I haven't touched in 5 years.
"The walkthrough"
Gallant- Walk through Sarif industries to see the new world.
Goofus- Straight up ripoff of the Half Life 2 opening tram ride, complete with City 17 stop and Combine guards.
The bombing
Gallant- Would have written it naturally expecting the player to feel sympathy for bombing victims by default.
Goofus- "How are they supposed to be sad unless we have a small child crying for mommy? Can I sneak in the shot glass shatter clip again? Where did I put my sledgehammer?"
The performance and polish just felt off too. The pre-bombing "walkthrough" was glitchy as hell. Pedestrians just popping up 5 feet away and half of a dozen instances of people just walking through each other.
Somehow I got the feeling that Goofus had friends in upper management (or WAS upper management!) and was either feeling jealous or cheap when they arranged to fire Gallant for the sequel.
Thinking back, one of the things that irked me about MKD was the idea of Jensen being a member of not one, but two groups. One of the big themes of the Deus Ex games (at least, the ones I've played... never touched IW) was the protagonist's quest to stop being used as a mere pawn in a larger game.
JC's journey ends with him being the one in control at the end. And while different forces pull at him, it's ultimately his decision. The tables have (mostly) turned. Similarly with Jensen at the end of HR. They (JC and Jensen) know the truth, and while they have a choice to make, the choice is theirs. It's not made by anyone else. And that's why HR's "fuck it, don't send any signal" option is interesting - it simultaneously robs the factions of having the choice they want, while leaving them (and the status quo, more or less) intact.
Jensen's double agent routine in MKD felt like a step back to me. He had far less autonomy than what he rightfully earned at the end of the previous game. He's a pawn again, but this time he's being directly controlled by two factions. There's a hierarchy he needs to respect, rules he needs to follow. It's far more restrictive than anything he had to deal with while working for Sarif. And it forces us to deal with people who are merely obstacles. Hardly anyone in Task Force 29 is interesting. Alex Vega is a walking cliche. It's just frustrating and doesn't seem to follow from what we know of Jensen in the previous game (although, that's a dangling plot point which will likely never be resolved now... sigh).
I think a more interesting move would've been to make Jensen almost a complete lone wolf. No military red tape, no (willingly) being pulled in different directions by forces with their own dubious agendas. Let Jensen be a free radical (boom, there's your subtitle) in the system. He can meet a tech support guy (or, even better, recruit Pritchard again since their contentious relationship is both fun and interesting), meet a pilot, meet various agents of the different factions during the course of his investigation/activism naturally, and choose to deal with them as he pleases.
Thinking back, one of the things that irked me about MKD was the idea of Jensen being a member of not one, but two groups. One of the big themes of the Deus Ex games (at least, the ones I've played... never touched IW) was the protagonist's quest to stop being used as a mere pawn in a larger game.
Jensen's always going to be a bit limited in options due to a need to stay within prequel territory. Kind of dulls the ability to do anything big and world changing on his own or get away from some of the factions.
That said, I think the play on the formula in MKD is that Jensen is part of a conspiracy himself and sometimes butting against other lower level operatives on the other side. Not one of the bigger themes, but I enjoyed speculating how much I could trust some of the people who technically were enemies, not always necessarily by choice, but still were helpful.
Thinking back, one of the things that irked me about MKD was the idea of Jensen being a member of not one, but two groups. One of the big themes of the Deus Ex games (at least, the ones I've played... never touched IW) was the protagonist's quest to stop being used as a mere pawn in a larger game.
Jensen's always going to be a bit limited in options due to a need to stay within prequel territory. Kind of dulls the ability to do anything big and world changing on his own or get away from some of the factions.
That said, I think the play on the formula in MKD is that Jensen is part of a conspiracy himself and sometimes butting against other lower level operatives on the other side. Not one of the bigger themes, but I enjoyed speculating how much I could trust some of the people who technically were enemies, not always necessarily by choice, but still were helpful.
eh, they could always do a "reboot" and tell the story in a way they want.
I'm gonna miss Deus Ex.
Sure it needed a bit of polish here and there but it was still good.
Kinda reminds me of the Dredd movie
There any significant difference in dialogue or outcome from not harming the guys on the way to meet the leader? I was avoiding them all but it got to be very time consuming and boring (it's why I stopped playing) and if I start again I just want to clear them all out then loot the place unabated.
Talos Rucker thanks you for going easy on his men when you meet him if you didnt kill anyone, not sure if there is any other differences, since I usually play non-lethal anyway.
Doubt it matter much for anything else than the "No Kills" achievement though.
Yeah, I wouldn't be killing them so much as knocking them all out. I may have picked up and accessed all the terminals and junk too though, IDK. I'd have to check.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
0
Options
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
Idk, I thought the bombing scene was kind of effective. Like, living in a world with terrorism I felt like they should have actually leaned on that atmosphere of shell-shock and sudden, inexplicable death and loss.
It was some heavy shit
+3
Options
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Just started Mankind Divided. Having played HR on the Wii U, the graphics took a crazy leap forward, playing on the Xbone, tho I find myself missing the tablet controls.
Intro was fun, tho it ended rather abruptly. Sandstorm rolls in and then CG credits outta nowhere. Was weird.
Jensen's new augs are shady as all heck...
Oh brilliant
0
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
By shady you mean awesome.
+5
Options
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
The dude said they had loose wiring and improper bone mounting. I dunno how you like your bone mountings, but I prefer mine be proper.
Oh brilliant
0
Options
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
The dude said they had loose wiring and improper bone mounting. I dunno how you like your bone mountings, but I prefer mine be proper.
I am sorry. I didn't want to say this. But I have to.
Phrasing!
0
Options
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Also, was surprised to see how the intro differed from the CGI trailer
the scenario shown off in the trailer was that Jensen tries and fails to track down a kid he had been investigating from triggering a bomb. He arrives seconds too late and witnesses it happen.
In game, that kid walks past you, conspicuously centre of frame and filling me with dread, cause I know what happens in the trailer, but Jensen remains blissfully unaware. Minutes later, bomb goes off.
In both scenarios, Jensen then touches a dead woman's hand.
I wonder if that was a case of a change in development, or if it was always meant to play out as it does in game and the trailer was an alternative what-if version to avoid spoilers/foreshadow what was about to happen for people who saw it.
Oh brilliant
0
Options
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Aaand beat. Huh. That felt like a super abrupt ending. I guess this was a 'middle' act but it didn't feel like we were propelled towards a third, final act at all. The ultimate villains were little more than name dropped, and Adam's connection to them were wafer thin.
Gud stuff tho. I managed to trip and fall into completing a side quest I hadn't known about, which is always a joy
trying to find Samizdat's SOS I ended up in, I guess, a Neon lab? I thought I had stumbled onto the Samizdat nerds being held at gunpoint, so I went in and knocked everyone out before realising I was in the wrong place. Excellent.
Also, managed to do both objectives in the final mission! I chose to rescue the delegates, then remembered I had a bomb jammer from doing the Stanek mission earlier, so I went and stomped Marchenko, disabled the bombs, then rushed to Brown and crew and saved them too. Miller died. :<
I wonder if the other binary choice missions were possible to complete both? I did break into the bank as a side quest earlier, perhaps I could have obtained the Orchid info there?
I was in such a rush at the end that I didn't use my last 4 Praxis kits. Hope they carry over to NG+ because I wanna do this again as the one true machine god.
Also, was surprised to see how the intro differed from the CGI trailer
the scenario shown off in the trailer was that Jensen tries and fails to track down a kid he had been investigating from triggering a bomb. He arrives seconds too late and witnesses it happen.
In game, that kid walks past you, conspicuously centre of frame and filling me with dread, cause I know what happens in the trailer, but Jensen remains blissfully unaware. Minutes later, bomb goes off.
In both scenarios, Jensen then touches a dead woman's hand.
I wonder if that was a case of a change in development, or if it was always meant to play out as it does in game and the trailer was an alternative what-if version to avoid spoilers/foreshadow what was about to happen for people who saw it.
Generally I think it's just Square Enix being given cliff notes, concept art and general vertical slices and getting their CG departments to riff off those much earlier in production. It was same with Human Revolution's trailers as well, they had certain scenes and stuff but also showcased abilities and execution animations out of sequence etc, and villains displaying the powers that they had in the game but the scenes they were in didn't exist at all (lol Yelena Fedorova randomly gunning down people in Detroit)
In Mankind Divided's one they show a confrontation on the theatre stage with the big burly Russian bloke, which is obviously complete nonsense but both the Russian guy and the theatre actually exist in the game
Aaand beat. Huh. That felt like a super abrupt ending. I guess this was a 'middle' act but it didn't feel like we were propelled towards a third, final act at all. The ultimate villains were little more than name dropped, and Adam's connection to them were wafer thin.
Gud stuff tho. I managed to trip and fall into completing a side quest I hadn't known about, which is always a joy
trying to find Samizdat's SOS I ended up in, I guess, a Neon lab? I thought I had stumbled onto the Samizdat nerds being held at gunpoint, so I went in and knocked everyone out before realising I was in the wrong place. Excellent.
Also, managed to do both objectives in the final mission! I chose to rescue the delegates, then remembered I had a bomb jammer from doing the Stanek mission earlier, so I went and stomped Marchenko, disabled the bombs, then rushed to Brown and crew and saved them too. Miller died. :<
I wonder if the other binary choice missions were possible to complete both? I did break into the bank as a side quest earlier, perhaps I could have obtained the Orchid info there?
I was in such a rush at the end that I didn't use my last 4 Praxis kits. Hope they carry over to NG+ because I wanna do this again as the one true machine god.
Alas, no, that one is arbitrarily blocked, though for a while it was possible to do both, since each gets locked out by entering parts of the other's location; those trigger areas were avoidable in one case, but then they patched it so that finishing the quest there automatically wrecked the other.
Not sure how many people are playing Deus Ex: Revision, but working through it with Shifter enabled I noticed an old feature - tossing weapons to select NPCs (Gunther, Gilbert, and Miguel) - that seemed to be absent. Out of curiosity I took a closer look at the .u file, and the code for it is actually still there, including the bit that makes the game recognize you've armed them (for Gunther and Gilbert specifically, in case you miss the dialogue chance to do so). Comparing with an earlier standalone version, I narrowed down the 'if' check that seemed to be preventing the script, and tried compiling a version without it. Sure enough, the system still works: getting close enough now lets you hand them a weapon with the 'dropitem' key as before.
The one caveat is there's still no text prompt telling you this, which also was present in at least 1.9 R1 of Shifter. That code's also in the Revision version, and I'm not sure why it's not triggering; digging a little deeper to see if I can iron it out. Fortunately, I haven't noticed any problems resulting from the change myself. Was actually kinda fun poking through it; the code they use is similar enough to Java that it's (relatively) not hard to follow if you understand the basics.
Linking the modded DeusEx.u file here if anybody else wants to take a look/make use of the feature - place in the Deus Ex\Revision\Shifter folder, rename the file to just DeusEx.u and you're good to go. If anybody runs into any problems, or can think of why the messaging might not work, by all means gimme a poke and let me know!
Posts
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Doubt it matter much for anything else than the "No Kills" achievement though.
...I mean, it was already ruined...but this certainly didn't help:
I'm afraid the title is a bit clickbaity, but considering that there's a hold on DX development, it's just shy of being almost true:
In terms of gameplay, without question, Mankind Divided is a super game. It really makes you feel like an ultra, augmented commando as you sneak through enemy bases using all of your augs at your disposal. (At least, that's my playstyle.)
But in terms of story and world, it was an utter fail. There was nothing interesting for me in Dubai and Prague was a total snoozefest until the Red Light district opened up. The details for advertisements and world building were excellent, but the locations, characters, and overall plot just had nothing there. The game felt very shallow and never gave me a real reason to care or a reason to choose one character over the other.
Also, the fact that we were limited to Prague as the hub world was extremely disappointing for me. What I liked in Human Revolution and even the original game was that you got to explore a variety of different levels and cities. You got to go to Detroit, Hengsha, Montreal, freaking Antarctica. You could see extreme cases of poverty and also a utopian vision of what the future could look like. I mean the Tai Yong medical office building still leaves me in awe and actually made me glad there was a gold hue to everything.
Golem city was wonderful in terms of showing poverty, but once you got back to Prague it just felt so constrained. Which is ironic because the levels in Human Revolution were extremely linear.
Ultimately, I think they needed a stronger story and a more compelling location. I know that probably isn't what led to lackluster sales, but I couldn't see myself recommending anyone else to play Mankind Divided after playing it myself.
I hope Cyberpunk tackles some of them.
I never asked for this....
"Yeah, RIP."
"...only mights and maybes."
The story was clumsily told and the characters generally not that memorable or interesting.
The gameplay was good but also very much more of the same.
And yeah...the lack of multiple hubs was a big letdown.
Just couldn't get into it.
This is bad news in a terrible time.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
I thought MD was pretty good! I don't think it broke new ground but it was fun, and the story did go places even if it didn't wrap up properly
It just needed more of what was there (and it seemed like they were obviously going for sequel bait)
And the story, like many said, wasn't strong. Too many plots seemed... predicable, which isn't what you want in a game about conspiracies being real and spies being spies. The message was great, which makes it one of the games I think everyone should play, but maybe not on consoles.
Yeah I enjoyed it too, still preferred HR. That said MD wasn't IW levels of bad or anything.
I'm a bit surprised by the news as I was under the impression MD still sold quite well. Maybe not?
While I know that in MD they were trying to show you the poverty gap/racism there was one thing I could never get out of my head, namely that in HR they made it pretty clear the vast majority of people who had augments at the time were the wealthy and the elite. So, like, in MD I was more "Hah! That's what you get bourgeois sons of bitches!" and less "Those poor people."
?
Did you miss the street gangs with augs? The homeless suffering without Neuropozyne? Panchea using augmented construction workers?
Most of the cutting edge augs were incredibly expensive, but the average person seemed pretty able to get them easily.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
You could be at the pinnacle of your skill in your profession or trade, but it didn't matter one bit since some random Joe with money could get an aug to do what you do only better than you ever could.
I feel like the message in MD could have been more home hitting if the ghettos were full of natural humans instead of augmented humans. Though with the ending of HR there wasn't really much they could do about that.
Plus the societal problem in MD would at best last a generation and at worst two. I mean augmentation wasn't genetic. Whereas if the reverse scenario was the case you'd be facing an nearly unsolvable human crisis. Far more powerful IMHO.
HR was about how the backlash to change can be more dangerous then whatever can be explored.
MD was about how the powerful exploit fear of minority groups to further their influence, and how opression will lead to violence, always. The augmented might die out in a generation, sure, but that's still millions of people, reliant on medication, maintenance, and security; people who no country in the world will take due to actions beyond the augs control. That already is a massive, nigh unsolvable humanitarian issue.
*Well, except for good ol' Bob Page.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Yeah, as much as I enjoyed playing Mankind Divided, it felt like it took the flaws of Human Revolution - chiefly the fact that it felt like a sidestory in its own plot - and merely exacerbated them, in the process losing a bunch of things that game did right. I can't really remember anything anybody actually said in MD, whereas HR had a bunch of quotable lines. It's telling that Jensen and Pritchard had better back-and-forth in System Rift than anybody else in the base game. Prague was fun to explore but no substitute for a change in venue, and both UI and inventory management felt like clear steps backward; far too many things had 'hold E' as a prompt.
If I had to chalk it up to one thing that ultimately sank the series, I'd point to the 'Deus Ex Universe' concept outlined in the video. Frankly, that sounds like a terrible idea. The first game didn't have a broader universe to draw on, it was simply a well-executed story that stood on its own merits. HR's narrative stumbles could have been, and largely were, forgiven by the fact that it was a new team taking a stab at revitalizing the series; the hope being they would take dangling plot threads - Illuminati power struggles, Jensen's past - and build on them over time. Instead they just made another episode in the Adam Jensen Show, complete with a 'to be continued!' and electronic old men complaining that they would've gotten away with it if not for those snooping augs.
Honestly, it feels kinda like my issue with the new Star Wars movies, where there's this broader narrative that doesn't fit neatly into a single, stand-alone flick. The plot lasts long enough to hit character beats and big events, without much care about how it comes together. Incidental characters, like the guy that plants the bomb in the opening of MD, have these deep backstories that require DLC to flesh out, while people actually critical to the story in front of us are underdeveloped, paper thin, or just dull. Deus Ex doesn't need a broader universe to draw from, just write a straightforward a-to-b-to-x-to-7 conspiracy story that doesn't require tie-in novels or lousy spinoff games to explain who everybody is.
It's too bad, really. There was room for more storytelling as they built up to covering the first game again, but I think someone high up the food chain was too interested in franchise potential.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
In HR it was the augmented people creating an insurmountable poverty gap between themselves and natural humans. In MD the tables have been turned and you're supposed to feel sympathy for the augmented despite the fact they were screwing over the rest of humanity without a second thought just a few years prior.
You still felt sympathy for them, I mean I'm not heartless. If you had the money to get augmented to stay competitive then that's a pretty easy choice to make. It's just that based on the setting of the first game augmentation was propelling the world to a far, far worse future and that is what was in the back of my head the whole time I played MD.
Most people working the physical jobs were not paying for those augs themselves. The companies that they were working for said "Hey you need to be augmented so get these augments or get fired" So they were either forced to get these augs they never asked for or be jobless. Then shit went down and they were jobless anyway and now augged with a neuro addiction.
If they had the money to be augging themselves up for fun they probably weren't working these jobs in the first place.
I think you may have missed/overlooked a big chunk of the story there.
Bah humbug,
Yeah, I just picked it up this winter sale. I really liked Human Revolution, but this....I can only play it in 10-15 minute chunks before I just get too bummed and have to stop. Quit playing right after the prologue.
You know those those movie sequels that, despite getting the same main actor and maybe the same props and sets, feel like they should have been direct to video? That's what MD feels like to me.
The writing in HR felt like it was divided between a B team Goofus and A team Gallant. Goofus was in charge of the overall main plot while Gallant filled in all the gaps the best he could.
rant/
Gallant- Does great job establishing the world as you walk around your workplace.
Goofus- Decides to give it the same intro as Double Dragon where a large man punches a hole through a wall to kidnap your girlfriend by slugging her in the stomach and carry her off.
Mood
Gallant- Show Jensen trying to adjust by using his robot arms to indulge in human vices like whiskey and smoking. This was plenty and subtly effective in conveying the idea.
Goofus- Decides it's too subtle and adds something. "His arms are so strong he cracks the shot glass he was trying to gingerly hold! He is now a tragic strong monster! Like the Hulk!" *plays with Hulk action figure*
The lore
Gallant- Sticks in really smart side conversations how augmentation is unofficially becoming mandatory since non-augs cannot compete with the labor market, with the expensive drug treatments turning them into indentured servants.
Goofus- Has people treating hacking out their limbs and eyes like getting a new iPhone.
Plot progression
Gallant- Some really great, organic details in all of the email conversations.
Goofus- Has Jensen be a total idiot during boss cutscenes (the Chinese CEO was painful to watch).
Final Act
Goofus- "ZOMBIE AUGOCALYPSE!"
Gallant- "........"
What bummed me about MD was that it felt like they fired Gallant and handed the whole thing over to Goofus. They had such a good theme going with the tension between augs and "obsolete" humans in a global labor market with nuanced touches. Then they ruined it all with that dumb zombie augocalypse ending. Now when they need tension they just keep falling back on "the incident" instead of anything applicable to the real world. Nuance is hard!
I haven't found a single well-written or amusing email either. Just two guys talking about how they think a building is haunted
Gallant- Would have smoothly and organically used to intro to convey the state of affairs to the player.
Goofus- Clumsy newscaster voice over with stilted exposition. Cut to standard http://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/2960757/robliefeld3
Characters
Gallant- Memorable characters like Sarif who is ruining humanity but you can't help but feel for since he actually, naively thinks he's improving lives with progress. Also great barbs between Jensen and Pritchard.
Goofus- Lame barbs with...some military guy? Later you meet up with...some woman? "Buzzcut" and "woman" is all that comes to mind for them. I can't remember the names of MD characters after one week yet I can remember all the major HR characters that I haven't touched in 5 years.
"The walkthrough"
Gallant- Walk through Sarif industries to see the new world.
Goofus- Straight up ripoff of the Half Life 2 opening tram ride, complete with City 17 stop and Combine guards.
The bombing
Gallant- Would have written it naturally expecting the player to feel sympathy for bombing victims by default.
Goofus- "How are they supposed to be sad unless we have a small child crying for mommy? Can I sneak in the shot glass shatter clip again? Where did I put my sledgehammer?"
The performance and polish just felt off too. The pre-bombing "walkthrough" was glitchy as hell. Pedestrians just popping up 5 feet away and half of a dozen instances of people just walking through each other.
Somehow I got the feeling that Goofus had friends in upper management (or WAS upper management!) and was either feeling jealous or cheap when they arranged to fire Gallant for the sequel.
/rant
JC's journey ends with him being the one in control at the end. And while different forces pull at him, it's ultimately his decision. The tables have (mostly) turned. Similarly with Jensen at the end of HR. They (JC and Jensen) know the truth, and while they have a choice to make, the choice is theirs. It's not made by anyone else. And that's why HR's "fuck it, don't send any signal" option is interesting - it simultaneously robs the factions of having the choice they want, while leaving them (and the status quo, more or less) intact.
Jensen's double agent routine in MKD felt like a step back to me. He had far less autonomy than what he rightfully earned at the end of the previous game. He's a pawn again, but this time he's being directly controlled by two factions. There's a hierarchy he needs to respect, rules he needs to follow. It's far more restrictive than anything he had to deal with while working for Sarif. And it forces us to deal with people who are merely obstacles. Hardly anyone in Task Force 29 is interesting. Alex Vega is a walking cliche. It's just frustrating and doesn't seem to follow from what we know of Jensen in the previous game (although, that's a dangling plot point which will likely never be resolved now... sigh).
I think a more interesting move would've been to make Jensen almost a complete lone wolf. No military red tape, no (willingly) being pulled in different directions by forces with their own dubious agendas. Let Jensen be a free radical (boom, there's your subtitle) in the system. He can meet a tech support guy (or, even better, recruit Pritchard again since their contentious relationship is both fun and interesting), meet a pilot, meet various agents of the different factions during the course of his investigation/activism naturally, and choose to deal with them as he pleases.
Jensen's always going to be a bit limited in options due to a need to stay within prequel territory. Kind of dulls the ability to do anything big and world changing on his own or get away from some of the factions.
That said, I think the play on the formula in MKD is that Jensen is part of a conspiracy himself and sometimes butting against other lower level operatives on the other side. Not one of the bigger themes, but I enjoyed speculating how much I could trust some of the people who technically were enemies, not always necessarily by choice, but still were helpful.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
eh, they could always do a "reboot" and tell the story in a way they want.
I'm gonna miss Deus Ex.
Sure it needed a bit of polish here and there but it was still good.
Kinda reminds me of the Dredd movie
Yeah, I wouldn't be killing them so much as knocking them all out. I may have picked up and accessed all the terminals and junk too though, IDK. I'd have to check.
It was some heavy shit
Jensen's new augs are shady as all heck...
:winky:
Ain't nobody got time for proper installation when the augs are this rad!
I am sorry. I didn't want to say this. But I have to.
Phrasing!
In game, that kid walks past you, conspicuously centre of frame and filling me with dread, cause I know what happens in the trailer, but Jensen remains blissfully unaware. Minutes later, bomb goes off.
In both scenarios, Jensen then touches a dead woman's hand.
I wonder if that was a case of a change in development, or if it was always meant to play out as it does in game and the trailer was an alternative what-if version to avoid spoilers/foreshadow what was about to happen for people who saw it.
Gud stuff tho. I managed to trip and fall into completing a side quest I hadn't known about, which is always a joy
Also, managed to do both objectives in the final mission! I chose to rescue the delegates, then remembered I had a bomb jammer from doing the Stanek mission earlier, so I went and stomped Marchenko, disabled the bombs, then rushed to Brown and crew and saved them too. Miller died. :<
I wonder if the other binary choice missions were possible to complete both? I did break into the bank as a side quest earlier, perhaps I could have obtained the Orchid info there?
I was in such a rush at the end that I didn't use my last 4 Praxis kits. Hope they carry over to NG+ because I wanna do this again as the one true machine god.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Generally I think it's just Square Enix being given cliff notes, concept art and general vertical slices and getting their CG departments to riff off those much earlier in production. It was same with Human Revolution's trailers as well, they had certain scenes and stuff but also showcased abilities and execution animations out of sequence etc, and villains displaying the powers that they had in the game but the scenes they were in didn't exist at all (lol Yelena Fedorova randomly gunning down people in Detroit)
In Mankind Divided's one they show a confrontation on the theatre stage with the big burly Russian bloke, which is obviously complete nonsense but both the Russian guy and the theatre actually exist in the game
Alas, no, that one is arbitrarily blocked, though for a while it was possible to do both, since each gets locked out by entering parts of the other's location; those trigger areas were avoidable in one case, but then they patched it so that finishing the quest there automatically wrecked the other.
The one caveat is there's still no text prompt telling you this, which also was present in at least 1.9 R1 of Shifter. That code's also in the Revision version, and I'm not sure why it's not triggering; digging a little deeper to see if I can iron it out. Fortunately, I haven't noticed any problems resulting from the change myself. Was actually kinda fun poking through it; the code they use is similar enough to Java that it's (relatively) not hard to follow if you understand the basics.
Linking the modded DeusEx.u file here if anybody else wants to take a look/make use of the feature - place in the Deus Ex\Revision\Shifter folder, rename the file to just DeusEx.u and you're good to go. If anybody runs into any problems, or can think of why the messaging might not work, by all means gimme a poke and let me know!
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine