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One thing that really bugged me about DE:HR was the last level committing that ancient gaming sin that I thought was largely abandoned by the end of the 90's: making the last level/boss-fight completely different to the rest of the game. If I spend a game patiently hoarding powerful items, honing powerful skills and so on, then the last level should be an intense test of all of these abilities that wraps up the game in a rewarding and tidy manner. The original DE did this pretty well as you had to basically do the things you had already been doing for the entire game, like hacking and sneaking and shooting and lock-picking and even swimming! In HR all of your sneaking, all of your weapon and melee and anti-detection abilities become meaningless because it's essentially a zombie level and then the game ends. So loving dumb.
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Jan 23, 2014 03:11
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With upgraded enviro resist, the best strategy for a pacifist run in the arctic was to lay down a gas mine, go all "HEYYYY YOOOOUUU GUYYYYSSSS" to the hordes, and stand on it as they all charged into the nap pile.
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Jan 23, 2014 03:20
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Yeah, I spent the entire game sneaking up on dudes and doing nonlethal takedowns. Facing a horde of zombies... well, I never asked for that.
idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jan 23, 2014 |
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Jan 23, 2014 03:28
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DE:IW and DE:HR finally let me understand how all those Highlander, Star Wars and Matrix fans feel. There is only one Deus Ex.
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Jan 23, 2014 03:57
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unfair posted:The games don't generally outright deceive/lie to the player in my experience, so I doubt he was pretending. What? Characters lie to you all the time. You're told tons of stuff about the WTO and the big church (whatever it's called) that all turns out to be bullshit because they're both really Illuminati fronts, same with the stuff that's really a front for the Dentons. I think the Templars and borg are mostly up-front with you, but there's no reason to assume that anything anyone says is the truth unless it's conclusively demonstrated.
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Jan 23, 2014 04:01
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It's true that Alex did not actually discover a document entitled "The Omar's Secret Plan to Murder Everyone On Earth", so there is definitely room for doubt. But... well, let me put it like this. There are two possibilities here: 1. The Omar had a secret plan to bring about the apocalypse and kill everyone and take over. 2. The advice given to you by a dude indoctrinated and augmented by the Omar just happened, by coincidence, to lead to everyone being killed and the Omar taking over if you followed it. If you choose to believe hypothesis two, I can't say you're definitively wrong.
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Jan 23, 2014 04:16
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Magnetic North posted:DE:IW and DE:HR finally let me understand how all those Highlander, Star Wars and Matrix fans feel. There is only one Deus Ex. IW I can understand, but what's wrong with HR?
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Jan 23, 2014 05:23
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Also, making those drat triangles on the backs of those super-powered agents the weak spot the game claims they are would help, too. That is part of my problem with IW's endgame, as "early" as the antarctic. I've found that the only weapon that deals consistently good damage to those super soldiers is that gun you liberate from the factory at the very start of the game. Once the super soldiers appear, you may as well toss most of your other weaponry into the trash, because you'll rarely have occasion to use them ever again. As far as the UA system goes, it felt like the cap on how much you can carry was far too low. Some of those weapons could chew through most of (if not more than!) a clip with a single shot.
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Jan 23, 2014 05:36
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Ometeotl posted:IW I can understand, but what's wrong with HR? HR did a lot of things right that nobody was expecting, but compared to the first game it still pales on most fronts. It was a respectful prequel and I was relieved to find it as good as it was, but if you look at them next to each other there's really no doubt which is the deeper game.
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Jan 23, 2014 06:00
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I think it did the right thing as a prequel in respect with the lore...Kinda. Storywise, I think it does a lot to set up the plot of DX. You couldn't really have a plot as convoluted and batshit as DX when none of the story elements from DX are relevant to the HR universe. So they had to set those things up and I think that HR did that well. At the end of HR, the Illuminati have been referenced, Versalife is starting to dominate and Augs are becoming a legitimate thing in society. I think the setting was a little too high-tech. DX looks like poo poo does now, but with a few gadgets added on. HR was awfully slick.
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Jan 23, 2014 07:17
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I think that's more of a reflection of the time when the game was made. When DX was made, I'd say it was awfully futuristic in a contemporary sense. Plus it was still pretty heavily influenced by the aesthetic of the cyberpunk that the designers were familiar with, and what they were capable of executing. What makes something look futuristic and gritty now is a lot different from '99 and 2000.
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Jan 23, 2014 07:22
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Hammer Floyd posted:I think it did the right thing as a prequel in respect with the lore...Kinda. I think the slickness actually works to emphasize the decline of the Deus Ex world between 2027 and 2052. As the LP pointed out after the first episode, a lot of poo poo went down between the two games, including massive flooding, pandemics, economic crashes and depression, and wars that split the developed world apart. In HR, you get a sense that the world is in crisis mode. Most things are still functioning, but there are cracks starting to show. By the time of the original game, the world is in deep poo poo, and its a much more hopeless, dystopian feeling. HR as a game was pretty awesome in my opinion. It falls down in some areas (the boss fights, the final level, the ending 'choice'), and definitely is not as deep as the original or nearly as classic. However, I think we got the best we can expect out of a new Deus Ex game. And every now and then, you can definitely feel the shine of the old game coming through. I'm really hoping a game is made to bridge the two in some way, it would be really interesting to see the setting in the middle of that decline between the games.
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Jan 23, 2014 07:45
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I loved HR, but having played both games, I just can't reconcile them together into the same franchise. I look at HR as a completely different world as the original Deus Ex. Deus Ex is great because it was a cross between the Matrix and X-Files that was trying to be "cool" in a really naive, 90's videogame way. Human Revolution on the other hand decided to go for philosophical and emotional, with its love story and different soundtrack style, and touching on transhumanist themes. I didn't expect anything else from a game made so long after and by a different team than the original. There's just something about the length of time between sequels- why Terminator and Terminator 2 are so different from Terminator 3 and 4. Sometimes art is just too much of a product of its own time- make sequels close together and they're cohesive, try to make a sequel a decade after the fact and you can hardly compare the two. Now none of those opinions are about the gameplay. I thought both games played fantastic and the minute I started stacking crates on top of one another to climb over stuff in DX:HR, I had a huge smile on my face- that was what really felt like a DX game to me.
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Jan 23, 2014 07:48
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See, I first played Human Revolution, having never played Deus Ex. Now when I try to play Deus Ex it's... hard. The game is ugly, the setting makes me think of old Shadowrun, it tries to be cool and gritty in a very camp-y 90s way. More than that, the gameplay is... not that fun? There's no feeling of impact to anything, even the rockets explode boringly. Plus, the writing is so... stilted. Paul doesn't sound like your brother, he sounds like a robot. Everyone sounds like a robot. And not just in voice - theres no emotion, just monotone droll boring vocabulary. The only character who feels non-robotic is Gunther. So just like with Mario, I apparently have the Wrong opinion. Never played Invisible War, though.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:02
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idonotlikepeas posted:It's true that Alex did not actually discover a document entitled "The Omar's Secret Plan to Murder Everyone On Earth", so there is definitely room for doubt. But... well, let me put it like this. There are two possibilities here: Well, the clincher for me has always been that the ending mentions centuries of conflict, whole ages of heroes and so on. The Omar don't win a war. They're just the last ones standing when every other rear end in a top hat fucks the planet over six ways to Sunday. The Omar might have a general plan "We would be hosed if anyone won here", but they never seem to focus on details in their plots. It's more general "Okay, if we do this, we don't have to worry as much about dying to this thing" Don't think they'd have a master plan at the end when everywhere else, their playstyle has been "Don't kill us and help us find ways to not die, we'll pay you and give you discounts. Deal?", not everyone else's big convoluted power plays. I mean, even their ending quote is summed up as "gently caress ambition." Everybody else plays to win. The Omar play to not lose. (Also, for the Leo situation, weird they tell him they're going to convert him in his sleep. Seems to cost most of the benefits to the method, and the Omar didn't seem like total morons, unlike everyone else. Way I figure, it's a response to the Templar problem, and they're thinking it could go three ways. 1) He stays, they convert him, and he isn't a possible security leak. Problem solved! 2) He stays, but since he doesn't want to get converted he's paranoid as hell, and when they can't get him, the Templar can't either. Thus no leak, problem solved. 3) He runs, is out of templar turf, and isn't a potential security leak. Problem solved! Him going on a killing spree wasn't expected, maybe. But these things happen.)
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Jan 23, 2014 08:05
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If by robotic you mean there were no quirky, instantly likeable, endearingly silly, glowing characters and everyone was a shade-of-grey in a deliberately morally ambiguous setting, then yes.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:05
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My problem with HR had boss battles. I never played it and I never will because of that. I don't care that bosses don't count as kills in some statistic. To me a kill is a kill. (I'm one of those people that were upset about the one required kill in DX.) Of course I have not played HR, so maybe I'm full of poo poo, but the heresay is that there are boss battles.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:06
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There are boss battles and they die at the end of it. However, you never have to shoot them in the Director's Cut, or the base version of the game. In the Director's Cut, they just give you more ways around a shooting fight. And if you're not going to play a game because of that well I guess that's too bad for you
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Jan 23, 2014 08:07
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Slavvy posted:If by robotic you mean there were no quirky, instantly likeable, endearingly silly, glowing characters and everyone was a shade-of-grey in a deliberately morally ambiguous setting, No, I mean the dialogue sounds like a robot thought it up. Everyone is always super... I don't know how it explain it, but look at Paul in the videos so far. He doesn't come off like a brother at all, the grunts sound more familiar with you than he does.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:30
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Slavvy posted:If by robotic you mean there were no quirky, instantly likeable, endearingly silly, glowing characters and everyone was a shade-of-grey in a deliberately morally ambiguous setting, You have to admit that Deus Ex's voice acting was far from a strong point. An amazing number of characters both important and incidental are voiced by the same six individuals trying to put on funny accents, and I'm pretty sure no one told Jamie Reyes' VA that his character is an old friend of JC's and likes to kid around with him, so the emphasis on all his lines comes out wrong.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:37
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KittyEmpress posted:No, I mean the dialogue sounds like a robot thought it up. Everyone is always super... I don't know how it explain it, but look at Paul in the videos so far. He doesn't come off like a brother at all, the grunts sound more familiar with you than he does. Paul is JC's senior by quite a few years, not to mention Paul has been gone on various assignments for a while. Also, they're both government spooks. I think the voices actually sorta work in that respect. The real reason everything seems so clunky is that we're used to today's AAA production standards, even if I kinda like the stilted goofiness of it all. DX's presentation was awkward even when it came out, but it was just as good or better than its contemporaries in the script/VA department. E: the best example of VA/Scripting I can think of from the same year would be Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jan 23, 2014 |
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Jan 23, 2014 08:40
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Deus Ex's voice acting is part of its charm. Also it fits the primitive facial animation perfectly.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:55
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Obligatory mention of 'My vision is augmented.' The voicework kind of grows on you, despite how bad it is. It was a simpler time.
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Jan 23, 2014 08:56
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KittyEmpress posted:No, I mean the dialogue sounds like a robot thought it up. Everyone is always super... I don't know how it explain it, but look at Paul in the videos so far. He doesn't come off like a brother at all, the grunts sound more familiar with you than he does. Well, they are robots. Also Paul has seen some serious poo poo. Most of them have, so it kinda makes sense in that respect. But I really can't defend DX much, it is a game of rose-tinted goggles turned up to max. I remember playing it when it was new, but the complexity of the conversations were just way above what I could understand at the time and I often gave up either in the training part or on Liberty Island, because I never thought to go back through a stage to UNATCO HQ. This, despite playing Fallout without problems.
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Jan 23, 2014 09:08
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Ometeotl posted:IW I can understand, but what's wrong with HR? No Gravitas posted:My problem with HR had boss battles. I never played it and I never will because of that. I don't care that bosses don't count as kills in some statistic. To me a kill is a kill.  (and if you do put in a pacifist achievement, include some kill stats so we know when someone gets killed in a random way and ruins our playthrough  )Night10194 posted:Obligatory mention of 'My vision is augmented.' 
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Jan 23, 2014 09:23
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Uh, I guess most of you guys missed it, but they fixed the boss-battles in DX:HR, you know? The Director's Cut edition on Steam ($5 cheap if you already own the game) will allow you to use stealth and other things to deal with the boss-battles now.
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Jan 23, 2014 09:33
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Yeah the Director's Cut of HR fixes all my complaints with it except the multiple-choice ending. The ending very clearly seems like they HAD big plans for it, but it ended up rushed because they were coming up on release date. I definitely consider Human Revolution a worthy successor, and I think it sets up Deus Ex very well, but they're very much apples and oranges despite surface similarities. If you're looking for something that feels more like Original Deus Ex, Except More Modern, EYE: Divine Cybermancy might fit the bill. It's WONDERFULLY complicated and open-ended.
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Jan 23, 2014 09:40
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I got through the final level of DX:HR using stealth and non-lethal takedowns, and it didn't play that much differently from any other levels if you did that. The NPCs moved more erratically, which made it more challenging, but that felt pretty appropriate for the final level. I've never done a pure combat run that's gotten all the way to the end, but I imagine that would result in things changing up quite a bit.
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Jan 23, 2014 09:55
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unfair posted:
Agent Interrobang posted:
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Jan 23, 2014 09:56
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KittyEmpress posted:No, I mean the dialogue sounds like a robot thought it up. Everyone is always super... I don't know how it explain it, The V/A in Deus Ex always reminded me of Dragnet and J.C. of Jack Webb, with out Webb's v/o. The dialog is very short, clipped, and unnatural. The camera cuts back and forth between speakers creating a very artificial, abrupt but not entirely unpleasant rhythm.
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Jan 23, 2014 10:22
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Agent Interrobang posted:Yeah the Director's Cut of HR fixes all my complaints with it except the multiple-choice ending. This comes up a lot whenever I read anything about DX:HR, and I've always wanted a chance to talk about it. It's mostly that I didn't think that the multiple choice ending of DX:HR was really a bad thing. The game as a whole wasn't about agency- sure you talked to people, but you rarely made a choice about anything, you either did a task or you didn't, either way it never really was about influencing the narrative. Jensen spends most the game exploring the idea of human augmentation, about the state of the world, about the organizations vying for control of it, and the last level provides a capstone argument for each of the different schools of thoughts. It's then the player/Jensen is provided with the single full choice they make in the entire game. While the mechanism for providing the choice was clumsy and ugly, it the fact it was multiple choice was totally in line with how the game is preparing the player to make that decision at the end. It was a totally interesting way to end it.
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Jan 23, 2014 11:09
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Agent Interrobang posted:If you're looking for something that feels more like Original Deus Ex, Except More Modern, EYE: Divine Cybermancy might fit the bill. It's WONDERFULLY complicated and open-ended. It's certainly complicated. If you play it, you'd better really like watching tutorial videos, 'cause a ton of them are dumped on you right at the start and everything is basically incomprehensible if you don't watch them. And to be honest, I'm just assuming that they do actually explain things because I certainly didn't bother watching them. Also, the people complaining about load times between levels in Invisible War are probably not going to be fans. I didn't get far, but from what I did play this game has the worst loading times I've ever seen. I ended up dying repeatedly to literally the second enemy encounter in the game and just gave up.
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Jan 23, 2014 11:48
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Hammer Floyd posted:I think it did the right thing as a prequel in respect with the lore...Kinda. My main problem is that most of that lore is actually in the Missing Link DLC, the main game itself has very little aside from a few hints about Versalife and White Helix, a couple brief Bob Page appearances, and a bit about nano-augmentation on Megan's computer. Tiggum posted:What? Characters lie to you all the time. You're told tons of stuff about the WTO and the big church (whatever it's called) that all turns out to be bullshit because they're both really Illuminati fronts, same with the stuff that's really a front for the Dentons. I think the Templars and borg are mostly up-front with you, but there's no reason to assume that anything anyone says is the truth unless it's conclusively demonstrated. Xander77 posted:That is literally one of the most mentioned compliments to Deus Ex in any review (right after gameplay possibilities) - the NPC's constantly lie to the player to service their own interests and don't really draw attention to it in a big stupid reveal. You just haven't been paying attention. I said "don't generally lie" because there are a few instances of it, but in most cases they just omit to give you information and tell one-sided stories that make you misinterpret a situation. Even when you're talking to Maggie Chow the first half of her speech could theoretically be truthful (and she even tells you accurately where to find evidence of the theft). But in cases like the WTO vs Order Church they don't even have to lie to the player. Those are two factions, they just don't tell you they're both controlled by two allies. Even the lower level people in the factions aren't aware of the nature of the conspiracy. Unless of course you consider "lying by omission" a thing, in which case everything in Deus Ex is a lie - it's built on secrets.
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Jan 23, 2014 13:52
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unfair posted:My main problem is that most of that lore is actually in the Missing Link DLC, the main game itself has very little aside from a few hints about Versalife and White Helix, a couple brief Bob Page appearances, and a bit about nano-augmentation on Megan's computer. Except for all the people labeled suspicious whatever that will inevitably shoot you in the back given the chance, I'm pretty sure manderly "Surrenders" before trying to shoot you on your return to unatco, IW had a decent number of good ones such as an attendant that was just a thug who stashed the real attendant's body in the closet, and a templar prisoner that says he's cool with you right up until he starts shooting at you after being released.
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Jan 23, 2014 17:21
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Tiggum posted:It's certainly complicated. If you play it, you'd better really like watching tutorial videos, 'cause a ton of them are dumped on you right at the start and everything is basically incomprehensible if you don't watch them. And to be honest, I'm just assuming that they do actually explain things because I certainly didn't bother watching them. Also, the people complaining about load times between levels in Invisible War are probably not going to be fans. I didn't get far, but from what I did play this game has the worst loading times I've ever seen. I ended up dying repeatedly to literally the second enemy encounter in the game and just gave up. The load times are loving CRAZY, this is true, and it's not a game terribly invested in explaining itself. Said load times have been assuaged somewhat by patches, though, and I have a lot of sympathy to give for a game where you can wirelessly hack a door, and there's a non-zero chance it will hack you back and dump a virus into your wetware that makes you hallucinate.
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Jan 23, 2014 18:06
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I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the SSC when discussing IW. I felt that was such an obvious, intelligence-insulting, lazy slap in the face to the player. "Guys, we don't have enough money/time to model different enemies for different parts of the game. What do we do?" "OK, I got it. Let's write in a multinational security corporation that hires out identically-equipped guards all around the world, to parties ranging from small-time crime bosses to powerful corporations." "Brilliant!" With how glaring and obvious this was, I honestly think that universal ammo was put in just so they wouldn't have to model ammo drops for different weapons.
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Jan 23, 2014 22:49
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I never really thought about that, but hah, yeah. For example, compare SSC to Belltower.
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Jan 23, 2014 22:55
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Psion posted:I never really thought about that, but hah, yeah. For example, compare SSC to Belltower. Yep, Belltower has different types of enemies AND are an integral part of the plot. SSC, on the other hand, is literally just an excuse to have the same enemies everywhere in the game.
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Jan 23, 2014 22:57
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Night10194 posted:Obligatory mention of 'My vision is augmented.' And I'm going to throw in an obligatory mention of Maggie Chow. Her voice acting is... something else, that's for sure.
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Jan 24, 2014 01:09
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Doctor_Blueninja posted:And I'm going to throw in an obligatory mention of Maggie Chow. I do remember reading an interview years ago about J.C.'s voice work, apparently it was supposed to be delivered in a 'neutral' tone so that players could interpret what was going on however they like. This had the unfortunate side effect of making him sound like a robot. For the life of me I cannot find the interview anymore.
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Jan 24, 2014 01:28
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