Sacrificing Deus Ex to the gods...

[Tuftears]

I've been playing DXHR stealthy/nonlethal! (Pacifist achievement: kill no one other than the regrettable boss fights) I would say, you don't want to try to line up your shots on the enemies unless they are facing away from you. If they are facing you, they'll see and shoot you quickly. Cover seems fine, great even-- when used for stealth. As you say, your accuracy will suffer a lot if you can't line up your shot with the ironsights/scope.

There's an automatic inventory manager so you don't have to worry about your inventory much, except for not having enough space.

[Crusader]

I finished the game yesterday and I must say I liked it. My impressions.

The good:
- Stealth is rewarded with extra xp and makes the game challenging. Sneaking past guards, finding secret routes, etc while remaining undetected is challenging and fun.
- Combat remains challenging throughout the game if you chose to engage in it. You can die in a few shots. You are not a god of war.
- The story, while a bit cliché, is brought well and leaves you with choice on how to approach a situation.
- There's a lot of exploring to do.
- Its very Cyberpunk Shadowrun-ish. I like Shadowrun.
- freedom of choice in what enhancements you activate influences how you play the game. You want combat? get them armor hardeners and recoil reducers. You more of a stealth type? Hacking and stealth enhancers are for you. Some powers are invaluable later on though, like picking up heavy objects or being able to drop from great height (which looks extremely cool by the way).

The bad:
- The game is linear as hell. There are a few optional side-quests, but that's it. The story changes depending on your actions, the missions don't.
- Building layouts in this game make no sense at all.
- Dumb AI. It was mentioned before. Example: I open a door to a room and peek inside. A guard sees me and goes on yellow alert and moves in to investigate. This guard then stops right in front of the door, but does not step inside and looks around the corner where I am sitting. Instead he will stand there a few seconds, before going back on patrol.
- Boss fights are easy if you bring a big gun and ridiculously hard if you, true to your stealth persona, don't lug around a rocket launcher.

As I said, I found the experience rewarding. I liked the setting, the cyberpunk, the stealth and the story was engaging enough. Will I replay it? No, there's no reward in doing so.

[Zarathustra]

Crusader, I have to disagree on the "ridiculously hard" boss comment. My first play through the game was completely nonlethal. I walked into the first boss encounter carrying a stun gun, tranq rifle, and a handful of gas/concussion grenades. He slaughtered me.

Then I looked around the room and realized they have exploding barrels strewn about the place, lots of crates and lockers with explosives and other weapons of the more deadly variety... they basically give you everything you need to take him out. This holds true for the other two bosses.

I'd argue that the final boss gets it "right" in that there are a couple ways to take said boss out (keeping spoilers down here). But I've seen so much in the way of complaints that I'm kinda wondering if these people didn't take the time to look around and just jumped to the "I have to FIGHT him??" kneejerk forum post reaction.

Please know that I'm not saying that's what you are doing. But I've been on some messages boards where it's gotten out of hand.

Beyond that, I agree with everything you said. I'd also suggest you consider replaying it just to take a different approach. I'm finding the game plays completely different if I'm going in with guns blazing. The patrol patterns in areas are definitely set up so you can exploit them with stealth, but they're also good at giving you openings for combat. I had a great enfilade in the second room of the tutorial area, taking out 3 enemies at once (recoil be damned!)

Edit/Addition: Also, you can use refrigerators to open doors, for portable cover, and as weapons. I like using refrigerators.

[Crusader]

Crusader, I have to disagree on the "ridiculously hard" boss comment. My first play through the game was completely nonlethal. I walked into the first boss encounter carrying a stun gun, tranq rifle, and a handful of gas/concussion grenades. He slaughtered me.

Then I looked around the room and realized they have exploding barrels strewn about the place, lots of crates and lockers with explosives and other weapons of the more deadly variety... they basically give you everything you need to take him out. This holds true for the other two bosses.

I'd argue that the final boss gets it "right" in that there are a couple ways to take said boss out (keeping spoilers down here). But I've seen so much in the way of complaints that I'm kinda wondering if these people didn't take the time to look around and just jumped to the "I have to FIGHT him??" kneejerk forum post reaction.

Please know that I'm not saying that's what you are doing. But I've been on some messages boards where it's gotten out of hand.

Beyond that, I agree with everything you said. I'd also suggest you consider replaying it just to take a different approach. I'm finding the game plays completely different if I'm going in with guns blazing. The patrol patterns in areas are definitely set up so you can exploit them with stealth, but they're also good at giving you openings for combat. I had a great enfilade in the second room of the tutorial area, taking out 3 enemies at once (recoil be damned!)

Edit/Addition: Also, you can use refrigerators to open doors, for portable cover, and as weapons. I like using refrigerators.

I have to change my earlier stetement about rediculously hard boss fights and now must say that all boss figths are piss easy. The answser? EPM grenades.

Also, I never knew you could destroy doors! Daaaayum! (I hacked that room and picked up all the mines. )

[Bolty]

The bad:
- The game is linear as hell. There are a few optional side-quests, but that's it. The story changes depending on your actions, the missions don't.
- Building layouts in this game make no sense at all.
- Dumb AI. It was mentioned before. Example: I open a door to a room and peek inside. A guard sees me and goes on yellow alert and moves in to investigate. This guard then stops right in front of the door, but does not step inside and looks around the corner where I am sitting. Instead he will stand there a few seconds, before going back on patrol.
- Boss fights are easy if you bring a big gun and ridiculously hard if you, true to your stealth persona, don't lug around a rocket launcher.

I haven't played Deus Ex: Human Revolution yet, but everything you just wrote there (sans the boss fight complaint) could be said of the original game as well. Especially the bad AI. Those complaints were marginalized, and rightly so, because the other parts of the game were so incredibly well done.

[Zarathustra]

Also, I never knew you could destroy doors! Daaaayum! (I hacked that room and picked up all the mines. )

Most doors that can be opened can generally be damaged, even if you don't see a durability bar. Similarly, you don't need to have the aug to punch through walls, necessarily. You can use explosives or just shoot them... and shoot them... and shoot them...

[[wcip]Angel]

Much to my extreme surprise, Deus Ex: Human Revolution does not suck. You have no idea how much it shocked me to see the reviews on this.

Anyone try this game out yet?

I was shocked as well. Although, while I still enjoy it (3-4 hours into the game), I do not get the feeling I'm playing a Deus Ex game. Perhaps 10 years, a new setting and roster of characters will do that. Maybe it'll come back to me later in the game.

The game is decent, but as of yet, by no means great. GOTY for me (so far) is by FAR The Witcher 2, only to be superseded I suppose by Skyrim and Uncharted 3 in November.

As for Deus Ex3, it is a product of the times: streamlined simplicity. I remember one of the neat things about MGS2 was the ability to shoot bottles and glasses in the bar, and they would shatter into a thousand pieces. Shooting the ice bucket would send iceubes flying around the room. In DE3, shooting stuff in the scenery has no effect. It's like we're back in 1994. By no means a deal-breaker, but I thought we'd be past these pesky little anachronisms in video gaming by now.

The yellow tint around interactive objects is a feature also found in The Witcher 2, but it was part of the gameplay there, and had a logical explanation behind it. In DE3, why do doors, computers and cupboards have a yellow hew around them? There are a few of these things that individually help to break down my sense of immersion.

[Jester]

The yellow tint around interactive objects is a feature also found in The Witcher 2, but it was part of the gameplay there, and had a logical explanation behind it. In DE3, why do doors, computers and cupboards have a yellow hew around them? There are a few of these things that individually help to break down my sense of immersion.

In the end, you have to accept some measure of game logic, especially from the interface... otherwise, where does it end? Why can you carry around a rocket launcher without it appearing anywhere on your body? Why do guards not notice when their compatriots disappear one by one? How come every facility is set up to have several linear paths through them? There are always more things that "break immersion." Coleridge called it the willing suspension of disbelief - sometimes, we have to use it, especially for the little stuff.

If you want to play reality, you're already doing it. It's very immersive.

-Jester

[Crusader]

If you don't like the yellow hue, play on the highest difficulty. You don't get that help any more.

[Zarathustra]

You can turn off the highlighting, aiming reticule, or waypoint markers in any difficulty. I prefer the hardest difficulty with the aiming reticule turned back on. The game already penalizes you for blind firing without having to make things even harder in that regard.

As for shooting enemies in the face, if you're VERY quick, you can line up your shot, pop out of cover, and down them before they have time to react. There are some quality QuickDraw moments in the game that can mix things up.

[[wcip]Angel]

In the end, you have to accept some measure of game logic, especially from the interface... otherwise, where does it end?
-Jester

But it doesn't have to. That's why I mentioned The Witcher 2. The tint/hew could have been a skill/augmentation, and I wouldn't have given it any thought. Just give us the gobbledygook to explain it, and I'm happy as a clam.

I guess my grievance is not primarily with the yellow tint, but with the state of linearity and feeding the gamer explicity every line or action to be carried out as if we were 10.

And I do realise that I'm a hypocrite; choosing to keep the tint when I could just as easily turn it off. Upon starting the game, that was the first thing I rummaged through the options menu looking to check off, but when I did I found myself spending an annoying amount of time and energy simply moving my cursor over a lot of background clutter looking for that arbitrary pile that was actually interactive.

It was so much easier in the original where the designers didn't fill our screen with lots of stuff lying around in every office and on every desk. In trying to create a more immersive game world by adding more newspapers, files, books, realistic office-supplies and other items strewn about the gameworld, they have created the need for a tool to sift through all the clutter in order to find the small percentage that is actually interactive, and thus through that tool, immersion is ironically degraded (IMO).

Again, this is not a dealbreaker for me when it comes to DE3, but it's emblematic of a gaming culture that has evolved into the simple and simplified, a trend that applies equally to plot, theme and characterisation as it does gameplay.

[Jester]

But it doesn't have to. That's why I mentioned The Witcher 2. The tint/hew could have been a skill/augmentation, and I wouldn't have given it any thought. Just give us the gobbledygook to explain it, and I'm happy as a clam.

"We gave him AI object prioritization as part of his neural implants." -David Sarif, (hypothetical)

... would that have made you feel better? If so, why?

And I do realise that I'm a hypocrite; choosing to keep the tint when I could just as easily turn it off. Upon starting the game, that was the first thing I rummaged through the options menu looking to check off, but when I did I found myself spending an annoying amount of time and energy simply moving my cursor over a lot of background clutter looking for that arbitrary pile that was actually interactive.

Okay, so I understand you prefaced this paragraph correctly, but... I'm still confused. If you want it, have it. If you don't want it, don't have it. This sounds like complaining that the game is too easy, without having put it on the harder difficulties. If they give you the choice, use it... right?

It was so much easier in the original where the designers didn't fill our screen with lots of stuff lying around in every office and on every desk. In trying to create a more immersive game world by adding more newspapers, files, books, realistic office-supplies and other items strewn about the gameworld, they have created the need for a tool to sift through all the clutter in order to find the small percentage that is actually interactive, and thus through that tool, immersion is ironically degraded (IMO).

Yeah, things were much better before everything was interactive. Or, wait, I'm remembering something from the distant past...

I remember one of the neat things about MGS2 was the ability to shoot bottles and glasses in the bar, and they would shatter into a thousand pieces. Shooting the ice bucket would send iceubes flying around the room. In DE3, shooting stuff in the scenery has no effect. It's like we're back in 1994. By no means a deal-breaker, but I thought we'd be past these pesky little anachronisms in video gaming by now.

Do we want everything to be interactive, with lots of fun clutter to mess around with? Or a streamlined experience where only a small percentage of the game world can be interacted with? Can't really have it both ways...

-Jester

[[wcip]Angel]

I realise that, and I *am* coming to terms with the AI object prioritization in my neural implants (Btw, yes that statement would have helped. A little goobledygook goes a long way in the suspension of disbelief. It shows they cared enough to explain something that otherwise doesn't make any sense in the game.)

Just finished a few hours worth of playing and I've made my way to what I hope is the first of many overseas ventures in DE3. Although I am enjoying the game (I can now take down 2 enemies silently at the same time - squee!), I do find the level design somewhat peculiar. E.g: staircases that have no entries to floors until you reach the 4th also break the illusion that I'm playing a game. (the brothel)

Similarly to me slowly accepting stuff like the yellow tint, I might also start ignoring other shortcomings as well and just enjoy the story and the stealthy gameplay. I had my first boss fight, and I didn't feel it jarred me as much as the reviews I had read had lead me to believe I would.

[[wcip]Angel]

Just finished the game.
I did enjoy it, and my initial gripes were assuaged by the stealthy gameplay. I tried paying attention to the story, but I got lost along the way. Guess I didn't try hard enough.

Spoiler-ish warning:



Although I'm happy with my purchase, I still feel like they cut a few corners to appease today's gamers. I'm a big fan of multiple endings, but they should constitute something more than choosing where to press that final mouse click. The ending should be based on events and choices you make throughout the game, not just what you do for the (literally) last 2 seconds of the game. The original Resident Evil and Silent Hill 1 and 2 are decent examples of how to make multiple endings.

Still, I was moved by the final cinematics, and although I feel they dumbed down the some gameplay-elements, I didn't feel they did the same with the game's "philosophy" (in lacking of a morre suitable word).

8/10.

[Jester]

Also just finished the game. Overall impression? Very positive. Kudos especially to the art direction, which presented a beautiful, coherent style for the game.

Spoilers below...

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Overall, I thought the game fit the Deux Ex mould very nicely, and provided me with more than my money's worth. I played on Give Me Deus Ex, pacifist, which I think was the right decision. However, there were a few gripes.

First, the typhoon is *way* too powerful. On a pacifist run, I trivialized all the bosses past the first one - and I mean trivialized. All I did was wait for them to hit close range, use the typhoon, and eat candy bars if I ran out of energy. Boss = dead.

Second, I was swimming in praxis points. By the time I hit the one and only point where I needed them (saving Malik - you really are superman with full batteries, candy bars, and cloak...) There simply weren't enough things to spend your points on, which leads me to my next gripe...

Third, you don't really get to shape your character. Not really. By mid-way through, you can be everything at once, if you're playing carefully. There's no choice between the stealthy assassin, the brilliant hacker, or the aug'd-up killing machine. Just get everything that's good, and ignore the rest.

Fourth, while the "macro" writing on the game was very good - I liked the story, and while Megan's dubious nature was obvious from her outfit and strange facial expression (not to mention sci-fi tropes), I thought the pieces fit nicely... but the "micro" writing was not. People in Deus Ex should not be trusted, and yet, so many quests are the "fetch my puppy" variety. More work on that would have made the world seem much richer.

Favourite character? David Sarif. Nicely written, believable, not generic, but a well-fleshed out archetype of the corporate visionary... good show.

-Jester