Extra Punctuation: What Human Revolution Got Wrong

[dinggledoser]

Ew. Just... Ew.

Seriously, you sound like an old man. "Back in my day, Dexus Es was a deeper and more engrossing experience with, better bosses and weapons!" I think yahtzee is officially a retro gamer.

You think Yahtzee would've included these complaints in his review? He only had two whole videos to talk about this.

 

[Shjade]

On one thing i disagreed with Yahtzee, to me, Deus Ex has aged amazingly well.
Decade from launch, and i can still install it on my computer, and play it with same amount of enjoyment i did ten years ago (well, some frustration with having to fiddle with it to make it run on windows 7 and widescreen, but other than that, awesome all the way), sure, i know the story and most, if not all, of the secrets, but gameplay still stands on it's own, story is still good and characters are relatable, all the things i want from a game are there.
There are very few games i can say that about.

You can't objectively say something has aged well when your vision is coloured with nostalgia. A true test for aging is putting it into the hands of a completely new player and seeing how it holds up to them. If they can make concessions for the graphics being outdated and genuinely still find the game fun, then you can say it has aged well.

I first played it 2011 and it kicked ass. It's still one of my favourite games. I think we're done here.

As long as you mute it during the cutscenes.

That voice acting. x.x

 

[jmarquiso]

Where HR shines over DX, (I love both, and DX 1 is better), is the dialogue and theme. David Sarif is a more interesting character to me than Bob Page.

The character seems more personally motivated in this game than DX1.

 

[Babitz]

For me it goes like this:

Deus Ex = Unreal Tournament + System Shock + Thief + whatever else they could also squeeze in
Deus Ex: Human Revolution = Gears of War + Metal Gear Solid


The original has much more interactivity. I remember going to Paul's apartment where I could pick up all of his dishes and throw them at strangers. In UNATCO I could move "wet floor" signs. Yes, it doesn't make any change in gameplay, but it was immersive and fun to redecorate my office with random shit and whatnot. In HR every item you can interact with is there for a purpose, be it hiding a vent or the ability to throw it at an enemy. Yeah, you could flush the toilets which felt as a homage to the original, not really as some immersive sim mechanic.

Oh and yes, I absolutely loved how shitty you were with guns depending on your skills. The health system is also the best I've seen.
HR felt in certain ways more like IW rather than the original. Actually, IW had more gameplay versatility than HR.

Face it, it's true: they just don't make them like that anymore. ;_;

Deus Ex 3 was actualy Rainbow Six Vegas + splinter cell games and/or metal gears solid (not sure about the stealth parts as much)

Just play the Rainbow Six Vegas 1 or 2 demo. Basically very similar FPS style to Deus Ex. First person but third person in cover. To me in a sense Deus Ex 1 was a combination of the FPS and stealth games at a time with a little bi to of an RPG and Deus Ex 3 is the same thing but for a different time/generation of gamers/games.

I agree and that's basically what I've stated as well. Both games were influenced by the best / most popular first person games of the time.

 

[Dastardly]

Extra Punctuation: What Human Revolution Got Wrong

Yahtzee lists five reasons why the original Deus Ex was better.

Read Full Article

As we continue trying to great one big "hyper-genre" that incorporates the "best" of each incorporated genre, we're completely missing the point of each. Add to this that companies try to do so using rock-bottom staffing (and thus sub-par workmanship), and the problem only gets bigger.

RPGs were entirely about divergent character development. You start out as John Gray Plainman, unknown jerk. As you play the game, you grow and develop as a character. You make choices, you take a variety of paths. And at the end, you're a clearly-defined character with strengths and weaknesses particular to the path you've chosen. Other players? Completely different characters.

The drawback? You've got to create a game world with enough stuff going on that each different iteration of John can find things to enjoy. John-the-Sharpshooter needs sharp things to shoot. John-the-Baker needs cakes to bake. John-the-Goat-Fondler needs a better name and hobby. Your world is forced to have depth and variety, and that takes a fair amount of extra work.

Now games are entirely too convergent. You start off John Gray Plainman, you branch out a little bit in the middle (Instead of killing things with a bat, you're killing them with a gun. Specialization!)... but eventually, you're John Bloody Superman. Because we only felt like writing one type of ending, so we want to make sure you'll have the necessary skills by that point.

We used to have a hundred trains going from Point A to one of a hundred Points B. Now we have ten trains going from Point A to a single Point B along parallel-but-slightly-different tracks. That's not roleplaying, and these are not choices--it's like reading the menu at a restaurant that features nothing but three dozen different colors of the same hamburger.

 

[unwesen]

While I agree with your points, my biggest gripe is that the storytelling is as subtle as a sledgehammer in the face. There are no plot surprises. I'd just have expected a little bit better here and there.

The worst bit to me - *MILD SPOILER ALERT* - was that there was no way to indicate to the game that you'd figured out VERY EASILY that the bartender in The Hive was, in fact, the guy you were looking for. Instead my character was acting all surprised, and in that moment it's not *my* character any longer, it's an idiot I have to watch stumbling through the world as if he was lobotomized.

 

[Norix596]

Excellent points -- burst out laughing at the end. ^^

 

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

I agree with the ending machine. An ending should be a result of the sum of all choices, or at least, if it's going to be made like it was, to give a deeper insight on every possibility during the last mission to make the player evaluate what does he wants to do, rather than making the player do the Pepsi Challenge...

 

[Bluecho]

The only FPS I've ever played is Team Fortress 2 (let's all laugh at the FPS noob in the corner! A hur hur hur), and even THAT had melee weapons. In fact, melee weapons were pretty useful if used correctly, and sometimes the only way to kill a dude right up in your face is to hit him with a trenching shovel. How is it that game understands that melee has uses even in a shooter, yet a Deus Ex title doesn't?

Well, HR does have some melee, just as takedowns. Takedowns that cost energy to perform. Maybe I fell asleep and missed the lecture on melee vs armed combat, but isn't the underlying point of melee weapons that you don't need ammo or energy to use them?

And what is with the game just allowing you to beef yourself up in every area? Maybe I WANT to specialize, so that my hard choices with what points I spend on what actually has weight! That they actually mean something!

 

[Piorn]

I always hated dedicated melee weapons in every shooter, from HL1 to Bioshock. The only time you use them is, when the enemy comes too close, and in this tight situation, it is a terrible chore to select the weapon and then swing it.
I admit it would make sense in a game like Deus Ex, where guns are not mandatory, but I just played with no weapons at all, his arms basically being the weapon.

 

[blindthrall]

The most iconic FPS melee weapon will always be Doom's chainsaw. Because it was actually somewhat viable. And now I feel like some kind of retarded superhero for beating Alpha Protocol with only shotguns-cue someone calling me a retard for playing Alpha Protocol all the way through.

 

[Poisoned Al]

Gunther Hermann is the only boss ever I tried to find a way NOT to kill because I liked him. I was hoping for a way to talk him down or avoid him, but sadly you can't. I really wish games had more bad guys that weren't actually BAD, but in your way for some reason. But no, we get Nazis, robots, zombies and terrorists (the kind who's only motivation is that they HAT FEEDUM AND AMERIKA!!!)

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

1. Agreed. In fact, I felt like most of the characters and factions in the game were underdeveloped. I didn't feel any connection to them, no real reason why Adam would take their side and care about them and their ideals. But the worst offender is IMO Dr. Reed. She's essentially Adam's entire motivation but she only shows up for maybe ten minutes in the entire game. You eventually find her near the end of the game, she gets 10 lines of dialogue and disappears again, only to provide an ass-pull reveal in the post-credits cutscene. This is supposed to be the woman Adam loves, even if they aren't together anymore. Prove it me somehow. But don't tell me, show me. Make me care. The Darkness, for all the flaws it had, did this brilliantly just by having you sit on the couch with Jenny and watch tv. A simple moment, but it worked wonders.

2. Yeah, I really missed my ludicrously sharp and powerful energy sword. I'm serious by the way, I loved slicing enemies with the Dragon's Tooth, despite it being game-breakingly overpowered.

3. Once again, no argument here.

4. Yathzee, you spoony bastard. Quit making me agree with you, it's getting tiresome.

5. NOW EVRYWON VILL SEE WHY I NEED A SKULL-GUN!

Despite it's flaws, Human Revolution also does a lot of things right, like the stealth, the consersations/negotiations and the hacking. I also like how HR looks. I've always felt Deus Ex was visually kinda bland and uninspired, even with the limited graphics technology of the time. Deus Ex is cyberpunk and Human Revolution actually looks the part: the design of the technology and environments, the moody yellow and black color scheme, etc. It does help that it reminds me of Bladerunner Ghost In The Shell, both of which I absolutely adore.

 

[oktalist]

The story was pretty good for the most part, but it really failed as a prequel.
If you preordered the game Jensen interacts with exactly one character from the original, the only character we learn anything new about is Manderley before he joined Unatco. That's it, really; like 3 other characters are also name dropped, but we learn nothing relevant except that they were indeed alive in 2027. We don't learn anything about Unatco's founding, nothing about DeBeer or the other Illuminati, nothing about anything that leads up to DE.

I would have liked to see more of that stuff too, but they might have feared that if they linked in the stories too much, fans might rage that they messed up the canon. They also might've wanted to keep open the option of another game set in the time period between DX3 and DX1.

However, there are more references:

Spoiler

- You mentioned Manderley
- I assume the other character you were referring to was Tracer Tong, and obviously we get to interact with his father too
- It's implied that Adam's DNA will be used to engineer Paul and JC Denton
- VersaLife gets mentioned a fair bit
- Morgan Everett is CEO of Picus and has a couple of lines of dialogue with Bob Page concerning Morpheus
- It's implied that Eliza is an early iteration of Morpheus/Daedalus/Icarus
- It's implied that Megan Reed will help engineer the grey death virus
- There are a few mentions of a UN anti-terrorist unit being set up
- There are mentions of the new technology of nano-augmentation that will replace mechanical augs
- The biochip kind of explains how the killswitch was invented
- We hear Beth DuClare's opinion of augmentation tech
- David Sarif doesn't want to be contacted by Lucius DeBeers any more

 

[CardinalPiggles]

What's wrong with Gears of War's Chainsaw lancer

Oh and once again, Nostalgia is a ***** right? That should be my signature at the end of every post.

 

[oktalist]

I keep hearing about how plentiful Praxis points are. I'm just starting the Montreal-media level, and I've at MOST found 3 kits in all the game. The rest were purchased, or gained through XP. I am finding that I am not abundant with my points.

The ubiquity of Praxis points comes mainly from XP, which you get a lot more of for hacking and being stealthy. After the police station I had all the augs I wanted, and had between 10 and 15 unused Praxis throughout the game because there were lots of augs that I just didn't need or want. By Montreal I had maxed out hacking, stealth and battery, and had a number of other augs too. By the end of the game I had acquired 34 Praxis just from XP.

There are 6 Praxis to be found by exploring, not counting the one in the very first level that you can't miss. And there are 3 given as rewards for side quests.

 

[ultrachicken]

-Choices. There is no point in having multiple endings if you can change your mind at the last second. Your overall style of play should decide what ending you get. One game that did this absolutely right was Silent Hill 2, but I won't get into fanboyism.

I don't think this is necessarily true. For example, inFamous 2 railroaded you into the ending that was "aligned" with your karmatic meter, while Metro 2033 did a similar thing. That is fucking bullshit. I don't want the game telling me what ending I choose, I want to tell the game what ending I choose.

That said, I think that there should be large decisions that occur throughout the game that affect the ending, but only in a "you destroyed this town, it doesn't join your new world order" kind of way, as opposed to "you destroyed this town, therefore you are evil, therefore you create a society ruled by puppy-murderers."

 

[Vault101]

*sigh* once again yahtzee is probably right...killjoy