So, Human Revolution Was Released The Other Day...

[No_Remainders]

Yeah, it's another one of these threads.

So, I got it yesterday (being Irish, and it wasn't released until then over here), and I was wondering, where do you think it ranks in the series?

Personally, having played both originals (I must admit, playing the second unhappily, but playing nonetheless), I think it's (about 4 hours in) the best one. I mean, it's just like they've done everything perfectly thus far. I can't fault it on anything. The graphics are beautiful, the gold doesn't actually distract too much from everything else, and sneaking around a manufacturing plant slowly knocking everyone unconscious and hiding their bodies is actually very fun.

So, Escapists, order of preference when it comes to Deus Ex?

 

[Sephren468]

I absolutely love the game! I am at the second city hub and I have not found anything i dislike at all yet. Its one of the best games this year and maybe even this gen.

 

[TimeLord]

I've never played any of the other games in the series and I still love it.

But I love the colour gold too...

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Only part I dislike is the pretty much FORCED hacking augments. Without them, you miss A LOT of content and loot.

Other than that, I have no issues.

 

[No_Remainders]

Only part I dislike is the pretty much FORCED hacking augments. Without them, you miss A LOT of content and loot.

Other than that, I have no issues.

I haven't had much of an issue with that as you do get enough praxis points from generally exploring everywhere and the LIMB clinic sells them also. Plus, there is an awful lot of mobey in the game so it's not like you can't afford to buy them.

 

[Loop Stricken]

my one problem... well, two problems with it are both in conversations.

The people seem... highly animated, but unnaturally so. Constantly flailing their limbs and necks around at a moment's provocation.
And Jensen... dear God man, I know you have the grizzled dark protagonist thing going on, but would it hurt to put a LITTLE bit of intonation into your voice? Maybe make your questions actually sound like questions?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Only part I dislike is the pretty much FORCED hacking augments. Without them, you miss A LOT of content and loot.

Other than that, I have no issues.

I haven't had much of an issue with that as you do get enough praxis points from generally exploring everywhere and the LIMB clinic sells them also. Plus, there is an awful lot of mobey in the game so it's not like you can't afford to buy them.

It became less of an issue as the game went on, yes.

But at first, Praxis points are few and far between until about after the first story mission in The Hub. After that, they flow like wine. I have 5 unspent ones I'm saving for a sudden possible need for Cloaking or something.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

The first Deus Ex is one of my favorite games of all time. But Human Revolution is easily the best prequal/game-released-after-the-original ever made. If it wasn't for upcoming releases like Skyrim and Arkham City I'd highly recommend that Human Revolution should be the game of the year.

Only downside are the unavoidable boss fights that you can't talk, stealth or hack your way out off.

But if I had to rate Deus Ex: Human Revolution with numbers I'd probably give it a 9 or a 10/10

 

[Flailing Escapist]

my one problem... well, two problems with it are both in conversations.

The people seem... highly animated, but unnaturally so. Constantly flailing their limbs and necks around at a moment's provocation.
And Jensen... dear God man, I know you have the grizzled dark protagonist thing going on, but would it hurt to put a LITTLE bit of intonation into your voice? Maybe make your questions actually sound like questions?

The first time I heard his voice I thought he was trying to be Batman XD

 

[Xooiid]

I'm surprised how well this game works. It's easy to control, a nice challenge in certain parts and flows with a decent pace. The mythos fits in with the rest of the series quite nicely, especially by throwing those hints to the future games in small yet noticeable ways. For example:

Look at how many e-mails you find from a certain J. Manderley, or 'The Tracer' boat carrying a young triad named Tong from Heng Sha.

YES, THESE ARE STORY SPOILERS! Don't click unless you really really want to know.

Great game.

 

[FreakSheet]

The only things I don't like are the unstealthable/hackable (my two areas of focus :[ ) boss fights, and the hacking.

I don't have a problem with hacking (it does get annoying with max hacking stealth still sets off a level one node) but if you go out of your way to find the code and you use the code you can't get the XP or cash from hacking it instead.

 

[Rednog]

My only problem is the random glitches/bugs I keep finding on the PC version.
I've run into problems like guards going hostile while I was in the middle of an air duct.
The police above ground going hostile when I broke the walls in the sewers for the loot behind them.
Or even enemies never going off alert status gets insanely frustrating.
Also the fact that guns alone sell more than the ammo you get from picking up the weapon. So I end up having to carry a gun to a seller, sell the gun, run back to an item cache, pick up another and repeat several times.
Also the take down system requiring energy is such a bad idea, I mean seriously, this guy is pretty physically fit and punching a guy to knock him out exhausts him or hell even worse Jensen just has a huge blade in his arm and he just stabs a dude, how does that equal the same effort as punching through a wall? This combined with a real lack of tranq ammo compared to the other firearm ammo really makes going the pacifist route a bit frustrating. Also while I'm on that note some enemies die if you tranq them?! Wtf?

 

[Gralian]

The first time I heard his voice I thought he was trying to be Batman XD

I really don't get why people keep saying this. If anything, he sounds like a hardcore Keanu Reaves impersonator. Even has the Neo trenchcoat to boot.

So, Escapists, order of preference when it comes to Deus Ex?

The original still remains my favourite. It felt more avant garde, both in terms of gameplay design and concept. Transhumanism just isn't that shocking by today's standards when it's already going on - chips to make spines work again and so on. But conspiracies about the government manufacturing a disease to retain its complete unseen dominance over the unchecked populus? Brilliant; especially considering even ten years ago you had to be kind of careful about criticising the government too much and throwing around conspiracy theories, even if they were fictional, particularly when it involves real life departments like FEMA.

I am at the second city hub and I have not found anything i dislike at all yet.

I've only just completed Sarif Industries, but one major gripe i'm having is what i call "FEAR Syndrome". In all the FEAR games, you'd basically have a room with a bunch of guards, and the second you cap a guard everyone's alerted and a firefight ensues and you move on to the next room. Well, while you can take the stealthy approach, the environments are so enclosed compared to the original that it's basically one big room full of boxes and equipment leading to another big room with boxes and equipment, each populated with a bunch of bad guys.

In the original Deus Ex, you had far more leniency in how you tackled each room. Environments were either huge or labyrinthine; remember the first level on Liberty Island? The map was so big that you could literally walk around half of the map and avoid any sort of confrontation with the guards without this awkward jerking around cover thinking "Can he see me? Maybe, maybe not" and waiting for the same guard pattern to repeat over and over. Take another level, the one with the NSF base in the park. The rooms and tunnels are enclosed, yes, but the corridors are long and winding meaning you had more leeway as to how you approached a situation and could actually outrun the enemy without being boxed into a firefight in a single big hallway. Yet another example is infiltrating the MJ12 base. I guess the point is that Human Revolution seems to focus more on presenting you with individual room challenges rather than creating a true to life free flowing experience that gives you greater leniency in how you tackle situations without giving you a single chance to either sneak your way through or be prepared to have a firefight to the last man.

 

[Exterminas]

Mhm.
It is a good game, alright.
But it has a lot of flaws too.

For example: There are only two approaches to every task: Shooting or Stealth. There is virtually no middle-ground, because either the game won't reward you with as much exp or it isn't set up for that.

To me a skilled infiltrator is someone who uses the means appropriate for the situation. And if I manage to sneak up on a balcony with a sniper rifle on it, and below me is a courtyard full of henchmen, then the appropriate means is to shoot them all, without the game penalizing me by taking away my Ghost-EXP-Reward.

Then some Augmentations are virtually useless, while Hacking seems to trump anyting in usefulness. The whole Stealth-Enhancer-Thing is bascially just a noob-aid, nothing that provides real benefit.

The energy-cell system is strange, because it actually penalizes upgrading the amount of energy cells you have. (Only the first cell recharges. If you buy a second one you will have to fill that up by consuming stuff. If you now use up the second cell for something you effectively spent more (the consumeable) by spending the energy)

Then there are the boss fights.
They don't fit in the game at all.
All the time you get encouraged to play sneaky infiltrator and then they toss you in a tiny room filled with explosives and a walking tank. Have fun using you hacking augments there.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the game but it made a lot of stupid mistakes that none of the previous installments made. And that is a pretty huge flaw given the fact that it basically brings zero innovation to the table. All the new stuff that the game does doesn't add up with the Deus-Ex-Formula.

 

[Gralian]

Then there are the boss fights.
They don't fit in the game at all.

Just to throw this in there, the original Deus Ex had its share of boss fights too.

Spoiler: These two in particular

Agent Navarre and Gunther Herman

Which also felt just as out of place, but i suppose it's those sorts of quirky design choices that make Deus Ex what it is. A quirky, schizophrenic Role Playing Stealth-em-up with shooting elements.

 

[Instant K4rma]

Having played (but not beat) both of the originals, I would feel comfortable saying that HR is leaps and bounds more enjoyable.

I apologize upfront to all of you folks in your nostalgia goggles.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Human Revolution is my favorite. I dig all the new additions, and feel that they improved it in almost every way--with a couple of exceptions, but I'll save that for another time. It's damn solid and a damn side better than most of the other games released this year.

my one problem... well, two problems with it are both in conversations.

The people seem... highly animated, but unnaturally so. Constantly flailing their limbs and necks around at a moment's provocation.
And Jensen... dear God man, I know you have the grizzled dark protagonist thing going on, but would it hurt to put a LITTLE bit of intonation into your voice? Maybe make your questions actually sound like questions?

Noticed this too, but play the original, where characters stood perfectly still and engaged in EXTREMELY dry dialogue with EXTREMELY poor performances. Compared to JC Denton, Paul, and Walton Simons, Jenson is Bugs fucking Bunny. Still a big improvement.

The animation thing, though.. yeah, they could have stood to make better conversation loops. Their hand gestures just don't seem to match up properly a lot of the time.

 

[Manji187]

Then there are the boss fights.
They don't fit in the game at all.
All the time you get encouraged to play sneaky infiltrator and then they toss you in a tiny room filled with explosives and a walking tank. Have fun using you hacking augments there.

I'm pretty sure a stealthy infiltrator could do

 

[Exterminas]

Then there are the boss fights.
They don't fit in the game at all.
All the time you get encouraged to play sneaky infiltrator and then they toss you in a tiny room filled with explosives and a walking tank. Have fun using you hacking augments there.

I'm pretty sure a stealthy infiltrator could do

Please read my post again.
I never claimed it was impossible for a non-combat character. (In fact the way the boss was killed in the video is exactly the same I used) But all your non-combat augmentations are useless in that fight. Don't you agree that it is really stupid design to encourage the player to develope one set of playing-skills and then suddenly, after a couple of hour, toss something else entirely at him?

The whole boss fight is like there would suddenly pop up a question from Jeopady after a match of Call of Duty.

Deus Ex: Invisible War featured exactly one boss fight and that one was in a huge hall, spotted with multiple turrents/traps/stuff you could hack. So apparently the Devs had a good example. Why toss in a boss fight that could have been from a Serious-Sam-Game?

 

[Manji187]

Then there are the boss fights.
They don't fit in the game at all.
All the time you get encouraged to play sneaky infiltrator and then they toss you in a tiny room filled with explosives and a walking tank. Have fun using you hacking augments there.

I'm pretty sure a stealthy infiltrator could do

Please read my post again.
I never claimed it was impossible for a non-combat character. (In fact the way the boss was killed in the video is exactly the same I used) But all your non-combat augmentations are useless in that fight. Don't you agree that it is really stupid design to encourage the player to develope one set of playing-skills and then suddenly, after a couple of hour, toss something else entirely at him?

The whole boss fight is like there would suddenly pop up a question from Jeopady after a match of Call of Duty.

Deus Ex: Invisible War featured exactly one boss fight and that one was in a huge hall, spotted with multiple turrents/traps/stuff you could hack. So apparently the Devs had a good example. Why toss in a boss fight that could have been from a Serious-Sam-Game?

Depends on how you structure the argument. Remember how in their interviews and gameplay footage the developers mentioned the concept of adaptive play....using the environment to your advantage? What do you think that was just now...with Barrett?

Augmentations are nice and the center piece of the game, sure....but they're no excuse to assume conditions will always be favorable to you. You could call that realistic.

EDIT: also being caught by surprise like that could be interesting/ challenging...you know...improvising and stuff.