GrizzlerBorno said:
I don't get the hacking complaint. Granted I didn't play the game yet (damn college!), but these hacking sub-features are always about letting you explore things and giving you extra info ONLY if you put in the extra effort. If that doesn't interest you, don't hack. But why should the info just be lying around anywhere for you to pick up without hacking the computer? That would just break the whole feature.
I know you haven't played it yet but hacking highlights the one huge difference between this game and the original. Mainly, the difference between choice and optimal choice.
For example with hacking, there are probably enough terminals to level up a good 4 times in the first hub area. However, if you don't hack into those areas (say you instead use a password) you miss out on experience points and you will be weaker for it. It gets to the point where even if I have the login for a computer I'll hack it anyways because it will give a bunch of experience points in addition to "datastore nodes" which can give money, MORE experience or computer programs for you to use. There is just no reason to
not hack.
Similarly for combat, sure you can sneak by enemies but if you instead silently take down an enemy it will give you 50xp. Shooting them gives you less and remaining unseen is the most beneficial way to play as you can get a "ghost" bonus for completing an objective unseen and a "smooth operator" bonus for never triggering an alarm.
Again, the game claims you can play any way you want but there is really only one
optimal way to play. This is in stark contrast to the original (which I still view as superior). If you didnt't want to kill a single person you didn't have to and you would be no worse off for it. If you didn't have lockpick there was almost always another way into an area and you wouldn't be rewarded for picking a lock or hacking a terminal; you would be rewarded for getting into the area at all. This balanced the game immensely because whatever approach you took was a valid approach. One way wasn't necessarily opitmal, but there were optimal ways for different playstyles.