Zero Punctuation: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[Hungry Donner]

Wait what ? His job to make games sound bad? Did you even watch the review , looks like he liked it to me . His job is to point out the pros and cons, which (unlike most reviewers who only focus on pros mostly unles they game is utter shit) is exactly what he does. There's no sugarcoating.

I have to agree, he seemed to like it quite a lot - most of his criticisms were quibbles, except perhaps the boss fight comment which is a criticism I've seen in every review so far. He even pointed out that the comparison to the first game was somewhat unfair - although this was done more as a criticism of the industry itself (and rightfully so in my opinion).

 

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

After yesterday's Extra Puctuation, I had to do this...

Spoiler

Also, It seems we share some points, but I thought he would enjoy the game enough to let slip some of these issues, but then again, that wouldn't be much fun...

 

[ResonanceGames]

Ha! I knew he wouldn't like it. Yeah, fuck those mandatory boss battles? Do what I want? Sure, so long as "what I want" includes "shooting metalheads in the head."

What review did you watch? He very clearly enjoyed the game. Much more than I thought he would.

He spent a lot of time on the negatives because THAT'S KIND OF HIS SHTICK.

 

[LTK_70]

Well, in a way it does tell you what happens.

Spoiler

You blow everything up - everything stays the same. Key figures disappear, but the quarrels haven't changed. So yeah, nothing you did really mattered, but I think it's preferable to dictating everyone a lie like in the other options.

You support Darrow - purists win the debate

You support Sarif - augmenters win the debate

You support Taggert - kinda neutral outcome as augs are kept in place, but with limitations. De facto the Illuminati win since they keep full control over the situation and I doubt it would turn out any other than DX1's Illuminati ending for Adam.

(all under the assumption there are no more twists - so in a way just as confusing as the Helios ending)

But it doesn't tell you anything about what happens to specific characters, that much is true.

If you want to continue discussing the story or endings in more detail, I suggest a PM so we don't clog the thread.

Whoa, gotta disagree with you there.

Spoiler

Taggart's wish is far from the Illuminati winning. He wanted the people to know the truth about augmentations, how they allowed the Illuminati to control the populace through their biochips. It would be easy to claim he was lying, but he did make the entire augmented population go into a murderous psychosis by the press of a button, so everyone knows there is something going on.

No, if you had destroyed the whole station, you would have died, along with Taggart, Sarif and Darrow, and everyone would have written it off as a tragedy caused by an old man driven mad by whatever. People would still have their mind-control chips implanted in their brains, so the Illuminati wins by all accounts.

 

[AWAR]

Are there any spoilers i should worry about??

 

[bombadilillo]

Are there any spoilers i should worry about??

Yes, he spoils a lot, like all of it. Literally.But he tells you beforehand so you should be able to stop it.

Short version. HE likes it, minor complaints about modern gaming and some plot grumples.

 

[LordLundar]

One issue I have with the game was the yellow alpha overlay they put over damn near everything. And I don't mean the enhanced locator thing that highlights stuff you can interact with, I mean how 90% of the game looks like someone pissed over the screen and it stuck there. And you can't tell me that it's because of his sunglasses because that same yellow alpha effect was over everything at the start of the game before he got augmented.

It's like watching the matrix revolutions where everything in the matrix became green for some odd reason only choosing piss yellow as the color of choice.

 

[AWAR]

Are there any spoilers i should worry about??

Yes, he spoils a lot, like all of it. Literally.But he tells you beforehand so you should be able to stop it.

Short version. HE likes it, minor complaints about modern gaming and some plot grumples.

WoW.. Thanks a bunch man, you just saved me from walking into a huge spoilerfest.
Thumbs up to you.

 

[his1nightmare]

Yes:
- The way how you choose your ending and the actual entire setup for it was, kindly said, bullshit. Not writing anything more because people reading this are basically afraid of spoilers as I see above, everyone knows what I mean anyway.

No:
- The first boss fight can be won on any difficulty without a scratch without shooting a single bullet; using the Stungun, even within 10 seconds. The second and third need shooting, but you still can enter the room without having a SINGLE damaging gun, and still win.
The last fight is considerably pretty bad, only for one reason, it's hell of easy. However, you can still influence the pace of it via the social part of gameplay, so "only shooting" doesn't apply to the last one at all.
- Hacking, while some people love it, others not so much, is an absolutely huge part of the game, and the actual analyze nodes-upgrade speeds up choice and path far harder than anyone can assume before actually trying it. Not denying it is still the most useless upgrade of all.
- Complaining about Adam being able to use any gun without any kind of training? He was a S.W.A.T.-unit, this line was just stupid.


Well Yahtzee is a hard reviewer and I'm still pleased with this job he did here. Yet I will, while acknowledging all the mistakes Eidos made, insisit on the saying that Human Revolution is the first must-play for easily 5 years.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

Whoa, gotta disagree with you there.

Spoiler

Taggart's wish is far from the Illuminati winning. He wanted the people to know the truth about augmentations, how they allowed the Illuminati to control the populace through their biochips. It would be easy to claim he was lying, but he did make the entire augmented population go into a murderous psychosis by the press of a button, so everyone knows there is something going on.

No, if you had destroyed the whole station, you would have died, along with Taggart, Sarif and Darrow, and everyone would have written it off as a tragedy caused by an old man driven mad by whatever. People would still have their mind-control chips implanted in their brains, so the Illuminati wins by all accounts.

I think we should use PMs for this...

Spoiler

I think you mix up Darrow and Taggert - Taggert was a victim of the outbreak himself, remember? He just wanted to blame it on Neuropozyne. Hugh Darrow wanted to expose everything - and while doing so, make it look like the technology is at fault, not TYM or the Illuminati, the actual people. And that's just a lie, that's like blaming the knife for committing murder. Darrow was bitter and angry about his incompatibility with his own technology, that's why he didn't want anyone else to benefit from it either.
He played alongside the Illuminati's scheme for as long as they both headed towards the same direction.

You're right, if you blow everything up, the Illuminati still win. Them controlling augmentations is part of their overarching goal to control the world after all. But Jenson wasn't involved in the production or destruction of the chip at all, so whatever happened with it wasn't in his hand to begin with, so what you did in the game didn't matter after all since everything continued as planned.

The only way to *kind of* win against the Illuminati is by supporting Sarif. He knows about the Illuminati and can be easily informed of the chip TYM distributed via LIMB. Since he didn't go batshit crazy himself, it's likely he has a replacement chip available already. The whole fiasco, if exposed, could hurt TYM substantially, especially since we now have proof of how they deal with competitors. The free market COULD keep the industry out of Illuminati hand for a while (who have infected "only" political positions I think), but it's the Illuminati we're talking here, any position of power will draw them in.

Another thing that bothers me is what ISN'T covered in any of the endings.

Spoiler

Eliza Cassan.

Maybe it slipped beneath everyone's radar during the finale, but we got an intelligent, artificial lifeform that made the independent and almost rebellious decision of aiding Adam in his cause, and it's implied by the developers in the Making Of that she did it out of emotion.

It's something that weaves perfectly into the core question of what makes us human. Through augmentation we already can't say a human is only human if he's made only from flesh and blood. Now we have to ask ourselves what if the whole brain is machinery, too, and all thoughts are digital. And to make it sound extra cheesy, Cassan showed more heroism and heart than any of the three humans whose lies you ought to spread, everyone motivated by their own selfish desires: Darrow wants revenge, Taggert wants power, Sarif is in for glory and cash. Cassan had no reason at all to get mixed up at all and yet she picked a side.
And I think it would've been fairly easy to just get rid of her, and afaik she only controls the media, not security, so she probably couldn't even defend herself. That's a pretty big fucking risk for no gain in return.

And at no point is that ever discussed, nor is her fate. She's just dismissed as some sort of symbol for technological advancement (and the inversion of Hyron, to some degree). DX1 made a way bigger deal out of their sentient AI, and it was part of what constructed the philosophical core and made "Deus Ex Machina" true with the Helios ending. And this was all technology waaaay after HR, so it's far more likely to find such advanced technology, even if it's still mind-blowing for everyone. And here we have Daedalus' and Icarus' precursor and all we get is "You're a machine :O".
They should've taken more notes from Ghost in the Shell.

Sorry about the rant, but this is my personal pet peeve as you can tell.

 

[Xkaliber]

I've got to say, that Yahtzee did sum up the bad/weak parts of the game pretty well. But a lot of people saying 'well I'll probably skip it' based on this are missing the point:

He says it's good, but it's not original Deus Ex good. That's a pretty goddamn lofty comparison to make, given the current gaming market. Deus Ex:HR is miles and away one of the best fps-rpgs I've played since Bioshock 1 or 2. And I'd compare it more directly to that and Mass Effect 1/2.

You'd be by no means wasting your money in purchasing this game, just don't expect a Godfather 2 level of sequel. This is more akin to Godfather 3. Still damn good compared to everything else around, but undoubtedly a missed opportunity for a lot of people and a bit saggy/weak in a few areas.

I've played a stealth/hacking/help everyone run through and an all out aggressive/murder/be an asshole to everyone run through. And it caters damn well to both sides in my opinion. The boss fights *are* incredibly retro feeling and would've been nice to have the options he mentioned. Other than that, I have no real complaints with the game myself. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in these sorts of games. After all, it's not Invisible War. Thank god.

 

[Random berk]

So, between the last two reviews, the supposed 'best pc game ever' really doesn't sound very appealing to me.'

That said, Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 1 and 2 didn't really get sparkling reviews from Yahtzee either, so maybe I'm jumping to conclusions.

 

[Giest4life]

The terrible, terrible pun at the end made me snort harder than anything else Yathzee, or indeed anyone, has ever said.

 

[TaboriHK]

You could not have nailed it more with this review. You captured everything that made this game ultimately, a disappointment to me.

 

[imnot]

I don't think I'll bother with this then. From the review it seems a bit mediocre. All hype, as usual.

Its Yahtzees job to make games sound bad, buy it, trust me you will not regret it!
I excpect...

Wait what ? His job to make games sound bad? Did you even watch the review , looks like he liked it to me . His job is to point out the pros and cons, which (unlike most reviewers who only focus on pros mostly unles they game is utter shit) is exactly what he does. There's no sugarcoating.

Eh, I phrased that badly, I meant it's his job to point out the flaws in a game, he's a critic not a reviewer.
He liked it but the way its presented makes it seem like it has loads of flaws, that are making the fletch think it's not a very good game.

 

[ImprovizoR]

This is the first time that I actually agree with Yahtzee on every point. I still love this game though.

 

[ACE1918]

I for one liked this video but I'd really like to see him do Tropico 4. That would be great!

 

[oktalist]

Stealth actually works

I don't get this. What was wrong with stealth in the first game?

Dialog much more complex and meaningful.

While there are a few stand-out moments, I found most of the dialogue in Human Revolution's core story conversations significantly less complex and meaningful. But maybe I'm missing something.

The only thing less complex was regen health. which was already in the original game, you just start with it here.

Just gotta point out that regen health in the original was not "health for free". You had to trade it for bio-electric energy. Quite a difference.

All that being said, I'm loving Human Revolution a whole damn lot. I've been playing for 36 hours and I've just got back to Sarif Industries during the riot, after confronting Sandoval.

 

[scw55]

The Legend of Zelda does the "Boss fight is where you utilise everything you learnt" well. At the end of Every Dungeon, the boss must be defeated using the special item you unlocked in that dungeon. I didn't realise how important that was intill now. I thought it was just patronising. I guess it is possible to have even more idiotic boss fights.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Following up on last weeks retrospective on the original <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/4093-Deus-Ex>Deus Ex, Zero Punctuation reviews Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Watch Video

Actually, aren't we at the point where a game that is as deep as Dues Ex could be made, even if the graphics are kind of crap?

Now that older 3D engines like Source and early are now cheap enough to use by anyone, can't we start to expect older school games trying to reach niche' market like a proper spiritual sequel to Dues Ex? I know a similar game made on Source was released near the release date of Deus E: HR on Steam, although I haven't played it and can't say if it is good or not, isn't it's very existence give some chance somebody will make more deep RPG FPS's?