Finally got around to playing and completing this so it's now time for Roguey Impressions: The Definitive Opinion.
First the elephant in the room: Yeah, the whole forum-in-joke thing didn't bother me, except in how the setting falls apart when held to any kind of scrutiny. Okay I can buy that I'm playing as someone role-playing in some Second Life-esque forum, but even with the internet being "serious business" it makes no sense why people would put up with the shit they have to in this forum. Why would anyone keep logging on to a forum where they're stuck underground with only a cat for company for two years? Or actually having to work mundane jobs for "money" to live in the forum? On the upside, Narcissus acknowledges it's all fake.
When it comes to system-improvements, I like how the scarcity/cost of multitools and lockpicks makes upgrading them past trained worthwhile. They also cribbed one of the few good ideas from Shifter by making the laser sight wobble within the firing cone. I didn't try fists out, though I imagine it's better than swimming. Being a non-murderer, my weapons of choice were the crossbow with tranqs and flare darts, the prod, grenades, and the new EMP gun and rice-bag launcher. It's too bad augmentations didn't receive any improvement though, other than the ability to upgrade with redundant modules and making the use of the power recirculator free and always on.
The first hub starts off with all the pain of a typical amateur mod: the level is way too big for its own good (a problem that thankfully only really applies to downtown and the corporate sector), and it's loaded with tons and tons of text (unfortunately a problem that stays). The
cargo cult modders should have analyzed the New York, Hong Kong, and Paris hubs, not to mention the dialogue length, from Deus Ex and considered why they were created the way they were. I ended up spending three hours walking, talking, and reading before I even saw any combat, and Chris Avellone will tell you from experience that that's not the best way to hook someone into playing your game.
Furthermore, the sewers in the corporate sector must have been designed extremely poorly on purpose to discourage you from exploring them, because I have no idea how anyone could think including that map was a good idea. I'm glad they're completely optional.
Other than that, map design is pretty great for the most part, excepting the linear crap with the renegade AI. That level also climaxed with an infuriating mandatory sliding puzzle which I hated very much. Then they repeat that puzzle
again at the end, except that one was much easier and I solved it in minutes so I didn't mind as much. But yeah, other than the annoyances I've mentioned, these were some fine levels and I enjoyed quite a few of them more than the cramped-but-still-kinda-nonlinear kind found in Human Revolution. I also appreciated the increase in difficulty when it came to getting through levels non-lethally, as well as being forced to use my speed and cloak augs on occasion to avoid detection, though my brief experiments with going-full combat seemed as easy as ever (though more demanding than DX in the final areas, given the larger number of enemies you can face at a time; plus I also played on normal and I imagine things can become more difficult by increasing NPC quantities and/or decreasing item quantities and/or player health).
I was really impressed with the amount of narrative and gameplay-affecting C&C. This is the New Vegas of Deus Ex in that you have a major faction choice (went PDX of course), a minor faction choice (didn't want to pick a side or instigate the conflict by betraying both, but ended up getting hated by all because someone "saw" me in the city that's supposed to be hidden. Oh well, I can buy it, I guess) and everyone except mods and the other faction leader can be killed or knocked out at any time. Witcher 2, eat your heart out. It even has ending slides!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I also get a buzzing in my head every time someone pats me on the back and gives me more money for refusing to kill people.
Aw yeah that's the stuff. A bit of a shame that I didn't get any acknowledgement for ignoring Kylie though (or for knocking out the aliens; those dead bodies in the ending cutscene certainly weren't from me).
Last but not least, the music was fantastic. The composers did a great job of creating a soundtrack in the spirit of Alexander Brandon's. The title track particularly won me over with its fake-out non-ending; I love those.
This mod gets the Roguey seal of reluctant approval.
metagaming/cheating...
