Deus Ex Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

[DalekFlay]

Probably a remastered soundtrack on vinyl or some shit.

 

[HoboForEternity]

so i am finally playing it. just the tutorial level but i hope the butchered ending don't bum me out.

 

[DalekFlay]

so i am finally playing it. just the tutorial level but i hope the butchered ending don't bum me out.

Not really butchered, more just... anti-climactic. If you think of it as a prequel to the original and the story gets finished there, it's not so bad.

 

[Nano]

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeak...because_of_the_amount_of_responses_i/fg0cav2/

Deus Ex will return back for the next gen, Square Enix has been working on a sequel to Mankind Dividend

This is possibly bullshit, but I'm not giving up hope.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Finally finished it. It isn't bad per se but there are truly lots of issue .

Prague as a hub is mixed for me. At one side it is crafted very beautifully, with alot of secrets, passages and discoveries. At the other side, very little of the characters are even actual characters. There are potential but no. Only few characters are involved with sidequests really interact with jensen and most of them are one time only.

Take the booze store lady who ask jensen for neuropozyne. You find her involved in neuripozyne smuggling to help augs then it stopped. Plus it seems to be bugged that EVERY characters you can speak with reset their dialogue every chapter and it is fucking annoying. Everytime you return to prague everyone's memory are wiped and they forgot jensen (thanks illuminati) there should be named NPCs that interact with jensen that isnt involved with sidequests or plot, just like NPCs in trails game. Make them have their own little plot of how they live in prague and have their dialogue progress every chapter. That would add so much into the game without actually spending resources designing real sidequests.

As for the "dungeons " themselves are better than in human revolution but the lack of other neutral hubs with NPCs and sidequests really hurt the game. But prague is decently dense. I like the actual sidequests contents too.

The plot is okay. I like the sariff characters more than sf29 people. All the similar role characters are better in HR like Sariff > miller, helicopter girl> helicopter guy . etc. The characters are overall really weaker and you spend alot less interaction and they seem to react less to Jensen's actions in game.

I actually dont have problem with the ending itself and the main story is ok. An obvious sequel bait, but would be fine if they are making a sequel but since the franchise is shelved then all those plot points is pretty much in the shadow realm. I was kinda hyped when bob page and manderley are mentioned but in the end that's it.

Deus ex: game divided and the other half tossed into incinerator

 

[vota DC]

The plot is okay. I like the sariff characters more than sf29 people. All the similar role characters are better in HR like Sariff > miller, helicopter girl> helicopter guy . etc. The characters are overall really weaker and you spend alot less interaction and they seem to react less to Jensen's actions in game.

It is all "smaller". Plot is ok but also you impact less than Human Revolution. That also means smaller characters. Sarif is you "father" in Human Revolution while Miller is just your boss. Miller himself isn't even a "faction leader" unlike Sarif.
Helicopter girl is one of the few that believes in augmentations and gives you sidequest while helicopter guy is one of the many augmentation skeptics

Spoiler

and also a mole so you are really supposed to like him less

 

[502]

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/2355

In case anybody cares.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I know Deus Ex The Fall was a port of a tablet game and that it suffers because of that compared to its "big brother" but I still really wish that that game also had a sequel as I wanted to know what the deal with this new anti cybernetics rejection drug was.
It has been a while since I played the game but I recall finding the protagonist a bit more tolerable than Jensen.

 

[cvv]

Finally got around to play and finish this. Got it years ago for like 5 bucks and the lockdown is the perfect time for games like this.

Or I thought DXMD is just a trash tier game better left for sickdays and lockdowns. Sort of like the Invisible War, based on the general feedback from the launch. Oh boy, what BS. This is basically DXHR only bigger and better. I absolutely loved HR and now I mash my head against the wall, calling myself a retard for putting MD off so much. I wonder why was the reception so cold. Maybe people found the game too samey to HR and wanted something new. Or it might've something to do with the East Yuro setting what with all the weird places, names and background banter. I guess that's where all the comments about the story being boring and NPC not memorable are coming from.

In reality the plot and writing overall is just as strong as HR. It's so refreshing playing a game written by people who actually know their craft. The only problem is MD was clearly intended to be a second part of a series so none of the main arcs are resolved (who is Janus, what do the Illuminati intend with Jensen etc.).

Still Prague looks and feels great (except for the cringy Czech backround VO courtesy of Google Translator, luckily 99% of people won't notice it), sidequest are great, exploration is great (Palisade Bank is the best level in the entire DX series) and the challenge is solid too if you go for the stealth gameplay.

All in all it's definitely one of the RPG greats of the last decade in my book.

 

[502]

I thought DXMD is just a trash tier game better left for sickdays and lockdowns. Sort of like the Invisible War, based on the general feedback from the launch.

In this day and age of convenient digital distribution and no-questions-asked refunds in 2 hours, you should always play a game yourself if you're remotely interested in it. It may be that the system as a whole is exploitative but there are a handful of advantages for the everyman and we should make use of them.

Without saying too much, I suggest looking up "the theory" if this was your first time. DX1 will always be its own thing on a whole different level, but I completely agree that MD is basically HR only bigger and better. It's not the game's fault that the sequel, the third installment of the trilogy never got greenlit. For the second game of a trilogy, the build up makes sense.

Still Prague looks and feels great (except for the cringy Czech backround VO courtesy of Google Translator, luckily 99% of people won't notice it),

Wrong and stereotypical accents is an essential part of the Deus Ex experience. Of course EM can't have done it on purpose, but sometimes things just work out.

All in all it's definitely one of the RPG greats of the last decade in my book.

Don't know about that. I still have a few gripes with the game.

Didn't care for the form-over-function experimental augs or the overdone weapon upgrade system. They didn't have to do a Mass Effect 2 in this regard but sometimes less really is more. The crafting system and itemization in general is too generous and makes every hidden stash redundant. Finding stuff is rarely rewarding. The "improved" hacking minigame is anything but. The XP system is still broken. HR encouraged people to hack everything even with passwords at hand, and MD's "solution" is to grant XP for using passwords, but two wrongs don't make a right.

The UI looks like a placeholder, as people had complained during the previews. Thin white frames are ugly and distracting. The belt icons are aliased and non-indicative especially below 100% scale. The dot crosshair is a... triangle? This work of art comes to mind:

Then there's meta/tertiary factors like the shitty Dawn Engine, the cash shop, the dev commentary which takes you to YouTube via a separate app (which is now defunct of course, thank you for your understanding, big fucking surprise) instead of DXHRDC's contextual audio commentary which will work as intended forever.

 

[Athos]

In reality the plot and writing overall is just as strong as HR. It's so refreshing playing a game written by people who actually know their craft. The only problem is MD was clearly intended to be a second part of a series so none of the main arcs are resolved (who is Janus, what do the Illuminati intend with Jensen etc.).

The problem is that MD was clearly the first half of a complete game and it shows. It has been strongly hinted by the devs that Square Enix forced them to split the game in two parts to do a double cash in but the lukewarm reception of MD led to the freezing of the franchise.

 

[sullynathan]

Sleep inducing game.

 

[Multidirectional]

This is basically DXHR only bigger and better.

Well I don't know about bigger but it definitely seemed better to me. Exploration seemed more interesting and stealth more refined with less braindead enemies. And while I didn't think that much of writing I at least appreciated that many of the guards I was sneaking around actually seemed like human beings just doing their jobs and not some cartoonishly evil fucks that I had no reason to not kill, like those Belltower pricks in HR, for example.

 

[RoSoDude]

I'm not sure I'm totally on board with a blanket statement that MD has better gameplay. It should, since it has more visceral gunplay, more expressive movement, new tools and gameplay options, better stealth AI, more intricate level design and so on; but I also value balance, structure, and the pacing of content as part of gameplay. It's these aspects that have put me off considering replaying the game despite how much it was able to draw me in the first time. I already summarized my issues with MD nearly two years ago:

Mankind Divided is really Human Revolution 1.5 from a gameplay perspective. This would be great, but there are some glaring flaws with HR's gameplay systems, and these problems are maintained (or exacerbated) in MD albeit with some noticeable improvements in some areas as well. It's some steps forward, some steps back, and I'm not sure how to tally up either. The same is true of the game's content -- the main missions are pretty lackluster as is the main narrative, but the hub exploration and side missions are an enormous improvement over HR, and they even gave me fleeting moments where I felt like I was playing a proper Deus Ex game. Even this is a mixed bag, though, since it often feels like you're punished for trying to give a damn about your actual objectives over just wandering around and breaking into people's apartments to raid their cabinets and drawers for credits, booze, and crafting parts. In the original Deus Ex and even HR to some degree, you had to scope around the civilian hub levels for information and clues about how to progress, naturally working exploration and side content into the completion of your goals. In MD it's pretty much a straight shot to your boring main objective to which the interesting exploration and side content is orthogonal. Plus, if you do scour the hub levels for loot you'll be totally overpowered, so the only way to have a balanced experience is to skip all of the cool stuff. See how this is a mixed bag?

As for the gameplay -- well, it feels more immediate and fluid than HR did, and your toolset is expanded in some fun ways, but it's not particularly balanced nor very deep. The new augs are fun to use but show off the game's tendency to only require one action to solve any problem, with the ability to shoot homing multi-KO stun pellets, launch one-shotting explosive nanoblades, blast multiple enemies unconscious at once, activate bullet time, ram into enemies with the game's take on Dishonored's Blink, become completely invulnerable for a short duration, or handily disarm all manner of security systems and traps from a distance. The stun gun and tranquilizer rifle, which were balanced nicely in HR, are now both hitscan and have large magazines, removing much of the skill and planning that was required to use them effectively. Stealth is rendered easy by throwing every tool and idea from various stealth games at you (cover, radar, target marking, representation of last-known-position) in addition to augs like cloak and X-ray vision. Worst of all, the awful takedowns are back and worse than ever, with a long fade to black before they trigger, time-stopping cutscenes that pause the action and make you invisible and invincible to nearby enemies, clunkier animations than the previous game, and a semblance of balance only achieved by them taking energy to activate, which still makes almost no sense. To be fair to it, though, I should mention the positives -- the cover system is greatly improved and its use feels more tactical; the resource economy around crafting parts is interesting because they can be used to modify weapons, create useful items like biocells (though you'll already be swimming in these), and craft ammo for TESLA, Typhoon, and Nanoblade augs to stop them from being totally broken; there's a bit more combat depth with Crysis-style hotswapping of weapon attachments, firing modes, and ammo types; the hacking minigame is deeper than before, with more software types to use and more traps; inventory management is actually pretty solid as it was in HR; path balance is better with XP rewards for alternative approaches (ignoring that the XP reward system sucks to begin with); level design is more vertical and has more on offer than the occasional vent behind a soda machine.

Overall, worth playing if you got anything out of Human Revolution, but if you hated that you probably won't like this. Far more substantial than a lot of AAA offerings in the gameplay department, and the side missions partially make up for a lame main story. For all its problems, I think I still had more fun with Mankind Divided than I did Prey, despite the latter's more hardcore leanings -- I think a lot of this probably boiled down to level design that stayed at a consistent level of quality (not amazing, but pretty good) through the whole experience, to the point that I finished Mankind Divided in under a week but had to force myself to return to Prey over the span of a month.

 

[unfairlight]

I completely understand the argument of balance, structure and pacing over technically being "better" (that's the reason I enjoyed Dishonored 1 over 2 a fair bit), but I don't think it applies so well for MD. I don't think MD tripped over itself too much when it came to those things, save for the story, and the gameplay improvements on nearly every level would easily keep me interested in a third playthrough of the game. Yet to do a second of HR in comparison, although that might change soon.

 

[Carrion]

I think the vastly improved level design alone puts MD a notch above HR, even if it's not as polished or finished. Prague is also a pretty cool hub, and being mostly set in one location with your own apartment, workplace etc. gives the game a nice hard-boiled detective vibe.

I have mixed feelings about some of the added abilities of MD compared to HR. I like that you have more alternatives for the takedowns which I totally hate, but at the same time I think that lethal and non-lethal playstyles should feel sufficiently different from each other. If your choice is between shooting a guy with a silenced pistol or a tranq dart that effectively works the exact same way, what's the point? If you're playing without the cover system, however, MD's stealth is still more fun overall, partly because of some new abilities and partly because the level design allows for more variety in your approach.

 

[cvv]

Plus, of course, "balance", "structure" and "pacing" are completely subjective, as is "better".

 

[sullynathan]

What vastly better level design are you talking about outside Prague?

 

[Sweeper]

I don't know how the meme of Deus Ex being an RPG got past the Codex, but you motherfuckers are fucking retarded.
Absolute decline.

 

[infidel]

...
Worst of all, the awful takedowns are back and worse than ever, with a long fade to black before they trigger, time-stopping cutscenes that pause the action and make you invisible and invincible to nearby enemies,
...

Just don't do them. You can't play modern games without some additional self-imposed challenges. Though I did use cloak here and there on my replay last year, IIRC.

 

[J1M]

In reality the plot and writing overall is just as strong as HR. It's so refreshing playing a game written by people who actually know their craft. The only problem is MD was clearly intended to be a second part of a series so none of the main arcs are resolved (who is Janus, what do the Illuminati intend with Jensen etc.).

The problem is that MD was clearly the first half of a complete game and it shows. It has been strongly hinted by the devs that Square Enix forced them to split the game in two parts to do a double cash in but the lukewarm reception of MD led to the freezing of the franchise.

Weird how that works. Almost as if people would have preferred to buy and play the entire game.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

How long is this franchise gonna be on Ice. I care not for CDProjekts rubbish, give me DEUS EX!

 

[DeepOcean]

How long is this franchise gonna be on Ice. I care not for CDProjekts rubbish, give me DEUS EX!

If the skinner box money extraction scheme with the Avengers on it is successful, probably not any time soon, maybe ever. Maybe they make an Deus Ex universe thing with loot grind and microtransactions.

 

[Atlantico]

Thanks to quarantine and this epic hysteria, I had the chance to play through DXMD, at long last.

I'm glad I did, it's a very good game. I highly recommend it to anyone, it is an experience.

Fair warning: it is not a "perfect" game and far inferior to its namesake from Ion Storm. It is also a Square Enix game with all the baggage that brings, so if you are easily offended by corporate greed and shallow marketing, you'll hate this just for existing. That's fair, but it doesn't change the game, which is quite good. Definitely worth 30 bucks or so, I got easy 50 hours of playtime out of it and many memorable moments.



Where the game shines is in gameplay, its shortcomings are in the narrative. Even so, both of these elements have their highs and lows.

The Gameplay is well thought out and polished, as one would expect from gameplay which is derived directly from the earlier title, DXHR. The story seems to suffer from two main issues, on the one hand Square Enix meddling and penny pinching and on the other, the timid and uninspired approach by the main writers. The side missions and background stories are serviceable and sometimes inspired, the main story is not. The writers are seemingly lost when it comes to this world they're creating, it's like they don't know what it is, where it is heading and what they want to say.

The story itself is very basic, a terrorist bombs a train station and you are on a mission to find and stop this terrorist. Simple enough premise and with some inspired writing, this could have been the basis for something larger, a starting point where you begin to pull the threads of the tapestry to revel something more behind the scenes. Sadly, this doesn't happen. You just solve the case, find the terrorist and the game ends. You do travel to different places, deal with different factions and meet different people along the way, but there is no twist, no deeper meaning, no meaningful reveal at the end.

Just like with HR, the game before this one, the creators don't seem to know what they want to do with this franchise. Yet, the game works as a Deus Ex game, and it stands on its own. Very much on its own, in fact, nobody even in shouting distance. Some have (rightly) pointed out that HR was more a Ghost in the Machine game than Deus Ex, this one is more Deus Ex than Ghost in the Machine, but so alone, so far from its origins and ostensible inspiration with regards to the story, that I would question if the executive producers are in fact right for the job. Many plot threads are left hanging, dropped or forgotten when the game ends - only the main thread is concluded.

Storywise it's all too safe and at the same time the message and thrust of the story is too bland for my tastes. Treating augmented humans like a "race" of people doesn't make a lick of sense, while them being ostracized and distrusted after the "incident" makes complete sense. But one is not like the other, and so the core of the story simply does not make sense. It's more that the writers *wanted* it to make sense, for whatever reason.

But a game is more than just the story, and this game has excellent gameplay mechanics which saves it. It's not perfect, for one thing it is way, *way* too easy. Halfway through the game you are OP OP and in the final level of the game you are basically an uber-soldat with more money than the Illuminati and more equipment than the poor sods you are after. In the latter half of the game it feels like you are the Terminator and your opponents are just squishy meatbags waiting to be popped by an unstoppable force. That doesn't mean it isn't fun, it's just not a challenge.

The voice acting is all over the place from terrible to serviceable to occasionally inspired. The fake Czech accent is mostly annoying, and sounds like someone's best attempt at fake Russian. Peter Serafinowicz is poorly utilized as some hardass butch, and doesn't even manage to stand out. Sad times indeed, he's a master voice actor and the director of voice acting couldn't make more out of his talent than this. What a waste.

I don't know if this game will ever get a sequel, and tbh, perhaps that's a blessing in disguise, because the current caretakers of this IP seem clueless on where to go from here anyway.

 

[TheChickenKing]

I don't know if this game will ever get a sequel, and tbh, perhaps that's a blessing in disguise, because the current caretakers of this IP seem clueless on where to go from here anyway.

I believe I've said as much in this thread before (or at least someone has) but Mankind Divided's devs were forced to split it from being one game into two by Square Enix. There was a plan (which is why the game essentially ends right before the third act would've begun, with plot threads such as Janus and where Adam got his new augs just about ready to pay off) for a complete game, but when Mankind Divided didn't do well due to a poor launch (most likely a rushed launch), Square Enix also forcing devs to implement heinous microtransactions weeks before it was going to come out, and an obviously unfinished plot, Square cancelled the already-in-development sequel.

So to split the "caretakers of the IP" into two separate groups, I'd say that the devs are excellent and I hope they get a shot at finishing the story they wanted to tell, but Square Enix has horribly mismanaged the IP and I doubt that'll ever come to fruition.