Deus Ex Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

[PorkyThePaladin]

Adam Jensen is so fake, it's not even funny, a literal robot with zero personality or anything interesting.

 

[Gerrard]

Jensen:

Denton:

Codex: Noooo not my Denterinos that I grew up with nooooo

Adam Jensen is how a twelve year old boy would imagine how cool, tough grown up man should look, sound and behave. Super serious, Batman voice, metal arms, punches hookers in the face with full force. Typical head of security for a big corporation.

Nothing especially amazing about Denton, but he is believable as a genetically enhanced agent, and occasionally goofy voice acting makes him likeable for me.

JC's wit is sharper than the nanosword.

 

[Devastator]

Anyone else skip right over IW because it looked like every other console-first shooter that was being crapped out in that time period?

I wish. I played it when it came out because it was Deus Ex. I kept grinding my teeth and waiting for it to become good. I'm actually still pissed about it after all these years.

 

[J1M]

One thing that was nice about Invisible War was that they gave you 3 nano canisters right at the start and you could use them to activate any three augs or ramp one aug up to max level right out of the gate. I wonder if the game would have been received any differently if the protagonist was likeable, but the fatal flaw in the game (which is absolutely Warren Spectre's fault as studio head) was the choice to go with real-time lighting on a console because that forced numerous concessions that hurt the game. Most notably the microscopic level size.

 

[Beowulf]

One thing that was nice about Invisible War was that they gave you 3 nano canisters right at the start and you could use them to activate any three augs or ramp one aug up to max level right out of the gate. I wonder if the game would have been received any differently if the protagonist was likeable, but the fatal flaw in the game (which is absolutely Warren Spectre's fault as studio head) was the choice to go with real-time lighting on a console because that forced numerous concessions that hurt the game. Most notably the microscopic level size.

Same with Thief 3. The reduction in level sizes was noticeable at that time and this was first major sign of the decline that consoles (with all their limitations) would bring to gamin in the years to come.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I played some Cyberpunk 2077 after Mankind Divided, and it really drove home how bad the writing/dialogue is in MD. Say what you will about CP2077's gameplay or bugs or whatever (obviously the game has some serious issues), but the writing and dialogues are top notch. People talk like people, about interesting shit, it's always entertaining to follow them. MD dialogue feels like absolute crap by comparison, blah blah augmented vs naturals, over and over, woke shit, blah blah.

I had the same reaction btw after playing Witcher after Dragon Ass: Origins. There should be a law, if your studio does not have elite writing skills, do NOT write a lot of dialogue.

 

[Nano]

CDPR fanboys are revolting.

 

[Silverfish]

MD dialogue feels like absolute crap by comparison, blah blah augmented vs naturals, over and over, woke shit, blah blah.

MD doesn't even use the premise of "Augmented Civil Rights Movement" to do anything all that interesting or entertaining. At the bare minimum, there could have been an anti-aug KKK who tirelessly guard all the air ducts in the city.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

MD dialogue feels like absolute crap by comparison, blah blah augmented vs naturals, over and over, woke shit, blah blah.

MD doesn't even use the premise of "Augmented Civil Rights Movement" to do anything all that interesting or entertaining. At the bare minimum, there could have been an anti-aug KKK who tirelessly guard all the air ducts in the city.

Completely spitballing, but: my guess is the game started development before all the social justice shit kicked into overdrive and they started to realize they were treading on real thin ice and probably regretted picking that as a theme at all.

 

[udm]

One thing that was nice about Invisible War was that they gave you 3 nano canisters right at the start and you could use them to activate any three augs or ramp one aug up to max level right out of the gate. I wonder if the game would have been received any differently if the protagonist was likeable, but the fatal flaw in the game (which is absolutely Warren Spectre's fault as studio head) was the choice to go with real-time lighting on a console because that forced numerous concessions that hurt the game. Most notably the microscopic level size.

Same with Thief 3. The reduction in level sizes was noticeable at that time and this was first major sign of the decline that consoles (with all their limitations) would bring to gamin in the years to come.

The difference is that Thief 3's levels were actually not badly designed despite the smaller sizes. They were still believably in Thief's industrial-gothic world. IW's, in contrast, felt like a bunch of corridors, rooms, and washed out textures that was poorly strung together by amateur modders. Go to Google Images, type "deus ex invisible war", look at any one screenshot, and see if you can even identify what the area is supposed to represent.

 

[AW8]

So I replayed this game again, wanting to try out some things I hadn't really used before, like the Nanoblade augmentation. And oh boy, is it just as overpowered as its non-lethal counterpart, the TESLA.

The Nanoblade:

• Kills almost every enemy in a single shot
• Has perfect accuracy and good range
• Slightly auto-aims onto enemies if fired with the crosshair in their general direction
• Needs no reload and can be fired about three times a second
• Is silent to fire (altough dying enemies give off a little noise)
• Can be charged up to an explosive version capable of killing several enemies in the AoE
• Uses ammo that can be crafted for cheap in the player's inventory
• Can be unlocked at the start of the game at the cost of a mere 2 Praxis, with another Praxis for the AoE upgrade

I played stealthily & lethal, and ended up having a much easier time clearing a path through the Prague police than when I played loud & lethal. Battle Rifles and Shotguns just can't compete with the ridiculous power of the Nanoblade.

The game is still incredibly fun to play and I don't mind overly powerful weapons (and you could solve most of the problem by limiting the ammo by not making it craftable), but what this game really needed was overly powerful enemies to balance it out. It's fine if you can easily mop the floor with the cops, but secret Illuminati black ops agents shouldn't go down almost as easily.

I also purposefully got the worst ending, saving neither the towers nor the delegates. And I had to look up on the internet how to accomplish it.

There are four different ending states with unique Picus segments and player dialogue in the final scene, but even failing a single objective is incredibly hard. After accomplishing one of the objectives, a generous 10 minute timer starts, failing the other objective unless you reach it in time. There's a semi-hidden path that connects both objectives, making the timer a total joke. But even without that path, it should take no less than five minutes to fight or sneak your way the short distance to the other objective. And that is if you went to the final boss first - the game railroads you to go to the delegates first, and that's where almost all the enemies are, allowing you to take all the time in the world to clear a path or find a stealth route through it before the timer starts.

Getting the worst ending is practically impossible without meta-gaming. You need to start the fight with the final boss, leave the room with him seeing you and calling you a coward over the infolink, then take 10 minutes getting to the delegates (only possible if you're purposefully dragging your feet and playing around with the enemy AI like I was). Not sure what Eidos Montreal was thinking when they made it so backwards, considering they got it completely right with the ending for The Missing Link.

Completely spitballing, but: my guess is the game started development before all the social justice shit kicked into overdrive and they started to realize they were treading on real thin ice and probably regretted picking that as a theme at all.

This makes me think about how a possible sequel would be set in the 2030's, a time of plagues that killed off a huge chunk of the planet's population. Comparisons to a certain real-life pandemic might lead to accusations of unoriginality and claims that the developers are just jumping on whatever issue is hot right now. Considering how the "Aug Lives Matter" stuff led to controversy, I think this would be an actual obstacle for a sequel.

 

[Zombra]

I tried again to play this game due to a bizarre craving for a decent first-person with meaningful build choices. Somehow even on lowest settings my power rig has excruciating screen drag. It's not THAT old. Can't figure out why it's so rough. Is there some obvious thing out there like it only runs on DX5 or something? A quick search just shows a thousand people all asking "Why does this run like shit?" I can't figure out how I played it at all a few years ago.

 

[Lacrymas]

Iirc, this game was one of the first to employ DX12 at the time, but it was horribly optimized for it and you should run it on the old one. Or maybe try running it on DX12 if you are running it on 11.

 

[MuffinBun]

MD dialogue feels like absolute crap by comparison, blah blah augmented vs naturals, over and over, woke shit, blah blah.

MD doesn't even use the premise of "Augmented Civil Rights Movement" to do anything all that interesting or entertaining. At the bare minimum, there could have been an anti-aug KKK who tirelessly guard all the air ducts in the city.

Completely spitballing, but: my guess is the game started development before all the social justice shit kicked into overdrive and they started to realize they were treading on real thin ice and probably regretted picking that as a theme at all.

This is surely the case. The previous one was heavily influenced by the Occupy and 1% rhetoric(like lots of media of that period). They likely thought they'll get the same artistic freedom to discuss the incoming issue of the day.

MD dialogue feels like absolute crap by comparison, blah blah augmented vs naturals, over and over, woke shit, blah blah.

The in-universe situation of augs is incomparable to the one of the suggested group .The augmented were once the vanguard of the developed world, the key figures in upcoming renaissance brought by technology, but suddenly became the hated underclass. If anything, that's the subversion of the trope - they're closer to white gen z. I don't get the criticism of the dialogue. The quality varies, but overall it's serviceable and even solid at times. The game has the appearance of politically charged, but its imo completely undeserved.

 

[vibehunter]

MD dialogue feels like absolute crap by comparison, blah blah augmented vs naturals, over and over, woke shit, blah blah.

MD doesn't even use the premise of "Augmented Civil Rights Movement" to do anything all that interesting or entertaining. At the bare minimum, there could have been an anti-aug KKK who tirelessly guard all the air ducts in the city.

My main problem is how on the nose the game is with the whole augs vs non-augs thing. It lacks subtlety, is sometimes immersion breaking, and overall feels very amateur from a writing perspective.

Also it’s difficult to make sense of how society in MD progresses to become how it is in Deus Ex 1. The Jensen and Denton games almost feel like separate timelines to me.

 

[Ninjerk]

MD dialogue feels like absolute crap by comparison, blah blah augmented vs naturals, over and over, woke shit, blah blah.

MD doesn't even use the premise of "Augmented Civil Rights Movement" to do anything all that interesting or entertaining. At the bare minimum, there could have been an anti-aug KKK who tirelessly guard all the air ducts in the city.

My main problem is how on the nose the game is with the whole augs vs non-augs thing. It lacks subtlety, is sometimes immersion breaking, and overall feels very amateur from a writing perspective.

Also it’s difficult to make sense of how society in MD progresses to become how it is in Deus Ex 1. The Jensen and Denton games almost feel like separate timelines to me.

I think they somewhat locked themselves in with their milquetoast treatment of the "aug issue" in HR and, yes, the Jensen games don't really line up with what's going to happen in Deus Ex. It's been years, but I'm sure this was brought up when they started showing off development of DX:HR. Unfaithful remake incoming at some point, probably.

 

[vibehunter]

Unfaithful remake with a piss-yellow filter over everything.*

 

[Falksi]

Playing Mankind Divided was really when it hit me just how desperate gaming had become to bloat everything with "open-worlds" which weren't actually open worlds.

Probably the worst curse on gaming since the difficulty pull-back of the 00's.

 

[Silverfish]

Open worlds are great, man. No pointless buzzwords like "level design" or "pacing" can compete with the feeling of going an hour out of your way and discovering $5 and some crafting components.

 

[Lacrymas]

Prague is actually a very good example of an open world. Prague's architectural style is not my cup of tea, I don't particularly like how the European capitals or old cities look, but it was very well designed and it showed everyone how an open hub should be done.

RE: Aug issue - after unfortunately living through the historic event that is the pandemic, we all saw how the entire world could talk about a single issue for months and years on end, so that had the side effect of redeeming the writers of Mankind Divided for basing everything in the game around augmentations. More could've been done with it, of course, but it's not as jarring as it used to be.

 

[Paul_cz]

I don't particularly like how the European capitals or old cities look

...the fuck is wrong with you

Open worlds are great, man. No pointless buzzwords like "level design" or "pacing" can compete with the feeling of going an hour out of your way and discovering $5 and some crafting components.

There are open world games with great design

 

[Gargaune]

Prague is actually a very good example of an open world.

Aren't we stretching it calling DX4's Prague an "open world", though? It might've been a bit larger than the original's Hell's Kitchen or Paris, but it's still firmly in the same school of hub design.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I don't get the criticism of the dialogue. The quality varies, but overall it's serviceable and even solid at times. The game has the appearance of politically charged, but its imo completely undeserved.

The criticism is that you cannot have a large gameworld in an RPG where literally everyone only talks about one thing. Talk to any NPC, any janitor, any hooker, any stripper, any bartender, all they will discuss with you is the augmented vs non-augmented political debate. This makes the game seem fake and CNN-like. And for the same reason that watching CNN/Fox becomes nauseating after a bit, this is also the case with playing MD.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

people speak about what tv tells them to.

 

[Silverfish]

There are open world games with great design