Some DXHR impressions

[SoupNazi]

I don't consider the original Deus Ex to be good because of its plot at all. In was intriguing for the first time, but I replayed it over 10 because of the level design (yes), but also the massive amount of ways to fuck with the NPCs and the game itself through bugs and exploits.

With Human Revolution, I like it because of the level design and good gun game (making it fun to actually go rambo in it, unlike the original) as well as many ways to fuck with the AI (not as much as the original, but still). So yeah, I do think it has good FPS mechanics. If you didn't find it fun I'd understand if you tried to cope out of the combat/stealth but the problem is that the popamole cover mechanic does nothing to make the game faster or easier. In fact the difficulty stays the same, it's just far slower.

Another thing I have to note (but don't have the intention of forcing it onto anyone) is that there are different approaches to games that can drastically change the experience. I'll list Far Cry 2 as an example, which I hated for the first 5 tries of playing it because I kept trying to pick enemies off by shooting them from afar or going into straight encounters since the game sort of called for it... I abandoned it for several months. Eventually I went back to the game, got a bolt-action sniper rifle and drastically changed my approach... I then had a blast with it for several months, even replayed it twice just for the great value in the process of carefully analyzing the combat area, headshotting two goons, getting up and running to a new position while they panic and investigate and cover the spot I was at with suppressive fire, then picking off another, setting shit on fire and killing the last goon as he tries to run away, etc. What I'm saying is maybe if you let go of the assumption that HR's combat is shit because of X and Y and just enter the game as more of a tactical hit'n'run shooter (think the Rainbow Six series), it can be more fun. I find it is the same case with the original where if you tried to shoot your way through Liberty Island you would find yourself extremely bored because of various problems with the gun game. But HR doesn't have those problems.

 

[Roguey]

No way is that appeal to authority.

You said, EVEN Josh Sawyer. By which you imply that Sawyer has extremely low standards, and if he doesn't like something, it means that even those most please-able person was not pleased.

I also meant it in a "even this professional game designer, the kind of person who has to walk on eggshells and be very careful about criticizing other games lest he get in trouble, felt secure enough to publicly say the game sucks if you play it this way." Of course Deus Ex would also be pretty shitty if one were to remove the lean buttons, which is equivalent of removing the cover button in DX:HR, though as you've noted, Doom-style running and gunning is still a valid playstyle early enough whereas it isn't in HR.

 

[SoupNazi]

Early enough?

When exactly is that? After you've went through New York and Hong Kong and been re-captured and have a chance at stealing the plasma rifle - at which point if you haven't put in enough skillpoints or gathered enough multitools you might not even get it and have to wait even longer? What did you do before that when you wanted to do doom-style running and gunning and Deus Ex?

I don't expect a reply from Wyrmlord because whenever he's backed into a corner he just runs away from the thread but maybe you can shed some light on this shit for me, Roguey. Because I'd really love to play Deus Ex LARPing to be the DOOM GUY but I just can't figure out how to do it without some massive metagaming and planning for this shit very early on. Educate me, mang.

 

[Roguey]

Just get the laser sight mod, put it on your pistol, get the shotgun in the boat while you're at it, and there you go. Don't waste any points in pistols, put them all into rifles. Rifles is the best, most op skill in Deus Ex ever because shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles will all carry you to the endgame. Plasma rifle? Shitty weapon, used it once just to try it out and hated it.

 

[SoupNazi]

Please show me how you clear Liberty Island Doom-stlye and/or the NSF warehouse in New York without cheats, on Realistic difficulty.

 

[Roguey]

I've never tried running and gunning in realistic difficulty since that's at odds with that kind of playstyle and I never liked Contra outside of its alien designs. It definitely wouldn't be impossible, no game with save/load anywhere is.

 

[CreamyBlood]

I never had a 'cover' key assigned to anything, I still don't know what this sticky shooter stuff is about. I played on Deus Ex Mode and assumed that because this was a shit console game purposefully gimped myself,I didn't want the in-built 'wall-hacks' augs. I took inventory, then hacking and eventually gun stabilizers and finally jumping and falling.

I found it challenging all throughout the game. About a third way through I accidently hit a 'take-down' key and started using that. Assuming that on average most encounters are about 3-6 bad guys against you, I'd sneak up and try and 'take-down' one or two if possible, then rambo the rest. That was my MO for a large part of the game, and sneaking through the obvious ducts.

To be honest, the combat never got easier and I was reloading more than any game I can remember in recent history so I suppose that made it fun for me. The level design in hindsight is not bad, not great but at the time I enjoyed the exploration, reading the emails, finding the secrets.

All in all, I enjoyed it and actually finished it. It's leaps and bounds above Bioshock. I'm not sure if the tacked on RPG aspects are on par with Dark Messiah as I'm not sure which one is ultimately more useless yet the way I played it, it was a bit of a challenging shooter with half-decent exporation and lots of emails to hack and read.

The cut scenes didn't happen too often but I can understand how they pull you out of the experience, they didn't bug me.

I was amazed at how bad the graphics were. I think Quake 3 has more curves in it. This thing is built out of lego blocks, you see nothing but straight lines and hard corners. I suppose they did a good job trying to hide it behind filters and small viewing distances but that was one thing that shocked me seeing how constrained they were to fit it on a console. 2012. 2012 and this is what my fancy new computer get's me?

Anyways, I don't know what to think, if you gibble yourself, turn off all the console shit and slog your way through it, assuming you're a half competent FPS player, like to explore and get lost in convoluted re-used sections and and settings it's not bad. That's what kept me going. I played it all the way through so I don't feel ripped off. Not excstactic but not scammed. I liked the inventory management, not knowing what gun to keep, making decisions and not knowing if they mattered. I had a good time.

I suppose some of the complaints are from console players, or FPS players trying to play like console players or something, but if you 'crank up the volume' this game gives you a good combat challenge on top of the many extras they threw in there. It's pretty good really, in a strange way. The flaws are obvious as you're going through it but ultimately I think they made a good game, not a great game, but something that was fun to me and worth the money.

Which as we all know means, "It's good for w...........

 

[Wyrmlord]

Wyrmlord is being retarded again.

In DX1 on realistic not being careful equalled getting one-shotted by an enemy you didn't even see. Sure the enemies were dumb and not very perceptive, so stealthing was easy, but you had to pay attention.
DX:HR is similar in this regard except you can get killed even more easily. The only thing annoying is that the AI is still dumb, and cover system is basically a stealth cheat, because of TPP.

And what happened when you did see the enemy? The enemy hesitates for one second before shooting you. You, the player, are not bound to hesitate. That one second opening is pretty long, enough for you to kill the enemy before the enemy kills you. Besides, the sudden change in music always alerts you to the fact that an enemy has spotted you.

For this reason, it is possible to do the whole Liberty Island run-and-gun style, provided you have either a hand-mounted crossbow or a sniper rifle, even though snipers are not meant for run and gun.

Of course, if you did not spot the enemy - if they were on a roof, for example - then in my case, I had to reload from far far back in the game (I am not in the habit of saving often, you see), and learn that painful lesson to always watch the rooftops before going anywhere. Still, rooftop snipers can't kill a player moving faster than they can aim.

 

[SoupNazi]

I've never tried running and gunning in realistic difficulty since that's at odds with that kind of playstyle and I never liked Contra outside of its alien designs. It definitely wouldn't be impossible, no game with save/load anywhere is.

At least you have the integrity to admit it (halfway there). And no, I absolutely guarantee that until you get enough augs and modded weapons / plasma rifle, it's not possible to run and gun Doom-style in Deus Ex on Realistic difficulty.

And what happened when you did see the enemy? The enemy hesitates for one second before shooting you. You, the player, are not bound to hesitate. That one second opening is pretty long, enough for you to kill the enemy before the enemy kills you. Besides, the sudden change in music always alerts you to the fact that an enemy has spotted you.

For this reason, it is possible to do the whole Liberty Island run-and-gun style, provided you have either a hand-mounted crossbow or a sniper rifle, even though snipers are not meant for run and gun.

Of course, if you did not spot the enemy - if they were on a roof, for example - then in my case, I had to reload from far far back in the game (I am not in the habit of saving often, you see), and learn that painful lesson to always watch the rooftops before going anywhere. Still, rooftop snipers can't kill a player moving faster than they can aim.

Digging yourself deeper and deeper into the hole. Most of the time on Realistic you'll get killed before you even see the enemy, and it doesn't even have to be a sniper. The music doesn't mean you see the enemy within your (fabled) one-second time slot. The bullshit about Liberty Island is just hilarious, and just proves you pull shit out of your ass, Wyrmie. Wrist crossbow to kill enemies in run and gun when it's so wildly inaccurate and doesn't even kill enemies in one shot? Sniper as a run and gun weapon? How are you going to run and gun with it, exactly?

I'll eat my hat if you provide a video of playing through the mission on Realistic with no augs, but then again, you'd rather just keep on making shit up on the spot. So much for your "I don't care about what people on the internet think", clearly you're even more afraid of losing your face here than anyone else.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Captain Shrek]

@Wyrmlord:

Stop! Stop! Don't jump to conclusions. Although its a perfectly valid description of FPS games until date you are making, there are exceptions and there CAN be very enjoyable exceptions.

 

[Wyrmlord]

So much for your "I don't care about what people on the internet think", clearly you're even more afraid of losing your face here than anyone else.

Why put words into my mouth? Of course I take an interest in the place, that's why I post here. Why assign positions I never held?

Either way, there is a simple way of running and gunning with a sniper. Make sure to hit in the head every time the enemy spots you. He, again, hesitates for one second which is more than enough time for you to aim at the head. And the crossbow works well enough at close range.

Lastly, your comments about digging a hole make it sound like you see this a competition to be won. No, it's not, it's just establishing the facts about a videogame.

 

[ghostdog]

I started playing HR a couple of days ago. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the level design. I enjoyed exploring Detroit and they definitely nailed some of DX's gameplay style. I don't know, maybe because I had pretty low expectations I didn't hate the game. So far it looks better than IW. The writing obviously can't be compared to DX's but that's to be expected, I mean the same team of writers that wrote DX was in IW and they didn't even manage to come close to DX's standards.



As for run and gun the whole liberty Island... I don't think so. You can certainly sprint straight to the top of the statue and maybe kill a few NFS on the way, but gun them all down head on, you can't.

 

[someone else]

For this reason, it is possible to do the whole Liberty Island run-and-gun style, provided you have either a hand-mounted crossbow or a sniper rifle, even though snipers are not meant for run and gun.

Can you make a video of this on the harder difficulties? I want to see how you circle strafe NSFs with a crossbow or sniper rifle.

 

[Roguey]

As for run and gun the whole liberty Island... I don't think so. You can certainly sprint straight to the top of the statue and maybe kill a few NFS on the way, but gun them all down head on, you can't.

But I've done it? Just not on realistic. That's a gimmick difficulty anyway.

 

[Infinitron]

One man's gimmick is another man's only true way to play.

 

[Roguey]

Telling others what they can or can't do with their game is silly. :p You can believe that Deus Ex is only tolerable on realistic and that's fine, but the fact that it makes several game mechanics irrelevant means it's a gimmicky afterthought.

 

[ghostdog]

But I've done it? Just not on realistic. That's a gimmick difficulty anyway.

I was talking about realistic difficulty. This whole argument is whether you can run'n'gun liberty Island in realistic difficulty.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I think that the main reason the game isn't as pleasant as the original Deus Ex is that there are too many things that take us out of the immersion, and the humble perspective of JC Denton. Flashy menus. Cutscenes, Boss fights. A hero with a though personality. A game primarily about substance is now about style.

In the original the only moment where you got out of the first person perspective was when someone was talking to you, apart from that it really was as if it was something you experienced for yourself, and the sci-fi elements were kept to a minimum.

I also agree that the elements of the story were hammered too hardly on you, the subtlety of the original was gone. You also traveled to many more locations, and you had far less support. In Deus Ex, you felt like a rogue, and it added a lot to the experience. In this one this isn't the case at all, you always have a lot of backup.

 

[Infinitron]

I have to agree that DX:HR lacks the exhilarating experience of JC going rogue. Adam Jensen is never betrayed by The Man - his boss is behind him right till the end.
But these days, that's practically a twist in itself.

 

[SoupNazi]

Telling others what they can or can't do with their game is silly. :p You can believe that Deus Ex is only tolerable on realistic and that's fine, but the fact that it makes several game mechanics irrelevant means it's a gimmicky afterthought.

Don't try to misdirect attention. This whole argument stems from Wyrmlord making shit up about him running and gunning through Deus Ex on Realistic difficulty as if it was Doom (which has perfect accuracy). Even on the easier difficulties I would very much doubt you'd be able to Doom through Liberty Island, and sniping really doesn't count - on Realistic it's not happening, period. I never played on the lower difficulties so maybe it is possible but until I see a video, I won't believe it.

Aaaaaand Wyrmie, I'd gladly find the post by you where you claim you hold no interest in what other people say on the internet, especially here, but really - you're not gonna goad me into that much effort. Keep making stuff up though, you're so horrible at it it's almost entertaining.

 

[Roguey]

Don't try to misdirect attention. This whole argument stems from Wyrmlord making shit up about him running and gunning through Deus Ex on Realistic difficulty as if it was Doom (which has perfect accuracy). Even on the easier difficulties I would very much doubt you'd be able to Doom through Liberty Island, and sniping really doesn't count - on Realistic it's not happening, period. I never played on the lower difficulties so maybe it is possible but until I see a video, I won't believe it.

Well guess what, I just did it. No probs, only died once trying to rescue Gunther. The dumb enemies in this game are so blind it's no problem running around them and plugging them in the back of the head before they can even notice. Used nothing but the regular pistol with the laser sight (which has perfect accuracy, like Doom y'know) from the hangar. I'm not going to make a video since I get performance anxiety and you could easily try it yourself.

 

[someone else]

Well guess what, I just did it. No probs, only died once trying to rescue Gunther. The dumb enemies in this game are so blind it's no problem running around them and plugging them in the back of the head before they can even notice. Used nothing but the regular pistol with the laser sight (which has perfect accuracy, like Doom y'know) from the hangar. I'm not going to make a video since I get performance anxiety and you could easily try it yourself.

If you relying on them not noticing, that is different from run and gun where you are strafing to avoid getting hit while shooting back. I have run and gun before but with high weapon skills.

 

[hoopy2]

So start the game right? Music sucks.

I think the music works well enough, and I particularly like the track in Jensen's apartment.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Guys
GUYS
I just wanted to say this picture in the credits was the best part about the DXHR DLC thank you and god bless