Deus Ex 3!? - Page 33

I suppose I should have explained myself before when I made that statement. Since I haven't played the game yet, and since I'm not a literary critic, I can't say if the RPS review was actually good or bad. I said it rubbed me the wrong way because, after reading the Destructoid review, the RPS review felt more judgmental than descriptive, and thus, less helpful.

When I read any game review, I expect its author to paint as thorough a picture of the game as possible through his or her words, so that I can truly visualize it, before the author critiques the features he/she just described. It can be argued that game previews exist separately from reviews for the very reason of separating description from judgment, but often times previews are focused on only a small bit of the game or aren't written close enough to the game's release date to be reliable. Thus, I like to be told a story about what it looks and feels like to fight, talk, run, plan, mini-game, etc. before the author judges those aspects, so I can start to think for myself whether those sound fun enough to make the game worth my money.

When I read the RPS review, I felt like the author spent too little time describing, and for the most part, went right to judging. There are several examples of this, but one that sticks out in particular is the hacking minigame. The RPS writer dismisses it in one short paragraph as "not interesting enough to explain in words... but it never offends." Such a statement is actually (I think) high praise for a hacking minigame, and I do find that helpful, but compare it to the Destructoid reviewer's approach to hacking: Three full paragraphs, with the first starting with "Hacking is by far one of the most essential elements of the game." The second paragraph describes the hacking process in detail to support the thesis "Despite the initial sense of intimidation that the hacking system can radiate, it's a deceptively simple game that rewards forward thinking, careful planning, and useful augmentations." Finally, the third hacking paragraph finishes with several sentences outlining the the hacking system's flaws.

An even bigger example of what influenced me negatively towards the RPS review is what RPS calls "lousy boss fights," but Destructoid calls the "social gameplay." Not only is the RPS author's tone aggressive and negative (never a good thing unless your reader already agrees with you 100%), but the author never even told me what the boss fights are like other than "It sucks that they’re there at all, and it sucks more that they’re all so boring and tedious...But what goes so far beyond just sucking is the betrayal they represent. Here all illusion of choice is gone." I got the message that the boss battles are disappointing, but it's not helpful to me because the author doesn't really explain why it's so awful outside of quickly describing his own, singular, immersion-breaking experience.

Dealing with the same topic, the Destructoid review of "social gameplay" has a better tone, it describes the boss battles more thoroughly than just using one example, and yet it still comes to the same fairly negative "all illusion of choice is gone" conclusion that RPS did. Destructoid introduces the boss battles as '"Social Boss Battles' in which Jensen must verbally outwit an opponent in a debate." It then describes the meat of the boss battles by describing the facial animations involved and the goal of using what you know about the opponent to outsmart them. Finally, and most importantly, Destructoid also touches on the negative by saying "Unfortunately, these moments are also quite easy," and "I tried to fail and still ended up succeeding." Thus, without using profanity, it shows how you can't have much choice if poor dialogue choices take you to the same place as good ones.

It bears mentioning that I've never read anything on either website, that I've never played a Deus Ex game, and that I didn't know anything about this game until I started reading about it yesterday. It's entirely possible that the RPS review is simply meant for readers more well-versed in Deus Ex knowledge to the point where those readers are not looking for descriptive tedium and are just interested in an opinion. However, since I was looking for something else, something that amicably dissected a large, complex game to the point where I can almost see it before I buy it, and since I didn't get that sense from the RPS review, that is why I felt like it rubbed me the wrong way.