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Well, I gotta say I'm having a lot of trouble getting into this game....I'm just generally not feelin it for a few reasons. I'm only in the first part of gameplay so maybe things change, but I'm already losing interest in continuing.
Here's why.
1. The Controls
There are just a few too many buttons in this game. I'm a hardcore PC gamer, I play basically everything that comes out and am very good at FPS games, but I'm getting annoyed by this one. I have Q and E mapped to interact and takedowns, Shift to cover, right and left mouse to fire and ironsights, ctrl to crouch, G to grenades, R to reload, numbers to itemswitch...This is about as many keys as I'm comfy using. Then I have to put Run/Walk on Alt, and Sprint on Caps Lock. For some reason they don't let you rebind Tab even though other keys get you to the same Menu. These keys are awkward as fuck to use fluidly, and I just feel like a gimp whenever I have to go for them or the silly F1-F4 abilities. I really would have appreciated a radial menu like Crysis and maybe double tapping W to sprint. This isn't a huge deal but it just lessens the immersion when I'm flailing around with pretzel hands trying to sprint jump. Also, Jumping doesn't break you out of crouch like basically every other game ever, which pisses me off.
2. The Interface The Inventory system just sucks balls. There is no indication of how large an item is on the ground before you pick it up. So if I try to pick up this new rifle or whatever, and it says "nope, you're full", how much shit am I going to have to drop on the ground to pick it up? I just have to dump shit out one by one until it fits....Then half the time I decide it wasn't worth it and have to reverse the whole process.
Why is it not right click to open the item description and left to drag and drop like every other menu ever in the history of humanity? Why can't I drag and drop weapon mods to apply them? Why do I have to dive through menus to see what weapons accept what mods? Oh, here's a big one. Why is there no indication whatsoever if a weapon in my inventory is modded or not? It looks fucking identical. Also, I can pick up guns and sell them for credits, but If I already have one the gun is turned into useless ammo. Theoretically I could run back and forth to the shop selling every single pistol in the level and make millionaire bank...but I'm way too lazy to do that. Annoying as fuck. The Augmentation menu also sucks balls, Half the augs already look like you put points into them at the beginning of the game, and each set is nested inside a different body site menu....This all serves to camouflage what I'm trying to do with my build and forces me to go through like five menus trying to find the double takedown mod, or all of them If I want to have a good idea of what is available. Just put that shit in a big list for gods sake. At the very least only ONE menu layer down.
3. Customizability This game is supposed to be about choices, but I've gotta say I'm extremely dissapointed so far with the customizability options. For one thing lets look at what character builds are really possible:
1. Stealth Hacker 2. Guy Who Shoots Stuff
These are basically your two choices. All of the Augs either directly benefit one or the other playstyles. Some of them are maybe beneficial to both, but they don't really change gameplay much (longer sprint...etc). I tried to do a melee fighter build, but was disappointed because apparently there aren't any melee weapons in the game, and I actually have to wait around for like 2 minutes to recharge after every melee attack.... which are all one hit kills. Basically the game is telling me: "Fuck you, melee is designed to be part of the Stealth Hacker build, you're doing it wrong". Well, I was pretty sad about this, but I decided to give one of their builds a try.
Here's the problem. If I play as Guy Who Shoots Stuff, I'm gonna be very very bored. Because all of the skills that a true Guy Who Shoots Stuff would want are all passive ones...Lower recoil, percentage damage reduction, blah blah. Basically playing this character feels the exact same beginning to fucking end of the game. Not to mention the fact that the cover system and high damage enemies make the gunfighting on higher difficulty extremely static and boring. Playing as Guy Who Shoots Stuff also exacts a huge opportunity cost. I basically miss out on half of the content in the game. With no hacking skills I am not even allowed into most of the rooms and computers, I miss out on plot, items, characters....Its a serious sacrifice. The problem is that if I chose to build my character as Stealth Hacker, I get to do all this stuff, and I don't miss out on any of the content that Guy Who Shoots Stuff got to do. I can still use every weapon in the game, and while my armor isn't as tough and I have more recoil, its basically the same gunplay that Guy Who Shoots Stuff had. So I don't feel I can even build Guy Who Shoots Stuff. I'm not willing to sacrifice getting into half the text and areas in the game for basically making the combat sections in the game slightly easier. I'm a good player, I can still shoot through 40 guys from behind a parked car WITH 100% recoil. This leaves me with only one viable character build....this makes me sad. Also, fuck the Typhoon, that is the lames active skill I've ever seen, Its the FPS equivalent of those bombs in Raiden that just blow up everything on the screen, boring as fuck.
The weapon mod system is also reduced to basically a "grind better guns" system as well. There are only like 3 mods usable on any given gun. They are pretty much all single-edged improvements. I can grind my pistol into a silenced pistol which does more damage and has a larger clip....but can I actually customize it? No. I can't put a scope on my shotgun, or make my rocket launcher rockets bounce or change my sniper rifle to fire in bursts. There is no choice whatsoever. Half of the weapons in the game don't even HAVE any mods. What would actually be fun is if you could ACTUALLY CUSTOMIZE WEAPONS. Maybe sacrifice killing power to have an emp SMG, or have a surface penetrating shotgun with infrared sights and a sniper with a bayonet and manually detonated explosive rounds and a stun gun with an underbarrel flamethrower. THAT would be a weapon mod system! The system in place now....I just don't give a fuck, I know its not going to make a single shits difference if my pistol reloads .3 seconds faster, and I don't even get a choice.
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No. I can't put a scope on my shotgun, or make my rocket launcher rockets bounce or change my sniper rifle to fire in bursts. There is no choice whatsoever. To be honest, all those customizations would be self-defeating and pretty terrible/stupid in reality. This isn't unreal or quake where you bounce shit off walls or crysis where you get 100% accuracy with the strength mod. "Customizations" are almost always improvements, not just gluing some retarded shit onto your gun.
Maybe sacrifice killing power to have an emp SMG, or have a surface penetrating shotgun That should have been accomplished by adding a big variety of different ammo types (i.e. emp rounds, slug shotgun rounds, incendiary rounds, etc.)
So I don't feel I can even build Guy Who Shoots Stuff. I'm not willing to sacrifice getting into half the text and areas in the game for basically making the combat sections in the game slightly easier. This part I agree completely. I miss playing the Dragon Tooth sword samurai style from deus ex 1. Jensen dies way too easily in this game to be able to have a purely melee character. It's realistic, but it does basically eliminate an entire playstyle.
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Amen to the high-damage mods.
Holy shit man if you don't put a ton of augs into defense (and even if you DID) you get raped by even three or four enemies if you get spotted in a bad cover spot and can't pick them off fast enough.
It's not a bad game, by all means, though. Just has room for improvement. I'm enjoying it at the very least. Not a game I'd write home about, however.
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too much hacking!!!! thats my only gripe, i spent 20+ hours on the game, and honestly, 1/2 was just hacking shit for like 100 exp or something, i like that the game is difficult, and you can die easily if your an idiot, that part makes sense. i also enjoy the pacing, its not just bam bam shoot em up all game long. But theres just too much hacking, i maxed out the hacking augs very quickly, and it became so tedious to just see another computer, or door, or building that i could go hack. No, you dont have to hack if you dont want, but if theres 5-10 hours of gameplay totally centered on hacking shit, it turns into just a waste of time, with only some benefits here and there. 7.5/10 for me, enjoyed it, but, the game just drags on forever.
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I'm currently playing as a stealth character and I'm having lots of fun. I don't really agree with you on the lack of customization for guns. You can add silencers, laser dots and some ammo mods iirc (none of the guns I use can have ammo mods).
The inventory system wasn't that bad. Even though it doesn't say how big a gun you're going to pick is, you can still learn how much room each gun takes pretty quickly. The only thing that bothered me was how much room some of the ammo takes. (I'm looking at you crossbow bolts)
For the keys, I think it's just your binds. I use middle mouse for cover and shift for sprint, with toggle cover. Ctrl for crouch and c for walk. Removing the whole cover system would also make the controls better.
Things I liked: - Fun stealth - length (haven't finished the game yet, but I don't think I'm near the end yet.) - rewarding harder play (smooth operator exp bonus etc.)
Things I disliked: - Color scheme - Cover system - Crashes - No quicksave - Some stealth bugs
Someone should shoot the guy who decided to put "realistic" controls into FPS games. They fucking suck. It's almost as bad as brown and bloom in every modern FPS. Movement in half-life felt way better, even if it wasn't realistic.
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Quicksave is F5, Load is F8
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On September 02 2011 14:37 Sotamursu wrote:
Things I disliked: - Color scheme - Cover system - Crashes - No quicksave - Some stealth bugs
No quicksave? F5, man. I quicksave every few minutes xD
As far as the game goes, I am in love. I have the controls mapped to my classic DX1 configuration. Right click for use. Works great. And there are plenty of weapon mods, but that's not really what the game is about. It's about mission/dialogue choices, much like the original game. And from a designers perspective, the visuals are fantastic. Warm colors indicate that everything hasn't gone to hell yet, like in DX1, which focused on blue, green, and black.
I'm about 16 hours in. Haven't finished it yet, and I'm having a blast.
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iv played it through like 4 times now, its really fun
if you want a real challenge try doing a pacifict stealth playthrough. you can also explore different storyline sides and dialogue trees, you can be an asshole or a saint or an opportunist or anything in between
also you have to figure out the unique abilities of weapons by actually using them. did you know stun guns can bug out robots and turrets and are great against aug users? or that you can hack enemy robotics to kill your enemies, or that a fully upgraded revolver can own robots (and everything else, so imba!), or that the common pistol can actually be one of the best weapons in the game? that the cover system greatly benefits miniguns if you can aim well without sights? that you can take out up to three guards with a double takedown and a stun gun? (without even being hit on max difficulty) that you can lift turrets if you have the strength aug and use them as unlimited ammo miniguns (assuming you've hacked them)
i agree with you that typhoon sucks and the augs could be cooler/more creative. i do think the game is too small and perhaps too linear, i think stuff got cut out for dlcs and expansions tbh
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Didnt focus as much on the mechanics:
On September 01 2011 13:54 Boblion wrote:Now that i have completed the game well i think i would lower a bit the my previous rating -> 3.5 / 5 I think that there are several flaws with the game. I enjoyed Detroit a lot but after the FEMA level the story makes no sense. I know that there were a lot of back and forth travel and some "fillers" levels in Dx1 too but the story was way better, with a real pace and well developed characters. + Show Spoiler + In Dx1, you get to know Gunther, Simons and to a lesser extend Page and Navarre, you even get a rivalry with with some of them. Simons is like your upgraded version and your boss at the same time. Gunther wants revenge and is jealous of the nano augmented agents etc... Compare this to the stupid augmented bosses of Dx3. No real backstory whatsoever, you don't know who they are, their motivations are obscure ( money and augs ? ) and there are no real rivalries and build up. They are just the bad guys who almost killed Adam... kinda weak imo =/ Zhao is a mediocre version of Maggie Chow ( the greedy Asian girl leading a corp ) mixed with Page ( merging with AI for the final fight ) and is more annoying than really intimidating like Page or Simons. Also Reed is absolutly horrible i can't believe Adam felt in love with her and i would have killed her after the Namir fight if i had the choice. Really annoying character, this is like in the dumb child tales where you try to save the princess during all the game but this time she is working for the bad guys. JC would have dumped her with a sick one liner lol. Overall i didn't really enjoy many characters. Pritchard is a good replacement for Alex, and Malik does okay as Jock, Sarif and Tong are interesting but that's it. Sandoval / Darrow / Taggart = meh. They tried really hard to stick to the Dx formula which is good but i think it was way too predictable ( Malik has a Jock/Paul moment, AI fight at the end, etc... ) and at the same time they didn't use enough Dx1 material. Too few references imo The Manderley and Everett mails at the Fema warehouse and at Montreal were a nice touch but i wanted to learn a bit more ! They could have used so much more things: Morpheus, Daedalus, DeBeers, etc... instead of introducing bad replacements like Eliza. Oh well maybe they will give us more with some DLC or the sequel of the prequel lol. Game mechanics aren't perfect too, especially if you play in Deus Ex settings. You can't outpower everything like in DX1 even if you have all your augs maxed and you have to use the cover system and this is a bit uncomfortable if you are an oldschool FPS player. Boss fights sucks, you have to be cheap, otherwise you have no chance in max difficulty setting. Typhoon or grenade spam ftw. Inventory is more cumbersome than in Dx1 which is quite annoying too. AI seems quite smart but then you realize that they are only dangerous because their aim is almost perfect lol. They can be abused really easily like in Dx1. The hacking game seems really interesting at first too but then it becomes a frustrating chore if you max hacking and want to try to read every email and hack every doors. I completed the game with like 20+ worms and almost 50 nuke virus... This is so repetitive and since there are way more things to hack than in Dx1 my brain almost exploded. At one point the game developpers need to understand that people want to play the real game not some dumb mini game integrated to the mechanics. I mean it was even worse than Bioshock mini game after a while. Level design range from bad ( Panchea ) to really good ( Detroit, Fema warehouse ), i wish they didn't use the same fucking textures and models everywhere. I'm sick of the same shelves, toilets and Chinese streetshops. This is kind of sad because at the same time there are some really beautiful things in the game ( Adam's apartment, the last level of upper Heng sha etc... ). The lack of interaction with the environment is kind of sad too. Music is good, but a bit too much ambiant compared to Alex Brandon work. I mean it needed some tracks like Versalife or Unatco. Loved the radios playing the old songs. Overall first tier of the game is very good, second tier is so so, last tier is meh/bad and feels rushed.
Controls seemed okay to me, like in Dx1. Inventory sucked, you are right.
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On September 02 2011 14:56 NukeTheStars wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2011 14:37 Sotamursu wrote:
Things I disliked: - Color scheme - Cover system - Crashes - No quicksave - Some stealth bugs
No quicksave? F5, man. I quicksave every few minutes xD As far as the game goes, I am in love. I have the controls mapped to my classic DX1 configuration. Right click for use. Works great. And there are plenty of weapon mods, but that's not really what the game is about. It's about mission/dialogue choices, much like the original game. And from a designers perspective, the visuals are fantastic. Warm colors indicate that everything hasn't gone to hell yet, like in DX1, which focused on blue, green, and black. I'm about 16 hours in. Haven't finished it yet, and I'm having a blast. What the fuck?! I thought there wasn't one because you can't see the hotkey for it in the control section in the options. What's quickload then? F9?
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I will concur.
While Deus Ex Human Revolution is an excellent game in its own right, especially compared to some other modern games, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth when compared to the original game.
Which is a damn shame, because with the original being so old, many people won't be able to get into it and enjoy it the way you could back then.
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On September 02 2011 15:39 ShaperofDreams wrote: iv played it through like 4 times now, its really fun
if you want a real challenge try doing a pacifict stealth playthrough. you can also explore different storyline sides and dialogue trees, you can be an asshole or a saint or an opportunist or anything in between
also you have to figure out the unique abilities of weapons by actually using them. did you know stun guns can bug out robots and turrets and are great against aug users? or that you can hack enemy robotics to kill your enemies, or that a fully upgraded revolver can own robots (and everything else, so imba!), or that the common pistol can actually be one of the best weapons in the game? that the cover system greatly benefits miniguns if you can aim well without sights? that you can take out up to three guards with a double takedown and a stun gun? (without even being hit on max difficulty) that you can lift turrets if you have the strength aug and use them as unlimited ammo miniguns (assuming you've hacked them)
i agree with you that typhoon sucks and the augs could be cooler/more creative. i do think the game is too small and perhaps too linear, i think stuff got cut out for dlcs and expansions tbh
ahahaa, I discovered the infinte ammo minigun a few days ago. Talk about feeling like the ultimate badass. XD
I don't think the game is bad, and I started out playing a no-kill stealth playthrough, and it's tough. The game just feels long and drawn out, I guess. Also amen to pistol imba, I love the 10mm. :D
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I quite disliked this game... Very " meh " compared to other games of the same genre. Seems very dated and boring, story was also very... uninteresting to me.
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Cant believe how can you dislike this game D: , Its heaven for rpg fans anyway so you might not be a fan of rpgs than i would understand.
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I didn't think it was very good, it wasn't horrible but it just seemed like it was trying to copy the DX formula without really understanding what made it good in the first place. There was very little choice despite a great deal of effort going into giving you the illusion of choice. And no matter how you played I felt it just wasn't very enjoyable. A stealth game that isn't very good by stealth game standards, or an action game that isn't very good by action game standards.
That and the augs just seemed so disappointing. Do I get the aug to break a wall or just move these convenient cardboard boxes 3 feet away and take the vent? Is my experience truly different?
It was all very Mass Effect 2. A brilliant veneer that hides a shallow, unsatisfying game.
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If you just judge it on it's own merit, it's just an average action game with some RPG elements, some striking visuals, sub-par voice acting and that's it. Another forgettable game honestly. If you judge it on Deus Ex standards, the game doesn't even have 10% of what made Deus Ex good.
I want to blame console gamers for the dumbed down level up system, but I honestly think blaming the marketing department is more justified. The new augmentation system pretty much forces you into one of few archetypes (hell they might've just asked you to pick warrior, rogue, mage) and leaves a pretty obvious optimal path for game play. It's not like the original where you can solve any problem with any (well, most) skill sets rather than the kill the guy(lethal)/don't kill the guy and get the job down and get more xp(non-lethal) options.
I'm waiting on indie developers without marketing departments to come out with the next epic RPG that's PC exclusive, maybe a port later. Then at least I can't blame other factors and can just say the devs suck if the game turns out to be bad.
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hahaha that pic of the pistol is just so perfect.
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