Let's be real, the game sucks once you leave Hong Kong

Let's be real, the game sucks once you leave Hong Kong


Everytime I play it I hate it more and more. The game's just a damn mountain; it starts slow, then gets good with the NSF Headquarters/MJ12 facility, then gets godlike at hong kong, and then it's all free-fall from there. You appreciate it for its scope but it could be much improved. Too bad that gaming declined massively.

It is sad. Deus Ex while it had it's problems was very memorable. We will never see a game like it with all the fun, depth, fixes some of the problems, and expands on it. Oh well…

I think you're lying.

...

DX was supposed to be the beginning of a new era in gaming. Instead it was the end.

considering it came after all the games that it drew from, yeah it was pretty late to the party I suppose? There's thief, system shock, ultima underworld, many, many other games besides deus ex.

Try again Tong Pao.

paris is empty as fuck and apart from chateau du claire has pretty much nothing interesting going on in the entire city.

I felt something was wrong when I was IN HK, not after I left it. However, that didn't stop me from enjoying the game in the end, though I wouldn't put it up as a favourite. I'd still recommend it to people who haven't played it though.

I felt similar things about STALKER and VTMB. After about half way through the atmosphere, and draw kind of just falls to the backdrop.

stalker's problem is after you get to the bar the game is just in lol i give up mode and the developers put no effort into anything past that point. game and community prop it up on muh atmosphere but it's a shit gimmick.

I agree the bottom end drops out of the game after Hong Kong, but some of the best levels in the game are still in its second half:
God-tier:
Great-tier:
Good-tier:
Mediocre-tier:
Boring-tier:

As for the lack of upgrades from that point, I think it gives the game two distinct phases; one where you're trying to succeed while upgrading your character, and a second where you're locked into the complete build you've chosen. Sort of like early Zelda/Metroid learning the ropes and working around your weaknesses, versus the endgame of exploiting synergies between the full toolset you've accrued.

ocean lab is fucking horrible. What are you talking about? It's one of the least interesting, most linear locations in the entire game.

It's a neat little puzzle box, kind of a quick throwback to System Shock.

That is what you get for being a pleb by taking cloak instead of taking radar transparency. Besides, you are given a shitload of tools to deal with them: emp grenades, GEP gun, LAMs, scrambler grenades, SABOT ammunition and LAWs. And that is ignoring the fact that you can easily avoid them without radar transparency most of the time by just walking around them.

Let's be real, the dubs suck once you don't get them.

Get out of my sight.

I can't say I agree with much you say. I never felt Paris was supposed to be a hub area. You were supposed to go in, avoid getting detected, quickly navigate to your targets and bail out.

I like how you can actually be full on social in that hub and more or less avoid the streets completelly. I get why people expecte something else, coming from Hong Kong, but Paris is underrated, imho.

This is something that, to me, either exposes a game, or the fanbase that praises it. If you constantly need something new to be thrown at you, then you aren't really in to the core gameplay as much as you think you are.

Tho i might be misunderstanding what you mean when you say that,

It wasn't supposed to be the begining of anything. That's what delusional fans say to make it more grandiose than it needs to be.

I don't. The city is clearly under heavy enemy occupation, you are wanted man with info about you plastered everywhere and a hostile unknown AI is fucking with you over your comlink. Dallying about like in Hell's Kitchen and Hong Kong just doesn't seem sensible.

Who hurt your feelings?

It's true, people pretend like it was supposed to be this huge game changer, but it was never meant to be that, despite what the proto nu-male Warren tells you. Hell, the only reason most of the really strong themes and writing got in there, was because Warren didn't actually take the story seriously enough, so he let Sheldon Pacotti do what he wants.

If you go back to interviews before the release you can definitely find them saying that they wanted to make a new kind of game (I'm pretty sure they used the term "simulator" too), and it's not just Spector saying it.

True, but you've switched from talking about the core gameplay to the story, and your complaints are about some big bad "fanbase" that overrates the game without truly understanding it. If you're going to bitch at least bitch consistently.

Why would you take radar transparency when the majority of your opponents are human?

I personally feel the game lost a lot of its momentum after the escape from UNATCO HQ

Because humans are easily dealt with.
Radar transparency is great for toggle past lasers, bots, cameras and shit.

...

Mechs aren't

They are. 2 pistol headshots, baton/prod, crossbow steel dart headshot, sniper rifle.

Most of them shoot rockets at you.

Personally I like to cut them up with the katana but it's a matter of getting close enough without being blown apart

Well yeah, you don't engage them, you kill them quickly.

The only thing I dislike about the later game is the mechaspiders. One of the most annyoing slash scary enemy in gaming due to their quick damage, quick movements and durability if you don't want to waste sabot.

But if you're not on a first playthrough of the game, it's assumed that you'll go searching much more to things you ight have missed the first time around and you'll get the Regeneration aug earlier than you're supposed to otherwise. When you get it early and you have the Dragon Tooth, the game becomes quite the cakewalk.

The freighter level is fucking amazing, very moody and something you'd really wish to see more in modern games. Starts you out outside the docks, which are large, sneaking into the docking warehouse, which is fucking massive, it's just a fucking blast. Paris is not fleshed out enough, although it's still a very moody level(s). Vandenberg is great, puts you in a new kind of situation. The gas station is great, again, gives you a different type of objective.

I'd argue that if and when a quality drop happens in the game in regards to pacing and levels to enjoy, it's the submarine base.

I've played the game now annually at least once since it came out, and am right now at the 26th playthrough because I love the game so much. But three weeks ago I got to the submarine base and have yet to continue, there's something about that level that makes me grind to a halt.

This is some shit taste or unadulterated bait.

I think you meant to say "atmospheric". Or am I wrong?

What else are you going to use sabot for, though?

Yeah, sorry. The mood is good, so atmospheric is a good word. Thanks.

Saving it for all the rest of the spiders

Good news, in the next GMDX update spiderbots will be able to walk on ceilings!

The whole bomb meme was post-HK though, it was during one of the last levels of the game.

Morgan Everett's flat, it has


9/10 one of the comfiest places in the entire game

It's no System Shock, that's for sure.

Are you fucking me? The ocean lab exterior is one of my favorites. Hell's Kitchen is also great the first time around, getting better each time. I'll agree that the mole tunnels and navy base were sorta whatever.

You got over 40 replies, OP; but you're getting one more. There are times when I cruise through the 'hood with Versalife BGM playing.

I can agree with you on all the levels that happen in France; but Area 51, the abandoned gas station, and the UC all stick out to me. Not to mention that super-blue lab before going off to fight Page.

I disagree, there are some major problems with the game even before that, The whole Paul "Break into the base" mission in Hell's Kitchen for example is a REALLY poorly thought out portion of the game- it might as well be a fetch quest because that's really all it is. The only good part is that you can save Paul, but that is a cosmetic change to the game it does little as far as changing the story.

Hong Kong is also where the game starts to take a turn for the worst because the entire Maggie Chow plot suffers the same problems as the Paul Base mission where in your choices are purely cosmetic. Either you fight Maggie now, or you fight her in Versalife.

The Versalife section is amazing as it offered multiple ways into the facility and there's a lot to do when you're inside but unfortunately the outcome is the same.

The "JC a Bomb" section is actually surprisingly good, the Illuminati portion features some of the games best easter eggs, in the form of Deadlus and the old Illuminati leader that you have the option of killing or letting suffer. My only complaint is that you're relationship with the Illuminati ends too quickly.

The Catacombs I really enjoyed. The Cathedral is a bit lame, but overall loved the fight with Gunther (features one of the best one liners in the game).

The under water base fight with Simon is amazing (in that you can avoid it if you want and generally is a very tough fight, I'd say probably toughest boss in the game).

I liked that Paris was actually fairly open, in the same way Hong Kong and Hell's Kitchen were. I like the side missions in the hub, some of them are hilarious and having to avoid the street cops was pretty fun compared to Hong Kong where they're mostly passive and its actually possible to break the game's progression from attacking them (I've had it happen, if one of the bots start attacking Triads then it'll be impossible to progress through the story as the guard out the front of Tracer's place remains in Agro against JC and you can never talk to him to progress).

I should add that its possible to finish the game with Walton Simons still alive. Not a lot of people know that.

Ohh!!~ The end of gaming was a long time ago!!!~ Get the fuck out.

It's hard to imagine hong kong not being a high point no matter what they did after, because it fucking kicks ass.
Deep ocean base and area 51 are both good though.

The game goes to shit right after the gas station. Ocean Lab is horrible, the bomb site is horrible and Area 51 sucks as well.

No

He also has different messages if you kill/ko the prisoners he's trying to interrogate.
Or if you kill/ko or the UNATCO troops before sending out NSF distress signal.

This is getting close to snowflake territory.

In any story, there's a balance between free-will and destiny/predetermination. DX handles this perfectly and the game is not meant to be some RPG where you do all kinds of stupid shit for no reason at all but muh freedom.

Nah, this is one of the game's most widely acknowledged flaws since the day it shipped. Aside from minor things throughout the game (no script distinction between ghosting, KOs, and killing, for instance, was very galling), the biggest one is that none of your earlier behavior or choices has significant impact on future levels aside from some boss fights, and absolutely nothing has any impact or gates away any choices in Area 51.

Even worse, this continued to hold true for IW & HR. Alpha Protocol is the only DX-inspired game that really got it right.

Ack, I meant ghosting/no kills and KOs/kills.

am i the only one who found the whole game fun?

Of course not. Tier lists are just a range of how fun the game, as far as I can tell. For example, I say that Hong Kong is a phenomenal level, while the Ocean Lab is a pain, but has its fun moments that counterbalance the rest of it.

Is there anything which quite matches up to everything that Deus Ex was? My two favourite games are still Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines and Deus Ex.

thief
not the exact same thing but on the same vein

Dark Messiah.

Your gameplay crits are fine.

Your branching-story/choice-ramification problems are a matter of taste–from the RPG crowd.

What's the big crit? That you can't betray your brother? That Chow is disposed of?

my brothers are both faggots and wrong all the time and even i don't betray them

To be fair, staying with UNATCO wasn't a "kill your brother" choice in the prototype - the leftover dialogue still implied JC nevertheless secured or intended to secure his escape to Hong Kong.

Plus, the reasoning for it is explained with Carter's speech about being "not perfect, but the best we got", which with the info you had at that point, pre-Versa Life, made complete sense.

You need to go back

At least know your audience.

Wait is this CP

I really wish someone would learn from Deus Ex and its ilk, not try to fund it with crowdfunding, actually care about gameplay and fun instead of pushing an ideology, not dumb it down for the Call of Duty/Bethesda audience.

You can rationalize it, but the first thing UNATCO will ask you to do, is kill Paul. You know, the guy that is their No.1 threat. And if you don't, they will kill you because your allegiance is questionable, and JC is too powerful to be left uncontrolled.

For whatever reason, they were right to cut that branch. Carter's speech doesn't apply to JC, because Paul is the only thing JC has in life.

How the fuck can you not appreciate a mixture of delicious glass, underwater technology, horror-game-esque ruined facilities, and bleep bloop 00's SCIENCE?

The worse end-game level by far is the missile silo. It's short, contrived, and doesn't really offer anything gameplay wise you can't find at Vandenberg or Area 51.

Maybe they've played too much SS2. It gave me a similar impression the first time around.

Hong Kong was the most boring part of the game, faggot.

He wouldn't need to escape to Hong Kong because was being sent there for a mission anyway, which was most likely to kill Tracer Tong since Navarre talked about an assassination mission.

lol no

lol yes

A quick search for lists of "immersive sims" (the name Spector and his buddies have given to their "house style") gives me:

The canon:

Apocrypha:

Good candidates:

Obscure or probably too different:

Probably pozzed in the neghole:

Note that I've only played a few

lmao

What?
Excuse me?

Orthodoxy can become heresy in times of moral decay. Look on these fallen heroes, and weep for their poor damned souls.

Every time.