BlackCapedManX on 1/12/2003 at 05:21
I, as most, have had a deal of resentment toward the representation of IW that we received with the demo. I consider it to differ from my idea of what Deus Ex should be, and I dislike many aspects of it. However, having read all of the problems people have with the representation of the game and considering my own, I attempted to play the demo through several times with a more arbitrary point of veiw in effort to see what attracted me dispite an otherwise disagreeable appearance. So this is essentially a thread to address certain problems we have all witnessed and my own veiws on how they could be not so problematic.
Time: From the reveiws of the full game that we've read at gamespy, IW is expected to run at about a 15 hour game the first time through. Obviously this may be shorter than the first run through DX for a lot of us, but it is by no means a short game because of that. I am still playing thorugh DX in different manners now, so I know that I haven't reached the extent of it's replayability, even if it was around a 20 hour game. Here's what I'm getting at: my first run through the demo had me finishing in about 30 minutes. However, this does not mean it's a 30 minute demo. I've spent probably a good 5 hours exploring every nook and cranny as well as finding every possible way to do everything I can imagine with the demo, and I still don't think I'm done yet. IW won't be like Max Payne 2 where after your 4 hours of gameplay you've got nothing left to do. This will be an extensive and complex game which will surely be still replayable up until DX3 comes out, even if your first run through is 15 hours.
Locational damage: No headshots? You sure about that? From what I've experienced with the demo, my first recomendation is to play solely on realistic difficulty. Unlike DX, in IW at high difficulties, both you and your enemies die in fewer hits. Grab the baton in the first room in the appartments, go out to the first guard and punch him in the head. He drops in three hits. Seems good to me. Hit him in the chest, it'll take five to take him out. Granted, it still takes 5 pistol rounds to kill him and for some ungodly reason it takes much longer to take out people with the stun prod than it does with the baton (which doesn't use ammo no less), but no game is without balancing issues, hell in DX with no levels in pistol skill you can't drop the NSF with a single headshot from the silenced pistol. I'm not entirely sure about arm and leg damage can do (if anything), but at least there are different levels to which your health drops depending on where you're hit.
Silent Takedowns: I've read from at least one person complaining about how you can't do silent takedowns in the demo. Now if by that you mean you can't take someone down in one hit without anyone else noticing, this is true. However if you mean you can't take people down without anyone else noticing, then this is not true. Quick rundown on silent (nonlethal) takeouts for everyone in the demo. Baton the flamethrower guy. Use the tranq gun thing on the greasel trainer (one in the head on realistic difficulty will normally bring her health low enough that she'll run and hide in the corner with her hand above her head) and do the same to her greasel. Baton the guard in the hallway at the top floor (if you're quick about it you can throw him down the elevator shaft before anyone finds him, or if you have really good positioning and take him out near the elevator door, neither Sak and her bodyguard nor the people on the landing pad will hear it anyway). Then go out the back door on the third floor and around the walkway and tranq the guard twice in the head. His friend will notice, but since they were in the middle of a conversation, I would imagine that she might find it suspicious when her friend suddenly has a green glowing dart sticking out of his neck. When she's patroling around looking for whoever did that, you can tranq her. One of them will drop a flashbang, which you can throw into the room with sak and her guard, then go in and baton them both. Not all entirely silent, but you can do it without anyone but one of the landingpad guards going red up until the moment you actually start attacking them.
System Requirements: All I can do here is applaud ISA for attempting to go to the very extremes to present a realistic game. It may be so slight and subtle that you won't notice, but it's small stepping stones like having total dynamic lighting that will push the limits of what we can simulate closer and closer to what we see in real life. It may not be best represented in the form of interactive entertainment, but it's getting put in somewhere and it will be what forces us to realize that we can have a more an more realistic experience than what we're getting. Plus, as I've said elsewhere this may be a precurssor to what will be apparent in the gameplay of Theif III, where it will have a much greater affect on how you play the game. Maybe it wasn't the best choice for putting it in here, but they have the ability to do it, and thus maybe it is the gamers fault for not demanding the most in depth experience possible from all developers that we don't have the systems which can run this sort of game easily.
Total Unified Ammunition: This essentially contradicts what I just said above. I can think of no good defense for their choice to have a singular ammo type for all weapons, and for whatever reason just don't buy their explanations and dismissals of our complaints. I personally would like to have an in depth conversation with whoever made this decision and ask "Do you, in all seriousness and truthfullness, beleive that having a singular unified ammo presents overall a better game than having different ammo for different weapons, or are you just being ass-lazy?" I could only think that the time not put into designing different ammo was time put into working on the lighting system and reworking the game's engine from the Unreal engine they started with. From a revolutionary developer's point of view this may have been a good idea. From a gamer's point of view it just falls short in two areas.
No leaning ability, borderline offensive interface and inventory, distinct changes and removals from DX1 that clearly upset gamers, etc.: Again, no good defense here either, I mean come on, how hard is it to have a lean function? If gamers don't want to use it, we won't. But don't tell us that we don't want to use the lean ability, because that just insults our inteligence, and you actually happen to be dealing with inteligent consumers (for the most part) when it comes to the fanbase of DX1. Inventory and HUD could have easily been either the way it is now, or have some sort of option to have it set up like it was in DX1 or maybe in the previews of the first build or something, but a choice people please! There are so many things that you were able to choose on in DX1 that you can't in IW that it's screaming lazy more than good developer decision. I know other people have said this an I'm reiterating, whether or not we actually make use of it, having the choice to set the game up one way or another is something that gamers like to have, because it says that the developers made the effort and many gamers like having the choice and make use of it.
Story: Other than the likes of ZyloneBane (who read the context.eng file) and the lucky reveiwers who've played the game, no one knows what the story is going to be from the demo, so I can't give a positive or negative feedback there.
Again, this is just my possitive interpretation of the game (other than the aspects of it which simply cannot, by any stretch of my imagination, be possitively interpreted). There are obviously areas which I could gripe about (such as having more obvious locational damage and removing the whole perfect accuracy bit, but I suppose that would screw with the idea of not having skills to work with, and of course getting rid of those isn't "dumbing down" the game, it's like, oh say, making it more accesible.... to dumb people.) Anyway, my couple of cents, take it as you will.
