JC_Denton on 24/11/2009 at 22:44

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Once again it has to be said that Deus Ex is probably the greatest hardcore pc game ever, but even the greatest things use to have some shortcomings. for me its the bossfights. i equip rocketlauncher, i aim it, i shoot and the boss goes to pieces, not very challenging is it? of course, the killphrases are very original and cool, but for a person that plays Deus Ex in commando style and doesn't reveal them killphrases bossfights can bring lots of disappointment. i am currently replaying Deus Ex and the fight with Walter Simons was ridiculous, because i happen to have the rocket disarming augmentation upgraded to max, so i can stand for half an hour and look how Simons strafes around me and unsuccesfuly tries to shoot rockets at me. the other weapon that he uses takes very few health points from me. i mean, boss characters have depth in this game but they can be killed in 2 or 3 seconds just like that, very unfair :tsktsk:

chris the cynic on 25/11/2009 at 01:20

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Walton Simons was supposed to have an aggressive defense system, which would have made your rocket launcher attack not work. The problem is that while it says in game that he has one he very much does not.

The Nameless Mod gave several characters augs, some of them got that very augmentation. That means that you should find that particular complaint less relevant if you play TNM.

There was some discussion of modding Deus Ex to give Walton Simons the ADS aug, but I don't think it ever went anywhere.

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That said, part of Deus Ex is that there aren't really bosses in the traditional sense. People are people. Hit them in in the head with a sword kept unnaturally sharp via nanotechnology and they don't last long.

JC_Denton on 25/11/2009 at 10:57

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hahaha :joke:

talking about realism, games are games and they don't have to be realistic, unless they are simulators, but even then that is questionable. imagine if Neo killed Mr. Smith in Matrix in a few seconds.

DDL on 25/11/2009 at 12:33

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The problem is that you're treating them like bossfights, which is never what DX was trying to do. Bossfights are a hugely glaring gamification of a situation: doors suddenly slamming shut and then magically opening again when "Big Dude X" is killed, etc.

They're not bosses, they're simply major characters. You just think of them as bosses because you're accustomed to that convention.

It's simply a case of: shit, there's a nanoaugmented dude hacking effortlessly through all our grunts, so who shall we send to guard the critical upload computer? More grunts, or the giant hulking mech?

Who's more likely to stop Denton getting into A51? More grunts or the nanoaugmented FEMA boss who also really wants to kill him?

Sure, if you run around with a missile launcher, those fights are going to be a cakewalk, but then: you're running around with a fucking missile launcher.


(though for the record, giving Simons the augs he's supposed to have -plus the requisite AI tweaks to make him use them sensibly- does make the fight a lot more challenging..though he's still a tad vulnerable to a sprint-DTS to the face as soon as the convo's over, since that does like 3600 damage)

chris the cynic on 25/11/2009 at 17:10

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Games are games, yes, but not all games are equivalent.

Saying games are games is sort of like saying, "People are people." Yes, yes they are. But we've got a range that goes all the way from mass murdering dictator to literal saint. Some games use realism, some games use cartoon bunnies. There is a range.

The Matrix took place almost entirely within a simulation where the protagonists and their opponents made a habit of bending and breaking the rules. Even then the first agent Neo fought against was defeated by someone walking up to him, putting a gun to his head, and pulling the trigger.

One bullet, one kill. Agent dealt with. That was The Matrix, a movie that not only had no reason to care about realism but actually set up an in world rationale for knocking realism on its ass and kicking it while it was down. Then beating it with a lead pipe and possibly running it over with an 18 wheeler.

Compare that to Deus Ex and I hope you'll see some difference.

Deus Ex is a game that leaned heavily on realism. So what does that mean with respect to Simons? Well Simons was not a abomination from before time began. He was a guy. A rocket is supposed to blow him up, provided it actually gets to him.

Simons is not a boss unless by boss you mean "person with underlings." Anna and Gunther were not bosses in any sense of the word.

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It would have been better if Simons had a working ADS, but even then he wouldn't have been a bossfight. Deus Ex has no bossfights. Complaining the bossfights are easy is like complaining the dragon was too small. What dragon? There is no dragon, no unicorn, no elf, and no bossfights.


[Added:]

Also, where does the the 20 grunts figure come from? Why twenty? Why not, say, 3?