Renzatic on 23/8/2011 at 08:27
Okay, quick and dirty impressions of the leaked beta vs. the actual game. No indepth details yet, because I haven't played too far into it, and I'm so damn tired.
Give Me Deus Ex difficulty seems to be a little more unforgiving than it was in the beta. I actually died during the tutorial three times, compared to the no times at all in the beta. Before, it gave you a little more leeway with how many bullets you could take. Now, it seems I round a corner, hear a bap bap bap, and I'm dead. The AI does seem to be a little smarter, and uses the environment a little better. Hard to say if it's a huge difference yet, though.
You can adjust your FOV from the advanced video options menu. I went up from the default 75 to 90, and, much like you'd expect, it makes a big difference. EvaUnit is squealing for joy right about now.
Other than that, it's exactly the same as the beta, minus the few goofy bugs you'd see pop up on occasion. Load times are not improved at all, which'll piss Koki off. But beyond that...yup...same game.
Renzatic on 23/8/2011 at 19:51
Quote Posted by Fallen+Keeper
I preordered it on amazon.co.uk. :( Have to wait, but I have Borderlands to finish before I can commit to it at 100%.
SOOOO... I've read the reviews. The problem is that it's either Deus Ex or it's not, for me. There is no middle ground.
So, what say you? Is the AI so stupid they say it is? Does it feel it's just a port? (signs: Click Here To Start; GIANT font; rolling menus, SMALL environments etc...)
No. It's not a port. The only thing I guess you could complain about is that the graphics aren't as good as they could be, due to it sharing development time with the consoles. But hey, the graphics are plenty good as is, so I'm not complaining.
The PC version has a different HUD than the console versions. I've seen pictures of the 360 version, and it look like it uses a popup dial to select your weapons and items. The PC version uses the same bar along the bottom of the screen setup as the original DX. The fonts are also appropriately sized. Maybe a little larger than usual, but not obscenely so.
Only the main menu looks a little portish. You do have to do some scrolling when you're playing with a few of the advanced settings, and it doesn't have any drop down menus for selecting your resolution and refresh rates. But that's about it.
Environment sizes. From what I saw during my two or so hours with the beta, and what I've read in reviews, the level sizes are, on average,
at least as large as they were in DX. Like the first city hub might be a little bigger than the area surrounding the 'Ton in the original game.
So what about the "dumbed down for the masses, and ruined my game forever" bits?
-3rd person wall hugging. YMMV here. It doesn't bother me in the least. When I first played the beta, I was ambivalent about it. By the end, I actually kind of liked it.
In a sense, it's a little more realistic. Someone caught in a firefight would roll between cover to get from one place to another quickly, and expose himself to gunfire as little as possible. You can still get shot and killed quite easily while hopping between cover, so it doesn't make the game easier...cept that you can see alot more of your surroundings while in 3PP.
-Health regen. Once again, doesn't make the game easier, because you die
fast when directly exposed to gunfire. But it does nix health management from the game entirely. No more squirreling away medkits to use in those tense, desperate moments.
-Takedown animations in lieu of proper melee weaponry. From a stealth perspective, it's not much different than going up behind a guy and cattle prodding him. You still have to get close, and you still have a chance of being spotted. It's superfluous as hell, but, once again, doesn't make the game easier. You can't just roll up to someone while they're totally aware and press a button for instant win. That'll be instant death. Much like the aforementioned cattle prodding of a dude guy, you only use it when you know you can get away with it.
It's overly flashy, and doesn't add as much to the game as it takes away, but it isn't so detrimental to the experience that it ruins everything for everyone.
And that's about it from what I've seen. Everything else is exactly what I'd expect out of a game bearing the DX name (we're ignoring IW here. That game never happened. I don't know what you're talking about). It's a little different in alot of ways. Some things are easier, some things harder, some thing better, and some things worse. But it's, at its core, as much Deus Ex as Deus Ex was.
scarykitties on 23/8/2011 at 20:01
Update: Going on a gun-crazed rampage in Detroit is a lot of fun. Note to self.
Renzatic on 24/8/2011 at 08:31
Let me tell you a story about the AI, and how ruthless it can be. I dunno who said the AI is dumb in this game. Maybe it is on the lower difficulties, I dunno. But on Give Me Deus Ex, it's anything but stupid.
So I'm in this facility, right? Everything is pretty laid back due to plot reasons. It's well secured, but not as well secured as it normally would be. On this series of catwalks are three guards, practically strolling about leisurely. They're pretty easy to avoid.
At one point, I end up in these offices. They're towards the back, and are blocked in by windows. When I see windows, I usually think I can see out, but they can't see in. Well...they can. Here's the first thing I learned.
1. The AI can see through windows in this game.
2. If I knew that, I would've stayed the hell down, because the AI can see you from surprisingly long distances. It's almost to the point that if you can see them, they can see you.
3. The AI can shoot out windows.
I learned this while hacking away at a computer, thinking I'm totally safe. Suddenly, I hear shouting. I hear glass breaking, and I get pegged one good time. I haul ass back into an air duct, and wait for the alarms to go down, or wait for one of them to come close enough, so I can take them out one at a time.
Two problems with that. One, the AI stays close together when they're hostile. And two, they'll call in everyone in within earshot to come assist. And by earshot, I mean guys from the floor below will join the fray. I wasn't facing three guys here. I was suddenly facing about 12. I dive back into the ductwork, follow it to the other end, and try to hide behind some crates on the opposite side of the catwalks from them.
Only problem with that plan was that I didn't take into account the fact that the AI will form a very effective search pattern when they go from hostile to alerted. The bastards actually spread apart and flushed my ass out. I had to throw a concussion grenade to get past the two that where coming right at me, which alerted the guys on the middle and far catwalk to my position, and had to sprint through a hail of gunfire to try and get back to my ducts of safety.
And there was a motherfucking bastard waiting ...WAITING...for me to come back. I round the corner, and walk right into his gunfire. I died.
(
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3018396/DX_OhShi.jpg) Here's a screenshot of my tragic end in progress, taken about 20 seconds before I died
It was brutal. I dunno if it was a fluke of programming that happened to align completely against me, I'm really amazingly dumb, or what. What I do know is that it seemed very much like I was actually outsmarted by the freaking AI in a videogame.
Also, another interesting tidbit about the AI.
They can hear you open doors.
Earlier on in that same area, I see a guy sitting down in front of a computer through a window. I think I'm gonna sneak in, take him down, hack the computer, and have a little safe haven I can retreat to if things go sour. Nope, I open the door, hear him go "...what the hell", and come looking for me. I bolt out of the way just mere moments before he sees me, and hide around the corner, at the bottom of the steps leading up to the door. Since he didn't make direct visual contact with me, he's only suspicious, which means he'll only make a half-hearted attempt to find me. Fortunately. So, he looks around outside the door, then goes back in...closing the door behind him. Guy ended up being an absolute bastard to take out because of that.
The way I ended up doing it was waiting just outside the door. He goes right to it, I pop up right in front of him, all to his shouts of "WHO THE HELL ARE...", and :PONK:, I punch him in his big dumb head. Fortunately for me, I had tranquilized the guys just outside. Otherwise they would've come rushing at me, shooting, because he did have just enough time to shout before I took him out.
So anyway. This game is great. :D
Pyrian on 24/8/2011 at 21:33
I wonder how different the AI is between normal and hard? I'm playing on normal and the AI can be pretty retarded sometimes. Of course, a game like this creates an expectation of a vastly more complex AI than a typical shooter. Still, it amused me to have the exact same thing happen in Human Revolution that I used to exploit in Invisible War: Get a good sniping position, take one guard down, and then take the other guards down as they come to investigate/revive the fallen. I mean, one guy, sure, but when there's a pile of 5 guys and guard #6 just walks up to take a look before falling flat on his face on top of the dogpile, it looks pretty silly.
I'm loving the persuasion mechanics. Each selection seems fairly reasonable, and yet there are clearly visible reasons to pick one over another if you look closely enough. Less than perfect, perhaps, but best implementation I've ever played.
So far, two thumbs way up from me. The cover system and some of the 3rd person switches still bug me (the takedowns are fine because they're basically cutscenes, but ladders?), but eh, I knew that going in.
Renzatic on 24/8/2011 at 21:57
I don't have a proper bullet loaded sniper rifle yet, just my tranq gun. My attempt to daisy chain a bunch of idiots ended up being quite a bit funnier than that.
See, when you tranq a guy, you have to hit him in the head for the effect to be instantaneous. Otherwise, they'll walk around for 10 seconds or so as usual, then decide to fall over. This isn't much of a problem until you run across guys with helmets. Headshots don't do quite as much damage to them, and tranq darts to the head have the same results as shooting them elsewhere on their body.
So I tranq one guy. He falls over, and his friend sees him. Friend goes running to assist, I tranq him, but he still has enough time to revive his friend before he himself falls over. Revived guy sees friend fall over, going all like "HOLY SHIT, BOB!", and tries to revive him. I did this about three times before I gave up, and just let them sound the alarm. It was like watching Laurel and Hardy in realtime.
Sometimes the AI is almost frighteningly effective. Sometimes it's just flat out dumb.
Pyrian on 25/8/2011 at 00:00
They don't like to revive unconscious people in a firefight, so sometimes it's easier to shoot them all unconscious when they're shooting back. :p
ZymeAddict on 26/8/2011 at 06:57
Wow. So far this game is actually exceeding my expectations. Maybe I'm just weird, but one of the things I'm liking the most is how they actually bothered to add detail to the game world to flesh out the backstory, rather than just telling it to you like in IW. That was one of the things that pissed me off the most about that game.
I also like how characters from the original are already starting to pop up within the context of the plot, like Manderley, even though I'm only a little bit into the game already. :thumb:
Oh, yeah. And the gameplay's pretty good too.
Malf on 26/8/2011 at 11:11
You know, with this game, I feel like I'm living in the future even just receiving delivery.
I ordered it from Amazon and got it delivered to my workplace today.
I opened the case, grabbed the Steam activation code, remoted into my home PC using LogMeIn, and set the game to downloading at over 5MB/s (yes, that's MegaBytes, not Megabits).
It'll be ready for me when I walk in the door.
Not boasting, just slightly incredulous that this is possible now, when I could barely have conceived this situation when the original game was released. Now it's just something I take for granted.
Addendum: Downloaded and installed in just over 30 minutes. Installing 8GB from DVD would probably have taken almost as long.
june gloom on 26/8/2011 at 18:18
This fucking game is eating up hours of my time and I have no idea where they went. I keep wanting to play more, more, find out what happens next, I still have to do this thing, but wait, don't forget that, can I get in there?
Fuck me, it's just like playing DX1 all over again. Only the sound doesn't crackle.
