van HellSing on 8/12/2008 at 14:48
That location was 100% identified by jordan_a on the Eidos boards as Phillip's Square in Montreal: (
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4048/scmqf0.jpg)
Meh, considering what he's wearing, I don't think that pose looks awkward at all - I tend to do the samething with my arms when I'm wearing that sort of gloves, (and I sometimes do at work). By the way, speaking of animations, the facial animations are reportedly pretty awesome (from someone who's been at the MIGS).
In the Detention cell pic, look for the FEMA logo on the floor. :D
Ostriig on 9/12/2008 at 14:40
That's pretty cool, you can definitely tell! And I love the way that specific piece of concept art manages to meld your average urban landscape with futuristic elements - makes for something new and exciting, yet not alien, you can still relate to it.
Quote:
Meh, considering what he's wearing, I don't think that pose looks awkward at all - I tend to do the samething with my arms when I'm wearing that sort of gloves, (and I sometimes do at work).
Are your shoulders also unnaturally wide compared to the rest of your frame? :p Sorry, but that piece really is rather awkward, both the arm positions as well as the shoulder breadth. Hopefully just a temporary fluke.
The_Raven on 9/12/2008 at 17:30
Quote Posted by Ostriig
That's pretty cool, you can definitely tell! And I love the way that specific piece of concept art manages to meld your average urban landscape with futuristic elements - makes for something new and exciting, yet not alien, you can still relate to it.
The problem with it for me is the fact that it looks a little too alien for a Deus Ex prequel.
van HellSing on 9/12/2008 at 18:28
I don't get that attitude. What exactly is so alien in that pic? A few solar collectors and windmills? A few more skyscrapers? That one somewhat avantgarde building?
EDIT: Come to think of it, I think I'm an alien. I have solar-powered lamps in my yard, from the window in my room I can see windmills in the distance, and there's at least one rather weird looking building within 50 kilometers from here.
van HellSing on 9/12/2008 at 21:11
Well yeah, it sucks that DX3 is not as low poly and featureless as Deus Ex. Also, the settings used for those screenshots make DX look even uglier than it really is.
Combine-like structures? Which ones, exactly? :weird:
Granted, the Shanghai concept is somewhat out there, but may I remind you that this is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the world? Also, it's China. CHINA. Anything's possible there.
Ostriig on 9/12/2008 at 22:45
Quote Posted by The_Raven
The problem with it for me is the fact that it looks a little too alien for a Deus Ex prequel.
To be fair, of the locations you mentioned, only Hong Kong and, to a lesser degree, the Paris streets area would've been highly susceptible to notable modernization within the next 50 years. Hong Kong does essentially reflect that - it looks fairly modern in a cyberpunk manner, if my memory serves me well. Despite all the neons, we were kinda kept in the dark - after all, our vision was augmented. In regard to Paris, I don't think it's too much of a stretch that certain neighbourhoods that still, today, reflect architecture from the 19th century, would endure in that style for a few more decades. As for the others - a cathedral, a privately-owned old mansion, and a cemetery - I don't see those growing neon lights anytime soon. What I'm trying to say is that nothing of what we saw in Deus Ex excludes the possibility of modern structures existing elsewhere in the (game's) world. Hell's Kitchen might be a better example in supporting your point, but I think I can weasel my way out of that one, too.
As for the image I was on about earlier, the Montreal one, I don't think the building in the center is too much of a stretch 20 years from now. You can already see many unusual architectural elements popping up, like the London City Hall, or the Gherkin building, and many others all around the world. Furthermore, the other buildings in the image look perfectly 21st century bland. The wind turbines? At the rate we're burning fossil fuel and with everyone going all bonkers about being "green", I'll be surprised if they don't put windtraps
on our heads in twenty years. I'll grant you that Shanghai concept does look like a big burden on even China's economical growth. But, honestly, if they pull it off well, I don't think I'll even notice when playing, let alone care. That's just me, though.
In general, I don't see the DX3 art direction, as presented so far, as an issue of veracity or consistency with the Deux Ex universe, though if you want to invoke personal taste, that's an entirely different matter. Me? I'm a sucker for steel and glass.
BlackCapedManX on 10/12/2008 at 13:50
I think I agree with The_Raven. One of the most immersive factors with DX was that they didn't want to present a shiny clean super-tech world (Paris possibly being and exception to this), they wanted to show a gritty, dirty urban existance where everything was falling apart. That decision runs very contrary to typical sci-fi and is a major part of the essence of cyberpunk (Gibson's Sprawl trilogy wasn't called "sprawl" for no reason.) IW was disappointing in this regard because this is supposed to be 20 years after the largest technological collapse in the history of (by DX's standards) an already crumbling civilization, yet even the slums look cleaner and more refined than anything in the original DX. Hopefully the plot of DX3 alludes to the degenerating state of world-affairs so by the end of the game we can at least imagine that it'll be in the state it's in by DX.
van HellSing on 10/12/2008 at 14:17
Once again: the Montreal pic is current-day Montreal with a few added elements, all of which I can see actually happening within 20 years.
At least two previews mention that Shanghai is on the brink of a riot.
Apart from those two cities, we've seen mostly labs (probably at Adam's workplace) and clinics.
Detroit, which we haven't seen pics of yet, is supposed to be rather depressing.
The interior of Adam's apartment, which is pretty much the only "everyday" interior we've seen, looks to be a good mixture of run-down and hi-tech.
Also, it's "alludes", not "eludes" in that sentence.
