Rate Human Revolution vs. other LGS-inspired franchise games - by heywood
Thirith on 29/11/2011 at 15:41
Quote Posted by Skinner's pigeon
But since you bring up Deus Ex, you have to admit that there's little by way of deep discussion in DX:HR by comparison. Where's the counterpart to the Aussie bartender, or Morpheus?
You mean Morpheus in
The Matrix? If so, I'm afraid we have very different standards of what constitutes depth. As much as I like
The Matrix, Morpheus' monologues are much more about the appearance of depth than actual profundity. (It's actually something I like about the film - I find its "Ooh, we're being, like, sooo deep here!" attitude very amusing, and at least in the first film I felt it was knowingly tongue-in cheek. After the sequels I'm now longer so sure...)
Skinner's pigeon on 29/11/2011 at 15:47
Quote Posted by Thirith
You mean Morpheus in
The Matrix?
(
http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Morpheus) No.
Quote Posted by DDL
"JC the net's going the net's going black, JC no more infolinks, Transmissions of any kind we'll start again, live in villages you receive this, if you survive, then find us find us"
Destroying all communications, living in villages: a morally ambiguous reaction to the threat of centralisation.
Uh, sorry. Maybe it's my broken irony meter, but this doesn't invalidate what I was arguing about. I would
like more moral ambiguity in games. Not the shallow BioWare type, of course.
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As for "overly focussed depth", I mean it examines the aug issue a lot, constantly, ALL THE TIME. Basically the entire world is focussed entirely on "AUGS" or at most, "AUGS + X", so "how will augs affect jobs?" "How will augs affect relations with china" "How will augs affect retirement benefits"....everything is about fucking augs. It raises a lot of interesting questions, but it "overly focusses", and thus reduces the world to a single-issue place, which is silly.
I agree. There's something to be said for focus, but DX:HR takes it to extremes, and not just in the writing. I
loved the expansiveness of Deus Ex: the large levels, the stories about people you'll never meet (remember Decker and his crew?), the long dialogues with the most unlikely conversationalists. DX:HR isn't a mediocre game for their lack, of course, but the things that it does right weren't enough for the game to appeal to me.
DDL on 29/11/2011 at 17:14
I was pointing out that the original had some totally obviously stupid choices too. Like Hugh Darrow's stupid "AUGS AM BAD, K?" argument, Tracer Tong's "PLUNGE US ALL INTO TEH DARK AGES!!!11" argument is clearly a stupid, stupid thing to choose.
Overall, you're a fussy bugger, eh? I mean "I DEMAND AMBIGUOUS MORAL CHOICES" *bioware pipes up* "NO NOT YOU, GTFO". At least they try: most games are just 'shoot the bads, try not to die'.
So are there any modern games you DO like? :p
Skinner's pigeon on 29/11/2011 at 17:49
Quote Posted by DDL
I was pointing out that the original had some totally obviously stupid choices too. Like Hugh Darrow's stupid "AUGS AM BAD, K?" argument, Tracer Tong's "PLUNGE US ALL INTO TEH DARK AGES!!!11" argument is clearly a stupid, stupid thing to choose.
Actually, a rather famous chap from my country would have loved that. His name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. A man with some admirable ideas, but ... yeah. I don't agree at all, of course, but that doesn't mean there's no coherent argument that could be made in favour of it.
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Overall, you're a fussy bugger, eh?
That I am. :cheeky:
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So are there any modern games you DO like? :p
Of the 'modern' games I played this year: Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Bioshock 2, Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga, Fallout: New Vegas, Portal, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. I actually rather liked Mass Effect 2, despite it hitting some of my pet peeves.
Sulphur on 29/11/2011 at 18:03
You're Indian and you're almost as insufferable as I am? Goddammit, competition. :mad:
Llama on 29/11/2011 at 20:43
Quote Posted by Thirith
You mean Morpheus in
The Matrix? If so, I'm afraid we have very different standards of what constitutes depth. As much as I like
The Matrix, Morpheus' monologues are much more about the appearance of depth than actual profundity. (It's actually something I like about the film - I find its "Ooh, we're being, like, sooo deep here!" attitude very amusing, and at least in the first film I felt it was knowingly tongue-in cheek. After the sequels I'm now longer so sure...)
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b-bijO3uEw) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b-bijO3uEw
1080p so even someone like you cant miss it.
Papy on 30/11/2011 at 01:14
@Skinner's pigeon
1) Takedowns are an interruption to the flow of the game? Then what about the repetitive and unskipable animations when you switched or reloaded weapons in Deus Ex? Were they not a "jarring interruption to the flow of the game"? What about when you had to manage your inventory? And what about when you entered the 3rd person dialog mode and couldn't move or simply look around? I hope you won't tell me that this wasn't an "interruption"!
If takedowns were a 20 seconds animation repeated every minute, then I would agree with you. But they're not. Because of that, I tend to believe that if someone loathes an insignificant animation that much, it is most probably the consequence of sticking to an arbitrary expectation. I will admit I tend to be as stubborn as you and I was sure takedowns were an awful idea. I will even admit I wanted to hate Human Revolution. I bought it mostly to have something to reply to all console tards who like dumbed down games. But the thing is, after playing Human Revolution, I realized I was simply wrong. So I swallowed the pill and and stopped acting like a grumpy old man.
Of course, I'm not saying that's why you hate takedowns so much. I'm sure you have your own personal reasons. But saying they are a jarring interruption to the flow of the game is certainly not a reason. That's an excuse.
2) No, I don't have a problem with cutscenes being illogical or taking control of what I do, at least no more than having to choose only between 2 or 3 lines when speaking to someone, while none of those lines are really what I would have said if I really had the choice. The thing is I take cutscenes the same way I take dialogs*: something about the plot, not something about me. I agree it would be better if the plot could perfectly adapt to anything the player is (so we could have complete freedom) and basically have a perfect simulation of a whole world, but I never expected Human Revolution to be like that. So having plot devices not being part of the gameplay is a very minor point to me. And to be honest, the fact that I can't interact with every object in the game (and no game do that) is a lot more atmosphere breaking than a few cutscenes here and there.
3) Yes, boss battles could be avoided with Deus Ex. In fact, on my first playthrough of Deus Ex, I think I used both killphrase (I did fight Simons though). So? I mean BioShock 2 boss fights are a lot worse than the ones of Human Revolution, and yet you seem to love BioShock 2. Don't you think there is some inconsistencies from your part?
4) Deus Ex was not a CRPG, it was a mix of shooter and stealth game with a good story and some superficial RPG elements. You said that your build determined your playstyle? I'm sorry, but that's not exactly true since you chose your build during the game. It was not imposed to you at the start of the game, nor the consequence of a bad roll of dice. Also, Deus Ex was not like System Shock 2 where you couldn't even fire a gun if you didn't satisfy the prerequisite. So no, Deus Ex didn't follow the traditional RPG character progression.
Anyway, it seems to me you fail to understand mechanics and only see the presentation. The difference between DX and IW on one hand and HR on the other is not with a concept of "unlockable character upgrades" or some dubious argument about "playstyle", but with the fact that there is no mutually exclusive upgrades with Human Revolution. So let me correct what you said, since it was wrong... With Deus Ex (as well as Invisible War to a lesser degree), your playstyle determined how you chose to build your character, which in turn forced you to stick to your playstyle (because of the permanent mutually exclusive augmentations) if you wanted to be efficient.
I do find it was a loss that this system was not in Human Revolution. I like the idea of paying for my wrong choices. The problem is I'm about the only person on earth who likes that idea. The motto is games should be "fun" and a player's mistakes should not ruin his game (meaning the player should not be held responsible for his actions). So basically the permanent mutually exclusive augmentations of Deus Ex is really considered bad design by almost everyone on this planet except me.
That bad design is one of the thing Invisible War tried to make better with having no permanent Biomods and having a lot of Biomods available to allow the player to correct his mistakes. The problem with this approach is the player ended up with a max out character quite fast. Because of that, Invisible War was more or less a failure with character progression. Another effect of Invisible War design is that once the character is maxed out, the most valuable reward of the game (biomods) becomes useless and so valueless. Worst, since Invisible War was a very easy game, Biomods ended up having no real value, even before the character was maxed out. So in the end, no, Invisible War system was not "better" than Human Revolution. Not at all.
BTW, Bioshock also tried another solution with swapable plasmid. But if you read a bit this forum, you'll realize that this presentation is also a failure because it doesn't really look like character progression at all.
Anyway, I do think Deus Ex' System was better than Human Revolution and that's why I said this was a real flaw with Human Revolution. But I'm kind of extremely hardcore when it comes to games and I love the idea of having to restart a game from the start because of bad decisions. Do you? If not, I think you should not defend the Deus Ex system too much... Because you might get it.
5) Yes, I'm dead serious when I say that a game should feel like (interesting) work in order to feel rewarding. Being entertained is not rewarding at all, only work is. Before I played Human Revolution I played SpaceChem. That game was one of the most rewarding game I ever played and it was also one of the most work-like game I ever play. It was a game where I had to regularly take a break because I was too tired to think clearly anymore. I worked really hard a lot of time to solve a problem and the more I worked on the problem, the prouder I was of my solutions. At the other side, Civilization is a fun game where there's no real thinking, but which is also not rewarding at all. It's mostly just an empty pastime. Anyway, if you disagree, please do give me an example of something which is both "fun" and "rewarding" at the same time. I'm curious.
6) Again, no the game is not particularly designed with the cover system in mind. Your example of pacifist runs with Halo is ridiculous because no one would ever feel playing it without killing anyone would be the intended way to play it. But in my case, I don't use the cover system and I don't feel I'm missing anything (except cheating). Playing without the cover system feels perfectly right. If you still think the game is design with the cover system in mind, please do give me examples of why because I fail to see it.
7) About the writing... I'm someone who... read books! And I don't mean Harry Potter kind of book (well... sometimes I do, but that's not the point). Books like "The Stranger" or even "Germinal" are what I call good writing. As for video games, I don't have a single example of good writing (compared to good books). Not one. Obviously, there are no Camus or Zola in the industry. BioShock 2 was a good game (although I kind of prefered the first one) but the writing was only "good" in the context of a video game. There's hardly any material for anything else but a superficial video game plot. Human Revolution has certainly a lot more material than BioShock 2. As for Deus Ex, I'm sorry but the bartender and Morpheus are what I'd call pop philosophy. It's not profound, it just look profound. It's certainly not Nietzsche.
Edit : Just something else about the story. How could I not like a game with this email : « Ils repassent le cultissime et toujours savoureux "(
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Castagne#Autour_du_film) Clapshot" au cinéma (
http://maps.google.ca/?ll=45.600617,-73.610415&spn=0.010269,0.019376&t=m&z=16&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=45.600485,-73.610566&panoid=fZldW1Xh7ZRXahO2n8H0qQ&cbp=12,117.5,,2,-3.67) Buzzo de Lacordaire ».
Skinner's pigeon on 30/11/2011 at 07:55
Quote Posted by Papy
But saying they are a jarring interruption to the flow of the game is certainly not a reason. That's an excuse.
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For me, they are a jarring interruption to the flow of my game
Bolded for your convenience. Considering that the much of the content of your previous post amounts to 'it didn't bother me, so it's not really a problem', it's rather ironic that you should think that this personal annoyance is an excuse rather than a reason. And no, I don't like the fact that time stands still when I access my inventory in a game (except in RTwP RPGs, of course). But I don't have to forgive the cinematic takedowns on that account. Two wrongs, etc.
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2) No, I don't have a problem with cutscenes being illogical or taking control of what I do
I'm glad you were able to look past that. It certainly made for a better game experience for you. Obviously developers would be able to make far better games if only the players would agree to ignore everything that's wrong with them. Except for a few dissenters like me, that seems to be working out just fine.
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So? I mean BioShock 2 boss fights are a lot worse than the ones of Human Revolution, and yet you seem to love BioShock 2. Don't you think there is some inconsistencies from your part?
That's utterly ridiculous. If you found the boss battles in Bioshock 2 difficult, that's only your lack of skill and preparation showing, because all of them are fought on
your terms. There's only one point in Bioshock 2 where you're not a murder machine, and you don't have to deal with enemies there. In DX:HR, unless you know beforehand that 1) there are boss battles, 2) they are unavoidable, and 3) they are unforgiving, pacifist players will find themselves gimped simply because of their choices of augs for their playstyle. That's hardly a controversial point.
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You said that your build determined your playstyle? I'm sorry, but that's not exactly true since you chose your build during the game. It was not imposed to you at the start of the game, nor the consequence of a bad roll of dice. Also, Deus Ex was not like System Shock 2 where you couldn't even fire a gun if you didn't satisfy the prerequisite. So no, Deus Ex didn't follow the traditional RPG character progression.
You seem to have a very limited idea of CRPGs. Are you unaware of the concept of levelling up? Of multiclassing? Do you honestly believe that a character cannot evolve over the course of an RPG? By your definition, the original Fallout games and Darklands weren't CRPGs either.
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I do find it was a loss that this system was not in Human Revolution. I like the idea of paying for my wrong choices. The problem is I'm about the only person on earth who likes that idea. The motto is games should be "fun" and a player's mistakes should not ruin his game (meaning the player should not be held responsible for his actions). So basically the permanent mutually exclusive augmentations of Deus Ex is really considered bad design by almost everyone on this planet except me.
Hm, I wonder why that is. Here's Obsidian's Josh Sawyer on character builds, following his GDC presentation on RPGs:
If strategic planning is going to be important in some way, there is always going to be a gap between "best" and "worst". As designers, we should design these systems to make that range large enough to make good planning feel good, but small enough to prevent catastrophic failure. Even so, players WILL wind up building characters they find aren't what they expected, or with consequences they didn't understand.
In a situation when a player makes a tactical failure, once they understand the failure, they (hopefully) can change their tactics and overcome the present obstacle. If they've made a STRATEGIC error, the realization doesn't necessarily mean anything unless they can take an action to correct it. In the case of an RPG, the errors may have been made 10-15 hours ago, 30 hours in on a 60 hour game.
Making errors and learning from them is part of playing games. If we don't give the player an avenue to correct their errors (other than "lol make a new character nublet"), that stinks. Quote:
Because of that, Invisible War was more or less a failure with character progression.
If you'd read my post, I had actually claimed that Invisible War's character system was about tailoring your character to a chosen playstyle, not incremental character development, hence the welcome ability to respec your character at several points over the course of the game to suit your approach. In this regard, Invisible War's system was quite successful. Game difficulty is a separate issue, and I'm more inclined to attribute that to Ion Storm's attempt to woo the Xbox crowd.
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I worked really hard a lot of time to solve a problem and the more I worked on the problem, the prouder I was of my solutions.
Wow, if you value hard work as a reward in itself to this extent, I just might have a game that would interest you:
Inline Image:
http://coconutheadsets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sisyphus.jpgAs a bonus reward, you can keep the boulder.
The minigames in Alpha Protocol (when played with a controller) are the least annoying I've encountered thus far. They also offer the best balance between stats and player skill. Of course, I would probably be less forgiving if just one of them had been used for all locks, computers and circuitry over the the entire course of the game, with no option to bypass them.
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But in my case, I don't use the cover system and I don't feel I'm missing anything (except cheating). Playing without the cover system feels perfectly right. If you still think the game is design with the cover system in mind, please do give me examples of why because I fail to see it.
Josh Sawyer again, just to show I'm far from alone in this:
Question: Do you think Deus Ex 3's cover system is awesome for gameplay or does it "break" the game by allowing you to see stuff you shouldn't be able to see?
JES: Yeah, that's the game. Creeping up to corners and peeking around them in third person is what the core gameplay mechanic is.
Question: You know in Deus Ex:HR you can also hug/hide behind cover in 1st person if you choose to right?
JES: Sure, if you want to effectively not use their stealth mechanics.Lesson: Just because you can play the game while resisting the game mechanics doesn't mean that the game was tailored to this approach. And if you had to deliberately resist the game mechanics to have fun (as opposed to doing so for an additional challenge on subsequent playthroughs), that doesn't speak well for the core design of the gameplay. And you admitted that the game is easier when you use the cover system. If that isn't a sufficiently good reason to say that the game was designed for the player to use cover, then you're the one who's just making excuses.
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Human Revolution has certainly a lot more material than BioShock 2.
Then would you kindly explain how DX:HR's themes of transhumanism were examined better than Bioshock 2's themes of selfhood, perverted altruism and fatherhood? Please also explain how DX:HR made better use of Deus Ex's material when compared to Bioshock 2's subversion of its predecessor's themes. Feel free to discuss other stuff, like how Zhao is a more effective antagonist than Sofia Lamb.
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I never expected Human Revolution to be like that.
Ah, that explains a great deal.
Llama on 30/11/2011 at 10:13
Quote Posted by Skinner's pigeon
Josh Sawyer again, just to show I'm far from alone in this:
Question: Do you think Deus Ex 3's cover system is awesome for gameplay or does it "break" the game by allowing you to see stuff you shouldn't be able to see?
JES: Yeah, that's the game. Creeping up to corners and peeking around them in third person is what the core gameplay mechanic is.
Question: You know in Deus Ex:HR you can also hug/hide behind cover in 1st person if you choose to right?
JES: Sure, if you want to effectively not use their stealth mechanics.HR has no leaning...
