BlackCapedManX on 11/12/2003 at 23:20

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It's not that it has more or less flaws than other games, it's just that when compared to such a sterling performance of game creation mastery as DX1, the flaws are simply that much easier to point out, because they are really just things that were in DX1 and dropped from IW.



No excuse, if it's a dealine problem than they should make the last map first. The last map is what's going to stand out in the players mind as the conclusion of what the game is like level design wise. The final area simply doesn't have the same magnitude, and isn't nearly as awe inspiring as it was in DX1. My main problems with it were how two dimensional and bland it was. A51 had a huge amount of z-axis going on, as well as a lot of detail in every area of it. LI made me cringe and want to get through it as quickly as possible to get away from the poor enemy placement, the mono-color thing going on (I know it's all wintery and snow and what not, but normally I like the winter and snow, being a snow-boarder, this was just blah), and the lack of stuff. A51 just had a lot going on, LI in DXIW had less stuff going on than it did in DX1, it simply left a very poor impression.



I didn't use sid to get to liberty island so I don't know what he has to say about it, but all of the news reports and stuff people saw led me to beleive JC had conjured up a bunch of cold (I forget who specifically tells you, or why he does it, I just remember having that conversation) but that doesn't explain why there are walls of ice sticking up all around the island. AND WHY IS THERE NO WATER!!! No where in this game are there any bodies of water.... WHY?!?!?!?! It confounds me to no end. I know I've seen water in at least one of the new unreal games, so I'd assume the engine can do it without much hassel, so are the designers just that lazy that they can't incorporate any water into the game. Even in the last level, how cool would it be to be able to get through a hole in the ice and swim through maybe and underground cavern that opened up sometime in the past 20 years and maybe end up in like level 3 of the UNATCO HQ? That way there wouldn't be just one way in, and maybe you could get around killing all those guards, because you'd come up in Jaime's room right across from the now Aquinas hub. It would have been sweet. But alas, no water.



Tom Hall does the voice for the Head Mako Biolab guy, who for whatever reason is hanging out with apostlecorp in the intro of the game. I'm still not sure on the connection there, but that's probably just me and little bits that I've missed. [EDIT]Played through the Mako level again, paid a little more attention, the "Project Director" in the Biolab (who I will henceforth refer to as Tom), is apparently part of an ApostleCorp "Cell". Tom talks about how they have branch inside mako and are concerned about the magrail shipment. I just remembered his vmail more than anything else ("no visitors, the turrets won't care if it's an intruder or your grandmother" "now lets make a great weapon"), but I suppose that's just part of his whole working on the inside bit (which apostlecorp seems to do, having factions inside tarsus and mako).[/EDIT]

What bugs me, is that there were two other full augmention machines in A51 when JC goes through (the empty one had JC, one has Alex, and there are two more, and apparently paul got made somewhere else) and these two guys have Page's and Simon's genetic code as their base sample, but these guys don't show up at all in IW, I was seriously hoping to see these dudes at some point.

So was anyone else dissapointed in the Templars? I mean, the power suits were tough to take down and all, but when you compare these guys to the MJ12, you just don't get the same feel for a serious group of enemies. I found them fairly hard to take seriously (the fact that the first time I saw a powersuit I thought they had sent in troops who had little stumps for heads didn't help much). First of all, the M/WIB and the Commandos in DX1 are a hell of a lot more "hardcore" than these guys. I know that the powersuits sort of replace the Commandos and the Illuminati Elite Troopers are supposed to replace the MIB, but neither has the same seriousness (nor all of the background that you can find in emails for the creation of both the commandos and the "P-phase", i think, MIB soldiers). Granted the Elite Troopers have the whole goggles thing going on (elite cyborg, SS anyone?) but honestly, gas? Enemies that explode when killed are pretty sweet. These guys are cool up until the point when they die, then they're pretty lame.

Another point where this game falls short of DX1 is definately background, for just about everything. Example, the Omar, too me, where probably some of the most interesting people to encounter and do business and whatnot with. But all you hear about their past is a little blurb on the loading screens about how they originated in post-collapse russia. How bitchin' would it have been to go to this russian base, maybe secure some of the original Omar technology for some organization, and pick up a lot of their history in the process? How about the illuminati, you'd expect a little more info than the fact that they are infact just both the Order and the WTO. Like, what happened to everette, if killing page helped them at all, when did chad make the transition from "terrorist" to illuminatus, why they chose to make WTO and the Order instead of just manipulating groups of pre-existing powers like the illuminati are supposed to do? What about Tong, what's he been doing the last twenty years aside from chilin' while he waits for his helecopter to find JC? Stuff like that, just more background would have been nice.

[EDIT]So I'm playing a non-incapacitating, Order oriented (for the beginning at least) game on realistic difficultly, and I have to bitch about the so called "open ended" gameplay they advertise for this game. Or maybe it's how they claim to lack "forced failures". Anyway, as stated in my above editing, I'm in Mako right now, and I've just visited Tom. Then I went and found out where Nassif is, so by all rights I should be able to head out to Cairo now. Not so as it seems. Now, I don't want to do work for the WTO, but I don't want to kill (knock unconscious, etc.) anyone in the game, but I can't get my friend sid (almost wrote jock) to land on the roof and take me to cairo until I do one or the other. This pisses me off. A lot. So I stopped playing for the night, it's late anyway.[/EDIT]

BlackCapedManX on 12/12/2003 at 22:03

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It is a forced failure, because I have two resolute ideas. One is to not kill anyone, the other is to not work for the WTO (it's not so much that I'm playing Order-centric in this game, I'm just doing the anit-bigcorporation thing, for that matter, I didn't really want to help them with the inclinator either, I would have rather they dealt with the problem while I silently made my way down the REALLY long maintence stairwell, but no stairwell, eh). My bitch is that it specifically isn't open ended. Neither group's goal is necessary to making the game progress (it would be pretty cool if not getting the mag rail had some major effect later on in the game, like having the illuminati troopers not be able to carry it) because I already know where the person I (a character) want to find is. See what bugs me is how the game presents itself. You're stuck working for tarsus, point, that happens before I'm in control of the character, that's hardwired into the story. Then, while playing, you're free, able to do whatever you want (yay!), except you can't (boo!) because the game forces you to work for an organization. I raised the money to get sid as a pilot on my own, without the WTO or the Order helping me, I paid off Sak on my own, I fixed the goddamned inclinator without them! Yet here I am, immortally bound to choosing against my morals wither way I look at it, doing work for them, when it's blatantly obvious that they need me, not the otherway around. Throughout the whole game there's this (heavily advertised) ability to choose your own path. Except you they left out the path that is "yours" from the programing, you work for one group, or the other, but not for you.

This didn't bother me as much in DX1 when you were forced to "join up" with the NSF. Because the way I see it there are two critical plot points which make it seem less offensive. The first is that you are basically working for Paul who, as your moral advisor at the time, wanted you to warn the NSF and other terrorists about UNATCO's crackdown (I think that's what the woarning was for, damn it's been so long I can't remember, just that I needed to send a warning, it saved chad, what a gracious companion he turned out to be, and that he wanted me to find evidence of UNATCO's coruption in case I didn't want to). The second thing is that you don't really join with the NSF so much as leave UNATCO, thus working for yourself ("Who do you work for?" "No one I guess, except maybe the people."). Plus DX1 is much more bound to a preset overall story, where the little ins and outs of it are what really mold it into the way you want it to be. DXIW is supposed to be my story (to a degree, but I'm supposed to have freedom of choice) but things like this mean it's obviously the my story with some major limitations.

Okay, maybe this will make more sense. In DX1, the progress of the game is plot driven, there is a certain over all plot with certain quests to be completed before the plot progesses. But every other choice of how you play the game is yours to make including the very important choice of: not making a choice. Essentially it's like the game is a straight line that you have to follow, but you can go from side to side in whatever manner you want. Here's the problem in DXIW, there are two driving points in this game, the plot, and the alliegence game. The plot picks up heavily right from the start and goes on strong: what were these experiments, who is the apostlecorp, what's nassif doing in egypt, what is going down with these templar dudes, why was I made, where's JC, what's he doing, how can I help, all right up to the big choice: who get's to rule the world (because it's obvious that with all his omnipotent power, JC can't go and hack this terminal in Jacobson's office to access the Aquinas Hub that JC moved there in the first place)? But then there's the whole alliegence thing. Do I help the order or the WTO, the people or the corporations, the illuminati or tong, JC or the templars? The problem is, you can't be like, "Screw y'all! I'm doin' it mah way!" up until the very end with the Omar. The Omar being, by the way, one of the few "three choices in a binary situation" groups around. Since they are not plot essential, you can choose to work with them, to turn them in, or to ignore the, (or obviously to kill them outright because the first one you saw scared you shit less so now they must all pay). But with the rest of the decisions, the essential: "ignore the factions, on with the plot!" choice was left out. I'll have to find out, but in cairo, you burn the garden or you clean the air, my question is can you just go visit Nassif and not do the work for either side? What I find extraordinarily humourous is how often you can complete both sides objectives, but not ignore either. (the first coffee wars, I could finish both objectives and get both payments, even though I worked for the other side, granted in this instance I could just ignore either) Apparently you can wedge the magrail container open with a crate, without the help of the scientist, so kill him and take the gun, clean the air and burn the garden. Talk to tong all you fucking want and you'll still get the mission to go through the gate. The lack of consequence in this game also makes all of these forced decisions carry less weight, which (though in my particular predicament means I can do the WTO objective and still work with the order trouble free, but it shouldn't be that way) means you can see everything in one go and thus reduces replayability.

BlackCapedManX on 13/12/2003 at 03:13

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I though I iterated with the "Okay, maybe this will make more sense. In DX1, the progress of the game is plot driven, there is a certain over all plot with certain quests to be completed before the plot progesses. But every other choice of how you play the game is yours to make including the very important choice of: not making a choice. Essentially it's like the game is a straight line that you have to follow, but you can go from side to side in whatever manner you want." bit.

Say I'm in paris, I'm told to go and save Chad's people. Except I don't need to. There are ways of getting out without needing to interact with them at all. The story doesn't require me to save Chad's people to go on, so I don't have to deal with them at all. What about the thing with the pimp and Renton's daughter, I don't have to interact with them at all. How about pretty much all of the New York level. All I have to do is find the ambrosia and disable the generator. These are plot driven points. At this point of the game, my alleigence with UNATCO is inescabale because it was put into place before my ability to control what goes on in the game, so to progress the story I have to work for UNATCO, I don't have to work for or against Smuggler, don't have to go into the bar, don't have to go into the MJ-12 sewers, don't have to go into the 'Ton.

I'm not saying that you should have to do nothing to progress the game in DXIW, but after you cover the plot point (finding out where to go next essentially) you are forced into choosing a side to partner with for this bit of the game. But since you have a choice either way (and since there are no real consequences to this choice) it doesn't matter which I choose, so by all rights I should be able to choose none at all.

Okay, here's another example from DX1. Lebedev. I'm given a choice, I kill him or I talk to him until Anna goes mad at me. BUT WAIT!!!!! I can also leave. I can do nothing, because I am given a choice either way and it does not change the overall progression of the game. So I choose to do nothing and leave. Granted Anna then kills lebedev, but I was NOT forced to either side with Anna or Lebedev.

The point I'm trying to make, is that in a linear story time line (no matter which way you go, you end up at the same end place) when given two choices for one situation (where neither of which will have an ultimate change in how the game ends) you should have the oppurtunity to do nothing. When given a singular objective (instead of a choice) for a situation you have to do it or the plot doesn't go any further.



I was being half sarcastic on that bit, I know there is no way around fixing the inclinator, because it's not a choice (actually I could just go and work for the WTO and free the helecopter lady, but that's for another game). I think it was a bad forced situation, because come on, you've got a giant fucking city, held up by huge support collumns above the ruins of another giant fucking city, and the only singular way down is this one cargovator the size of the ones in MGS (which were in an abandoned base near alaska, and there was more than one of them), this is the future we're talkin' 'bout, we need some luxury transportation (or more than one elevator maybe?) Anyway that doesn't bug me as much.



Hey bitch, I wanted to work for the MJ12! /sarcasm Seriously though it would be cool, but I veiw DX1 more like a book with one story, and IW as being something more like a bunch of clay to sculpt with, or at least that's what I was hoping for.



Yeah, and I wanted to go to Mako for a reason of my own (well Billie's I suppose, but her place is to sort of develop the main character, tell his story so to speak), find where Nassif is. That have I done. Now since I'm paying for the pilot and not the WTO or the Order, I should get to choose when I leave right? All I need is for me to be able to tell him "hey lets boost it over to cairo, got some business with a scientist lady person" and we leave. Now wouldn't it be interesting if I could skip this level entirely? Here's what I've always thought would be cool: in that level where you have to fight Gunther and loose (if you make it back to battery park after signally the terrorists), what if you could win.... and go straight to HK! Oooooooooo.......:weird: Introduce deadelus around when you head into the UC and when he wants you to bust it up. How awesome would that be, first time through the game, no MJ12 prison level. Play through it again, maybe try to save Paul and die, suddenly "WOAH! Where'd this level come from! I haven't seen this Before!!!" How fucking sweet would that be? Honestly now.

Finally, here's why all of this bugs me in DXIW and not in DX1. I had the great fortune of going into the DX world having never heard of ISA or LGS or any of their games or products. Totally open mind. This game promised nothing to me, so there was no way it would fail to deliver. I loved it more than anything I've played in the first person perpective before or since. There was nothing I could complain about DX1 lacking because I had nothing to compare it to, the way it is is the way I'll except it to be the best that it could be (Candide anyone?). DXIW however promised a whole lot to me, and in situations like this, I did not have the fortune of being able to say "ehh, oh well everything else about it is so goo that this doesn't bother me" because I have DX1 to go back to and say "well damn but do I like this game more." DXIW was advertised with "open-endedness" and "create the story the way you want to". Okay, well I can do that to a degree. But here is a place where I can't, and I'm going to complain about it. Is all of this my own shortcoming because of the way I look at things? Most definately. Will that change the way I look at things? Hell no.

Oh and by the way, I'm not arguing about this so avidly because this little bother because it has totally ruined my enjoyment of the game or because it makes me feel like they fucked me over entirely, I'm arguing so much because I love debate. So please, do go on, I enjoy having something to actually have to think about before I give my rebuttal.

BlackCapedManX on 13/12/2003 at 06:13

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See, what you are not quite grasping is that I'm not refering to choices that are required to move the plot of the game. Whether or not I kill the damn scientist or take the magrail is not important, I see no reason why I can't just skip that part. You're being forced into a situation which isn't necessary. It's like a battle you can't stealth your way around. In DX1, except for Anna, there is no one you need to actively kill or incapacitate to beat the game. NO ONE! That's what I'm refering to by not making a choice. It's telling me that I'm being forced into fighting these people, or not having the plot progress, except I choose to simply avoid the situation altogether, AND THE GAME GOES ON! WOAH!!! Except I can't do that at Mako. I'm stuck forced to make a decision on whether or not I want to kill this scientist and in the process help or hinder the WTO. I'd rather leave the scientist alive and not have to work for the WTO at all. That would be my choice. Except I (the gamer, you know they one that payed for this game, expecting a greater deal of what was advertised) apparently don't get to make my own choice. Even though there is no reason why I should be tied into these non-essential choices, I am still undeniably tied to them. Maybe I'm asking for more volume, more choices in general, more options, and I'm upset in this particular situation because I'm not getting it.



No, it's like having a rock in my path and being told I can go over it or blow it up. And I'm standing there saying to myself "Well there's a road off to the left here which leads to the same place that happens to be on the other side of this rock", but for whatever reason I am not allowed to take this road. I don't want to interact with the rock, and from my perspective I could go another direction and end up where I want, but I'm being forced into interacting with the rock. Any situation where you are forced to make a choice can be a forced failure, if the choice is not one you want to make. (e.g. the end of DX1. Should you not want to deal with the situation and just leave and let Page take over the world, well too bad, you're forced to do something else, so in the eyes of that character you're forced to fail)

You keep saying that my roleplaying is causing the problem, not the game design. Well I never ran into problems like this in DX1 (except for being forced to kill Anna, but aside from that I didn't, and that was an issue that Spector wanted to have addressed for this game, not having to kill anyone). In DX1, I could play any "style" that I chose so long as it fit within the restraints of the game itself (I obviously couldn't turn into a pigeon no matter what mix of skills and augs I chose) and was able to play thorugh the entire game like that. Here I am, on my second run through DXIW and already I'm experiencing limitations on my ability to play as I see fit.



I was refering to the first time in hell's kitchen, I appologize, I should have been more specific.

Why not?

BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 00:20

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CAN YOU NOT READ?!?!?!

You said:



I replied:



That was TWO of my posts ago! Have you not caught on to this yet? The two groups want me to do something. Point. But I (the character) want to do something as well, and I consider that to be the more important of the goals there.

Look at it this way. If I only go there for the purpose of dealing with the magrail, what they want me to do, then the plot stops. After I deal with the magrail, and do nothing else, they have no where to send me, the magrail isn't important to the story, because it doesn't send me anywhere. Say I kill the scientist, then the order is happy, then what? Where would I go? No one would have any idea, because all I've done is kill a scientist.

However! If I go there only to find out where Nassif is, I find out that she's in Cairo, so obviously this is where I have to go next. I don't need to deal with the magrail to find out that I'm going to Cairo next, it's simply a minor detail. What I'm saying is that the people at ISA should not have bound me to this decision because IT IS NOT plot essential. What you are arguing is that after the fact of the game being made, I can't progress without completing the magrail bit. This is obvious, I've blatantly noticed this. What I'm saying is that as the game was being made, someone chould have said "hey, what if someone is playing non-lethal, what do we do about the order side of the magrail problem" and someone else would have said "well that's not a problem, there's the WTO decision instead" and then the first would reply "well isn't that forcing them to play the game a certain way? I mean haven't we been advetising that this is a game based on how they want to play, their choice and all, doesn't it say on THE BACK OF THE FUCKING BOX 'wage war as you choose'?" and the second guy would go, "oh, I guess you're right....." But no-one at ISA bothered to do that, so it becomes apparent to me that they don't give a shit if they are falsely advertising, as long as I'm paying money for it anyway. And that's what I'm complaining about.



You're welcome. Now stop laughing because I'm serious. I've fucking done it. It is entirely possible to beat DX1 without incapacitating anyone but Anna Navarre (and I've heard that it's possible to avoid that too).