So... Deus Ex: Human Revolution got leaked to P2P networks

heywood on 6/10/2011 at 11:21

Quote Posted by Koki

Okay you guys made like a lot of spoiler threads so I'll ask this here:

1. Are the loading times still so fucking long in the final release
2. Am I still the only one who challenged the game because of it's XP system shenanigans

1. Before the 1st patch, yes. After the 1st patch, no. They're fine. Especially if you have a SSD. :)

2. I didn't like the XP system the first time. But that's because I played in completionist/anal-retentive fashion so I felt compelled to use takedowns everywhere possible and hack everything possible even when I had the codes. In hindsight, playing for XP was silly. About 2/3 of the way through, I already had every aug I wanted and was sitting on about 15 spare praxis points I didn't know how to spend. I relaxed a bit after that. I'm in my second playthrough now and I'm completely ignoring the XP bonuses for takedowns & hacking and just taking on the missions the way I want. At this rate I'm still going to have more praxis than I care to spend.

If you do the math, the XP bonuses from takedowns don't really make a difference. You have to do 100 non-lethal takedowns for just one praxis (or 500 gunshot kills). The hacking is maybe a bit more of an issue because of the larger XP bonuses, especially if you go all out and try to capture every node. But given the huge number of available praxis points in the game, it's not worth worrying about this unless you're trying to do a max-XP playthrough or something.

I do have one complaint with the XP/aug system and it's that you don't have to make hard choices. In DX, you had to make a choice between two augs for every slot, and you had to choose your skills because there weren't nearly enough skill points to be good at everything. In DX:HR, you can accumulate enough praxis to get every useful aug without hardly trying. So there was an element of character building in DX that's missing from DX:HR.

And Koki - I assume from your post you haven't played the full game yet?

You gotta play it. I mean that. It's the best game I've played in years. Yeah, it's a bit too much of a tactical shooter and not enough of an RPG, and I could do without the boss battles and the radar, and other complaints. Blah blah. This game slowly sucked me in till I was blowing off chores on the weekend and showing up bleary-eyed at work after late nights. And while the storytelling didn't match the intellectualism or grandiosity of DX, the ethical issues raised in the DX:HR story ended up being more thought-provoking than I expected.

Llama on 7/10/2011 at 03:45

Quote Posted by heywood

the DX:HR story ended up being more thought-provoking than I expected.

I never asked for this

june gloom on 7/10/2011 at 05:03

we never asked for you

Koki on 7/10/2011 at 06:24

I have a feeling the story won't end very thought-provoking at all for me, at least as far as the augmentations are concerned for one very simple reason: you're playing as the superguy who doesn't need costly and likely painful medication to keep his augs running.

Which kinds of kills the entire BAAAWWWW I'M AUGMENTED argument. Since there are no real downsides to augmentation that I(the player) can see.

If you had to, for example, spend your cash on meds constantly, and the more augs you had the more meds were required... that would be more meaningful.

(but yeah I only played the leaked promo so it's pure speculation from me)

heywood on 7/10/2011 at 07:28

The drugs are just the first and most obvious issue the game raises. There's more. And my comment was not referring to Adam Jensen's personal situation but the main theme of the game which is whether augmentation is a net benefit to society and how/whether it should be managed.

Dia on 7/10/2011 at 12:45

I disagree with Koki in that I feel the HR story was very thought-provoking indeed. In a couple of the endings I experienced, Jensen explains how he tried to do the right thing and not exploit the power of his augmentations (yeah, I played him more as a nice guy than a rampant killer). Face it; if it was an RL situation, how many seriously augmented people would abuse that kind of power for their own gain?

I also chose Taggart's button more often than not only because I felt that the augmentation of human beings needed to be regulated and have laws preventing megalomaniacs (like the Illuminati & Darrow) from creating uber armies of super soldiers in order to achieve world domination, or control the fate of mankind. Also, the creation of the drug dependency in augmented people was just heinous, imo.

The only complaint I have is that the Adam/Megan arc was pretty much finished with the pushing of one button at the end. I really wanted to see a sequence of Adam fully confronting Megan, but that never happened (for some reason I never really liked/trusted Dr. Reed). You get a glimpse of Megan's next move in the Easter Egg after the credit roll, but Adam isn't mentioned, nor do you find out what happened between the two of them. Not that I wanted to see him bitch-slap her or anything. ;)

For me, playing HR was like reading a good book; albeit a book that leaves you with more questions at the end. If the devs at EM are smart, they'll make another 'prequel' that answers some of those questions.

Koki on 7/10/2011 at 13:44

Thanks for the spoilers, dickbutt.

Kroakie on 7/10/2011 at 13:44

Dia, you might want to spoiler-tag that.

Edit: Oops, too late

Llama on 7/10/2011 at 16:03

Quote Posted by Dia

Human Revolution's thought provoking dilemma: Are Augmentations good or bad?

Yes Jensen explains how he tried to do the right thing when he showed us all his cool tricks like impaling people with rods that extend out from his body or snapping someones neck in such a cool way.

Dia on 7/10/2011 at 16:56

Quote Posted by Koki

Thanks for the spoilers, dickbutt.

Sincere apologies.

No need to get nasty, though.

Went back (albeit belatedly) & added the tags so as not to ruin it for anyone else.