june gloom on 10/10/2011 at 07:25

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The worst part is you are exactly what TTLG has become infamous for: delusionally high standards and a willingness to ignore the flaws of the classics only to attack the new games, often for having the same flaws. You can say I have low standards, but I prefer to think maybe I just know how to enjoy things without them necessarily helping me relive my lost youth.

And yes, I've learned not to take seriously anyone with a Thief-related username, because they are usually the worst offenders. If you do stick around for some reason, I think the Thiefgen echo chamber is more your speed.

Does DXHR have flaws? Yes. Nobody is denying that. But when your very first post is basically "hey guys, this game sucks, THEY ALREADY PERFECTED DX1 WHY EVEN TRY HURRRRR" that doesn't really bode well. Honestly I would have thought you were a Thiefgen reject ALREADY if you hadn't said it was your first post.

Keeper Deven on 10/10/2011 at 08:38

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Last post, I promise.




Well, I'm sure you do a valuable service as arbiter of good taste in this fine community, Gramps.



Maybe it's the nostalgia, but I don't recall it being as bad as it is in Human Revolution.



What are you talking about? Does crouch-walking on a metal floor in Thief cancel all noise? FFS, crossing a marble floor with a sleeping priest and a patrolling Hammerite nearby involves more player skill than all of Human Revolution's stealth put together.

I'm well aware that Deus Ex was as bad when it came to stealth; actually, if anything it was worse. Why hasn't it been significantly improved in Human Revolution? Even AssCreed2 moved on from walk = stealth; run = alarms. I'm frankly amazed that anyone would defend Human Revolution by saying, ‘Oh well, a game made 11 years ago didn't do it any better.'

Clarification: When I said that the gameplay had been perfected 11 years ago I was referring to the multiple approaches, not the stealth and gunplay. Obviously it was Thief what perfected stealth.



The writing is nothing special, but the minigame itself is refreshingly different from the dialogue trees and wheels of most RPGs and RPG-lites. The closest thing to it I can think of is the speech skill in Oblivion, and that was bloody awful.



You're right. Selective amnesia coupled with a lack of variety in enemies later in the game (whereas in DX you'd be up against MJ12 as well as the occasional US army and local law enforcement, in HR it's Belltower Belltower Belltower).


The 'doomsday weapon' comment is an exaggeration, of course, but the whole reveal is ridiculous. The vast, elaborate facility built solely to drive a vast number of the population insane, the mad scientist leader—does this sound like DX's behind-the-scenes conspiracy or James Bond 2027?

Anyway, I'm done. I don't think that having high standards is necessarily a bad thing; for instance, without the vocal backlash against Fallout 3's lore rape and terrible writing I doubt we'd have gotten Fallout: New Vegas in its current form. But I'm evidently too elitist for TTLG, so I'll just taff off now.

heywood on 10/10/2011 at 12:29

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OK. It seemed like you were damning HR for the same gameplay elements you liked in DX.



Sounds like you might have given up and stopped paying attention by that point. You've got the plot wrong.

Panchea wasn't built to drive the population insane, it was built as a first of kind facility for addressing global warming via iron seeding the oceans. And the human-quantum computer running it was supposedly required to dynamically react to all the ocean pressure changes, or something like that. There was an Illuminati plot to roll out a new biomod chip which could be used for disabling augs, tracking people, and some degree of mind control. But Panchea was developed separately from that.

Darrow is an egotist who wants to change the world, and has pioneering success with augmentation technology. But he becomes ambivalent or even bitter about augmentation because he was genetically incompatible and thus couldn't fix his own handicap, and presumably his children would be augmentation "have nots" as well. So he becomes reclusive, changes focus to global warming, and no longer wants to talk about augmentation or take sides in the public debate. Although he still grudgingly accepts augmentation because he needs augmented workers to build Panchea. With all the protests and social unrest as a backdrop, Darrow finds out about the Illuminati plot, and it pushes him over the edge. He decides that augmentation is taking the world in the wrong direction and humanity needs a cataclysm to force change. So he uses the computer in Panchea to exploit the Illuminati designed biochip and drive all the augmented people to hallucinate and go insane.

The main plot in HR revolves around an Illuminati conspiracy just like DX and IW did. In HR, they do it through monopoly control of the media and key industries. Morgan Everett runs Picus, which is their media arm. Page runs VersaLife, which has a monopoly on genetic research and manufacturing Neuropozyne, which gives them the first line of control over augmentation. Zhao Yun Ru runs TYM, which is trying to monopolize augmentations (if not for Sarif). Belltower is trying to monopolize security & policing and is basically the predecessor to UNATCO/MJ12. And finally, Taggart provides the faux opposition necessary to get people to accept the grand bargain of regulated augmentation (similar to the role of Nicollette with the Order in IW).

Like Darrow, David Sarif is an independent who rejects the Illuminati. But unlike Darrow, he's not a bitter old egotist. He's more a mix of idealist, futurist, and ambitious capitalist. He's actually OK to work for. That's a huge difference from the previous games. In DX, you start out working for the bad guys, and then you are forced into a change of allegiance mid-game, which was awkward and left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. And in IW, you get mostly pointless quests from both sides of the Illuminati. I appreciated the way HR handled allegiances because it's nice not to be betrayed by your mentor/boss for once and you have a clear sense of purpose all the way through the game. Playing for Sarif from the beginning was better than rehashing one the allegiance changes explored by the previous games.



It's not about having high standards, it's about applying them reasonably to both new games and classics. Deus Ex is my favorite game, but it's far from perfect. HR is not the landmark game that DX was, and there are a lot of things I'd change. But overall it's excellent and it's the best game I've played in at least 5 years (STALKER might be better but I'm not sure about that yet).

HR also did a few things better than DX. In particular, the AI was better. Hugely so. Worlds better. Also, the combat was more tactical in HR, which fits the style of game better than the run-gun-n-circle-strafe combat of DX. The crash landing set piece in Hengsha was straight out of a HL2 game and unlike anything in DX (compare to the shootout in Hell's Kitchen). And lower Hengsha itself was up there with the best level design I've ever played. The negatives are plentiful too, mostly covered in this thread. Some bothered me more than others, but probably the biggest was the XP system. Also, the over-abundance of praxis points which meant you never had to make hard choices or specialize.

Given they were developing primarily for Xbox 360, it's amazing the PC game is as good as it is. Like the real inventory for example. As a PC game, HR is a full order of magnitude better than Bioshock. I hope that's evident in the sales.

Keeper Deven on 10/10/2011 at 15:56

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I don’t know why I keep coming back. Stupidity, perhaps. Or masochism.

I didn’t hack every computer to play Uplink, and I didn’t put myself through the credits because I enjoy looking at pictures of complete strangers. So yeah, I got the conspiracy and I got that Reed joined Page to make little Dentons together. I also went through all four endings, and why not? All you have to do to get the ending of your choice is to press a button. It’s the most superficial implementation of multiple endings in any game I’ve played.

Now I probably didn’t articulate it well, but what I said about the Darrow thing was: the reveal is ridiculous. Ignore the info you get from the computers and recall the content of the TV broadcast from Panchaea. Now do you understand what I mean by doomsday device, remote base and mad scientist leader (and to me he’s a mad scientist anyway)? I suspect that it was Eidos trying to be cinematic in a style suited to wooing the console crowd. Other examples: Jensen being snuck up on by a lumbering brute, and dodging bullets from chainguns. Maybe that works for you guys, but I prefer cinematic wankery to be kept to a minimum in an interactive medium.

I don’t know which version you played, Dia, but I was absolutely undetectable if Jensen wallhugged something between him and an enemy. Conversely, if I wasn’t Velcroed to a chest-high wall, there was a good chance I’d be detected. So yeah, the stealth part for me involved virtually no skill and was boring as shit.

Fallout is the best WRPG of its generation IMO, and I played it after Fallout 3. If the gameplay and/or writing are good enough, prior expectations about the game rarely bother me for long. In neither respect did Human Revolution really deliver. It’s just ... adequate. For the most part, I just went through the motions—see terminal, hack it; see vent, enter; see nearby chest-high wall, press spacebar. The game just wasn't compelling by itself. The same goes for Half-Life 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, Mass Effect 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum—they’re entertaining diversions, but there’s nothing that really stands out and elevates them over the other games I’ve played. But my ‘elitism’ is probably for the best; if I were as easily pleased as some of you are, then I’d probably injure myself from violently cumming whenever I play a truly brilliant game.

Please note the use of ‘for me’ in the text above. This is all very subjective, and we should probably leave it at that.

Edit: On second thought, Mass Effect 2 was one of the better attempts at an intereactive cinematic experience, so in spite of the unremarkable combat and silly plot, I'm crossing it off the list of personally meh games.

Jason Moyer on 10/10/2011 at 21:42

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Really? IIRC Darrow has a very specific set of responses that are required to beat him.