Thorton_AP

Outside of perhaps "unnecessary risks" (and I'd debate that, given games like System Shock 2 had already tried stuff like this), does Deus Ex really do anything different here? I mean, it sounds like DX3 will probably push the envelope in terms of violent imagery, if descriptions of the lethal takedowns are accurate. But Deus Ex isn't really littered with deep characters.

Wouldn't surprise me that sales were less stellar. The North American reviews really slagged it.

Not really. I find the idea that Deus Ex 3's story can't be as good because we're too politically correct to be incorrect.

The thing I didn't like about the old stacks was the stacks of doom. Someone pointed out the complexity of doing WW2 style battles. At the same time, the Ardennes Offensive would have been a lot easier with limitless unit stacks

Am I the only one that felt the world was already exceptionally politically correct when Deus Ex came out?

Ah. Well I think Steam itself tends to have pricing issues in Europe (which is balls for Europe in general). It was $23.99 on Steam according to this thread.

Pistols and melee is probably the most overpowered combo for fighting styles. Add in Stealth and you should be pretty much invincible. I'd call the game more RPG than FPS personally.

Mass Effect 2 is listed at 17.99 pounds on Play.com, which is about $26.50 US dollars (though I'm quite surprised as I though it was closer to 1:2 ratio. Pound is weakening?)

I remember Hitman: Blood Money being very well done (while at the same time a bit less ridiculously hard as earlier games). I'd have to play it again, but from what I remember it would succeed better in a lot of ways where AP is less than stellar.

Stealth takedowns look.. well a bit artificial. It's like the game is doing all for you from what I've seen. And I still think that the art style looks too futuristic (how is it that they have Minority Report style touch controls for numpads in a prequel and not in Deus Ex?). The rest looks great though, especially the action.. it seems like it's dynamic and pushes you to use your abilities, which is good. Canon for the sake of canon is not necessarily a good idea. Not having some stuff because they didn't exist in Deus Ex, a game that was made in 2000 with different estimates about the future and vastly different technological capabilities for game creation, doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't put it in your modern game now. In an interview with the creators they mentioned that if they went by that restriction, they'd have to make sure all monitors in the game were 4:3 because none existed in the Deus Ex world.

I loved how he "narrated" the Grigori situation Especially his reason for slamming Grigori's head to the table. "Well now you're just showing off!"

I doubt TOR fades shortly after release.

What do you mean by "important information" with respect to: "don't hide important information in interactions that are only unlocked by meeting influence thresholds;" I prefer Obsidian's influence system over BioWare's "you gained a level, we can now talk about more" type approach. I do like when Characters don't just share their life story when they first meet you.

If you're playing as a stealth based character, saving the guy in the alley is easy as you just go Shadow Op and take them all down. What I am seeing here is "Playing the game on hard is too hard" for some people. I suspect the level of play balance on the other difficulty levels is either not present, or the game is just too difficult for some people while on that setting.

@Enoch: Are your concerns remedied by hiding the popups that indicate influence? Because the impression I am getting is Kaftan would have no issues if he isn't explicitly notified of a change in some value, which results in him metagaming. If the entire system is obstructed from the game player, then the game player doesn't know any better.

I wouldn't pay much attention. For as unenjoyable the game is, he has played it through to completion 10 times apparently.

Sorry, this is user error as far as I'm concerned. If you'd be okay with it without the popups, but the core game content is not any different, then it's a failure on your part to look past them. Pretend it's the internet, and ignore popups.

I am pretty sure that KOTOR2 did do that.

I think it's mostly because most people will only play a game only once (if they finish at all).

I don't think it has much to do with being lazy nor pressed for time (well, everything is always pressed for time as you have to decide to stop adding features at some point). For the context of this game, I don't think that there'd be much value added for differentiating between different ammunition types of similar guns. The idea of weapons having shared ammo for similar weapon types happens in a lot of games in my experience.

Because it takes away the freedom of customization you'd have in the other case. It'll be like "should I use it on this weapon, or wait for a better one?" Or, if you simply want to get rid of that scope or laser sight for whatever reason, you'll need to find another one of the same weapon. I know, it's not game-breaking or anything, but it seems like an unnecessary annoyance from where I'm standing... I think it depends on the nature of the modifications. I honestly don't mind having to make some of those choices. In fact, I prefer it that way. You do run into the situation where you hold out indefinitely waiting for THE gun to put the modification on, but that doesn't bother me very much.

Use carriage returns please. It is VERY hard to read your posts. I have played through the game 3 times and am on a 4th playthrough. For your 10th playthrough, you certainly don't appear to like the game. When I go engineer, my primary weapon is the shotgun.

I beg to differ; pistols are great for shooting accurately from cover, non-lethal playtroughs and the chain shot is great for downing multiple enemies immediately. Each weapon seems to try and cover all bases though, to sort of balance all situations for each class. Assault rifles are effective from cover too. Just not quite as much as they don't have an ability that makes their crosshairs show up when in cover. Weapons are NOT jack of all trades. Pistols are the close range, more stealthy option (shoot from cover better, has tranq darts). Shotguns are **** you up from close range. SMGs are spray and pray copious amounts of badguys, and assault rifles are for longer range shots. I'm not taking special abilities into account, but rather the general mechanics of using each weapon.

Like what? Hand to hand combat? Please. Saying that this game is an environment that isn't realistic is a cheap cop out and also wrong in its entirety. Because if the game was set in an "unrealistic" environment, then why have it set in modern times with modern political intrigue and other such hoopla? In this game, you can literally make yourself invisible. You can fire 5 shots instantaneously from your pistol. You can slow down time for other people while you run around and beat them up. It's not a copout, it's the truth. This game does things in the extreme. It's meant to be played around with and have fun. I love chainshot because I feel badass when using it. But it's wholly unrealistic. I enjoy sneaking around invisible, KOing people right in front of others because I feel badass when doing it (though Shadow Operative is a bit too ridiculous). Your assault rifle can only fire in 3 round bursts. SMGs only come in pairs, and can limitless magazines for a short duration of time (after which you MUST reload, even if you didn't fire a round). I like the weapon mods, even if they are not realistic. I don't bother myself with "Whoa, this gun is supposed to shoot a .50 round... the picture of it doesn't seem appropriate." That's just falling into Gun Porn and nitpicking minute details. But contrary to you, I am absolutely not wrong in my entirety. This game IS over the top. The game may have a story that is plausible and applicable to real time, but the game is no where near realistic.

That was one of the fun things about ME2 - the ability to interrupt conversations with enemies and catch them off-guard as they exploited what would be considered "conversational immunity" in any other game. Probably the best example was the conversation during Miranda's loyalty mission when you had the opportunity to shoot the opposing mercenary leader as he taunted you about how he was using the conversation to get his men into position. But no. You can't do that sort of thing in AP. And there's more than one occasion where you're basically stuck saying, "Well... THAT was stupid..." The ability to do conversation interrupts in ME2 was a fantastic decision on BioWare's part IMO.