Deus Ex 3

[Slowtrain]

Re J.E.: I know J.E.'s justification is 'unnecessary complexity' but I often find myself wondering just how unnecessary a lot of the things he's against actually are. Obsidian's track record and IWD2 have failed to convince me either way so far (this issue is often obfuscated by bugs and lack of polish). So as I said, verdict is still out. It looks like Aliens will be his real baby in this regard, so we'll know soon.

 

 

TO be fair though, IWD2 is the ony game that JE has ever really had full control of from the start, and that was a short-term stopgap project. I think the alien crpg is great chance to finally see what Josh can do when given freedom and a real budget. Josh has always had great ideas and thoughts about games; I am looking forward to see him getting a real chance to put them into action.

 

I do share your concern that Josh sometimes seems to have a tendency to want to over-simplify, but that's looking it from my perspective of somebody who had been playing compter games for 20 years or something. What I find over-simplfied is not neccessarily what a less experienced gameplayer would find over-simplified.

 

I DO believe that Josh will work very hard to make the alien crpg accessible to new comers but not insulting or boring to people who have been gaming for a while.

[Moatilliatta]

@Krezack

those ain't weasel words Krezack. Weasel words have to be deliberately imprecise. Impresise words are fine in non-anonymous exchanges since you can safely assume that a person saying "most people" refers to most people he/she knows about.

 

Anyway the detachment is when your aiming is affected by your skills, since this tend to lead to scenarios of "I shot him right in the noggin why didn't he fall dead?". I didn't feel like that either but since I know people who felt like that and know about people who felt like that I tend to chalk my own not feeling it up to me being primarily an RPG player and not expecting my aim to be that of my character.

 

ME and AP are two different way of getting around that with ME gicing you a huge mother****er of a crosshair and AP limiting itself to adjusting other stuff than aiming. I'm not sure how well either of them works.

[Wrath of Dagon]

People only say IW is bad because it's not exactly like the first one. Evaluated on its own or compared to any contemporary game or any game made since then, it's a great game. I only hope AP will be as good. This new one though, they're only planning to spend 2 yrs on it, I don't see how you make a great game in that amount of time. Plus this regenerating health thing makes it sound like they'll make a run and gun shooter and slap the DX name on it. I'll reserve my judgment until I get more info though.

[Meshugger]

...and the dev has even drafted in the consultative talents of original writer Sheldon Pacotti

 

Well, atleast they are trying to stay true to the Deus Ex-cannon

[Shryke]

wait this is gonna be set before DX1 right?

 

so pre-biomods and stuff, so how are they gonna pull off the auto-heal thing storywise?

[Moatilliatta]

Edit: @Shryke

I wonder about that as well. They're either geniuses ore total idiots.

 

Edit2: Alternatively they don't care.

Edited October 4, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Shryke]

maybe they just conveniently wont mention it

[Wrath of Dagon]

They have biomechanical augmentations, so may be tiny internal robots that repair your tissues? I think those kinds of experiments are being conducted now.

[Hurlshort]

I only really care about whether it has a good story and whether your decisions carry wieght. I don't really care about all the gameplay details, the great thing about DX was that my decisions impacted the story and I was forced to make tough choices. IW missed on that level, you could switch back and forth very easily and nothing you did seemed to really change the story.

[Slowtrain]

I only really care about whether it has a good story and whether your decisions carry wieght. I don't really care about all the gameplay details, the great thing about DX was that my decisions impacted the story and I was forced to make tough choices. IW missed on that level, you could switch back and forth very easily and nothing you did seemed to really change the story.

 

 

Actually, I think that is one of the more over-rated aspects of Deus Ex. Very few of the story-related choices have any real effect on the unfolding narrative; most of them are just window-dressing. IW at least gave you opposing sides, in theory anyway. In Deus Ex, you really have no option of being on a side; you simply follow the extremely linear narrative, until finally near the end you make a single choice that actually matters.

 

Deus Ex has a pretty decent story as far as computer games goes, but there isn't much choice and consequence in the game.

[Moatilliatta]

They have biomechanical augmentations, so may be tiny internal robots that repair your tissues? I think those kinds of experiments are being conducted now.

The point is that the prequel suddenly introduces something that the guy in the original could have used. He can use it but it costs an augmentation slot, why does JC suddenly need an augmentation slot for something that was apparently available before his time? It doesn't make sense unless they have some really wicked explanation that magically fits into the overall story.

[Moatilliatta]

@CrashGirl

Overrated? More like non-existant. There was no actual choices there we're only different endings and a pat on the shoulder if the NPCs liked your methods.

 

Unless I'm forgetting some part of it.

[Hurlshort]

The big decisions I remember were saving your brother and whether to kill that one guy in the plane, let the woman kill him, or kill the woman to save him. They were referenced throughout the game depending on which one you did. They might not have affected the ending, but I liked them.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I assume the game mechanics will be different from the other games. I don't know, canon isn't very important to me, but I guess a lot of people are quite concerned about it.

 

As far as consequences in IW, when I refused to kill Paul Denton for the Illuminati, they started sending their Elite Troopers after me. I think you can also agree to work with the Templars, but I don't know what that does. Other than that, I didn't notice much.

[Slowtrain]

@CrashGirl

Overrated? More like non-existant. There was no actual choices there we're only different endings and a pat on the shoulder if the NPCs liked your methods.

 

Unless I'm forgetting some part of it.

 

 

I agree, but Deus Ex has a rep for being a game where decisions matter, when they don't.

 

Unless one considers being chewed out by Manderly for choosing to go into the women's bathroom a choice and consequence. lol.

 

In a lot of ways Deus Ex is a somewhat deceitful game: it presents situtations that on the surface appear to be meaningful, such as saving Paul, or killing Manderely, or saving Lebedev by killing Anna, but renders the results of your actions meaningless. It is the one thing that I dislike about the game; I dislike fake choices even more than no choices.

 

The choices that matter in Deus Ex are around your methodology in solving and achieving your objectives, but nothing you can do ever changes those objectives or the outcome of achieving them.

[Moatilliatta]

@Hurlshot

The Paul one did last throughout the game, correct. The Lebedev one wasn't referenced much as far as I remember. Most of them did little except change a bit of dialogue or whether a person is in one place or dead.

 

What happened to Carter if you told him to stay in UNATCO? I seem to remember that he died but I'm unsure.

 

Unless one considers being chewed out by Manderly for choosing to go into the women's bathroom a choice and consequence. lol.

Good example.

[Shryke]

@Hurlshot

The Paul one did last throughout the game, correct. The Lebedev one wasn't referenced much as far as I remember. Most of them did little except change a bit of dialogue or whether a person is in one place or dead.

 

What happened to Carter if you told him to stay in UNATCO? I seem to remember that he died but I'm unsure.

 

Unless one considers being chewed out by Manderly for choosing to go into the women's bathroom a choice and consequence. lol.

Good example.

 

you mean Jaime i assume?

 

if you told him to stay there you'd see him in Paris and he could get you Gunther's killphrase (or if you hadn't gotten Anna's and killed her the old fashioned way a Aug Upgrade Cannister i think)

[Slowtrain]

The big decisions I remember were saving your brother and whether to kill that one guy in the plane, let the woman kill him, or kill the woman to save him. They were referenced throughout the game depending on which one you did. They might not have affected the ending, but I liked them.

 

 

I remember the first time I saved Lebedev by killing Anna (I blew her up with a LAM lol). I felt good that I had done something positive (if blowing somebody up with a LAM can ever have a positive side),. But then I got to the next briefing with Manderly and I was told that Lebedev escaped but we tracked him down and a killed him anyway. And I was like WTF? WHy did I even bother then? If the narrative doesn't support my actions, why is it even in the game?

 

It didn't ruin the game for me or anything, but I think it was at that point I really understood that the vast freedom of choice in methodology was not mirrored by a vast freedom of choice in the narrative.

[Gorgon]

Carter shows up later regardless. You don't get to chose whether he stays or leaves unatco.

[Slowtrain]

@Hurlshot

The Paul one did last throughout the game, correct. The Lebedev one wasn't referenced much as far as I remember. Most of them did little except change a bit of dialogue or whether a person is in one place or dead.

 

What happened to Carter if you told him to stay in UNATCO? I seem to remember that he died but I'm unsure.

 

Unless one considers being chewed out by Manderly for choosing to go into the women's bathroom a choice and consequence. lol.

Good example.

 

you mean Jaime i assume?

 

if you told him to stay there you'd see him in Paris and he could get you Gunther's killphrase (or if you hadn't gotten Anna's and killed her the old fashioned way a Aug Upgrade Cannister i think)

 

Yes, I think Carter always leaves UNATCO regardless. As Shryke says if you ask JAime to stay and spy for you you get the killphrase; if you tell him to split he smuggles out an AUG cannister. In either case he meets JC in PAris and passes along the appropriate item. That's about the extent of player choice in the game.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think DX was fab, but still at it's heart it is a very linear first-person shooter. AN excellent one, of course.

[Moatilliatta]

So I've just seen the pictures of Deus Ex in the magazine and some of it looks pretty crap. Some of it fails at being a prequel and looks like somthing that would have been after Deus Ex.

 

The weapon they're showing seems to have forgotten that most weapons in Deus Ex (if not all) weren't particularly stylished. Apparently the police guys also have some serious armour on that doesn't exctly remind me of the ones in Deus Ex. Ain't gonna be the graphics that decides whether Deus Ex will be good though.

[Moatilliatta]

Wait this crap tells us that there is a skill system.

 

Those people need to decide. Sounds better now.

 

Edit: Awesome using Adam as the protagonist name, shows that they're trying.

Edited October 5, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Shryke]

@Hurlshot

The Paul one did last throughout the game, correct. The Lebedev one wasn't referenced much as far as I remember. Most of them did little except change a bit of dialogue or whether a person is in one place or dead.

 

What happened to Carter if you told him to stay in UNATCO? I seem to remember that he died but I'm unsure.

 

Unless one considers being chewed out by Manderly for choosing to go into the women's bathroom a choice and consequence. lol.

Good example.

 

you mean Jaime i assume?

 

if you told him to stay there you'd see him in Paris and he could get you Gunther's killphrase (or if you hadn't gotten Anna's and killed her the old fashioned way a Aug Upgrade Cannister i think)

 

Yes, I think Carter always leaves UNATCO regardless. As Shryke says if you ask JAime to stay and spy for you you get the killphrase; if you tell him to split he smuggles out an AUG cannister. In either case he meets JC in PAris and passes along the appropriate item. That's about the extent of player choice in the game.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think DX was fab, but still at it's heart it is a very linear first-person shooter. AN excellent one, of course.

 

minor nitpick, but if you tell Jaime to leave UNATCO you see him just before leaving Hong Kong - not Paris

 

(i've played it far too much)

Edited October 5, 2008 by Shryke

[Slowtrain]

minor nitpick, but if you tell Jaime to leave UNATCO you see him just before leaving Hong Kong - not Paris

 

(i've played it far too much)

 

 

Nice catch. I actually can't even remember where that happens now that I think about it. I almost always had him stay whenever I played.

 

 

On a completely unrelated note: the word Adam ALWAYS makes me think of Bioshock now.

[Moatilliatta]

My line of thought when reading it: "Jesus christ why you gotta reference Bioshock?... Oh wait.