No Mutants Allowed

[The Dutch Ghost]

* warning, some spoilers *



Hello all,

Now that I have finished Deus Ex Human Revolution I can compare my thoughts on it and how it compares to the previous games.

Graphically the game looked very nice and the level in detail is great even though some people are complaining that the graphics are not as good as that as other popular games on the moment but I find that a moot point and honestly not that important.

In general this game felt a lot more like Deus Ex 1 than Invisible War did, not as streamlined and made more into an FPS.
Surprisingly I found Jensen even weaker than JC Denton when it came to combat, even with all the armor upgrades

Most likely done to put more emphasis on stealth and hiding behind cover during fighting.
The cover system was not as detracting as I feared it would be, feeling like a console thing.

Still I found it a bit of a shame that skills and augmentations were almost still completely the same thing as in Invisible War, rather than that skills like hacking and fire arms were separate from augmentations which were more like special abilities.
I still prefer the DE1 system.

Story wise the game was pretty good but I can not help but feeling that the whole augmentation issue was kind of a repeat of the Knights Templar sub story from IW.

It was more of a open political issue now rather than the issue of nano augmentation, with people more openly debating it and being divided in various camps about it.

Plus it was also more visible rather than nano augmentations which only a select few people had, making the debate issue a bit more complex.

Still, to be honest I did not find the story as strong as the first Deus Ex.
It could be that nostalgic memories are influencing my judgment but I found the setup, the background, and the conspiracy mysteries more stronger in tune with popular culture,

While I like the graphics and the details a lot, I sadly have a bit of an issue with the looks.
They are not bad and that is not the problem, but they are way to futuristic compared to DE1 which seemed more closer to our present but still felt more natural advanced.

There was really high tech technology such as robots, the computers, energy weapons, and cities were a bit more advanced but there were still present day 'roots', like for example passenger planes, ships, and helicopters.

Technology, cities and dress styles looked way more futuristic in Human Revolution, making me wonder what could have happened that changed this deliberate renaissance like look that the world seemed to be going through, and make it decay into the near present and yet further in the future DE1.

Shanghai was basically one city on top of another, and while I can understand that a recession could stop that from happening with for example Hong Kong, Hong Kong or the other cities in DE1 did not show any signs that architecture had advanced that far before things slowed down.

I can understand that this comes down as artistic interpretation, with the old development team having a different vision than the new one, but this creates a type of inconsistency.
To me DE HR seems more advanced than DE1, and if we did not know of the time period and the augmentation technology, would make more sense taking place behind DE1 rather than before it.

Sorry for the long rant, what I would like to ask people reading this topic and who have perhaps played DE1 in the past to tell what their favorite DE game is.

While I really like Deus Ex Human Revolution, recuperating the franchise from the blow it took with Invisible War, IMO Deus Ex 1 is still my favorite of the franchise.
It may look rather outdated, I still find this game regarding its controls and story better.
Now if only they could add the grenade throwing button to it.
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[Sabirah]

I have to say, I like HR the best so far.


It has all the things I liked from Deus Ex (tech noir story, lotta cool sci fi) but with less of that dumb conspiracy stuff
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Meri pyaas bujha aaja, mujhe ganga bana aaja
Meri pyaas bujha mujhe ganga bana
Kar pura vachan aaja

[Crni Vuk]

well many of us exactly liked the conspiracy stuff of De1 ...

[The Dutch Ghost]

[Walpknut]

I am liking Deus Ex Human revolution a lot, I feel the AI of the enemies is better than the one from the first game, it sucks that there is no real Melee combat other than the takedowns though.
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[madplaysHD]

Well, its kind of hard to compare all these games, given that they are from different eras and games as general have progressed and are doing a lot of stuff better now (and some stuff worse).

So, all that technical stuff aside, I liked Human Revolution, it is a good, but not stellar game.
I really like the dialogue system in it. The choices are not as good as in Alpha Protocol, but the whole wandering around thing makes it a lot more lifelike. Its surprising how such a small thing changes the whole experience. Also, even without the social enhancement (which you should really only get in the second playthrough), you can really feel the reactions of the people. But this, again, is a technical thing, that wasn't possible back in DE 1 days. However, I feel that the writing is a lot better too. Jensen always sounds like a very smart an empathic guy, I really like that. So +1 for HR.

The story, on the other hand was quite weak. The timing of a lot of surprises and twists wasn't that good. I really liked the one in DE1 better.

This really IS a spoiler, in the way that it reveals the whole story, sure you want to click it?

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

One of the major twists is given away in the INTRO of the game.. wtf?

Also, the biochip-upgrade-thing is not very well timed. At the time it happened, Im pretty sure most players knew something fishy was going on. It just fit to well into all of the other events. The revelation would work a lot better if the upgrade happened in earlier stages of the game, like the first time in Detroit. This would also make the illuminati look a lot more ingenious.

Also, I knew right in the beginning of the game that Reed took my DNA. I think everybody knows after they visited LIMB the first time. Again, this could have worked if timed differently, AFTER the player finds out that Jensen was the result of an experiment.
But I don't understand the whole point anyhow. Yeah she took my DNA to make life of a lot of people better - SO WHAT? Whats the deal with that? Why didn't she just said: "whoa dude, your DNA is awesome, can we use it?". Its like someone would approach me like "hey, the cure for cancer and aids is in your genes, mind if we use it to cure a couple of diseases?". What kind of sick bastard says no to that? Yeah sure, she should have told us, but why didn't she in the first place? There is no reason for that.

Also, why did they reveal Zhao as an illuminati right away? THE FIRST TIME WE MEET HER? The illuminati, greatest minds of history would be capable to make it seem like she was really not a part of them. This could have been a nice surprise for the player.

The next thing, where are the big choices? DeusEx 1 was a lot better in that regard, too. There was also more feedback on what you did. There is, as far as I know, only one time in HR where that happens, right after the first assignment.

Gameplaywise, I really like HR. You always have a lot of choices what to do, even if they are a little bit TO obvious sometimes. You can always choose to fight or talk or sneak your way in, and thats great. I have only played it through one time right now, so I don't know if the feeling is really that different if you go for a more aggressive strategy instead of sneaking but currently, I feel it would. If so, this is great and it may very well be one of the greatest games in that regard. The only thing I don't like about HR are the bossfights. Not because there ARE bossfights, I am completely ok with that, but they seem so imbalanced. For a sneaky character, the first two bossfights are almost impossible to pull off. The third one was pretty easy, because I had full armor and a couple of weapons that actually can kill people.

So overall, I like the first game a little bit better, just because of the story. HR is still a very good game, and one you can buy full price without regret.
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mad plays ... Fallout 1

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[Sabirah]

[PainlessDocM]

Yeah they should never have used something as lame as the Illuminati.
You have a world ruled by mega corporations and they still throw in teh evil Illuminati.

Made me frown when I played Deus Ex and it made me frown again a couple of days ago when they were first mentioned in HR.
So lame.


The game itself is pretty damned good but I haven't finished it yet.

[Nark]

After finishing Human Revolution today, I have to say that I really liked it. Not sure if I like it as much as Deus Ex, but it was still pretty damn good for what it's worth. Now, Invisible War on the other hand - console tripe, at least with Human Revolution they made an effort for a PC version and not just a console port.

I will say one thing though, I enjoyed Invisible War a hell of a lot more than Thief: Deadly Shadows (made by the same guys, comparisons between the two are made everywhere). While unrelated I just thought I'd mention it as everyone seems to think otherwise.

[sea]

I feel as if the core gameplay in Deus Ex is a little bit more well thought out and less engineered than the gameplay in Human Revolution... while you have options in many situations, the levels aren't designed around "stealth path, combat path, hacking/social path", and in Human Revolution it's easy to feel pigeonholed into a single route through the game, rather than using your skills in a way that you choose to.

Additionally, while the augmentations have a more drastic impact on gameplay in Human Revolution, they're also extremely imbalanced, with hacking skills taking great priority and others being almost useless unless you're just really bad at the game. The smaller and more linear levels also reduce the impact that a certain augment can have - it doesn't matter if you can jump over a wall because you can take the door ten feet off to the side, etc.

The overall pacing and flow to things, however, is a bit more direct in Human Revolution, which stops the game from getting stuck in a rut or losing its momentum. Even in the hubs you always feel like your task is clear, and while you can go exploring, you never have that "now what do I do?" moment where you turn off the game and never return. Combat is also significantly better in Human Revolution, whether you choose to use the cover system or not, and stealth doesn't have that painfully slow feeling to it it can in Deus Ex - it's less random and more based on your timing and skill rather than trial and error.

As for Invisible War... it's not even in the same league. While some ideas in the game are cool (I like how Seattle was designed and the endgame in Trier and Antarctica was cool, I thought Trier in particular was well captured and the game had good momentum from there to the end), but the complete lack of pacing and poor presentation in the setup (five minutes and you're under attack! who are these characters and why should I care about them? why is it so dark indoors? why does everyone's voice sound like it's coming through a plastic tube?) really kills things for me, and the game can never recover from that poor intro no matter how much it tries to make amends near the end. I feel as if the level design is sometimes pretty good despite the tiny size to everything, but that small size ensures that there's a real lack of choice and consequence in play-style - you can shoot everyone or sneak, it doesn't matter because the difference comes less to the way you've built your character, but which door you want to pick, and there are no real story repercussions for being bloodthirsty.

Anyway, I don't know. I think that Human Revolution is more consistently good than Deus Ex, but the high points in Deus Ex really stand out for me, whereas in Human Revolution a lot of the events kind of blur together despite being all pretty decent overall. Human Revolution would have been a better game if the story wasn't quite so derpy (the big plot twist at the end is extremely predictable and the ending feels tacky and blunt) and took more time to explain the characters' motives and philosophy, got more into the Illuminati stuff that's all there in the background, etc., and of course if those problems with the level design and augmentation system were fixed up. As it stands, Human Revolution is a great Deus Ex game, but it's not better than the original, and can never quite shake the feeling it's only half of what it was originally intended to be... given that two hubs were cut (Montreal and Hong Kong), I feel like a bit more time to develop its ideas and flesh out its level design would have gone a long way.

[Wintermind]

[Ilosar]

THE question, eh? Deus Ex or Human Revolution?

Well, visually HR blows it's ancestor out of the water. Not only from the obvious HD graphics, but also thanks to the superb and, most importantly, consistent art direction. It does look a bit too futuristic at times (mostly Hengsha, I mean, two cities on top of each other must be one hell of a feat of engineering), but it's easily excusable to me. IIRC Warren Specter himself said it was OK. Deus Ex lacked that impactful visual design, too many gray areas and stuff ripped straight out other IPs (grey aliens, MIBs...).

Audio, well the voice acting is simply better this time around (remember those horrible Asian and French accents? the pain...), and the music is very good too. Nothing to match Deus Ex's menu theme, sadly, but as a package HR is a bit better on this front.

Story wise, even if the first game has some flaws and plot holes, it's still better than HR. The latter's big huge twist was guessed by me close to the beginning, and a certain comment made by a certain character pretty much confirmed my theory, as I found out a couple of hours later. HR also didn't use it's themes to it's fullest potential; augmentation debates were a bit reduced to haves vs have-nots (read, economical considerations), while the psychological (not enough self-doubt, or at least possibilities of it, on Jensen's part imo), practical (augmented workers vs ''normals''), and political (politician using CASIE augs to gain advantage in a debate or somesuch) issues were barely touched. Also,

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

too much AIs already in the timeline. Eliza being one was a bit unnecessary to me. Hyron was neat, however.

. That said, I liked the fact HR was more grounded and actual (riots, need I say more?) for the most part, rather than go full-on conspiracy kitchen sink corporations-and-governments-want-to-kill-us.

Gameplay wise, it's a bit complicated. Deus Ex is better on paper; skills + Augs make for a better progression than Augs alone, having to choose which Aug adds more choices, ect. In practice, HR is better; there seems to be more possible paths, even if the areas are smaller; shoot stuff, sneak by, hack, use vents, move heavy stuff, punch through walls, survive falls by Icarus aug, jump up, pile up crates, talk your way in, some levels allow you to do ALL of this, while the first game seemed to have 2, max 3 possibilities per level, I may be wrong however it's been a few years. Weapon progression extends to non-lethal in HR too, something I enjoyed greatly after being stuck with a friggin prod for all the first game long (the PEPS is the best, coolest weapon in the game imo, and it's not lethal). Set pieces are rarely used, but are when they are they're well done

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

(most notably the frenzied rush to save Malik's life, or defending the elevator in Montreal with mah beloved gas mines)

, the AI is better and sneaking requires more skill/timing and less luck.

Characters, it's a bit of a tie. Page is the most memorable villain and I liked Denton more than Jensen even with (or maybe because of?) his cheesier writing and voice acting. But HR's supporting cast was better, Malik was nice and Sarif seemed like a conflicted, believable character, not a cliche, full of himself mega-billionaire.

Boss fights, eh, Barrett was a bit of a pain, until I found out about EMP grenades. That's it, big boy, stand still and let papa Adam riddle your skull with 10mm rounds.

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Fedorova]

was better, and

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Namir

I found to be a bit too easy, while

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Hyron

was pretty good. Basically, every boss was made much easier by copious use of EMP grenades.

Final verdict? I still don't know. I will have to replay HR to decide, replay value will probably break the tie. But Eidos Montréal's effort has a slight advantage so far. Damn good game.
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Shepard: Conrad... if you have a shrine to me, I'm going to be upset.

Conrad: it's just a poster and some candles, it's very tasteful.

[Crni Vuk]

well at least one can see Human Revolution as Deus Ex.

Its not so bad like the jump from Fallout 1/2 to Fallout 3 ...

I guess we can not expect today that modern sequels to past games really create the same feeling (not that this is really possible I am just saying). At least one has to appreciate the try here. I think they did their best. What more can we expect today ?

[Wintermind]

You guys don't use spoilers enough. If I hadn't already beaten the game (courtesy of Irene) I'd be fucking pissed at you guys. the SA thread read like a redacted CIA document, especially considering that spoilers o there are black boxes.

That said, I haven't played DE one yet (Yes I know I'm a horrible person), but I really liked the art of HR since most of what was futuristicy was stuff related to augments or "new" stuff, and other than the odd hologram (which I didn't care for), it was all pretty cool and consistent.

The boss battles:

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Were all in all pretty gay. I dunno how I"m gonna handle them this go round since I'm only carrying a stun gun and a 10mm pistol as of right now. I might drop the pistol and pick up a combat rifle instead just so I can blast the bosses in the head. Or lots of grenades, since that's how I beat Namir or whatever his name was. Don't need augs to throw grenades at your face, do I, jerkface.

That fight was the best one, IMO. Mostly because I had gotten the LIMB chip. The last boss fight was kinda "Eh", mostly cause I didn't have a clue as to what you're supposed to do and you can't say, pull the chicks out and help them.

.

On Hengsha:

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Lower hengsha was totally awesome, upper hengsha was HELLO THE FACT THAT WE WERE BOUGHT BY THE PEOPLE WHO MADE FINAL FANTASY SEVEN IS NOT APPARENT.

.

And on Eliza

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Thought the she was a random AI was really dumb. I really liked how the AI of the Hyron project was controlled by people/with people was a lot more of an interesting way to have an AI. Her being a bigass computer was bland by comparison. Hell, if she was a bigass computer with the actual Eliza inside it would've been more interesting and foreshadowing and showing what the Illuminati can do.

OH and the fact that Picus just replays the same thirty second interview clip is so fucking annoying I cannot stand. YES I UNDERSTAND SHUT UP NOW PEWPEW BYE BYE TELEVISION.

And the end game

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Zombies were fucking dumb. So fucking dumb.

.
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Let's suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of dreams, or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fufill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could concieve. And after several nights, of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say "Well, that was pretty great. But now let's have a surprise. Let's have a dream which isn't under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know what it's gonna be." And you would dig that and come out of that and say "Wow, that was a close shave, wasn't it?". And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.

[TwinkieGorilla]

[Crni Vuk]

so you would recommend it to a "deus ex" fan ? Because I am somewhat not yet sure if I will buy it ... Many say its "alright" but I have the feeling I might buy it and suddenly run in something I absolutely hate or which will completely disappoint me. Like the ending. Or some "console shit" (controls or what ever ...).

Just saying. I really would love to buy it. But I am a bit short on money. So its either Deus Ex or the Witcher 2. But TW2 is kinda cheap right now.

[The Dutch Ghost]

[TwinkieGorilla]

Read the GameBanshee review, Crni. It says all you need to know. Also: What TDG just said about DE:HR is exactly how I felt about TW2. So, horse a piece I guess.

My vote goes to Deus Ex.

[Ausdoerrt]

[The Dutch Ghost]