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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided I Review Thread I I asked for this

Yes, it's a bad thing. Player choice doesn't mean anything if the 'consequences' of choice are nonexistent. If anything it's less freeform when you can do everything because there's no creativity, it's all being spoon fed (Hey, sneak in through the window, OR shoot the dude in the front, OR hack the lights and shut them off, and then also do the other ones if you want, no big deal).

The original Deus Ex gave you enough points to mix and match what you wanted to create your own way through each encounter, and the engine and game design were very open ended. It wasn't 'the stealth way' and 'the combat way' it was 'what combat encounters can I handle, do I want to handle them or search for a way through that my build will support, if I'm going stealthily there's still 4 different ways into the building, one might require hacking, one might require lockpicking, one might be a tighter timing window to avoid detection, one might involve some kills'...

I mean, HR was a fantastic game, but if there's one major criticism I have of it it was that. For all the shit people give Mass Effect about its shooting, as an RPG it worked great in Deus Ex to enforce your decisions. Using a pistol without the skill is HARDER. not impossible, but absolutely harder. same for anything else.

I tend to agree that it would be best for the to balance the game so that the player has to commit to playstyles, but I also think that it shouldn't be so harsh as to prevent adaptation and trying out new approaches later on. I think that the key is for them to bring back skills, and make those be more about permanent specialized playstyle choices, but have augmentations fulfill more general purposes that maybe allow for flexibility despite skill choices.

I was certainly hoping they'd return in this game, as augs still do not seem to fill the same roles that nano-augs and skills did in DX, there is a little bit of depth missing still. I also hope they bring back swimming in DX5, as it was a neat way to explore that has been abandoned since. I remember accidentally stumbling into Versalife's secret base in Hong Kong through the underwater exit in DX1, and even though in context it doesn't make a ton of sense they have an entrance so easily accessible, it really stood out to me. Plus the Oceanlab was a really cool setting and level. Imagine if Panchaea had flooded sections in HR!
 

dr_rus

Member
Is that a bad thing? I'm never going to replay this game, at least not the entire thing. Being able to choose my playstyle from a wide array of options rather than having to be locked into a specialization for a playthrough due to early choices and unlocks sounds so much better and more free-form

It's a bad thing if the game is an RPG. If it's a shooter then it's an indifferent thing.
 

Nags

Banned
This is already my GOTY, the difficulty settings are called normal, hard and "I Never Asked for This". Didn't even finish the tutorial section and it looks very solid overall. It's Human Revolution 2 basically.

This is your GOTY and you haven't even finished the tutorial?
How much is SE paying you?
 
Honestly, a smaller scope story is probably better for the series canon at large. I mean, these are events which by the time of the first game have no pop-culture relevance anymore. DXHR already introduced enough gaping holes in the overarching canon with Panchaea and Darrow's Insanity Signal. And shit, the "ethics of augmentation" (lol) isn't even a subject of discussion in the first game.

As for another topic someone brought up about it being awkard when real life catches up to 2027... It won't nearly be as awkward as Metroid, which the manga from the 80's says takes place in... 2005.
 
Honestly, a smaller scope story is probably better for the series canon at large. I mean, these are events which by the time of the first game have no pop-culture relevance anymore. DXHR already introduced enough gaping holes in the overarching canon with Panchaea and Darrow's Insanity Signal. And shit, the "ethics of augmentation" (lol) isn't even a subject of discussion in the first game.

As for another topic someone brought up about it being awkard when real life catches up to 2027... It won't nearly be as awkward as Metroid, which the manga from the 80's says takes place in... 2005.
Metroid takes place in an alien Galaxy and we never see earth.

Scratch that, forgot other m depicted it. Still nothing awkward about it since it's a Sci-fi series with aliens.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Oh so you mean the API call that needs to be done (I presume) to change the release status of a game. So they could be bothered to change the date, they've just selected the date and left the rest by default.

I would like to know if I'm correct, turn on the JaseC-signal.

It's such a pity that publishers/companies in general can get away with small fuckups things like this and there's not a single thing you can do about it. No comment will be made.

It's actually unlocking a couple of hours before the general store update (8am PT rather than 10am), so the time was a deliberate choice. My guess is:

I'd guess the stark difference is just a matter of where the responsibility lies if something goes wrong. On PSN and XBL, the onus is on Sony/MS to fix things as the level of control publishers have is comparatively limited.

In other words, Squeenix feels that someone needs to be in the driver's seat as the game unlocks, which makes region-specific unlock times impractical.
 

Karak

Member
no problem man. Were people disgruntled with the review because you said to wait for a sale? Or did they think your review was too nice?

I guess Total Biscuit couldn't figure out the combat or something. So his legions fucking descended on me as mine was the biggest review at the time. Said that I couldn't possibly have found it easy if TB couldn't figure it out. It was chaos for a bit and lots issues with the channel for a couple days.
Most of the death threats were just the stupid shit but a couple were...fairly dramatic lol
 
I guess Total Biscuit couldn't figure out the combat or something. So his legions fucking descended on me as mine was the biggest review at the time. Said that I couldn't possibly have found it easy if TB couldn't figure it out. It was chaos for a bit and lots issues with the channel for a couple days.
Most of the death threats were just the stupid shit but a couple were...fairly dramatic lol

I remember watching the IGN review. Many people seemed to complain about the difficulty based off the first time at the slums without party members.

It's a game that deals a lot of damage but as a rogue after I got the hang of it it turned fairly easy. So I agree with you on that regard.

Regardless just watched your Deus Ex review. Glad to hear about the boss battles being gone. Nice to see you found it a buy. I got it massively cheap on PC. I think the lip synch might bother me too much that shit is always my trigger. Needed at least one good game I could get for a solid price after spending 60 on NMS.
 

Karak

Member
I remember watching the IGN review. Many people seemed to complain about the difficulty based off the first time at the slums without party members.

It's a game that deals a lot of damage but as a rogue after I got the hang of it it turned fairly easy. So I agree with you on that regard.

Regardless just watched your Deus Ex review. Glad to hear about the boss battles being gone. Nice to see you found it a buy. I got it massively cheap on PC. I think the lip synch might bother me too much that shit is always my trigger. Needed at least one good game I could get for a solid price after spending 60 on NMS.

The lip synch seems to be connected to a read off the disk. because I sweat on every version it sometimes happens and then sometimes doesn't lol
 

TheYanger

Member
I tend to agree that it would be best for the to balance the game so that the player has to commit to playstyles, but I also think that it shouldn't be so harsh as to prevent adaptation and trying out new approaches later on. I think that the key is for them to bring back skills, and make those be more about permanent specialized playstyle choices, but have augmentations fulfill more general purposes that maybe allow for flexibility despite skill choices.

I was certainly hoping they'd return in this game, as augs still do not seem to fill the same roles that nano-augs and skills did in DX, there is a little bit of depth missing still. I also hope they bring back swimming in DX5, as it was a neat way to explore that has been abandoned since. I remember accidentally stumbling into Versalife's secret base in Hong Kong through the underwater exit in DX1, and even though in context it doesn't make a ton of sense they have an entrance so easily accessible, it really stood out to me. Plus the Oceanlab was a really cool setting and level. Imagine if Panchaea had flooded sections in HR!

The thing is you always had enough points to have SEVERAL skills at adequate levels. DE didn't cut down on your ability to adapt, it enhanced it. Giving you everything, THAT cuts down on your ability to adapt, because you're fully aware that you're capable of literally everything you encounter. Deus Ex still gave you sort of cheats in the forms of picks and multitools, it's not like you COULDNT shoot without gun skills, it just wasn't as efficient so you'dt ry to avoid it. similarly you could always pick a lock, but high lockpicking skill meant you didn't have to be discerning about which ones you went for, ditto multitools, swimming, etc. Maybe you'd offset a weakness with an Aug - but the aug had an opportunity cost as well.

I think it's a huge misjudgement to act like Deus Ex cut you off from options by forcing you to specialize in what you wanted, it was more like hey, here are the base level options, you can beat the game with these but it's going to be VERY hard. Now spend some points and beat the game you want to beat it, and we'll support your decision no matter what it is by giving you rewarding bits of story, or items and credits, or whatever. We'll even gate the kind of less obviously well rounded skills by making them cost way less (shit like swimming).

You can't promote creativity without creating obstacles and choice for the player. A game with literally no skill system shouldn't feel the same as the game WITH a skill system - why make it at all if it's just 'hey you're slightly limited early on, but THEN you get everything'
 

lmbotiva

Junior Member
Thanks for posting it. Appreciate it. Have to say every version I have been pretty happy with. Really surprising. Framiness on consoles sort of sucks but its not horrid.
Your review was good as usual, I bought far cry primal because of your review and it's probably aside from the witcher 3 the game i have enjoyed the most, looking forward to this one
 

Karak

Member
Your review was good as usual, I bought far cry primal because of your review and it's probably aside from the witcher 3 the game i have enjoyed the most, looking forward to this one

You know what. Its weird. But I think I am the most proud of that review. It seems to have given people info that they didn't expect and I keep wanting to hit that again. Always good to have a goal I guess lol.
 

lmbotiva

Junior Member
You know what. Its weird. But I think I am the most proud of that review. It seems to have given people info that they didn't expect and I keep wanting to hit that again. Always good to have a goal I guess lol.
Primal is simply incredible which is weird because is the same far cry formula but the setting and the beast mount was so well done it made the game just a joy to play and that's hard to find nowadays, I bought it on and got 100% on ps4 and im playing it now on PC, it looks incredible on ps4 but on PC is something else, the rays of moonlight on the forest, no game has an atmosphere like that IMO, it if wasn't for your review I would have missed on a great game and for that I thank you
 

Karak

Member
Primal is simply incredible which is weird because is the same far cry formula but the setting and the beast mount was so well done it made the game just a joy to play and that's hard to find nowadays, I bought it on and got 100% on ps4 and im playing it now on PC, it looks incredible on ps4 but on PC is something else, the rays of moonlight on the forest, no game has an atmosphere like that IMO, it if wasn't for your review I would have missed on a great game and for that I thank you
Ya no prob and MAN agreed on the PC version
 

sector4

Member
I guess Total Biscuit couldn't figure out the combat or something.

He most certainly couldn't, he couldn't even work out what menu icons meant. Same goes for Bound by Flame, he couldn't get a handle on the combat in that game either, same dev.
 

Glass

Member
Going to have Cohh Carnage's stream going at work today, he's been super hyped for this game. Not sure if it'll make my work day go faster or slower.
 
I can't wait to dig into this.

Wonder if the season pass is worth it. The meat of it seems to be 2 story DLC's (which could just mean 2 missions) for $30. Not sure if want.
 

ISee

Member

Thanks for posting it. Appreciate it. Have to say every version I have been pretty happy with. Really surprising. Framiness on consoles sort of sucks but its not horrid.


The huge keyboard is a bit strange and made me giggle. It's like the original 'laptop' was smaller, but than they decided to make it larger so the player can see more details on the screen.
hugekeysu7sex.jpg



Overall nice review. The whole 'tell, but don't show aspect' is a bit disappointing though. I hope it won't break the world building for me.
 

Karak

Member
The huge keyboard is a bit strange and made me giggle. It's like the original 'laptop' was smaller, but than they decided to make it larger so the player can see more details on the screen.
hugekeysu7sex.jpg



Overall nice review. The whole 'tell, but don't show aspect' is a bit disappointing though. I hope it won't break the world building for me.

Ya there are a few odd bits like that in the game
 
On Steam, the download size was 19.9 GB for the pre-load but apparently that didn't include the DLC.

The total size is now 22.7 GB with all the pre-order DLC included.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The huge keyboard is a bit strange and made me giggle. It's like the original 'laptop' was smaller, but than they decided to make it larger so the player can see more details on the screen.
hugekeysu7sex.jpg



Overall nice review. The whole 'tell, but don't show aspect' is a bit disappointing though. I hope it won't break the world building for me.
The face of that npc is hilarious. That's the exact expression id be making if I had a keyboard that big.
 
The huge keyboard is a bit strange and made me giggle. It's like the original 'laptop' was smaller, but than they decided to make it larger so the player can see more details on the screen.
hugekeysu7sex.jpg



Overall nice review. The whole 'tell, but don't show aspect' is a bit disappointing though. I hope it won't break the world building for me.

Thats hilarious. I actually want a laptop that large. Would be awesome.

This reminds of the oversized beers they drink on the boat in uncharted 4.
 

valkyre

Member
Guys wtf is wrong with the audio in this game? Cutscenes are playing at a much lower volume, some character shout their dialogue while other are barely heard, gunshots sound ridiculously low...

Am i doing it wrong or something?
 

benzopil

Member
Guys wtf is wrong with the audio in this game? Cutscenes are playing at a much lower volume, some character shout their dialogue while other are barely heard, gunshots sound ridiculously low...

Am i doing it wrong or something?

I thought this is the problem with Russian localization lol. Is it as bad in original version?
 
From Kotaku:



Seems they haven't learned shit from their last game. What a disappointment.
I don't really agree with the notion you can basically master all 3 areas or that you just choose how you want to crush people.

Spent 38 hours beating the game, so I assume I had above average XP, and even then I could only fully upgrade hacking and maybe half upgrade (the stealth and eyesight, but no radar, no noise, etc) upgrades. No combat upgrades. So I disagree you don't have to 'choose' your build... there is no way a combat focused player could do the stealth and hacking that I did.

And I also disagree you're just presented with options for "crushing" ... I constantly hacked turrets and drones just to turn them off, not for violence, because it helps a lot with stealth. The icarus dash is huuuuge for a 'Foxiest of Hounds' playthrough because it lets you access windows or ledges much more easily to bypass guards.

I would agree that I often felt I was 'missing out' by playing stealthy/non-lethal. The game has so much lethal/action content and upgrades that I feel I missed out on a lot of gameplay. But that's still a player choice. The game still allows you to choose and rewards you for it. You get pretty big XP rewards for completely missions without alarms. And the story rewards you too, I assume... my story conversations I imagine would have been a lot different had I "crushed" certain enemies.

The game does struggle with a lot of... conflicting designs. Story makes non-lethal stealth the sort of obvious 'canon' choice and yet since a lot of the 'toys' are all for lethal non-stealth. The story also has urgency and a lack of new areas or 'unfinished' content, and yet the game is full of an incredibly (and in some ways illogical or unneeded for the story) about of side exploration and content.

The story is basically an urgent non-lethal stealth rush and yet the game is designed for a vandalizing cat burgling terminator lol

But I do feel the story (and gameplay) does reward non-lethal stealth and I disagree the game isn't about investing in a play style or just about crushing -- it's just the new fancy new toys lean toward it. But I think that's the reviewer because too dazzled by the new toys -- there's no reason he couldn't have invested more in stealth and not crushed people as often.
 

I know this was supposed to be a sort of kind of negative view on the game, but somehow it made me want it even more. Gameplay is indeed king and while I wouldn't call the story on HR great, it felt awesome and the world looked and sounded so cool. Playing as Jensen again in a different place is right up my alley.

I found the video very enjoyable and love the depth, as usual for the channel. However, I'm gonna call bullshit on calling the voice acting unenthusiastic, you can't be badmouthing my man Elias Toufexis. Elias is just the fucking man :)
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
However, I'm gonna call bullshit on calling the voice acting unenthusiastic, you can't be badmouthing my man Elias Toufexis. Elias is just the fucking man :)

If he was the only character in the game you might have a point. Voice acting is pretty spotty in this, your boss Miller in particular is awful.
 
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