• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Deus Ex: HR's PC Preview Build version has leaked

I echo the sentiment that the conversation system in this game is stellar. The way the conversations flow is very organic, and can lead to edge-of-the-seat nailbiting stuff. Completely blew away my expectations where this is concerned.

It's also the most sensible conversation wheel I've come across. It gives both a paraphrase option (like Mass Effect's/ Witcher's), in addition to containing the entire initial sentence that will be spoken when the option is picked. This way, the chances of not understanding what the paraphrase option might entail is slim-to-none.

My only major issues are - railroaded sections, since they are completely at odds with the 'freedom mantra' of the Deus Ex series. That, and quite a few glaring instances of the NPCs not reacting (through remarks) to Jensen's taken approach in a past mission. This only occurs when one plays around with the system though, so it might simply be a case of the game being unfinished.
 
Van Buren said:
I echo the sentiment that the conversation system in this game is stellar. The way the conversations flow is very organic, and can lead to edge-of-the-seat nailbiting stuff. Completely blew away my expectations where this is concerned.

It's also the most sensible conversation wheel I've come across. It gives both a paraphrase option (like Mass Effect's/ Witcher's), in addition to containing the entire initial sentence that will be spoken when the option is picked. This way, the chances of not understanding what the paraphrase option might entail is slim-to-none.

My only major issues are - railroaded sections, since they are completely at odds with the 'freedom mantra' of the Deus Ex series. That, and quite a few glaring instances of the NPCs not reacting (through remarks) to Jensen's taken approach in a past mission. This only occurs when one plays around with the system though, so it might simply be a case of the game being unfinished.
Yeah, that
conversation with your fellow ex-swat member at the police station
was some amazing stuff. I made a save just before it to mess around with the various directions, and the various directions the conversation can take are really something. You can
blackmail him into letting you in, or console him into letting you in of his own accord. Though the second option is far harder, as it doesn't take much to get pissed off at you. At all
.
 
bengraven said:
Wow, so impressions are that this is really really good? Thank God!

So I've only played a few hours and I'm still only in the
police station
but oh my god, I am in love with this game. The aesthetics are fucking beautiful (cyberpunk and Baroque, fuck yea) and it's designed so well. The stealth feels good, the hacking feels good, the gunplay feels fantastic. I can't get enough of this game, and I suck at it.

Collector's edition day 1 for me, I can't believe how well they nailed it with this one. They just need to clean up some of that texture stuff, but even the bugs are few and far between when compared to something like FNV.
 
Confidence Man said:
In that picture above, is all (or any of) that clutter physics objects?

'fraid not. That's the main function of the highlighter, to show which of the myriad of objects you can interact with.
 
Confidence Man said:
In that picture above, is all (or any of) that clutter physics objects?
No, if you had a gun at that point you could probably shatter some glass, but other than that the world is very static.
Zenith said:
'fraid not. That's the main function of the highlighter, to show which of the myriad of objects you can interact with.
Yeah, I found myself enabling object highlighting because it's so hard to know what you can and can't interact with otherwise, it's clearly designed with highlighting in mind. Though objects you can pick up still have a slight shimmer to them with the highlighting off, so it's not impossible. Highlight for small objects like credit chips is still pretty small so you still have to look around, and not everything is in plain sight. I also find it very unobtrusive and prefer to have it on actually. That it also highlights ladders and vents is a bit distracting but only because it feels unnecessary, if you see them you see them if you don’t then highlighting won’t help you. Very useful for computer screens and the like though, they don’t need to stick to universal signs for interactive buttons/consoles and can add some more variation to the world while still making it clear what you can and can’t use, unless you disable highlighting, then it can become frustrating/confusing.

I disable objective highlights though, as that's a totally different thing.
 
Played the first mission, I think I'm gonna stop there. They should release that section as a demo because it was pretty awesome. Never played a Deus EX game before, but this feels cool to me. Like a first-person Metal Gear game of sorts, with some light RPG elements. Controls are a bit clunky, especially the cover mechanics, but you deal with it. Visually it's a mixed bag but that's all right.

What's the deal with the energy cells btw? I had two available but only the first one recharges.
 
jett said:
What's the deal with the energy cells btw? I had two available but only the first one recharges.
Only the 1st is is supposed to recharge automatically. Everything else requires food/pills.
 
jett said:
What's the deal with the energy cells btw? I had two available but only the first one recharges.
You have items that restore energy cells. Only the last one recharges though so you wouldn't completely run out of options. As in if you have absolutely no ammo left or anything at all you at least have one energy cell left so that you could get a melee attack in or something.
 
The yellow outlines are still obnoxious but hey, at least they listened to us and made it optional.

When the fuck does that ever happen.
 
jett said:
What's the deal with the energy cells btw? I had two available but only the first one recharges.
Yup, it's great IMO, if you say use it for melee you can sacrifice an item to have two cells ready to take out two guys in sequence, or you can take one out and wait for it to recharge. I'm not sure if the second cell will regenerate as well if you upgrade cells through augmentations.
 
dak1dsk1 said:
Also, I miss multi-tools. :(
I really don't, all I'd do was quicksave, open something, see if it's worth a multi-tool, if not then reload. Investing skillpoints to skip that all together is worth it to me, and it makes you explore/hack everything since you get exp and other bonuses. The only negative side is that I feel that I need to invest in hacking no matter what, whereas in DX1 you could stack up on multi-tools even with a low skill, though I do think the way HR does it is much, much more fun.
 
jett said:
What's the deal with the energy cells btw? I had two available but only the first one recharges.

Yeah, only the first one recharges. I think it's kind of a bummer and makes upgrading the number of cells pointless, as you always have to carry a food item to recharge the rest.
 
O.DOGG said:
Yeah, only the first one recharges. I think it's kind of a bummer and makes upgrading the number of cells pointless, as you always have to carry a food item to recharge the rest.

Agreed.
 
Danne-Danger said:
I really don't, all I'd do was quicksave, open something, see if it's worth a multi-tool, if not then reload. Investing skillpoints to skip that all together is worth it to me, and it makes you explore/hack everything since you get exp and other bonuses. The only negative side is that I feel that I need to invest in hacking no matter what, whereas in DX1 you could stack up on multi-tools even with a low skill, though I do think the way HR does it is much, much more fun.
You only have to invest in hacking if you want to see absolutely everything. Otherwise there are plenty of passwords and keypad numbers to be found in the world.
O.DOGG said:
Yeah, only the first one recharges. I think it's kind of a bummer and makes upgrading the number of cells pointless, as you always have to carry a food item to recharge the rest.
You have passive abilities this time around unlike Deus Ex where everything used up energy. Only significant abilities use energy. Things like taking out guards or punching through a wall. If you didn't use energy for that you would end up using either ammo for one your guns or explosives.

Upgrading cells is important because even if you do use consumables they don't recharge instantly so you need a bigger pool if you want to do lot's of complex actions at once.
 
Lostconfused said:
You only have to invest in hacking if you want to see absolutely everything. Otherwise there are plenty of passwords and keypad numbers to be found in the world.
Yeah that's true, but I still hack things even if I have the code just for the XP and bonus nodes. I think it's fun!
 
Danne-Danger said:
Yeah that's true, but I still hack things even if I have the code just for the XP and bonus nodes. I think it's fun!
Of course its fun. But I also think it would be fun to do a playthrough with only lvl 1 hacking and seeing how far you can get through exploration, found passwords and contextual information.

Edit: Oh right and there is a variant of the multitool in the game. The AUD, it unlocks any single hackable object no matter the difficulty rating.
 
Lostconfused said:
Of course its fun. But I also think it would be fun to do a playthrough with only lvl 1 hacking and seeing how far you can get through exploration, found passwords and contextual information.

Edit: Oh right and there is a variant of the multitool in the game. The AUD, it unlocks any single hackable object no matter the difficulty rating.
Yeah of course!


Doesn't the AUD say pre-order only though? Like the double-barrel and silenced sniper.
 
Danne-Danger said:
Doesn't the AUD say pre-order only though? Like the double-barrel and silenced sniper.
You can buy three or four of them from the gun runner at the gas station. I think its like the fallout pre-order items, get several regular in game items at the beginning that you wouldn't get normally.
 
I told myself I would go into media lockdown but I gave in and gave this a try. I think I might cancel my preorder of the regular edition and get the augmented edition instead.

This game is just bloody fantastic. I thought I was overhyped about it, but so far it has really delivered on everything I thought the game would be. I actually usually dislike stealth games but I got very comfortable with stealth in this one after the first level, because the game just gives you all the tools you need to sneak past things successfully. You're very rarely clueless about where people are and who saw you if you got caught, and usually it's your own fault if that happens instead of some arbitrary game mechanic that you didn't know about. The story seems interesting so far and the writing for conversations is so good that just plain talking to people can be fun instead of just a chore to get you to the next area.


Gripes:

- Framerate issues (triple core phenom II and radeon 4870) on turning and load times are awful, but I figure this will get fixed when the game gets optimized.
- Limited number of saves. I'm not sure if I'm the only guy who OCD saves in multiple slots in games like these.
- Not sure how viable it is to get into firefights. Granted, I'm going nonlethal at the moment but you die so easily that it feels like you always have to stack the odds in your favor before starting a firefight, which I guess is the whole point.
- This is a small thing regarding exp and goals, but I find the rules regarding detection rather strange. I'll put the rest in spoiler tags just in case.
I'm fine with how the game considers you undetected (preserves your Ghost bonus and any no-detection mission objectives) if you do melee takedowns, but it does NOT consider you undetected if you use a stungun to take someone out unaware, or if someone sees a downed body, even if they never saw you. It makes questionable sense to me, especially since the enemy AI never seems to notice that people are missing as long as you hide the bodies away.
- Saves will place you where you were before, standing. This means that if you saved in a place where you are just barely ducked away in cover or in a place where you are crouching, loading that save will sometimes put you in a place where you will be detected right away. Ouch.


Question for other people:

- How do you deal with
proximity mines?
- Has anyone invested in the inventory expansion? I'm running out of inventory slots really easily in the default setting.
 
Akuun said:
- Saves will place you where you were before, standing. This means that if you saved in a place where you are just barely ducked away in cover or in a place where you are crouching, loading that save will sometimes put you in a place where you will be detected right away. Ouch.

- How do you deal with
proximity mines?
Oh wow I didn't notice that. They even copied the fact that the character is standing instead of crouching when you load the game like in the first Deus Ex. Now that's dedication.


Walk very slowly and then disable them like in the first game.
 
Lostconfused said:
Oh wow I didn't notice that. They even copied the fact that the character is standing instead of crouching when you load the game like in the first Deus Ex. Now that's dedication.


Walk very slowly and then disable them like in the first game.

Damn, I was crouch walking and they picked me up right away. Didn't think to try moving even more slowly.

Actually in the original game I just ran up to them spamming E and they always got disarmed in time because the delay between detection and explosion was so long. :lol
 
Akuun said:
Damn, I was crouch walking and they picked me up right away. Didn't think to try moving even more slowly.

Actually in the original game I just ran up to them spamming E and they always got disarmed in time because the delay between detection and explosion was so long. :lol
Yeah its really messed up that the default crouch speed is too fast. You have to look at the key binds to see how you can move even more slowly with a keyboard.

But its really cool that they are motion sensitive, because if you knock anything over by accident they will trigger.

Also investing in dermal armor will greatly increase survivability. You don't necessarily have to stack the odds but getting the drop on an enemy is a huge advantage and is more than likely to swing the fight in your favor.
 
Lostconfused said:
Yeah its really messed up that the default crouch speed is too fast. You have to look at the key binds to see how you can move even more slowly with a keyboard.

But its really cool that they are motion sensitive, because if you knock anything over by accident they will trigger.

Also investing in dermal armor will greatly increase survivability. You don't necessarily have to stack the odds but getting the drop on an enemy is a huge advantage and is more than likely to swing the fight in your favor.

Nice. I'll look into that. I haven't gotten dermal armor either. In fact I'm not fully satisfied with the build I put my points into, and will probably go a different route when the full game hits.

Yeah, the motion sensitive thing is nice. At one point I "dealt" with a room full of proximity mines by throwing a cardboard box into it. XD


Oh, another thing that bugged me:
There was an area in the DRB hideout where I figured I could blow up the wall to get into, so I set an explosive there and detonated it. When the wall went down, I found a guy standing RIGHT where the hole in the wall was and facing the other way. Apparently he didn't hear the explosion or didn't think anything was amiss, because I was able to walk right up to him and do a silent takedown on him. wtf?
 
Akuun said:
Oh, another thing that bugged me:
There was an area in the DRB hideout where I figured I could blow up the wall to get into, so I set an explosive there and detonated it. When the wall went down, I found a guy standing RIGHT where the hole in the wall was and facing the other way. Apparently he didn't hear the explosion or didn't think anything was amiss, because I was able to walk right up to him and do a silent takedown on him. wtf?

I assume that's a bug. Because if you punch through that wall I think it sets of an alert. I at least failed the bonus objective when I did that.

No point in getting EMP protection though because I don't think you run into anything like that in this portion of the game.
 
Lostconfused said:
You can buy three or four of them from the gun runner at the gas station. I think its like the fallout pre-order items, get several regular in game items at the beginning that you wouldn't get normally.
Yeah, but they still say "pre-order exclusive" if you buy/pick them up, same for the silenced sniper rifle you can find. I guess it could just be a bug/something they haven't bothered to fix yet.




I also just learned that you can shoot grenades mid-air to deflect them while doing a terminator-style raid on the police station.
 
Danne-Danger said:
I also just learned that you can shoot grenades mid-air to deflect them while doing a terminator-style raid on the police station.
Just remember to do it in style.



Hmm I would be surprised though that AUD would be pre order only. Same deal with remote charges. It seems somewhat ridiculous to cut out of the game and doesn't really make sense to populate shop loot tables with pre order only items.
 
Oh wow, this game is GOOD! Just went through
Typhoon factory raid
and I think I'll finish there, I've seen enough to pre-order it. I'm absolutely in love with art-style and stealth system (this comes from a guy who usually despise stealth elements in games), story seems to be at least solid, dialogue system is great and CGI cut-scenes are not as intrusive as I thought they'll be. Everything just feels like a proper Deus Ex game.

Now the only real question is whether I buy it for PS3/Xbox360 or finally buy myself some decent gaming PC.
 
Danne-Danger said:
I also just learned that you can shoot grenades mid-air to deflect them while doing a terminator-style raid on the police station.
How is that working out? Right now I'm not convinced that frontal assault is a viable way to play the game, but would love to be proven wrong.
 
I had a good feeling about this game and ordered the Augmented Edition on a whim (dat artbook). Glad that the people who gave the preview build a spin enjoyed it.
 
Regarding one of the side missions, one of the possible solutions is way more resource-consuming:
in order to get to DRB hideout you can try jumping from the nearby building, blasting the wall, and falling down = 4 praxis points

Other than that the game is easy on Give Me Deus Ex if you're stealthy so I'm going to start on that difficulty.
 
Castor Krieg said:
Regarding one of the side missions, one of the possible solutions is way more resource-consuming:
in order to get to DRB hideout you can try jumping from the nearby building, blasting the wall, and falling down = 4 praxis points
Or you don't have to do it that way. It takes less than 5 minutes to do the objective, without being detected or killing anyone, if you know where to go. It's all about options.
 
Lostconfused said:
Or you don't have to do it that way. It takes less than 5 minutes to do the objective, without being detected or killing anyone, if you know where to go. It's all about options.

I think I know the route that you're talking about, but I couldn't find how to go through the sewer back outside DRB territory.

Also, with the building jumping route, you can just take the stairs back down and sneak around normally.
 
Akuun said:
Also, with the building jumping route, you can just take the stairs back down and sneak around normally.

You cannot, they will detect you. A lot of enemy movement is based on conversation triggers, and you need to be within certain range for a conversation to trigger.
 
Castor Krieg said:
You cannot, they will detect you. A lot of enemy movement is based on conversation triggers, and you need to be within certain range for a conversation to trigger.

One of the enemies did shout something at me when I did that, but it didn't fail the objective for me. After hightailing it to the door behind the ladder and hiding there for a while, I snuck back out and was able to sneak into the hideout normally without being detected.
 
Akuun said:
One of the enemies did shout something at me when I did that, but it didn't fail the objective for me. After hightailing it to the door behind the ladder and hiding there for a while, I snuck back out and was able to sneak into the hideout normally without being detected.
They aren't hostile the moment they detect you. If you get too close to them they will start attacking but before that you can still run away and hide. The shouting is just a gameplay mechanic to warn the player.
 
XeroSauce said:
So I've only played a few hours and I'm still only in the
police station
but oh my god, I am in love with this game. The aesthetics are fucking beautiful (cyberpunk and Baroque, fuck yea) and it's designed so well. The stealth feels good, the hacking feels good, the gunplay feels fantastic. I can't get enough of this game, and I suck at it.

Collector's edition day 1 for me, I can't believe how well they nailed it with this one. They just need to clean up some of that texture stuff, but even the bugs are few and far between when compared to something like FNV.

You might have sold a pre-order of the game.

Everything seems to be gold and brown, however, which fit the aesthetics, but does it get old?

Is this a great game or is it at a great Deus Ex game? Does it feel DX? I've heard two people state the blasphemy that this is better than DX1 and I'm fascinated by that.




God, I might reinstall DX1.
 
Also, I think
falling down the elevator shaft
doesn't require
the Icarus landing system
. I think you can drop from girder to girder at this one spot in the shaft and go down that way. I managed to drop down one girder safely, but missed the rest and died. :lol

They aren't hostile the moment they detect you. If you get too close to them they will start attacking but before that you can still run away and hide. The shouting is just a gameplay mechanic to warn the player.
I am quite glad that doesn't make them go hostile and ruin the stealth objective because I left the place by
coming out of the sewer near the DRB entrance and hurrying out that way. I kept my distance from everyone so I think they only stuck to shouting. XD
 
bengraven said:
Is this a great game or is it at a great Deus Ex game? Does it feel DX? I've heard two people state the blasphemy that this is better than DX1 and I'm fascinated by that.

It is a DX game, feels very much like one.

Akuun said:
Also, I think
falling down the elevator shaft
doesn't require
the Icarus landing system
. I think you can drop from girder to girder at this one spot in the shaft and go down that way. I managed to drop down one girder safely, but missed the rest and died. :lol

Did the same, also managed to drop down one girder, died every single time trying to drop further.


Any idea what are the conditions for some hidden EXP? Just got the Ghost(500), and there is no mention of it in the mission briefing.
 
bengraven said:
You might have sold a pre-order of the game.

Everything seems to be gold and brown, however, which fit the aesthetics, but does it get old?

Is this a great game or is it at a great Deus Ex game? Does it feel DX? I've heard two people state the blasphemy that this is better than DX1 and I'm fascinated by that.

God, I might reinstall DX1.

The gold/brown filter never feels out of place, and is only really prevalent when outdoors. I'm totally comfortable with it.

So far, they really nailed the feel of a Deus Ex game. I loved the first game too, but this game is awesome and if the full game is as good as this preview all the way through, then it's very possible that this is better than DX1. It feels like DX, and there are already noticable improvements on the original game's system and interface. Augs feel more effective, the interface/logging system is better for tracking passwords and passcodes, characters feel more believable and interesting, and the conversation is really good. I'd say it's very possible it will wind up better than DX1.
 
Akuun said:
How is that working out? Right now I'm not convinced that frontal assault is a viable way to play the game, but would love to be proven wrong.
Works well enough, a lot of it revolves around cheesing the AI at chokes with the coversystem though, they have really bad pathfinding so a lot of the time (as in the police station) the groups of AIs are isolated because they can't move between floors and seem to have trouble finding a way to where you are, you clear a room, move to the next choke where enemies can engage you, clear that etc. These are simple enemies though, I plan to play through the whole thing. I'm pretty much shooting everyone I can though so it should be quick.

I haven't taken any dermal plating and I don't think the recoil augmentation would be that useful, the "shoot while moving"-one seems a bit unnecessary as well as you're mostly tied to cover, maybe all that would change if you went with some plating. I also feel that cloak would be of more use (if enemies rush you), and maybe a lot in energy along with the see enemies through walls aug (which is also very useful for stealth). The double close-quarters takedown is really good.

That said I think non-lethal/stealth is more fun, certainly harder IMO, and the game rewards you more for it meaning more augs to play with. Though my run isn't really representative of a "normal" run, the city is pretty much clean from both cops and punks and I'm not doing sidequests. :P
 
Gvaz said:
Also fire I heard doesn't spread? How will I collect bodies and throw them in a trash can and set the whole thing on fire?
Also space combat I hear isn't in the game? How will I jump in my TIE Fighter and fly to Alderaan?
 
Danne-Danger said:
I haven't taken any dermal plating and I don't think the recoil augmentation would be that useful, the "shoot while moving"-one seems a bit unnecessary as well as you're mostly tied to cover, maybe all that would change if you went with some plating. I also feel that cloak would be of more use (if enemies rush you), and maybe a lot in energy along with the see enemies through walls aug (which is also very useful for stealth). The double close-quarters takedown is really good.

Dermal plating is where it's at. Just went into the cubicles and shot everyone. Obviously had to take cover but even when there were two or three swat/riot cops rushing you it wasn't too much of a problem. And yeah double take down is probably a must.

Cloak is worthless for a non stealth run. The first upgrade buys you like 3 seconds on a single battery charge so if you only have two cells you get a maximum 6 seconds of invisibility and then you are SOL.
 
Top Bottom