SaintMadeOfPlaster
Member
Having never played the original Deus Ex, I didn't really know much of what I was getting into when I decided to pick this game up. All I had seen was a few screenshots and a whole lot of praise when the game first came out. I was in a cyber-punky mood and decided to give it a go, and all-in-all I was thoroughly impressed. I suppose I'll just list what I thought was good and bad about the game, in no particular order.
THE GOOD
1. The Story/World
I never thought I'd find myself praising a game first and foremost for its story (I'm more of a gameplay-first kind of guy), but man if this game doesn't pull it off well. The idea of transhumanism and how it would effect society is inherently interesting, and they do a very good job of exploring the idea throughout the game. While the ending being a very transparent multiple choice question was a bit of a let down, everything else about the story was great, as far as videogame stories are concerned.
But more impressive than the story itself was the world building. I like how the game shows the struggles between upper and lower class. I love how all the items are where you expect them to be. Beer bottles are in more slummy areas while wine bottles are generally found in more upper-class locations. Pocket secretaries are found in convincing places (most impressive was one found under a staircase, where its implied somebody dropped it and couldn't bother to go out of the way to pick it up). Computers in higher security areas were more likely to be locked behind a password than those in lower security areas. Everything seemed to just make sense much more than a vast majority of other games.
2. Various Gameplay Styles
Many games have tried to do the whole "play it how you want!" but this game actually seems to do it better than any I've played. For example, play-how-you-want was a big selling point for Splinter Cell Blacklist, but I quickly learned that run and gun was actually a much easier approach than trying to actually be stealthy, ironically enough. However, in Deus Ex, due to the augmentation system, you can play however you want, as long as you're smart enough. If you like playing stealth-style, pick augments that help with that. If you like run-and-gunning, you better stack up in defense/gun augments. The level design is also perfect at letting the player excel no matter what style they prefer. It's quite an achievement.
I generally played a pacifist, stealth-based style. However, when Malik died I was legitimately pissed off at the Belltower group and went on a killing spree, using my blades and guns more than any other point of the story. The fact that the game allowed me to shift gears like that without any awkwardness was incredibly rewarding, and it made my killing of the Belltower guys much more satisfying, and I felt like I had control over Adam Jensen's character development.
3. The UI Makes Sense on a Literal Level
In most games, having a marker on the screen that tells you where to go just feels lazy. Having a health meter, ammo meter, radar, etc. also doesn't make much sense. But in this game, due to the augmentations Adam has, it makes sense. It makes it even more believable when you don't have the UI until he's augmented, and how the UI is useless whenever Adam's augmentations get "hacked." The game melds its systems into the game's story/world incredibly well.
4. Conversations
I loved the parts where I had to try to convince people to give me information or do me favors. Giving these NPCs fairly complicated personalities worked very well, and the conversations rarely flowed awkwardly like they often do in Bioware games. Having social-based augmentations was a very interesting concept as well, and one of the more frightening aspects of the technology in my opinion.
THE BAD
1. Voice Acting
Holy cow does Adam Jensen sound like a guy who just wants to be Batman real bad. Sarif's voice actor also sounded like he was trying too hard to have some sort of accent that I couldn't really figure out. All-in-all it's a pretty minor issue, but it was hard to take either character seriously when they were talking.
2. Yellow...yellow everywhere
As much as I loved the world in the game, the sepia filter was just too much in my opinion. I watched the making-of video and it showed some alpha/beta footage that didn't have the filter and it just looked so much better to me. I get that the filter certainly gives this game a unique look, but when the only two colors in your world are yellow and black, you've got a problem.
3. Bad Autosave Spots
This problem is easily solved if you stay on top of manually saving, but it's often easy to forget to do that when engrossed in the game. That being said, I often died and found myself losing up to 20 minutes of progress. While playing through sections is obviously much easier the 2nd/3rd time, it was still very annoying.
4. Load Times
This may be a problem that is only present in the Wii U version of the game, but the load times were stupidly long. Whenever I died, I'd find myself staring at the loading screen usually around 30 seconds. In Hengsha, moving between districts was a pain as well.
That's all I can think of right now. I'd say the good easily outweigh the bad, and I can definitely see why the series has a cult following. The game rewards both fast paced and slow paced playing, has an intriguing world/story, and plays the moral ambiguity card very well.
Let's talk about it!
THE GOOD
1. The Story/World
I never thought I'd find myself praising a game first and foremost for its story (I'm more of a gameplay-first kind of guy), but man if this game doesn't pull it off well. The idea of transhumanism and how it would effect society is inherently interesting, and they do a very good job of exploring the idea throughout the game. While the ending being a very transparent multiple choice question was a bit of a let down, everything else about the story was great, as far as videogame stories are concerned.
But more impressive than the story itself was the world building. I like how the game shows the struggles between upper and lower class. I love how all the items are where you expect them to be. Beer bottles are in more slummy areas while wine bottles are generally found in more upper-class locations. Pocket secretaries are found in convincing places (most impressive was one found under a staircase, where its implied somebody dropped it and couldn't bother to go out of the way to pick it up). Computers in higher security areas were more likely to be locked behind a password than those in lower security areas. Everything seemed to just make sense much more than a vast majority of other games.
2. Various Gameplay Styles
Many games have tried to do the whole "play it how you want!" but this game actually seems to do it better than any I've played. For example, play-how-you-want was a big selling point for Splinter Cell Blacklist, but I quickly learned that run and gun was actually a much easier approach than trying to actually be stealthy, ironically enough. However, in Deus Ex, due to the augmentation system, you can play however you want, as long as you're smart enough. If you like playing stealth-style, pick augments that help with that. If you like run-and-gunning, you better stack up in defense/gun augments. The level design is also perfect at letting the player excel no matter what style they prefer. It's quite an achievement.
I generally played a pacifist, stealth-based style. However, when Malik died I was legitimately pissed off at the Belltower group and went on a killing spree, using my blades and guns more than any other point of the story. The fact that the game allowed me to shift gears like that without any awkwardness was incredibly rewarding, and it made my killing of the Belltower guys much more satisfying, and I felt like I had control over Adam Jensen's character development.
3. The UI Makes Sense on a Literal Level
In most games, having a marker on the screen that tells you where to go just feels lazy. Having a health meter, ammo meter, radar, etc. also doesn't make much sense. But in this game, due to the augmentations Adam has, it makes sense. It makes it even more believable when you don't have the UI until he's augmented, and how the UI is useless whenever Adam's augmentations get "hacked." The game melds its systems into the game's story/world incredibly well.
4. Conversations
I loved the parts where I had to try to convince people to give me information or do me favors. Giving these NPCs fairly complicated personalities worked very well, and the conversations rarely flowed awkwardly like they often do in Bioware games. Having social-based augmentations was a very interesting concept as well, and one of the more frightening aspects of the technology in my opinion.
THE BAD
1. Voice Acting
Holy cow does Adam Jensen sound like a guy who just wants to be Batman real bad. Sarif's voice actor also sounded like he was trying too hard to have some sort of accent that I couldn't really figure out. All-in-all it's a pretty minor issue, but it was hard to take either character seriously when they were talking.
2. Yellow...yellow everywhere
As much as I loved the world in the game, the sepia filter was just too much in my opinion. I watched the making-of video and it showed some alpha/beta footage that didn't have the filter and it just looked so much better to me. I get that the filter certainly gives this game a unique look, but when the only two colors in your world are yellow and black, you've got a problem.
3. Bad Autosave Spots
This problem is easily solved if you stay on top of manually saving, but it's often easy to forget to do that when engrossed in the game. That being said, I often died and found myself losing up to 20 minutes of progress. While playing through sections is obviously much easier the 2nd/3rd time, it was still very annoying.
4. Load Times
This may be a problem that is only present in the Wii U version of the game, but the load times were stupidly long. Whenever I died, I'd find myself staring at the loading screen usually around 30 seconds. In Hengsha, moving between districts was a pain as well.
That's all I can think of right now. I'd say the good easily outweigh the bad, and I can definitely see why the series has a cult following. The game rewards both fast paced and slow paced playing, has an intriguing world/story, and plays the moral ambiguity card very well.
Let's talk about it!
