Another largely pointless thanking

[bobince]

TNM is quite good, actually. Did you know that?

Just a pity so few people will (probably) play it, being as it is a slightly-annoying-to-install* mod of an old and generally-considered-ugly game, with an unpromising-sounding plot, and that. Have you considered kidnapping people, locking them in a warehouse full of lasers and turrets, and forcing them to play it in order to earn food?

*: Mainly thanks to the shoddiness of the official 1112fm patcher. And remembering where you put your Deus Ex CD. A portable version with patch, HDTP, renderers, TNM and TNM-patches pre-installed would be great. (...huh? How can a game as old as DX still be under copyright?)

So thanks in particular for giving us so much more meaningful choice over the direction of the story than DX - or really, any other game can think of at all. I wish more titles would do this sort of thing (although that also might make more of them take seven years to produce, I suppose). The further choices of alignment other than simply PDX/WC were great, especially the large number of working variations on helping/backstabbing/ignoring the Goats and Llamas; at no point did TNM fall into the trap of Invisible War's joylessly mechanical and transparent choose-your-own-adventure faction-picking.

Hmm, what else were the things wot I thinked whilst playing. Erm, is it just me playing it second, or is the WC mission quite a bit easier than PDX? Certainly playing Goats seems a little easier... that's probably mainly due to bloody Athena, argh. She's tough enough to begin with (and fast enough to escape the reach of my Dragon's Tooth, the cheating cow), but then making her regenerate and cover you with blinding fire while you're busy trying to climb - a boss fight with DX ladder-climbing?! You guys are just cruel.

That Dragon's Tooth is rather overpowered IMO... well, it always was in DX, but now you can get it earlier. My first playthrough was so exclusively DTS-based I never even found time to play with the new weapons (which is a shame, as it turns out the vortex 'nades and step mines are fantastic and hilarious). WorldCorp guards? Dragonstooth to the face. Dark Templar? Here's a Dragonstooth to the face just for you. Nosferatu? I hope you like Dragonstooth swords, served lightly to the face. Calling Mister ZeroPresence, this is the final call for flight DTS001, departing for Your Face shortly. Beefman? Well you may be aligned friendly, but what the hell, I can't very well deny your face the company of a Dragonstooth now can I. And so on.

Favourite bits. hmm... the ending of ShadowCode was great fun (though somehow one of my saves picked up a bug where the zooming and rotating wouldn't stop, making it impossibly difficult until I went back to an old save). The ATC mission with its (probably quite unnecessary!) number of approaches. And the ABI exterior: at last! a DX level that takes place in daylight! (Just a pity about that jumping bit, it may be short but I found it worse than anything in DXI!) All the non-combat alternatives in missions; the DXI thread control hacking and sliding block puzzles; all the comedy bits (esp Beeblequix and Scara).

Exploring the hubs in general worked well (and I loved the teleport cubicles even if they're not much in practical terms). I enjoyed the hub going hostile on day 2, but after cleaning that up the day felt a little underserved compared to the huge amount of stuff to do in day 1's. Personally I've grown a little bored of pure stealth missions in general these days, so DXE didn't appeal to me that much, and the reward wasn't so compelling as by that point I always had more money than I knew what to do with - in contrast to early on, when resources like money, lockpicks and multitools, in the quantities you need them before getting those skills trained up, seem very scarce. It's almost as if the game wants me to use the pick/tool exploit and save-scum the quotes quiz!

The Narcissus stuff, and obviously the Radish Adventure. (Blimey! I never knew you could make DX do that! More levels please!)

Problems. Well, you know: the DX AI. Didn't affect me so much as PDX, but as WC on day 2 in Corporate pretty much everything wanted to kill me. The WC thugs would charge into battle with the firewalls, hurt themselves, and somehow blame me for it, the fooles. And then the WC troops in ABI were bizarrely touchy. I could stand there watching them say they "thought they heard something" (hello, I'm right in front of you!) then a minute or two later they'd suddenly turn hostile out of nowhere. Meanwhile, most of the ABI troops were inexplicably friendly (unless nearby hostile bots started shooting at least), which was strange as when I was PDX and trying to help them against WC they totally hated me. Looks like both Scara and Ryan have been putting psychotic drugs in the lemon-lime soda again.

(What the hell is your problem, Ryan? You want me to do a mission for you, but you can't just let me in and would rather sit there watching me brutally murder all your employees instead? Even for an objectivist, you're a total dick!)

Stuff I didn't get. I could have done with a nudge as PDX for the WC basement. I never got the hang of the corporate sewers, I'd always get lost and couldn't work out where anything was supposed to be... felt a bit odd that there was so much down there with little connection to the main game, but that's probably not a bad thing in itself. Gamespy level 4 I found very confusing as it presented so many similar-sounding buttons to press without so much clear direction on which were relevant to you or where they were. I didn't even realise what I was doing with turning the air on until well after I had done it (in the wrong order). Maybe I'm just thick.

Was there supposed to be another way into ABI than using Leviathan? I thought I ought to have earned something for fighting through the ABI guys and bots in the area on the other side of the shuttle bay, but there was no way through I could find. What's with the area in the ABI ruins where there's a load of unenterable cells with groaning coming out of them? Why is Narcissus, after being debugged to death, reading me denouement protocols about things that would have happened if I'd finished my faction's main objective? (This could probably safely be skipped. Certainly by the time you get this ending you'll have seen the denouements before anyhow.) Why does Scara insist I have Kevo-sama tortured to death for a gate code when I can easily stack and/or jump my way up to open the gate from the other side?

(Ah, yes, I forgot: evil.)

In summary: yay!

[bobby 55]

Welcome to the forums. But did you like it? lol

[Jaedar]

Have you considered kidnapping people, locking them in a warehouse full of lasers and turrets, and forcing them to play it in order to earn food?

The above sentence is made of win.

Welcome to the forums. But did you like it? lol

Maybe you should read the first sentence in his post
Oh, and Welcome to the forums.

a boss fight with DX ladder-climbing?!

The trick is using jumping aug to skip the ladders Or gas 'nading her. Or setting her on fire or... You get the point

[bobby 55]

I think the " yay" at the end of Bobince's post could have been a clue to me joshing.

[Jonas]

Hey Bobince, thanks for writing (yeah I know, predictable response, but I can't very well go and curse your eyes for saying nice things about our game, now can I!?) Very balanced review, and amusingly written.

I won't respond directly to your pros and cons, I didn't find anything in there I directly disagree with or any factual errors that I need to correct. I will endeavour to answer your questions though:

Was there supposed to be another way into ABI than using Leviathan? I thought I ought to have earned something for fighting through the ABI guys and bots in the area on the other side of the shuttle bay, but there was no way through I could find.

Yeah the Leviathan sequence was the one part of the game where we took the liberty of railroading you. We just thought that sequence was so awesome, you'd be okay with being forced to go through it.

What's with the area in the ABI ruins where there's a load of unenterable cells with groaning coming out of them?

They're the dungeons. The area is used if Slicer or ZP defeats you.

Why is Narcissus, after being debugged to death, reading me denouement protocols about things that would have happened if I'd finished my faction's main objective? (This could probably safely be skipped. Certainly by the time you get this ending you'll have seen the denouements before anyhow.)

Yeah we had some long talks about what to do about the denouement after the Narcissus ending. Most of the options were plainly too much work, and we didn't want to just disable the denouement because there are so many combinations that even on your fifth or whatever playthrough you may still get new stuff in the denouement, so we ended up just leaving it in.

Why does Scara insist I have Kevo-sama tortured to death for a gate code when I can easily stack and/or jump my way up to open the gate from the other side?

Because he is a psychopath.

(Oh and don't get me started on the fucking space station. I believe you when you say it got a bit confusing at times but holy shit you should've tried designing it. Clearly we could've planned that better, but having to account for four different endings with loads of different objectives each caused the most incredible headaches. Turns out the choice in Deus Ex comes down to a single objective for each ending - WAY more manageable than our 4-5-objective missions )

In summary: yay!

Yay!

[chris the cynic]

The thing to understand about the corporate sewers is that they are, almost entirely, fluff. You will never be required to leave the main tunnel which, being a loop, is somewhat hard to get lost in. As such the rest of it is really just there for you to explore, with an entrance to the basement that does not exist if you want to do heavy exploring to get there.

They exist for the purpose of exploration, there is no other point. Also, DDL lives there so it can't be all bad.

[bobby 55]

The supreme ruler of the universe in his BAFTA nominated role. \o/

[bobince]

Yeah the Leviathan sequence was the one part of the game where we took the liberty of railroading you.

Ah. Yeah, I think I'd just been conditioned to expect multiple solutions to everything by that point.

We just thought that sequence was so awesome, you'd be okay with being forced to go through it.

Indeed I was, except for the first time. Leviathan's pathfinding got confused and it ended up padding round in circles in the corridor just before the final military bot. When I explodified the milbot myself it didn't destroy the door behind it, leaving me a bit stuck.

(I guess Leviathan is indestructable then, if it's a requirement. And there's me running around the corner in front of it to pick the LAM out of the way. gah!)

The area is used if Slicer or ZP defeats you.

Oh! I didn't know that could happen. To be honest I never really considered deliberately leaving them (or eg. Kylie) alive. Gaming conditioning, again: no other game would bother code for it.

Turns out the choice in Deus Ex comes down to a single objective for each ending - WAY more manageable than our 4-5-objective missions

Ah, but what's life without a little overreach?

[Jonas]

Ah, but what's life without a little overreach?

I wouldn't know! If you find out, please tell me

[~Psychotic~]

No thanks is pointless. It makes the developer's feel good (which is something I truly think they deserve after 7 years lol).

Hope you stick around. But bobince, I warn you now. Once you enter you CAN NEVER LEAVE*

* Without a fight. It's time for fisticuffs!

[chris the cynic]

That's right, these forums are the Hotel California.

-

I forgot to say welcome to the forums in my previous post. That was a silly oversight, but one easily remedied.

Welcome to the forums, bobince.

[Morti]

(...huh? How can a game as old as DX still be under copyright?)

Disney.

Fuckers.

Also hi and welcome and all that.

[~Psychotic~]

(...huh? How can a game as old as DX still be under copyright?)

Eidos.

Fuckers.

Also hi and welcome and all that.

Fix'd.

[Jaedar]

The thing to understand about the corporate sewers is that they are, almost entirely, fluff.

The sewers exist to punish people who are stupid enough to not make a permanent save before they enter and subsequently get lost.

[Jonas]

The sewers are a recontextualisation of the classic dungeon.

I love saying that. It sounds so clever.