DX3 reviews?

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fantsu
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DX3 reviews?

Post by fantsu »

Where are all the in depth reviews from you guys?
I cannot trust to the major gaming sites at all.

As an comparison to the first game, where is DX3?

Sadly I have no chance to play this game (I don't have computer to do it, and I don't own any console either), but I wouldn't mind any small spoilers, I just need to know if it is worth to upgrade my computer just for this game.
(reason: I really don't play any games nowadays, so putting my money on new comp is stupid if this one game isn't worth it.)



So few questions, please, be yourself. I want to hear honest opinions, don't make things fore flashy for me, you don't have to.
:smile:

How is the level design? More free or not? Good overall feeling of all the places?
How long the game is compared to original? Any good NPCs? Can you kill innocent people? Does that affect to the storyline? Hows the new JC? Just an annoying kid or a man of opinions?

Augs, items? Any nice new things? Hows the weapons? are they on par to eachother so you can use your favorite, or are some just strictly better than others? Are weapons upgradeable?

Skills, how they differ? More skills? Do you need the skills or are they just for looks? Does the experience system work like in original?

Hows the AI and the combat? Any good one-liners from the enemies? Are they "human enough" or just robotic things you have to mow down? Any chance to change your missions or the side youre on?

Replay value, can you see EVERYTHING when playing the game first time through, or is there small details, just like in the original, that might take years to notice?

Any other things that this game is VERY GOOD at?
Any other things that this game REALLY SUCKS at?

Thanks!
8)
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Jaedar
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by Jaedar »

fantsu wrote:
As an comparison to the first game, where is DX3?
Worse than original, better than invisible war.
fantsu wrote: Sadly I have no chance to play this game (I don't have computer to do it, and I don't own any console either), but I wouldn't mind any small spoilers, I just need to know if it is worth to upgrade my computer just for this game.
(reason: I really don't play any games nowadays, so putting my money on new comp is stupid if this one game isn't worth it.)
No one game is worth the thousands of bucks it costs to buy a new computer
fantsu wrote: How is the level design? More free or not? Good overall feeling of all the places?
Less good, especially towards the end. Some of the levels are definitely Deus Ex quality though.
fantsu wrote:How long the game is compared to original? Any good NPCs? Can you kill innocent people? Does that affect to the storyline? Hows the new JC? Just an annoying kid or a man of opinions?
Game is about 20-25 hours long if you do all the sidequests I would say. You can kill inncoents, but it does not affect the story afaik, but I have not tried.
fantsu wrote:
Augs, items? Any nice new things? Hows the weapons? are they on par to eachother so you can use your favorite, or are some just strictly better than others? Are weapons upgradeable?
Some are better. Upgrades are nicely handled and a lot of weapons have unique upgrades(such as explosive rounds).
fantsu wrote:
Skills, how they differ? More skills? Do you need the skills or are they just for looks? Does the experience system work like in original?
No skills, just augs.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by nerdenstein »

Haven't finished it yet but, the entire time I've played it; it's reminded me of IW. I can't put my finger on why as everything about it improves on what IW did wrong.
I'm not sure I really like the level design. It isn't awful mind. Also, I don't think I've had a moment that's made me go: 'Wow, That's cool.'

Combat is pretty fun. My 10mm Pistol with Armor Piercing, Laser sight and silencer upgrades kicks ass. :P
I really enjoy the hacking minigame. When you've upgraded a few hacking augs, it's even more fun.
Stealth and alternate routes and all the side of it is great. I really like the takedown system too. It creates some interesting situations.

Maybe I'm just overly critical. I set my expectations too high perhaps.

It isn't a bad game though. I've enjoyed it so far. :smile:
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by Dragon »

The general consense "worse than 1, better than 2" describes it best. Can't though give a final review yet as I'm not far enough for me to form a fully make one. General opinion though is "mixed" or how we say in German "durchzogen". Some stuff is good while other stuff puts you off. Many augs are useless by design and stealth (they way it should be) doesn't exist in DXHR (or said differently you get no exp for it at all leaving you out in the rain). Loading times are beyond funny. Waiting half a minute to play is a pain especially if you want to experiment with the game using quick-save/quick-load. That said QS/QL doesn't exist at all so saving is always a menu juggling. But as said, I'm not far enough for my taste to get to a final conclusion especially seeing as the others perceive the later game areas to suck. But so far nothing struck me as memorable as DX had. Funny seeing how the devs shit on DX as having not enough memorable moments. Result is DXHR having even less :/
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by Jaedar »

Dragon wrote:That said QS/QL doesn't exist at all so saving is always a menu juggling.
Quicksave exists. Think QL do too.
Dragon wrote:Many augs are useless by design and stealth (they way it should be) doesn't exist in DXHR (or said differently you get no exp for it at all leaving you out in the rain).
Indeed. Proper stealth makes it slightly easier to get the ghost and smooth operator bonuses, but its not really hard to get those while nabbing a bunch of "kills".
nerdenstein wrote: I really enjoy the hacking minigame. When you've upgraded a few hacking augs, it's even more fun.
It is a pretty good minigame, but when you do it for the 367th time, it gets really annoying.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by bobby 55 »

It is challenging in places, well... for we less than fucking awesome players. The combat, if you choose to partake, can be brutal. There's no "I've been shot 25 times and I'm still breathing" episodes. It does have a decent story, although it is it's own beast. I mean they do a few things to tie in to DX but mainly the title says it all. There's a few references to Deus Ex to be found if you look hard enough, and one in particular made me think 'how fucking cool'. I've just started doing a second run to check out the different reactions and consequences top my different actions/choices and already I've been pleasantly surprised. It might not be the best game ever, but I don't believe Deus Ex lovers will be disappointed.

Replay value is reasonably good. I'll be more definitive after this replay I'm doing. ;)

Jensen is Jensen, not JC..but that's a good thing IMHO.

My favourite weapon is the heavy rifle. With a few mods it's got good stopping power, even with the bosses. I seem to find more ammo caches for it as well.

The boss fights, less said the better.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by Jonas »

fantsu wrote:How is the level design? More free or not? Good overall feeling of all the places?
The level design is consistently top-notch. I would have liked more missions like Liberty Island or the Paris cathedral where you're free to move around your objective building and scope it out before picking a way inside, but that's a small gripe. The levels are fully as multipathed as in Deus Ex, and many of the paths are quite specifically tailored to certain augmentations (the most obvious one being the wall-punching one that's used surprisingly often). There's fewer hubs (two to Deus Ex's three) but they're fucking huge and full of atmosphere and side missions.
How long the game is compared to original? Any good NPCs? Can you kill innocent people? Does that affect to the storyline? Hows the new JC? Just an annoying kid or a man of opinions?
Steam says I've played for 37 hours and I just got to the second to last mission. In practice I left the game running for a few hours while having dinner etc., but it's probably still around 35 hours so far. I'm expecting to clock in around 38 by the time I hit the credits. There are some good NPCs, your computer guy Pritchard is well written but he's a pain in the ass, your boss David Sarif is reasonably nuanced and sympathetic despite his flaws, and your pilot is the best of all, but I won't say too much about that for fear of spoilers. You can kill innocent people by the truckload, unfortunately it doesn't affect the storyline much - there are a few major NPCs you can kill and it will change a few things down the line, but certain plot-critical characters have been made immortal. Adam is fine, it feels like he has a bit more personality than JC (which mainly comes out in the - highly flawed, unfortunately - dialogue minigame), but his voice isn't as cool.
Augs, items? Any nice new things? Hows the weapons? are they on par to eachother so you can use your favorite, or are some just strictly better than others? Are weapons upgradeable?
Lots of good augs, shame you can upgrade pretty much all of them in a single playthrough though, so it's only the first half of the game that's considerably affected by your choices. The weapons feel much better and more satisfying than in Deus Ex, and the sniper rifle isn't as imbalanced (in fact it's nearly useless because it's enormous and unsilenceable, you'll probably end up using the tranq rifle or the crossbow instead). In general the large weapons aren't really worth the inventory space they take up, pick a combat rifle at the start and upgrade it fully and it pretty much beats everything else hands down.
Skills, how they differ? More skills? Do you need the skills or are they just for looks? Does the experience system work like in original?
No skills, only augs - but the aug upgrade system is more involved than in DX, I'm pretty happy with the change.
Hows the AI and the combat? Any good one-liners from the enemies? Are they "human enough" or just robotic things you have to mow down? Any chance to change your missions or the side youre on?
The AI is fine both in and out of combat - out of combat they sometimes look behind them or to the sides on their patrols which makes the stealth more interesting and when they come looking for you they feel reasonably intelligent. In combat they take cover and use grenades properly. Haven't noticed any good one-liners, but there's lots of interesting overheard dialogue if you're sneaky enough to trigger them. No chance to pick your side as far as I know, but you get a choice of multiple endings at the very end - just like in Deus Ex.
Replay value, can you see EVERYTHING when playing the game first time through, or is there small details, just like in the original, that might take years to notice?
Hard to say at this point, since I haven't quite finished my first playthrough yet, not sure when I'll do a second one. I'm getting the impression I've pretty much seen everything, but I know a few choices you make change things in small ways, similar to saving Paul or letting him live in DX1 - I saved and went back to try another option for one situation and though the consequences turned up fairly quickly, the difference was pretty big.
Any other things that this game is VERY GOOD at?
Yes.
Any other things that this game REALLY SUCKS at?
Yes. I will be saving that for a blog post when I'm done though.
Thanks!
8)
No problem, thanks for reading (assuming you have).
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Jaedar
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Re: DX3 reviews?

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Jonas wrote: The level design is consistently top-notch. I would have liked more missions like Liberty Island or the Paris cathedral where you're free to move around your objective building and scope it out before picking a way inside, but that's a small gripe. The levels are fully as multipathed as in Deus Ex
I disagree with your opinion that this is a small gripe. The levels are consistently constructed in a "corridor of rooms" type of way. Sure, each room often has two or three exits, but no matter how hard you try, you must always go through the packing room to the cafeteria to the lab. Compare this to deus ex where you could finish plenty of missions without even seeing half the map. The maps do a decent job of seeming open and freeform, but they kinda aren't(at least most of them, some are actually really good, like the police station and some of the later maps). I also find the rewards for exploring the maps to be quite tame, especially towards the mid and end game.
bobby 55 wrote: The combat, if you choose to partake, can be brutal.
This is really true. Even with full armor upgrades, a guy with a combat rifle can take you down in less then a second at close range(that's at the highest difficulty tho, but I hear its pretty brutal even on the lower ones).
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Re: DX3 reviews?

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The AI sucks though major balls out of combat and especially in combat. Bummer I can't take screenshots as otherwise I could show a serious fuck up of the AI which I just had. The idiots piled up in a small room where I had in because the AI is too stupid to fight it's way out of a wet paper bag... and this on "Deus Ex" difficulty U_U . The pinnacle so far is the living annoyance Barret (or how this moron is written) which is an even more brain dead AI. The movement pattern can be written down in one line tops. Difficulty comes only from him chain-gunning while having more HP than RPG bosses. Attacked this idiot with 6 mines (as he can't attack while bombed) exploding straight under his fat ass and he still took no noticeable damage. And then this moron blew himself up with three of his own 'nades he threw against the pillar I hid behind. #-o . So far the AI is anything else than impressive. The had good ideas but they didn't carried it out 'til the end. So don't expect intelligent or challenging AI. The only way you can die is if the controls blow up in your face "again"... or another Barret comes your way.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by fantsu »

Thanks all of you for your trouble.
It seems that most of the people consider DX3 as an good game. I was always fan of all the three games before (DX, DX:IW and Project:Snowblind) this and on high possibility will be an fan of this too. Still DX:IW and P:SB arent games that I would buy nowadays (I would still buy the first one, as I don't care for graphics at all), so maybe I'll have to try this on my friend and someday in the future experience it myself better too.

You can keep these coming of course, there mignt be other too still considering buying this game.
=D>
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Re: DX3 reviews?

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I find the AI fluctuates between being brilliant and retarded. Sometimes when it kinda spots you it will do a thorough search of the entire room. Sometimes it will enter a doorframe and stand there for a few seconds, and then decide it was nothing, without even looking around the room properly. Can't really comment on in combat as I stealthed most the game and never got into any long firefights.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

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Piss the cops off in the police station and you can die, very quickly. Have four guys coming at you from three directions at once, and another above you on a staircase, you can die pretty quickly. If you can get yourself in a decently defendable position things usually go the players way, but that doesn't mean you won't have a grenade lobbed at you now and then.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

Post by Dragon »

@Jaedar:
I stealth too (or rather, what "they" call stealth). In that situation though something or somebody has seen me "through walls". Whatever they all went into a frenzy and stormed my position. And then this hilarious AI mess happened. Not the first time though. I sort of cleared all the people in this map part (12+ morons) this way with all them now mass-sleeping in a tiny cubicle room. 12+ people with guns not putting a dent into me... sounds to me more like Gordon Freeman than JC Denton.

@bobby:
I only died once in there and this had been only because I didn't know yet what all can alarm when you *hack. All other times I had like the entire police station on my heels but the result has been the same. I thought CS is the king of AI not getting doors correctly (including getting stuck) but DX:HR AI seems to take this as an example.

Side note. While AI sucks and many other things on the game sucks Jenson's room is interesting. Not because of the architecture, that's quite bland, but due to the stuff laying around. It gives quite an interesting insight into his person which otherwise (through convos and such) is rather bland.

* Which by the way is totally idiotic. Why goes a cop frenzy when you stand in front of a key pad looking at it without even touching it (aug-hacking). This is something which utterly makes no sense. If you finger the key pad while a cop is around I'm all for him going "hey! what the fuck are you doing there?!" but with aug-hacking he has no way to know that you are doing something shady. But I guess without this feature it would be too easy.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

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I'm not sure, but I think Jensen actually hacks by touching or similar, cause every time you hack a computer he has to stand up and go all visible.
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Re: DX3 reviews?

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Jaedar wrote:I'm not sure, but I think Jensen actually hacks by touching or similar, cause every time you hack a computer he has to stand up and go all visible.
I entered a code on a panel while cloaked and had a cop walk between me and the panel. That I remained undetected was amazing...and hilarious.

Added: With regard to replayability, it seems it's more a chance to approach things differently than actually change anything. Although, the first mission I did things a bit differently and got a better result and some extra dialogue from the chopper pilot that left me all warm and fuzzy. :P
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