My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues Ex 3

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Hashi
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My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues Ex 3

Post by Hashi »

I talk about why the gameplay and story mesh in the first game but not so well in the third game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z6GM0Kl5oQ

Enjoy!
Made in China
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Re: My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues E

Post by Made in China »

While I think you are right - there is far less synergy between standalone elements in DXHR - I think you're being selective with your points. One of the most obvious "the game is rushing you but also telling you to slow down" parts in DX is emails and timers placed on them.

On the other side, I think that DXHR goads you towards rushing is by having the blandest most uninspired and not world building text, all in a chunky font divided into at most 3 small post-it note sized pages. The emails are more concise and are usually there to just deliver gameplay hints rather than world build. It seems like the world of DXHR is more hollow, and you are rushed or at least slightly pushed through it so you won't notice all the cracks, when in DX it embraced its limitations and didn't care much about hiding them.

All in all good vid, good luck with your YouTube career!
Hashi
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Re: My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues E

Post by Hashi »

Made in China wrote:While I think you are right - there is far less synergy between standalone elements in DXHR - I think you're being selective with your points. One of the most obvious "the game is rushing you but also telling you to slow down" parts in DX is emails and timers placed on them.

All in all good vid, good luck with your YouTube career!
Also, as the game is clunky, constantly putting in usernames and passwords gets old and so you just hack your way in, which of course means that unless you have extreme patience, you won't read the longer emails. It's also an issue in Area 51 with that random computer which has like 5 long emails that explain a lot of things in the story. And so yes in that sense you will miss out of the story.

Haha my YouTube career aint going nowhere, but I do love talking about story and economics, and obviously love Dues Ex 1. I think I've finished it like 15 times now. I've also watched 4 people now play the game through blind, because whilst I can't play the game blind anymore, I can watch someone else do that lol.
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CrocMagnum
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Re: My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues E

Post by CrocMagnum »

You raised some fair points in this vid, Hashi! A few comments with spoilers:

I agree with you about countdowns in Deus Ex 3, putting "timed sections" right from the start, is a questionable choice in game design.

When a gamer starts a playthrough - especially on his very first - developers should give players time to find their landmarks.

There are several timed sections in Deus Ex 3 and most of them have issues ^^:

In Sarif Industries (after the prologue)

Like you said there is a hidden timer.If you’re one of those slow scavengers who like to pilfer credits or pry on your fellow-workers, your idleness might lead to unfortunate consequences:

If you dilly-dally too much, if you spend more than 15 minutes (real time) in Sarif Industries, the hostages from the next mission will die (Side Quest),

Then when you finally reach the premises (the level with the hostages) the timer somehow cancels out, you can take all the time you want to finish the level. Curious choice in game design.


Saving a certain someone

On a side-side I love Faridah Malik and always thought she needed to be fleshed out more as a character. Anyways about the timer:

On your second trip to Hengsha, your VTOL - your flyer vehicule piloted by Malik – will be ambushed by mercenaries.

These mercs will turn hostile right from the start, but their hostility is aimed toward the VTOL. If you take too long to kill/neutralize them, Malik will die.

If you’ve made a 100% pacifist run thus far, you might find this mission quite hard. On my first playthrough I decided to kill them, because heck there was a truckload of these bastards.

Later I learned you can save Malik without killing a single soul, so the non-lethal way is possible too. To do this your first objective is to neutralize the Bot with an EMP grenade ASAP, then you have to aim for the heavy-hitting mercs (those with heavy weapons) then mop up the rest.


Comparing Deus Ex 1 to Deus Ex 3 is fascinating. Both games have fantastic characters, lore and settings:

I like how JC Denton is someone who just doesn’t give a d**n. Words and disasters never seem to hurt him.

Adam Jensen on the other hand - who was forcefully augmented – is quite bitter. You know the famous "I never asked for this". In Deus Ex 4 Jensen seems to have accepted his situation more though,

Mad Ingram (edited)

Now that I think of it, Mad Ingram in Nihilum might be a crossover between Denton and Jensen. Maybe that’s why I like him too. Ha.

Edit: Maybe I was not clear about the Mad Ingram/Denton/Jensen comparison, so to clarify my view:

Denton is someone who doesn’t give a d**n and he’s got a smart-mouth. Just remember how he treated Icarus or Bob Page late game.

Jensen is a bitter guy with psychological issues, he doesn’t appreciate Sarif Industries augmenting him without his verbal consent. (He was severely wounded by a black-ops team which raided the company so Sarif took advantage of the contract Adam signed).

Mad Ingram now is a different beast. He’s a bitter man (like Jensen) with a smart mouth (like Denton). Like I said once in my Nihilum review: "Mad Ingram’s voice betrays anger". Indeed something is not right with the guy. At the beginning of Nihilum players have no clue about why Mad Ingram is like that, and even him doesn’t know at that point.

It just took Mad Ingram a simple discussion with Lana Zavitch at the Neustad Station to make his world crumble. The numbers do not add up: his birth date, his training at the Academy nothing is consistent. By the way this big revelation is introduced much more dramatically in Nihilum (for Mad Ingram) than in Deus Ex (for Denton). We see Ingram stumble like a kid and finally acknowledge the truth about himself. Maybe this is why Mad Ingram is so grumpy. Maybe he knew the truth deep down you know, but not consciously. D**n FastGamerr you make me proud of being a DX Fan. ^^

Finally Hashi since your have a solid background in Economics, I would have loved to hear you comparing the Economy of Deus Ex 1/Deus Ex 3. ^^ Might be a good subject for an Essay. :mrgreen:
Pity the world if you fail Spirit Monk, for you are the last. (Jade Empire)
Hashi
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Re: My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues E

Post by Hashi »

CrocMagnum wrote:You raised some fair points in this vid, Hashi! A few comments with spoilers:

I agree with you about countdowns in Deus Ex 3, putting "timed sections" right from the start, is a questionable choice in game design.

When a gamer starts a playthrough - especially on his very first - developers should give players time to find their landmarks.

There are several timed sections in Deus Ex 3 and most of them have issues ^^:

Comparing Deus Ex 1 to Deus Ex 3 is fascinating. Both games have fantastic characters, lore and settings:

I like how JC Denton is someone who just doesn’t give a d**n. Words and disasters never seem to hurt him.

Adam Jensen on the other hand - who was forcefully augmented – is quite bitter. You know the famous "I never asked for this". In Deus Ex 4 Jensen seems to have accepted his situation more though,

Finally Hashi since your have a solid background in Economics, I would have loved to hear you comparing the Economy of Deus Ex 1/Deus Ex 3. ^^ Might be a good subject for an Essay. :mrgreen:
Yeah and in Dues Ex 4 I didn't like the beginning setup either, and it feels like the world only exists with the player there. Like the bit with the sandstorm sucked lol.

I do get that with Deus Ex 3 and 4 it had to have spectacle to sell more copies, and these were games with large budgets. Obviously I don't work in the games industry or have too much indepth information, but I wonder if the the sequels could have been games that could have been done on smaller budgets and hence have the need to sell fewer copies. You look at something like Hengsha or the ending in Antarctica and everything is so massive, so over the top, even though this is meant to be a future less than 10 years away. It truly feels more like an anime world than a realistic one like setup in the first game. But who knows, maybe having a smaller game with a smaller budget simply could not be justified and in today's market simply wouldn't have sold well at all.

Funny you mention economics because a review of Dues Ex 3 by Accursed Farms on YouTube was really great until it got to the economic stuff about the game lol. Just as an example, he talks about how it's mentioned that only about 2% of Americans are now self employed, and how this is a bad thing and increases reliance on others etc. But this is utter nonsense. It might indeed be that many more people would love to be self employed and be their own boss, but revealed preferences show that people would rather have a stable income and better overall compensation (hard to take a holiday when you own a business). There's also the fact that this is the case in all developed nations, and the more you can rely on others, in general the wealthier you are.
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Re: My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues Ex 3

Post by sew3 »

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Re: My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues Ex 3

Post by JohnAssaraf »

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Re: My video on why the story is better in Dues Ex vs Dues Ex 3

Post by Jose »

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