Jonas wrote: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!
No problem, thanks for reading (assuming you have).
I pretty much agree with everything except level design.
So I'm going with Jaedar on this one...
Jaedar wrote:
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.
Jonas wrote:
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.
The dialogue battles may be highly flawed but they are also very engaging and I would say the best part of the game for me.
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?
To expand, yes weapons are upgradable and its one of the games biggest strengths... along with the Aug system (combining skills and augs into one)
You can buy weapons and alot of other things now. Sort of emphasizes the corporate world that society is turning more and more into, I felt as though the prices where way to low on weapons & consumables however theres a mod that fixes that.
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=122159
I also think that you should be able to stack grenades and mines (and stack more health and energy packs) like the mod allows.
Thankfully augmentation is quite expensive like it should be (its new technology and one would expect it to be mainly for the rich)
Any other things that this game is VERY GOOD at?
I think the art direction is quite nice.
The only other main things to cover is the multi-paths and multi-solutions that Deus Ex is famous for. Did it come out well in this? Yes I think so to a certain extent.
Exploration, theres quite a bit of it and its a definitely a emphasis... but levels aren't as big and theres only really one level that reminds me of Deus Ex perfectly size wise.
Storyline was decent enough, kept me engaged towards the end... Characters where decent enough expect Megan which felt like a tacked on love interest and wasn't adequately resolved in the end of the game so you felt that was kind of pointless.... The Bosses where pretty much cardboard cut outs.
Any other things that this game REALLY SUCKS at?
Third person switching in takedowns and cover is distracting for me. Being forced with radar and health regeneration can make the game easier in many situations.
Bosses lack characterization (if you didn't read the companion novel that was released before the game, you wouldn't even know who they are), forces you to defeat them with guns (so you can't sneak past them or hack turrets or anything like that...)
XP system is unbalanced and bias towards non-lethal takedowns and hacking, which ends up making you almost max out everything by the end the game (you'll end up getting everything you want through this method)
Religion/Transhumanism/consipiracies & other concepts and how well they are explored (so in other words Philosophy), in storyline, and in game readables... unfortunately it only covered Transhumanism well, every other concept is barely touched upon even conspiracies which is a real shame because I've always thought of the original Deus Ex as heavy in conspiracies. 90% of readables cover the science behind Augs, only about 10% are about philosophy so its the exact opposite of the original Deus Ex in this regard.
Then theres minor nitpicks like theres no ATM's, no animals, no children, no swimming and no melee weapons in the game, which is a shame because I wanted to take immersion to a new level and kick cats around...
and not just kill kids but drown them as well. Now that would be taking emergent gameplay to a new level.
You can only pick up 50% of objects in the game, so half of the things in that game that seem like you could pick them up are non-interactable which is weird. Seems Eidos Montreal spent most of the engines processing power on graphics rather than physics objects.