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[Pandarsenic]

Yeah search didn't turn up any major threads for this and I feel like EXPRESSING DISAPPOINTMENT.

Recently, I reinstalled DXHR and started a "Massacre every enemy possible" run, and I'm finding it somewhat saddening that nobody seems to acknowledge this fact in-game. I wiped out an entire factory full of terrorists? "Gosh, Jensen, you KILLED THE LEADER? And you SAVED THE HOSTAGES? Those sure are the only two variables we respond to!"

"Gosh, Jensen, you just massacred an entire building full of police officers? Then you repeated it in China? Better NOT MENTION IT AT ALL!"

Maybe it's a small nitpicky thing, but I think failing to do that sort of thing where the original Deus Ex did it is... well, one of many problems, including:

Overprivileging pacifist runs. Taking someone down nonfatally gives 20 extra XP. The base is 10. Takedowns add 20. This means a fatal bodyshot gives 10 XP and a fatal headshot gives 20 while a melee nonlethal takedown gives 50. Oh, and the prod is now ranged and takes down any enemy with a single hit.

Overprivileging takedowns. They cost you 1 energy and your bar naturally regenerates up to 1 energy. Ignoring that, a deadly takedown gives 30 XP against 20 for a fatal headshot, 10 for a bodyshot (as above), and a nonfatal one gives 50 against those numbers (again, as above). They can take down any enemy except the bosses (which are their own problem I don't feel like addressing) in one button press, which I suppose isn't too unlike the Deus Ex Dragon Tooth Sword.

Making nonlethal takedowns strictly dominate lethal ones. There is no reason to ever use a lethal takedown. Nonlethal initiates faster (Tap the button instead of hold it), makes less noise (Lethal takedowns cause loud shouts from the victim, while nonlethal ones are silent are as near so as to make no difference), and gives more XP (lethal takedowns gives 30 X; nonlethal give 50).

Making the sniper rifle and combat rifle suck. Both are lethal weapons, which means you lose 30-40 potential XP per kill you get with them. The former is too loud to really matter in the cramped urban environments of DXHR. The latter just doesn't do a damn thing until you have it fully upgraded and even THEN it still has trouble dealing with highly armored things. This problem is related to...

Making the basic pistol the best lethal weapon. Laser sight makes it super easy to aim and the armor-piercing modification makes it an instant win item that will silently one-hit-kill any and every non-boss enemy with a single headshot at pretty much any distance; it takes fewer upgrades than a combat rifle to be useful (The armor-piercing mod you find in your apartment at the beginning and any damage mods you stumble across as you go. That's it) even if it does benefit from other mods. It also doesn't require any combat augmentations (recoil reduction, gun sway, etc.) to be useful, unlike the combat rifle.

Oh, and windowed mode has made memory leakage.

[nenjin]

I was pretty un-impressed by combat across the board. Combat does one thing that right, and that's the silent takedowns. But like you said, that's the only thing that's worth your time to do, and so it leads to a lot of repetition. Firefights just don't feel very meaty in DX:HR. There's plenty to like about the game but the combat isn't one of them to me. I'd started playing it just after I finished Batman:AC. And I'd have killed for the ARs joker's men had, they would have put Jensen's weapons to shame.

[TempAcc]

My only real gripe with the game is how CQC was reduced to "spend some power to get a scene of you beating someone up". They could've made it way more interactive and meaningful then that. Its ok to do it for silent takedowns, but all kinds of close combat? Geez.

[fenrif]

DX:HR is very good at presenting itself as a DX game without actually being one. It's got a lot of the choices from the original game... Except implimented in a really shallow superficial way. Things like the powers that allow you to access shortcuts and alternate paths felt really unfullfilling from what I can remember, because instead of being dynamic and interesting decisions it's jsut a case of "ok, I need to get down this corridor, on the left is the smash through the wall point, on the right is the toxic gas passage, or straight ahead is the hacking door" They all lead to the same place, and it basically amounted to chosing which corridor to go down.

There's also the astoundingly stupid boss battles which can only be beat with shootings. Unlucky if you invested all your points into stealth and talky things. And of course the ending was a horrible joke.

It's been a long while since I played it, so I'm coming up short on specific examples. But I definatly remember thinking all this while I was playing it, and generally being dissatisfied with the whole thing. It's certainly not a bad game. It just felt like it was trying so hard to copy what made the original such a classic and came up short.

[MorleyDev]

I just regard it as the closest thing modern mainstream games can come to emulating the original, and the closest thing to a true successor modern AAA games could push out. It's better than Invisible War, I'll say that much.

Other games that could qualify, in my book, as decent spiritual successors to Deus Ex are Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines and Alpha Protocol xD But then again I think Alpha Protocol was better than Mass Effect 2 and deserved higher sales, higher ratings and more recognition. So apparently I'm weird like that...

To be honest, most your complaints are about combat. Combat in Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, VtM: Bloodlines, Alpha Protocol, Mass Effect X, is completely irrelevant to me. They could of all been visual novels...probably would of enjoyed them more as visual novels. The combat for me in all of these was always just something to do in between plot point A and conversation with character B.

[Bremen]

If you wipe out the police station you can find newspaper articles about it. But it does seem kind of odd Sarif never says anything.

I bet the ending would, though

[ductape]

Well for me the XP thing is kinda moot since the game was so easy anyway, except of course the completely retarded boss fights.

I found the game to be way too short, and the story kinda meh compared to original. The original felt long to me back then, not sure if it really is, I might need to replay it.

The main thing as the choices, as posted above. They seemed to lack real meaning in this new iteration. In the original, different skills sets really did mean a different approach and usually an entirely different path through the level. Did you sniper your way across rooftops and then hack into the building from the top, hacking your way through security as you go? Or did you go through the front door with heavy weapons blazing?

But yeah, I enjoyed it well enough and have no regrets buying it.

I wish someone would make a well done spiritual successor to System Shock 2.

[ThtblovesDF]

None-lethal take down, then shot in head, thats how you game the system... anyway, deus ex 1 still holds a special place in my heart

[fenrif]

I wish someone would make a well done spiritual successor to System Shock 2.

I think the Bioshock series is the best you're going to get there.

[Toady Two]

I think this is just a case of rose-tinted nostalgia glasses.

Your first complaint is completely invalid considering that the original Deus Ex also didn't have any consequences for going on murderous rampages and killing police officers. Whether you played lethal or non lethal only mattered in the first mission IIRC.

I personally think that all this considered DX:HR was a really good successor to DX1. It has its flaws but so did the original.

[Xeron]

I think this is just a case of rose-tinted nostalgia glasses.

Your first complaint is completely invalid considering that the original Deus Ex also didn't have any consequences for going on murderous rampages and killing police officers. Whether you played lethal or non lethal only mattered in the first mission IIRC.

I personally think that all this considered DX:HR was a really good successor to DX1. It has its flaws but so did the original.

Actually the original had consequences for going on murderous rampages.For example if you didn't kill Anna Navvare in Lebedev's jet you will fight her later on.

[Archereon]

Human Revolution is, to me, more of a stealth game-RPG hybrid than it is an FPS-RPG hybrid. The shootings awful, but the stealth is nice, better than the original's at least, due in no small part to technological advancements. It's not up to par with major stealth games though, and the same can be said for the shooter and RPG elements. The biggest thing it has going for it is the nonlinear level design, which doesn't hold a candle to DX1, even if it is significantly better than the vast majority of games we get today.

The boss fights are kinda excusable since they were outsourced to a team which had no fucking idea what kind of game they were working on, and by the time the main team realized their miscommunication, it was too late to start over, hence the boss fights failed.

All in all, HR is a huge bag of unrealized potential, albeit one which is reasonably fun to play. The fact that Eidos admitted to making most of the mistakes that they did is a promising sign, and if they make DX4, I'm (or DXHR:2, since Jensen's story isn't necessarily done) optimistic we might see a game nearly as good as the original.

[TempAcc]

Wait, the boss fights were created by a whole different team altogheder?
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That would actualy explain a lot of things.

[Archereon]

Yep. Not just a whole different team mind you, a whole different studio.

[fenrif]

The boss fights being outsourced makes them more of a problem for me, not less.

Thinking back on it I kind of wish they'd just ditched the shooting and made it a straight stealth game.