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[SpudBud]

Just got an update on steam. 12.7mb

 

[ToD_]

Just got an update on steam. 12.7mb

Release Notes

Unfortunately the recently released patch had a negative impact for some players. This patch is a hot-fix to address those issues.

- A specific issue that caused performance degradation for some DX9 players in the 1.2.630 patch has been fixed.
o We are still evaluating further measures to counter stuttering and plan to have a further update for this in another patch.
- Crashes when examining quest items have been fixed.
- Some issues related to switching between fullscreen and windowed mode have been fixed.
- Additional fixes have been made for the TYM medical card. The current fix should also allow users that already have the problem in their savegame to pick up the card again.
- ‘Russian’ text language option now shows up correctly regardless of current text language.
- An issue that may cause the game to have stability issues on certain RAID setups may have been addressed. Even with this patch, if you have a RAID setup, please ensure you have the latest drivers for your controller.

In addition to stuttering and performance problems we are continuing to investigate any other issues that players may have and will release a full new patch soon that also includes the previously mentioned 3DVision and Surround support.

 

[Deadbeat]

I don't think it will, ME2 was turned on a couple days later, and from what I have seen most of the internet likes this game.

HR is still a great game at the end of the day for all the flaws it has. The same cant be said for ME2 with how much they dumbed it down. ME2 lost its original identity and purpose as an rpg. It turned into a 3rd person shooter with blue and red text.

 

[Mooreberg]

Going to have to agree on the boss fights being "meh" if the first one is any indication. Thankfully it is not a large part of the game. Why even outsource something like that?

I had no idea about the no alarms trophy/achievement, and I do not remember if I have caused any alarms or not. Cool game so far.

 

[Laurentius]

On my first go I didn't look at the Achievement list at all, this time around I have a list of those I missed (mostly tied to side quests I'd somehow missed) and am working through them. I'm quite pleased that I missed a few, as it's adding some stuff to do this time around. I'm currently helping an undercover cop posing as a hooker.

That was probably my favorite sidequest in the game.

 

[BIONIC-ARRRMMM!!]

That was probably my favorite sidequest in the game.

It is the most elaborate one!

 

[GhaleonEB]

That was probably my favorite sidequest in the game.

I'm having a lot of fun with it. I had previously broken into both the police station and the northernmost area in Detroit (can't recall what it's called at the moment), both on my own and not for a specific quest back on my first play through. But with objectives to chase down, a the way the areas are designed are making more sense. Some of my favorite areas in the game are ones like these, where they're quite densely populated and the risk of getting caught it heightened. But so is the satisfaction of whittling the place down, like peeling an onion.

Stashing a half dozen dozing guys I've taken down next to a dumpster and then strolling through the place like I own it is a great feeling.

 

[Blizzard]

Release Notes

I really like the level of detail they're giving here, such as mentioning RAID controllers. They seem to be monitoring for problems, at least.

 

[JJD]

Wow...just finished this game. Got my platinum in one playthrough.

It's probably the most fun I've had in a stealth game ever (and I've played most of then). I'm really looking forward to Thief and whatever next Eidos Montreal cooks. Hope Square treats then right.

I loved how all the 4 endings did a good job justifying your choice in then!

Spoiler

I choose to destroy Panchaea and let humanity evolve free of anyone's interference

Hope there's more DLC programmed besides the Missing Link. Human Revolution was really amazing!

I also found pacifist and foxiest of the hounds achievements/trophies really easy, the game gives you a lot of tools to play by your style. Playing in the hardest difficulty was a good, fair challenge.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

I hope we get at least a good 12 months of love for the game before the whole of Gaf turns on it, ME2 style.

Pretty sure the GAF Backlash™ is just this little Wrath of Khan brain louse that crawls into everyone's ear as they start reading Official Threads and causes most of us to subconsciously start seeking that one particularly good negative comment whose point we can use to coyly segue into our own soapbox bitch post.

Sorta like this one.

I love the possibilities in this game, I just don't have the time to do multiple playthroughs with my current work schedule. This is one of those gems I'm going to come back to in a year and get sucked into again.

 

[Darkflight]

Good interview on RPS:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/23/deus-ex-interview-jean-francois-dugas/

RPS: So you didn’t look back and think: “well, we could have done THAT differently”?
Dugas: Well it’s always easy to look back and say “ok, we could have done this or that differently”, or “why did we do that!” but when you are in the midst of actually making things happen it’s not always so easy to see things clearly. The big disappointment was with the boss fights, because we weren’t able to bring them to the level quality that we had in mind. That is my disappointment, but in the reality of the past few years, and all the other things we have had to contend with, I think it would have been hard to have the bosses otherwise.

From the next question:

I think the biggest weakness there wasn’t the concept of having boss fights, it’s just that our boss fights are not Deus Ex boss fights and that’s why people are complaining about them. I guess we live and learn.

 

[Truant]

I'll replay when ENB is optimized. Right now it stutters a bit.

 

[subversus]

more detailed:

RPS: Why do you think the boss battles didn’t work?

Dugas: When we started the goal was to have those boss fights with the same design and rules as the rest of the game. We had our pillars of stealth, of non-lethal actions, and everything else, and we wanted to make sure that was reflected in the bosses, but in the end it was not. It’s the place where people were surprised because they would equip themselves in a certain way and then they got their and everything they’d fought for disappeared. You have to change your mindset, which can be upsetting. I think the biggest weakness there wasn’t the concept of having boss fights, it’s just that our boss fights are not Deus Ex boss fights and that’s why people are complaining about them. I guess we live and learn.

Should we have cut them? It’s a decision we made, we said “well at least they will be entertaining in some fashion”. The biggest surprise, actually, was having released the game and finding that people thought they were frustrating. Not just that they weren’t that interesting, but that they were frustrating. The playtesters internally gave us a lot of good feedback for the game, and on the bosses they felt that the fights were entertaining and making you use what you had learned. They didn’t say they were frustrating. We knew it was not in step with the rest of the game, but the surprise for us was that the playtesting was correct everywhere but the bossfights. So lesson learned.

 

[subversus]

RPS: What can you tell us about the forthcoming DLC?

Dugas: The DLC is coming in October. It’s going to expand on Adam Jensen’s story within the story of Human Revolution. It explains a part of the conspiracy. We are getting better with the engine, so we were able to improve the lighting system and the so the DLC looks quite a bit better than the full game! We also have a boss encounter which is more in line with what we were trying to achieve in the first place, so hopefully we will get some good feedback from that. There’s a lot of new content in there, and it keeps the pillars of the main game. I don’t want to talk too much about the story, but it happens after the explosion in Hengsha, and you are aboard a boat going to Singapore, and it explains a bit about what happens during those few days.

oh yes

 

[krioto]

Loving this game - just up to the part where I assume I get on a boat to Singapore.

Non-lethal stealth run is THE way to play this. Curiously, I played the first level and put it down for 2 weeks - then came back to it and am hooked.

It really clicked for me when stealthing through Tai Yong medical - just so much fun.
Great game - looking forward to the rest.

 

[Dyno]

What boss fights should have been was these 'super-characters' that walk through the entire area with a heightened level of awareness, it's own walking pattern, and the ability to direct other soldiers into areas of suspition. You could engage with the boss at any time of your choosing (unless 'he' choses) and it could be a skirmish or the full fight depending on your actions. There could have been rewards for evading the boss, defeating the boss, and even taking the boss out without setting off alarms.

The bosses should have been force multipliers, adding a layer of difficulty and danger to the entirety of the missions you went on. The biggest, roamiest monster in the dungeon, so to speak.

 

[Darkflight]

What boss fights should have been was these 'super-characters' that walk through the entire area with a heightened level of awareness, it's own walking pattern, and the ability to direct other soldiers into areas of suspition. You could engage with the boss at any time of your choosing (unless 'he' choses) and it could be a skirmish or the full fight depending on your actions. There could have been rewards for evading the boss, defeating the boss, and even taking the boss out without setting off alarms.

The bosses should have been force multipliers, adding a layer of difficulty and danger to the entirety of the missions you went on. The biggest, roamiest monster in the dungeon, so to speak.

This, making them part of the world I could completely bypass would have been much better.

 

[Interfectum]

RPS: Should we expect another Deus Ex game from your studio?

Dugas: I don’t know. I wish were able to do another one. I hope we are going to make another one. But that’s pretty much it for now.

This answer makes me sad.

 

[Marsipolami]

New patch made the FPS acceptable again, yay!

 

[PumpkinPie]

Best part about the game's world to me is in fact Jensen's apartment. It just makes me think of Blade Runner so much. :3

Me too, I like to sit in the apartment and bask in the atmosphere. I also like to ride the elevator at Sarif up and down whilst looking out at the cityscape.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

The apartment really reminds me of the apartment from Blade Runner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGC9mV39BfI&feature=related

In terms of mood.

 

[D6AMIA6N]

What boss fights should have been was these 'super-characters' that walk through the entire area with a heightened level of awareness, it's own walking pattern, and the ability to direct other soldiers into areas of suspition. You could engage with the boss at any time of your choosing (unless 'he' choses) and it could be a skirmish or the full fight depending on your actions. There could have been rewards for evading the boss, defeating the boss, and even taking the boss out without setting off alarms.

The bosses should have been force multipliers, adding a layer of difficulty and danger to the entirety of the missions you went on. The biggest, roamiest monster in the dungeon, so to speak.

That sounds freaking awesome, what a great idea! Seriously it would have been so cool had this been the case. As it stands though, boss fights were, as a general consensus, one of the worst parts of the game.

 

[Wonko_C]

I'm probably in the minority but, like the testers, I found the boss fights engaging, very reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid's bosses. Why do I mention this? Because in those games you could also get through with non-lethal stealth but when it was time to fight the bosses, it was a fight to the death, and nobody pointed out that it felt different to the rest of the game.

I find this game shares a lot with MGS and I bet Hideo Kojima is going to love it, maybe he'll learn a thing or two from Deus Ex: HR and implements them in his next Metal Gear game. (Hopefully he learns that we don't need 30 minute long cutscenes filled with overexposition.)

New Metal Gear with XP upgrades and towns? I can't be the only one foaming at the mouth about this!

 

[AgentOtaku]

**Release Notes**

Glad to see they're still trying to fix the stuttering as yeah, game is still unplayable on my GTX460m notebook, whereas it's perfect on my main desktop with a ATI5850

 

[theBishop]

I bought the PC version of this game, and performance seems really flakey. Is it known to be ram-limited or something? I've got a laptop with a dual core i5/8gb/ati5650, and a desktop with core2quad q8200/4gb/nvidiaGTX460. For reasons I can't determine, it runs better on the laptop.

Any time some dynamic light source enters the frame, it stutters on the quad-core PC. Can anyone explain this?

 

[Hixx]

Joystiq reckon the DLC takes between 5-8 hours. Oh how I hope that is true...

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

Joystiq reckon the DLC takes between 5-8 hours. Oh how I hope that is true...

That sounds pretty good to me. I'll believe it when I see it, though.

 

[Uno Venova]

Has it been said how much the DLC is?

 

[GDJustin]

Joystiq reckon the DLC takes between 5-8 hours. Oh how I hope that is true...

Eidos Montreal told me 3-7 hours, with most people taking 5.

But that sounds like "dev hours" to me. I played a section of the DLC that was supposed to take "an hour" to clear according to them, but I did it in 45 minutes:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/119/1196216p1.html

 

[CF_Fighter]

New DLC looks nice, and the engine enhancements are nice too. Does anyone know if they stretch across the whole game or are they only in the DLC content?

 

[nib95]

This is exactly how i felt. Played it off the back of WII as well, the dialogue in that game and level structure just blows this away

I honestly think The Witcher 2 is under-rated. On reflection, it was just a massively successful game in every way. My only real negative was that it wasn't longer or didn't have more content, areas etc. Then again the fact that you can play through it again with a completely different branch of story and game (not just end game finishing either, but the whole second half is completely different) sort of makes up for that.

If my PC wasn't in storage right now, I'd dive back in to it. I haven't had such withdrawal symptoms from a game post completion for many years.

I will say though, I finished China and did the Picus building in Deus Ex yesterday, it was cool. Still highly repetitive, but some nice action moments, good stealth, and some gorgeous vista's from way up high in the towers. Still lacks something though....I think mainly just variety and more character soul. It is addictive mind, as I do want to jump back in.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

I honestly think The Witcher 2 is under-rated.

Certainly not here on GAF.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

I honestly think The Witcher 2 is under-rated. On reflection, it was just a massively successful game in every way. My only real negative was that it wasn't longer or didn't have more content, areas etc. Then again the fact that you can play through it again with a completely different branch of story and game (not just end game finishing either, but the whole second half is completely different) sort of makes up for that.

If my PC wasn't in storage right now, I'd dive back in to it. I haven't had such withdrawal symptoms from a game post completion for many years.

I will say though, I finished China and did the Picus building in Deus Ex yesterday, it was cool. Still highly repetitive, but some nice action moments, good stealth, and some gorgeous vista's from way up high in the towers. Still lacks something though....I think mainly just variety and more character soul. It is addictive mind, as I do want to jump back in.

Man, I couldn't agree with you more.

 

[nib95]

Certainly not here on GAF.

I meant critically. Then again 87 is hardly low, but I honestly thought it would smash past the 9 barrier which so many console games often easily do.

 

[inky]

Metacritic is such a poor guideline for that tho and shouldn't be taken into account at all. Look at the sub-70 grades and who they come from: some unknown sites (prolly trolling for hits), The Escapist (the same guy who gave Dragon Age 2 it's only 10), Jim Sterling and Edge (which usually scores good RPGs poorly). For all that matters I actually believe it was received exceptionally well, and I'm glad CDP are doing fine.

 

[Dennis]

She didn't ask for this.

 

[Dennis]

Cool jacket, bro.

 

[PumpkinPie]

I thought there would be some kind of good/ evil system in this game, I mean I just shot down 12 police officers in cold blood and I'm just walking around like nothing happened, apart from a couple of NCPs doing their best 'robot' dance.

"ARGH"

 

[BadTaste]

So does that ENB mod only work on Nvidia cards? :/

 

[jett]

Cool jacket, bro.

http://www.abload.de/img/dxhr17nbww.jpg[img][/url][/QUOTE]

That looks really weird without the color filter.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

Just beat the game for the first time on the highest difficulty (and, according to Steam, at 34 hours):

+ Some wonderful art direction and design (see screens below)
+ Excellent soundtrack (unfortunately the UNATCO theme is underused)
+ Highly intuitive controls
+ Rewarding stealth gameplay

- Uneven visuals: some very poor texture work and reflections, copious amounts of aliasing (even with MLAA turned on), ugly character models, and jarringly low-quality FMV cutscenes
- Most augmentations are completely useless: "character builds" aren't really feasible
- Strange gameplay decisions: most notably, only the first energy bar recharging (in turn making augs like Cloak effectively pointless) and the fact that 10mm rounds pierce body armor like nothing
- Story becomes a jumbled mess toward the end
- Hacking becomes extremely tedious and repetitive, but unlike a game like BioShock 2, it feels like it takes forever to hack shit
- Severe lack of weapon variety (fully upgraded 10mm will literally last you the whole game)
- Cities feel lifeless: NPCs stand around and never have anything to say, most buildings are merely aesthetic backdrops, etc.
- Boss fights: completely uneven with the rest of the game (which makes sense as they were outsourced to another company, but still)
- Character AI is virtually nonexistent

Yes, there are a bunch of negatives, but the game is still fairly solid. Is it better than the original? In some ways yes, in many no. Preferred the atmosphere and most of the levels of the original to Human Revolution, but enjoyed the latter's art direction and combat. Also preferred the story in the original and loved the fact that I really did end up using a lot of the augmentations.

This game is Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines, only without the interesting and engaging worlds and characters, and replaced with a far better combat system.

Final thoughts: Fun game with some questionable and downright lazy design decisions and glaring flaws that become more pronounced as you continue to play it.

Rating: 8/10

 

[Raine]

I'm probably in the minority but, like the testers, I found the boss fights engaging, very reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid's bosses. Why do I mention this? Because in those games you could also get through with non-lethal stealth but when it was time to fight the bosses, it was a fight to the death, and nobody pointed out that it felt different to the rest of the game.

Except, in games since MGS3 you've been able to beat bosses without a lethal approach

 

[Korigama]

Except, in games since MGS3 you've been able to do without a lethal approach

Since MGS2, actually. And even then, MGS4 is the only one where any of the boss fights have cutscenes for both lethal and non-lethal outcomes (even if it is only against

Spoiler

the Beauties

); bosses not intended to recur die anyway otherwise (the first boss in MGS2 being an exception, where you only have a tranq gun), only it doesn't count against the endgame tally if you go non-lethal. Either way, I'd say the comparison of the shift in gameplay flow to MGS sounds about right (at the very least, it would explain why I had no problems with the stealth --> action transition).

 

[Reave]

So, I've commented on how good I think this game is. What I haven't mentioned is how I nearly tossed it back in the box and returned it after the first couple hours. I've mentioned this stuff in the Halo thread (for some reason), but I wanted to consolodate it here.

There are some gameplay features that look for in games, and if they include them, I know not to buy the game because those features bug me so much. I'll freely admit this probobly sounds like I'm super picky, and well, I am. But I'll just pounce on this once, because other than this stuff (and the bosses) I think Deus Ex: HR is a fantastic game.

With Deus Ex, we start as a component stealth character, and the perks (Praxis) we can earn make us an awesome one. But we start as a horrible combat character, and the perks make us merely competent. Weapons feature lots of recoil, and most jarring to me is that we can't even aim straight with a scoped weapon.

The difficulty in using a weapon should come from their situational usage, ammo scarcity, and the capabilities and characteristics of the enemies. Not through artificial mechanics such as a roaming reticule and a swinging screen every time we shoot. This is why I love Halo and don't play most other shooters (and hate bloom in Reach).

Let me explain what I mean with an illustration.

Let's say we have a side scrolling platformer, but the jumping mechanics are really sloppy and hard to control, such that precision jumps are very hard to nail. And then we create a perk tree that lets us upgrade those sloppy controls away.

Alternately, you could have a platformer where the jumping mechanic is nice and precise, and the game is made difficult through level design.

That is what Deus Ex does: gunplay is sloppy and imprecise, but we can make it play in a way that is much less punishing by spending Praxis to fix the gunplay.

My objection is to adding difficulty by removing our ability to have precise game controls. I think that's a cheap way to balance games. To me, it is the opposite of fun. It's cheap because it's a lot easier to make a game difficult by screwing with our ability to aim straight than it is to make smart AI, well balanced weapons and interesting encounters. I'm exasperated by what Deus Ex does because the way they introduce recoil and sway are not needed - they have a solid game to build on. But they muddy the game mechanics anyways.

I'd rather we start out with competant combat mechanics, and then use Praxis to make them great. One random example:

Let's say we start out such that all weapons have iron sights, which are stable. The first Praxis in the Precision tree updates our skills from iron sights to the full-screen smartlinked scope, similar to what we see with the sniper (or Halo) weapons.

Second Praxis doubles the magnification of the scope for those weapons. That would let us start with solid aiming mechanics, but then let us gain skills to use them better.

Instead, we start with gimped aiming mechanics and the Praxis make them normal. I was really frustrated with the gun mechanics in Deus Ex until I had used the Praxis to remove the recoil and roaming reticule when scoped. Now, I get that DX is not a combat-focused game. I'm not wanting to be able to turn it into Halo. I just want to be able to aim and shoot straight.

This concept is one of my biggest pet peves in games. Sorry for the rant.


tl;dr version: The gunplay itself should not be difficult. The difficulty should emerge from the context it is deployed in, rather than the mechanics.

The actual game itself - the encounter and world design - are incredible.

 

[KittenMaster]

I haven't gotten to any boss yet, but I find the game very reminiscent of playing MGS2, which makes it a top tier game automatically (I really missed MGS2's gameplay, and MGS3-onward stepped away from it, IMO). I won't mind having to fatally kill bosses since I've found that the game doesn't really punish you for killing unless it alerts enemies anyway.

 

[GhaleonEB]

So far I've gotten past the first boss on a non-lethal (aside from the boss, that is), zero alarm triggered run. I'm debating when and if to bust out my increasingly tempting upgraded revolver. Decisions, decisions.

So...anyone know where a certain gun runner in "Earl Court" is? I've been canvassing apartments and can't find the dude.

 

[ZombieFred]

Cool jacket, bro.

I wish this ENB version worked on AMD, the character model there looks brilliant.

 

[subversus]

all shots and WIP is here - https://sites.google.com/site/karthik0j/deus-ex-udk-environment

 

[DTKT]

So far I've gotten past the first boss on a non-lethal (aside from the boss, that is), zero alarm triggered run. I'm debating when and if to bust out my increasingly tempting upgraded revolver. Decisions, decisions.

So...anyone know where a certain gun runner in "Earl Court" is? I've been canvassing apartments and can't find the dude.

He's in the appartement building near the basketball court.

You can get in through a a window.

 

[Jswanko]

So Im sure this has been asked a bunch but what happens if (player choice)

Spoiler

You go to the LIMB clinic and get the rigged chip installed? Haven't beaten game yet, just got to Panchea (?) but Im really curious.