NiroZ
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From here

DGM wrote:

silver wrote:
in the dozen or so times I played it, I think I only actually had the scripted sword encounter with that one person at the bottom of the big storage area once - and that was just to see what it was like. every other time, head-shot from the top of the ladder

Ah, yes. Maggie Chow. The stupid @#$%^ that brought a high-tech sword to a gun fight. Seriously, whose idea was it to not give her any kind of ranged weapon or bullet-proof cover and then have her talk trash like that? That had to be the most unintentionally funny moment in the game.

You do know that

@Eytanz
I agree, but in my mind they didn't even succeed at that.

@silver
Actually, I recall that there were some levels where there were many different ways to cross/complete the levels. However, I agree with you that they where a lot smaller and less frequent.

eytanz
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NiroZ wrote:
@Eytanz
I agree, but in my mind they didn't even succeed at that.

I made two claims in that post - which don't you think they succeeded with - making a game that's decent but not particularly good, or making a sequel that copies a lot of elements from the original but totally misses the point of what made its predecessor a success?

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Rabscuttle
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NiroZ wrote:
One feature, universal ammo, ruins it all for me. Not to mention the shocker of a story and a myrad of glitches and bugs. I never did like that hud either.

What's the problem with universal ammo? Does it affect the gameplay at all?

eytanz
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It affects gameplay; in Deus Ex, you sometimes needed to decide whether to use a powerful weapon which you didn't have much ammo for and had nowhere convenient to restock, or a less powerful weapon with a lot of ammo. In Invisible Wars, this was never really a choice - yes, it was balanced in the sense that the more powerful weapons used more of the ammo, but either you could restock all your ammo or none of it, so the decisions you made had far less tactical import.

Mostly it was a stylistic thing, though. It's not so much that gameplay was affected, but it's one of a list of things were the game felt flatter, and less rich. If it was the only such change it probably wouldn't have bothered people as much as it did - but it was just one of the more obvious cases.

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Rabscuttle
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Hmm. Normally I play non-confrontationally which means sneaking up behind them and bopping them on the head with the baton. So ammo management didn't really affect me. Except for the tranq darts. And the prod. And maybe some grenades....

jemann
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Rabscuttle wrote:
Hmm. Normally I play non-confrontationally which means sneaking up behind them and bopping them on the head with the baton. So ammo management didn't really affect me. Except for the tranq darts. And the prod. And maybe some grenades....

I never use grenades as much as would be sensible, in any game. Too much of a hoarder, I guess. Apart from that, I played in much the same way. The brief episode of dramatic music after you've tranquilised somebody, and before they fall over, is always worth it.

There's a great thread about the game on the quartertothree forums, including various play styles and mods.

silver
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I always ran out of tranq darts and charges for the zapper by mid to end mission 3. then I switch to sniper rifle.

that almost seemed like the promise of DX2 - that I needn't run out of tranq darts and could play the whole game without a kill. but it didn't work out like that.



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[Last edited by silver at 07-10-2007 06:24 AM]

malkav11
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I really liked Deus Ex 2. I think more, ultimately, than the original because it was significantly more forgiving to my non-leet FPS skills. Also, it felt more like a multi-path solution (but somewhat linear in overall progression) RPG, where the original was definitely an FPS, albeit one with very unusual elements. I didn't like universal ammo, or the stripping out of the skill system (having to take nano modules to hack or pick locks? Come on.). But I did overall prefer the updated system for the nanotech upgrades and the weapon customization. I had weapons specced for all kinds of situations, which was neat. And hacking especially gave some very neat possibilities. I enjoyed wreaking havoc with turncoat ceiling turrets, especially since people didn't get pissed at you for doing it.

On the other hand, Deus Ex was definitely a one of a kind game. If I hadn't had to put on godmode practically immediately just to get anywhere, I might have been more enthused. (And I loved it even so.)

A beautiful, beautiful breaking of the original Deus Ex.

Rabscuttle
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One thing that bugged me about the game - beyond the first mission, there is no distinction made between knocking people out and killing them. Especially with the second mission - if you knock everyone unconscious in the base in .. um.. Battery Park(?) - you get the same reactions as if you had killed everyone.

I am nice!

Znirk
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DGM wrote:
Ah, yes. Maggie Chow. The stupid @#$%^ that brought a high-tech sword to a gun fight. Seriously, whose idea was it to not give her any kind of ranged weapon or bullet-proof cover and then have her talk trash like that? That had to be the most unintentionally funny moment in the game.

The most unintentionally funny moment for me is where the bad guys capture you (and presumably search you) and take away all your equipment. But as soon as you get one of your guns back, you immediately also pull the few hundred rounds of ammunition you had in the previous scene out of ... let's say nowhere. No, I don't want to hear the details.

DGM
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Znirk wrote:
The most unintentionally funny moment for me is where the bad guys capture you (and presumably search you) and take away all your equipment. But as soon as you get one of your guns back, you immediately also pull the few hundred rounds of ammunition you had in the previous scene out of ... let's say nowhere. No, I don't want to hear the details.

Ah, yes. One of the "undocumented" nano-augs that UNATCO doesn't like to talk about.

Move along, citizen. Nothing to see here.

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[Last edited by DGM at 07-10-2007 10:16 AM]

NiroZ
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Znirk wrote:
The most unintentionally funny moment for me is where the bad guys capture you (and presumably search you) and take away all your equipment. But as soon as you get one of your guns back, you immediately also pull the few hundred rounds of ammunition you had in the previous scene out of ... let's say nowhere. No, I don't want to hear the details.

Yeah, I often wondered about that myself.

Rabscuttle wrote:
What's the problem with universal ammo? Does it affect the gameplay at all?

It did to me. Usually playing a FPS, I stock up heaps on one of the rarer ammo's, then spend as much of it as I can (Like with the MP5SD in Far Cry, or the Sniper Rifle in the original Deus Ex). Also the fact that it had a fairly low hold count so you never had enough to quit worrying about wasting a shot, which is a nightmare for a perfectionist like me (lots and lots of quicksaves and reloads ). So it pretty much cramped my style.

eytanz wrote:
I made two claims in that post - which don't you think they succeeded with - making a game that's decent but not particularly good, or making a sequel that copies a lot of elements from the original but totally misses the point of what made its predecessor a success?

I was saying that it failed at being 'Hollywood-ised'. Or at least, they did a lousy job of that as well. I recall that in the And other time, while crouching up some steps I managed to walk into the step, which didn't impress me in the least.

To be honest, I think I'm just bitter over the fact that the endings were a choice of which one was the lesser evil. I should probably also point out that I never managed to finish the game, as my savegames where deleted by my brother after I had .

Alneyan
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Rabscuttle wrote:
Especially with the second mission - if you knock everyone unconscious in the base in .. um.. Battery Park(?) - you get the same reactions as if you had killed everyone.

You *can* get a different message, but it's tricky. You need to sneak up into Castle Clinton to get the 'peaceful' message; if you come anywhere near the main entrance, it's over (the reasoning behind that the Unatco guys immediately jump in and kill everybody). Not exactly the best designed part of the game.

I'm fonder of Thief myself, but the AI can be terribly annoying (sometimes finding you immediately with their IFF, and plainly missing the obvious at other times). Still, perhaps I should replay Deus Ex without using so many quicksaves (yellow? Who, moi?).

Rabscuttle
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Yeah, I normally just sneak through to get the nice message. It's annoying that I can't just go and knock everyone out. I just like the idea of everyone waking up later.

I like Thief too. I've only played the second one, but I bought the third one a while ago but have never gotten around to playing it. I heard the same kind of things about it about Deus Ex 2, so I'm somewhat hesitant.

Ok, I am reinstalling Deus Ex now. If you don't see me for a while, that is because I am about to hit the back of your head.

eytanz
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Rabscuttle wrote:
Yeah, I normally just sneak through to get the nice message. It's annoying that I can't just go and knock everyone out. I just like the idea of everyone waking up later.

I like Thief too. I've only played the second one, but I bought the third one a while ago but have never gotten around to playing it. I heard the same kind of things about it about Deus Ex 2, so I'm somewhat hesitant.

In my opinion, Thief 3 is much better as a sequel than Deus Ex 2 is.

Yes, there are major plot continuity problems between Thief 1/2 and 3, but then Thief 2 already had issues with regards to Thief 1. And unlike Deus Ex 2, Thief 3 had the benefit of not reusing any major characters from its prequel, which meant fewer retcons. However, gameplay-wise Thief 3 succeeds in capturing the spirits of the earlier games. Yes, there are changes, and new limitations by the console-based design, but unlike in Deus Ex, it felt like that the core gameplay and atmosphere was kept.

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NiroZ
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Rabscuttle wrote:
Yeah, I normally just sneak through to get the nice message. It's annoying that I can't just go and knock everyone out. I just like the idea of everyone waking up later.

Although, considering UNATCO, that might not be such a good thing.

Ok, I am reinstalling Deus Ex now. If you don't see me for a while, that is because I am about to hit the back of your head.

Allow me to point you towards this list of mods.

Yellow_Mage
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eytanz wrote:
It affects gameplay; in Deus Ex, you sometimes needed to decide whether to use a powerful weapon which you didn't have much ammo for and had nowhere convenient to restock, or a less powerful weapon with a lot of ammo. In Invisible Wars, this was never really a choice - yes, it was balanced in the sense that the more powerful weapons used more of the ammo, but either you could restock all your ammo or none of it, so the decisions you made had far less tactical import.

Mostly it was a stylistic thing, though. It's not so much that gameplay was affected, but it's one of a list of things were the game felt flatter, and less rich. If it was the only such change it probably wouldn't have bothered people as much as it did - but it was just one of the more obvious cases.

I used melee heavily in Deus Ex: Invisble War. Barrel to face is probably the best thing ever with maxed strength augmetations. I think I broke the game because of that. I was stealthy, but impractically so, using metal barrels as slient kills. When I needed to disable a camera, I'd hope I could throw something heavy at it. I only played through it once, and was rather disappointed that I picked such a heavy handed approach that ended up being rather balanced between stealth and brawling. One hit kills/knockouts, with minimal silenced pistol moments (that could vapourise glass as well) and high hack skill. It was annoyingly easy because I was hoping there would be moments that they combination of skill would fail, like robots. Barrel to face... It's probably the most humorous thing I got out of the game with the ragdolling and being able to throw heavy objects amazingly hard, and so happens to be much less suspicious than gunfire.

I'd give it another go, but I wouldn't go that route of skill despite it was the most fun I had. Most of the problem with Invisible War is that the writing is very inferior to Deus Ex, retcons (I actually played Invisible War first but those didn't annoy me that much really), and it's linearity. There seems to be minimal impact your character can do to the main story. Deus Ex gave impression that you could at least do that even when you couldn't, and made you care about those situations. People mentioned Battery Park, but I guess everyone at least tried to do it without killing anyone... Invisible War lack that emotional aspect and I didn't like it as much as Deus Ex.

Also, I'm going to say how much this topic rocks, and I'm going to mention Project Snowblind. I'm really disappointed with that game as it has just the elements of Deus Ex fully converted into vanilla FPS, and it being a spiritual prequel to Deus Ex annoyed me to no end. Honestly, it is like they don't know what made the first game good in the first place. So I strongly agree with that point. And to think that those that played it, the reasons why Deus Ex is so good seems rather blatant.

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Tim
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Short Question: I just found a CD with Deus Ex in my archive. Unplayed. (I seem to have bought it when it was a bargain.)

Is it worth playing nowadays? How hard is it? (I'm not that good -if at all- in FPS.)

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Nillo
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The graphics and physics are dated, but the gameplay is still really good. The difficulty is adjustable when you begin playing.

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malkav11
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I recall it having a fairly sizeable bias towards the more "realistic" end of shootery, though. In that getting shot hurts. A lot. And you die real fast. I don't recall what difficulty I was trying to play on, though.

But yes, it's still very much worth playing these days. It presents a play experience that is still pretty much unique. There are games that do some of the things it did, but the feel is never the same.

Rabscuttle
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The most difficult setting is 'Realistic' and I can tell you that getting shot in the head or chest from close range generally kills you immediately.

But it is possible to play it on an easier setting, or to avoid getting shot at in most situations.

Tim
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malkav11 wrote:
But yes, it's still very much worth playing these days. It presents a play experience that is still pretty much unique. There are games that do some of the things it did, but the feel is never the same.

Thanks. I think that was the reason why I bought it anyway (2.99 is a bargain in any currency )

Nillo wrote:
The difficulty is adjustable when you begin playing.

Not good enough Well, I just remembered keeping to get killed in the first level of the original Half Life, on easy. Sounds like I need a cheat in that case then. Any ideas?

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[Last edited by Tim at 07-12-2007 08:17 AM]

Rabscuttle
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Tim wrote:

Nillo wrote:
The difficulty is adjustable when you begin playing.

Not good enough Well, I just remembered keeping to get killed in the first level of the original Half Life, on easy. Sounds like I need a cheat in that case then. Any ideas?

Sneak, and if that fails, run and hide.

I'd try it on the easiest setting first, but if you need them you can probably find cheats on the net pretty easily.

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[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 07-12-2007 08:41 AM]

malkav11
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I believe it has the standard Unreal Engine console cheats, along with a few others. There's some complicated variable name you have to set true first, though. I used them throughout. It's still fun.

NiroZ
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Tim wrote:Not good enough Well, I just remembered keeping to get killed in the first level of the original Half Life, on easy. Sounds like I need a cheat in that case then. Any ideas?

There are cheats, but they really ruin the game (I mean, half the the fun is exploring, which is rendered pointless because you have everything you want/need.)

I really hate to tell people how to play these games. When I first introduced Deus Ex to my brother, and indeed when I watched alginon's playthrough, I was shocked to see them do things I didn't even think of trying. It wasn't they they were better or worse, but just so different, and as such I'd hate to ruin that individuality.

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 07-13-2007 05:08 AM]

Alneyan
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I'm feeling like playing Deus Ex again, but I'm having a bit of a problem. My Deus Ex version is in French with English voices, so I'd like to have the English texts instead. I know I had managed to 'untranslate' the game back in the days, but I can't remember *how*.

So, I'm looking for someone who could send me the relevant files from the English version (I think I've located all those files, and they're around 6 MB uncompressed). Please let me know if you're interested, and I'll forward you the details. Thanks!

And boy do I miss the good old days when international releases were the norm, with no mediocre translation to spoil my fun. Edit: NiroZ saved the day for me. Hurray, and thanks a lot!

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[Last edited by Alneyan at 07-14-2007 12:28 PM]

b0rsuk
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What do you think about Bioshock ? I played Deus Ex 1, System Shock 2, Thief2. BS is meant as a spiritual successor to SS2. I really liked SS2, but - for some reason - I don't really like graphics of Bioshock. They're a bit too shiny and too colorful. SS2 was quite scary at times. I have yet to see anything scary in Bioshock (Screenshots, videos, anything).

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Mattcrampy
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I don't think they mean spiritual successor as in scary; it seems to be more the storytelling method and the multiple methods to deal with problems.

I'm really excited that Bioshock is getting so much attention - I think it's going to be very exciting, and hopefully the storyline lives up to its promise.

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NiroZ
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b0rsuk wrote:
What do you think about Bioshock ?

My main disappointment with Bioshock in relation to SS2 is it's not going to be the same without SHODAN

Here's to hoping that EA get their act together.

@Alneyan
which files would you need?

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 07-14-2007 05:32 AM]

malkav11
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I find Bioshock's setting much more original and evocative than those of the System Shock series. I am really excited about it. (This is not to say that those games were not awesome, because they were. And are.)