Deus Ex, HR

[Fiach]

Got this last night, I was a bit wary of getting it as its gameplay is weighted towards Stealth, but I'm enjoying it alot, the Stealth isnt as hard as I imagined, so Im getting by with a mix of shooting and stealth.

Its nice to kill everyone in a building then just take your time and potter around, crawling through vent shafts, hacking PC's, looking for secrets. :)

[JRD]

Welcome back Fiach....  :-X

I hope you enjoyed Spain!  8)

On topic: how about the ROG elements in DEHR? Is this a deep RPG with endless conversations and thousands of choices?

[Fiach]

Yes, conversation is qute important, it can mean the difference between eg. a fight and a truce, where the fight can have a bad influence later on and a truce that will have a few benefits later on.

If you played Alpha Protocol and remember the dialogue, you will get a choice of responses, Encourage/Empathise/Confront etc. its similar, but you will know exactly what you are going to say when you click on the Response, the dialogue will appear onscreen, if you dont like it you can move the cursor to a different choice, when you decide on your answer you click on that answer.

Lots of routes through missions, sneak through vents move from cover to cover, or you can fight, but ammo is pretty limited, I got 20 rounds for my assault rifle for my first mission LOL :)

You have the ability to buy "augments" with XP skill points and some points can be found in secret areas.

You can upgrade different parts of the body, eg. Arms cover aiming ability and strength for Inventory Space. Legs for jumping etc.

Im finding "Hacking" a bit annoying, but its cos I suck, I'm not the most tech savvy person, With "nodes" "sub routines" etc. I can complete a hack, but more often than not cant get the optional goodies for a perfect hack, it would be easier I think with a Mouse as opposed to a controller.

[fragger]

Did you ever play the original DE, Fiach? From your description of DEHR it sounds very similar.

[Fiach]

Yes Fragger, actually it has two prequels, Deus Ex and D/Ex Invisible War (not particularly well liked, but I thought it was OK. :)

[JRD]

Thanks for the info Fiach :-\\ )

I didn`t play Alpha Protocol but followed Art`s thread about it and could get a pretty good idea of how it plays. Although presenting a lot of conversations, AP seemed very dynamic as you had not much time to fool around with conversations. I guess it add a lot to immersion when playing the game as it doesn`t break the pace of the game and makes it a bit more believable.

Should be a nice game this Deus Ex... keep us posted... oh, and if you can produce some pics it would be nice (although, being in PS3/XBOX doesn`t help in that sense  :-\\ )

[Fiach]

The timer did add something to the conversations, yes, but not knowing what your character was going to say was .... to say the least, frustrating. :(

Pics, yeah cant do it on the 360, but the games a looker :)

[Art Blade]

 :)

AP was my favourite for quite some time, I played several times through, different branches depending on what dialogue you chose. The timer was harsh and my only problem. The system behind the choice wheel was simple once you realised how it worked during the tutorial (if you found it frustrating I can only assume you skipped the tutorial or at least didn't take a close look)  ;)

The next challenge was even if you understood how the dialogue worked you couldn't know how your conversational partner would react to your choice. Some liked it if you were gentle, some despised that; some needed a violent approach, others didn't. So you had to find out what type of person you were talking to and adjust your choices. That wasn't always obvious or easy so yes, even if you knew what you did you were in for a surprise more than once. I agree that could be frustrating if for whatever reason you didn't fall back to a savegame and replay that part. ;)

[Fiach]

Yes, I understood it Art, it's inconsistancy was the annoying part, some people liked a certain style, some liked a mixture of responses which made the wheel pointless, either it works or it doesnt.

In the end, I played a character, in other words, I played it twice, I didnt pander to what the NPC wanted to hear, I played first as a James Bond Character with pistols, a charismatic smart a$$, secondly as a gruff army vet with an assault rifle that didnt take s#!t from anyone.

When I decided to play that way, I found the game more fulfilling as I wasnt trying to meta-game, I was actually roleplaying :)

[Art Blade]

And that is the beauty of AP, you can do just that.  :)

[Fiach]

And that is the beauty of AP, you can do just that.  :)

There are aspects of DEHR that remind me of AP at times.... in a good way :)

Anyway, been playing for crikey I dont know how many hours and still havent finished more than one quest lol! :)

I just keep getting sidetracked by Vent Shafts, fire escapes, going into gang territory to see how far I can get before getting attacked and then reloading, basically just messing around. I was in a Police Station, taking everything that wasnt nailed down and there was one lock I couldnt hack, as a guard kept patrolling nearby and attacked me when I started hacking, so I knocked him out, and stuffed him in a Vent Shaft, when I searched his body, he had a list of the lock codes for all the doors on that floor, RESULT! :)

I have alot of quests in my log and sometimes I will be rooting around in a hacked PC and get XP for completing some aspect of a quest I had forgotten I had taken a couple of days before.

I havent fired more than maybe 20-30 bullets in total so far, but I'm still having fun just dicking around :)

[Art Blade]

Now you've managed to spark my interest in that game  :-()

[JRD]

Mine too.... hhhhmmmmmmmmmm  :-()

Edit:

Doing some research... interesting  :-X

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Gameplay

[Art Blade]

thanks for the vid, JRD. Indeed, at times it looks like AP :)

[JRD]

That video shows how many different ways there are to play, which is somethjing I really enjoy in a game. The games I'm playing now (Batman:AA, WoP and Mirror's Edge again) fail to provide me that so it's a bit frustrating.

I still have Assassin's Creed Brotherhood to finish, of course, and a few games coming in a few month but still I'm considering getting DEHR.  ^-^

[Art Blade]

That's absolutely true, a game that allows certain freedom of choice and different approaches (and, in this case, additionally doesn't force you to kill) sure is worth another close look.  :-()

[Fiach]

Here's something I didnt know.

360 savegames can be edited. There are modded savegames of DEHR (Plus MANY other games) now, that eg. have in the INV 65k Grenades, 65k of each Ammo Type. 75 Skill Points, 65k Automatic lock openers (so you dont have to do any hacking, just attach a bomb to the lock/terminal and it unlocks the item.

Its done by hex editing (dunno anything about it, other than I am aware it exists).

Kinda pointless playing a RPG with it, but handy for goofing around or a second playthrough. :)

AFAIK you cant do this for the PS3.  :(

[Art Blade]

Hex Editing: Edit data in hexadecimal form with a suitable tool (hex editor, cheat program) either in the computer's memory (RAM) or on disk (files) in order to change values (for instance, amount of money or ammunition).  :)

[fragger]

I'll have to watch that clip tonight when my net access is better >:(( Sounds good though from your comments :-X

Re: not killing enemies, it was possible in DE1 to play all the way through without killing anybody except for three principal characters with whom you had no choice - it was either you or them. Even so, there was a way by which you could kill two of those characters by a kind of proxy, so there was only one character that you actually had to gun down yourself near the end of the game. I managed to get through the whole game this way, by concentrating on my melee skills, knocking everybody out and hiding their bodies as opposed to killing them outright. It involved a lot of sneaking around, observation, patience and timing, but was quite exiting and bags of fun when a plan came off :-X Just the first level of DE1 took me eight hours to play through this way - hide, observe the patrolling guards to get their routines down, sneak up and knock them out one at a time.

I don't know about DEHR, but your character in DE1 was actually a cyborg, only with nanotechnological enhancements instead of physical ones, so he still looked perfectly normal but was more. During the course of the game you could "upgrade" yourself with new abilities, making you run faster, jump higher, be able to see in the dark, and many more. These nano-augmentations could each be switched on and off independently of one another, so you could use combinations of them. It provided good replay value as you could try a different combination of augmentations every time you played, as well as trying different skill sets and weapon loadouts each time through. It was a great game, and with a good storyline too :-X

[Fiach]

As this is a prequel, its set at the start of the whole "augmentation" business, consequently the prostethics are more crude and visible.

You can stealth your way through, but there are some bosses you "must" kill, othertimes you can just knock people out or stun them or tranquilize them. You get higher XP for just incapacitating people.

The AI isn't the brightest, alerts cool down after a couple of minutes and patrols go back to normal. The Hacking can be a bit bonkers at times, I have come across some locks that are OK and some I just cannot hack, even though I am the correct level, but maybe I should add points to other aspects like adding stealth to my hack or fortifying the nodes in my hacks, or using virus software.

Its quite crazy (I think) that there is such a limited supply of ammo, some corpses that you loot may have just one handgun bullet for example, I have been playing quite awhile now, not killing anyone if I can halp it and I have about 100 bullets for my assault rifle.... thats only because I have only used a handgun mostly, so it does really limit your playstyle. On saying that I havent needed to kill many people because the stealth is a bit on the easy side.

On the many routes, well here is an example, I had to meet a guy in an alley, I could not get into the bloody thing, one door was full of electrified water (you can get a skill to walkthrough this without harm), then there was another place with a high fence (you could use a jump skill) ot drag a dumpster over (with a strength skill), eventually I cheated a little, I saved, added a jump skill, went i to the ally, explored and found a manhole cover, went in and traced its route to its other end, reloaded and used that way into the alley. So, lots of variety I guess.

[Art Blade]

Haha, creative and clever cheating. Kind of time travel cheat  :-D :-X

[fragger]

Cheers Fiach :-X

The paucity of ammo appears to be one major difference between DE1 and DEHR - in DE1 there seemed to be an overabundance of it. I'd have all my weapons completely full and I'd still keep coming across ammo to loot from dead guys which I'd have to leave behind. Mind you, I always seemed to favour the stealth route with DE, so I usually had the electric prod, the arm-mounted crossbow and the silenced pistol for when it got serious, and just picked up heavier weapons as needed. I used to like the stick-on grenades - you stuck them on the wall and anyone walking near them set them off, except yourself, as the grenades were apparently "smart" and would "remember" who put them there and be nice to them if they walked by. If you came across a pre-planted one, you could run up to it and have about 3 seconds to hit a button on the grenade to deactivate it before it went off. Then you could pull it off the wall and use it yourself, and it would remember you. There was an explosive one, a gas one, an EMP one and a "scrambler" which would confuse robotic systems and make armed patrol bots attack one another. If you liked you could also just throw the grenades and they'd go off after a few seconds, like normal ones.

The AI in DEHR sounds about the same as in the orig, as does the "more than one way around" level design. Not exactly open-world but not strictly linear either - a fairly happy medium (DE1).

[Fiach]

Well while ammo is incredibly scarce, I dont think its needed (well not so far), I am about to leave the first area and move to China, I just finished a huge mission, a boss fight and in all that mission I probably used 30 handgun rounds and one gas grenade, my apartment is littered with discarded ammo, guns healthpacks etc.

There is one problem I do have with the game, you pick up lock codes all over the place, now, while you dont have to remember them (when you get to a lock for which you have the code, it appears on the lock), there is no indication of where the bloody lock is, so you will spend alot of time exploring all these different routes, trying in vain to find some locks.

Pro-Tip, if you cant hack a door, use a frag grenade and blow it open (frag grenades are pretty scarce though). :)

[Art Blade]

 ^+-+ lovely tip there  :-D

[Fiach]

Another Pro-Tip :)

Get Smash/Break Through Walls skill before you leave Detroit, It will pay for itself may times over with hidden equipment, shortcuts and skill point (Praxis Points) kits.

I thought you would have to keep looking closely at walls to see cracks before using it, but it highlights in bright yellow any walls that can be broken through.

I would suggest these upgrades in this order:

Hack Capture 2, Inv, Inv, Smash walls, Inv, Hack Capture 3.

You should easily be able to do all these and have some points left over, I have something like 14 points unused and I'm still only in the second area.

Also, You can buy two Praxis Points in each LIMB clinic in each city and they will replenish those two, each time you return to the cities as the story progresses, these will cost 5k each, so while money may not be an issue, dont squander it on eg. informant tips.

EDIT : With regard to Hack Capture, you can also buy graded skills in Hack Fortify and Hack Stealth. Fortify makes the nodes stronger against the anti hack mechanism...BUT... it makes the hacking become dectected more quickly, So I would recommend Hack Stealth instead, it hides your presence from the anti hack mechanism and gives you more breathing space to complete the hack.