Deus Ex Human Revolution

[Supergoal]

Got the Steam copy and it downloaded pretty quick so I managed to get about an hour into. I was not hyped at all by it and didn't even think about getting it but have to say it's so far intriguing.

Without spoiling much, I though the beginning of the game was similar to

->Open Spoiler<-

Mass Effect 2's sequence where Shepard is in the lab and woken up and trying to find a way out.

I've never played the original game so this is a totally new experience for me.

[Jebus]

What did you think of the tutorials? Could they have been much more immersion breaking do you think?

[NeoDragoN]

I had mine yesterday off shopto for the 360, i've put about 14 hours in already. Its just sublime!

A real heavy focus on stealth as to be expected and all the mechanics work perfectly. As mentioned in reviews though its strange that the entirety of the game is focused towards stealth yet the boss battle force you into killing and if you gear your character towards stealth and camo ( why wouldn't you first time round? ) the boss battles can be tough.

Otherwise i can't fault it, the world is totally immersive and completely sucks you in along with the amazing sountrack. The graphics are very nice, particularly the cities which look incredible but some character models look a little dated.

I've been pretty much hooked to it since it arrived, i just can't get enough of the upgrades, the weapons, the takedowns ( oh man the takedowns ) the entire vibe of the game! I am so looking forward to my 2nd ( and most likely 3rd ) play through, to discover all those bits i missed, to approach missions in different ways and to try all those upgrades i didn't use first time round!

Also how refreshing to play an FPS which is well over 10 hours long lol! I've played around 14 and i'd say i have a 3rd of the game or more left.

[cutmymilk]

Just not for me... The general vibe and setting is pretty boring, and the forced stealth is just... also boring. Play how you like? There's no way. Also isn't he supposed to be advanced? He dies way too quickly. I don't know if I'm thinking too much about Crysis 2 but that did the "play how you like" thing much better.

I'm glad others are enjoying it so much - I just don't see it.

[EvilBoris]

Several of the reviews have said that it's quite slow to start, perhaps it'll kick in soon.

[PeteJ]

cutmymilk - Deus Ex is a slow-paced game, you are meant to take it easy and soak up all the detail of the game world. It isn't Crysis

I can't wait for this, was hoping I'd get it a day early but the Postal Gods decided otherwise.

[teddymeow]

Am absolutely loving this!! Didn't think I would but, wow, brilliant stuff!!

My only gripe is I wish you could customise the controls. I hate iron sights on R3.

[saturn-gamer]

Vibe, music, gameplay... I am completely floored by this one. Was supposed to play SF3 all weekend, but I dunno.. Deus Ex 3 is amazing so far.

Between all those sub 10 hour hand helding contest games, this is a relief.

[Jebus]

To add balance, it's not without fault.

The voice acting is horrible and the lip-syncing is just ****e, embarrassingly so. There's also AI issues.

That said, this is a combination of BioShock, Riddick and Mass Effect for me. Absolutely wonderful.

However, like the above, I think of it more as a "First Person RPG" than a "FPS".

[teddymeow]

To add balance, it's not without fault.

The voice acting is horrible and the lip-syncing is just ****e, embarrassingly so.

True, the lip-synching is truly dire - like some bad Kung Fu movie.

[Flabio]

Played it a few hours now, and it's definitely still Deus Ex. I think it's playing closer to the way the second one did than the first though.

The time pressure elements in it, I can see some players being annoyed by them, but I've forced myself to not go back and redo things on this first playthrough. Living with all my decisions, even when I cock things up.

The cover mechanic is a little overly fussy, I don't like having to keep pressing and holding A to inch around the sides of boxes, and the LA Noire style conversations don't seem to fit very well to me.

Decent, worth playing for sure, but not the second coming the review scores seem to be suggesting.

[Sketcz]

Thanks for the comments Flabio - those hold gravitas for me. I didn't like the second at all, and I don't recall the first having any genuinely timed segments (everything kind of paused until you entered a specific activation zone).

The reality of this is slowly coming to light for me.

QUESTIONS:
1) There's a recharging health bar. Is there also limbic damage for specific body parts like in the first?

2) What is the ammo situation like? I've not noticed any reviewer comment on if there's a single pool for ammo like DE2, or if there's different ammos for every gun. They only comment on the limited amount of ammo. Is there a variety?

3) One reviewer complained about you can't use vending machines to buy food to recharge yourself - even though the first DE had vending machines which sold you snacks and juice (and some side-quests even required using these items!). Tell me about the vending machines.

this is a combination of BioShock

Considering how intensely I despise the Bioshock series, this comment worries me. Everyone said BS was like System Shock 3, when in fact it was nothing like it. It didn't even have an inventory. It epitomises the dumbing down of modern games I so despise.

In what way is it like Bioshock?

[mekanor]

Maybe they're trying to be faithful to the original?

[Daragon]

Timed sections? My 1 gaming bugbear.

Are these like only split second decision bits, like free a hostage before she gets shot for example, or infiltrate a warehouse in X minutes or game over? The latter can gtfo, no room for that kind of **** in today's gaming world. I buy games to play at my leisure, not to conform to stupidly tight timing restrictions!

[Flabio]

Really hard to explain what I mean without a spoily example unfortunately. But basically, there are parts where if you dawdle too much the mission parameters change. And the conversation bits seem to have time limit too, take too long to decide on which dialogue option and you'll end up taking the 'not saying anything' one.

Now, for a spoily example from near the beginning of the game:

->Open Spoiler<-

You arrive in Sarif HQ, first time you've been there since the intro level etc..., and you get a call to report to the helipad as the boss needs you to help resolve a hostage situation.

This being my first time in the HQ hub I decided to sack that off and have a good poke around the place instead. 20 minutes or so of that, with occasionaly radio messages telling you to bloody hurry up, you get a message saying 'while you were dicking around, the situation has gotten worse'.

The result being that when I started the mission, they'd already executed most of the hostages (oops).

I don't mind this stuff much as it just means I'll know what to do differently on another playthrough, but I know some people like their first run through to be as close to perfection as possible.

On to Sketcz's questions:

1) Health is just a health bar, no limb damage that I can see. I get the impression from the augments list that there might be an overshield of some sort later. The augments list is definitely more interesting than Invisble War's, but doesn't look like it has any 'either/or' choices like the first game.

2) Ammo is indeed seperate for each gun. The inventory is basically the same as the one in Deus Ex. You can have it auto arrange stuff in there for you, or switch that off and shuffle the stuff around the grid yourself randomly (later augments give you more slots).

3) Vending machines are props. Nothing more. Which is weird given they've made all the toilets, sinks and urinals interactive...