Deus Ex sucks!

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Capt.Toilet

Good news everyone!
Feb 16, 2004
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Finished the first game last weekend for the first time and I must say it holds up well for its age.

Started the 2nd game straight away and to be honest I really don't see what the problem is. Yeah the quest system is a bit bland, rewards seem to be mostly credits and biomods, and there seems to be no penalty for choosing one way decision or the other. Granted I am only in Cairo so that may change. Inventory also seems to be a tad limited, though I still found it manageable. Also I realize before the patches the game had no quick save feature, but it isn't something that I deem necessary. I also saw people bitching about the constant loading of areas, but they fail to realize that the original had this exact same thing.

Other than those minor issues I still can't see what the big fuss over it was. The story references the first game quite a bit from what I have seen, so it certainly isn't just a sequel in name only. The small story arc with the tarsus academy in Cairo to me was very intriguing, though brief. Is it people just hating to hate?
 
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Jacks:Revenge

╠╣E╚╚O
Jun 18, 2006
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somewhere; sometime?
no.
they're hating because the 2nd game was a monumental let down by comparison to the first.

it was a decent game in its own right.
but it didn't feel like Deus Ex and was constantly plagued by small but annoying gameplay issues. it wasn't very well polished.
 

Sir_Brizz

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 3, 2000
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no.
they're hating because the 2nd game was a monumental let down by comparison to the first.

it was a decent game in its own right.
but it didn't feel like Deus Ex and was constantly plagued by small but annoying gameplay issues. it wasn't very well polished.
Pretty much this. The game was decent and fun, but in comparison to DX1 it was really terrible.
 

haarg

PC blowticious
Apr 24, 2002
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Over there
It also had serious performance issues when it was released, and other issues prior to the first patch, such as the inventory being completely unusable. The levels are also much smaller and with much longer load times. It was one of the first large PC releases that was severely limited because the Xbox was the primary target.
 

Leo(T.C.K.)

I did something m0tarded and now I have read only access! :(
May 14, 2006
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Oh this thread is still going?
Well I did finish Deus Ex two months ago or so, tried all the endings as well although had prefered the dark age one, even though its somehwat broken in the goty, i looked up videos how it looked in original and on PS2 versions too.

I loved the final level though, much better level than many final levels of other games, and too bad that deus ex is plagued by a lot of really mediocre levels such as the first one or the level with the ship bombing.

I started playing the nameless mod, but it gets rather old and is even slower paced, but it is very polished and has many things to do, too bad that it inherited the ghost in the machine levels, would love to play that mod since it was all serious take. I know which levels were ported over though, not all of them were, which makes it even more sad case, someone should have released all the ghost in the machine originals.

I am not planning to play DX2 anytime soon.
 
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Spiney

New Member
Jun 12, 2010
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The thing with Deus Ex is that the game, as a sum of all it's parts, is great. Even though the parts themselves might have been done better.

Sure the weapons felt clunky, the dialog was laughable at times and the story wasn't very remarkable -- though perfectly functional.

All in all, it's one of my favourites.
I recently played the STALKER games, which have a great implicit storyline in a surreal setting. It also uses a RPG-FPS simulation approach.

I tried installing System Shock 2 from an old disc a few weeks ago, but every time the installer would quit on me saying my system didn't meet the requirements. Bummer.
Does anyone know a way to get it working on Windows 7?
GOG.com doesn't have it in their catalogue unfortunately.
 

Vortex Convict

New Member
May 23, 2010
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I only cam across this thread recently, and have only read a few relevant bits. Still, Deus Ex has no more buttons than Unreal 1. The only extra buttons I'm aware of is the right mouse button, which allows you to interact with the environment and put away your weapons simultaneously, and the menu/augmentations buttons. Otherwise, it's still pretty straightforward. If you wish for the action to be better, just train yourself to be a better marksman or melee fighter ahead of time, that way you don't have to wait too long aiming at the enemy's head to dispatch him/her quickly.

I am perplexed why a fan of the Unreal games, especially Unreal 1, would complain about polygonal graphics that are at least more realistic than the polygonal graphics in preceding games. Is it because Unreal Gold/Unreal Tournament 1 are smoother? I personally love it's graphical style, the same way I like the classic polygonal models of Unreal, Quake, and Dark Forces 2. They're like modern art sculptures converted to game graphics.

I do, however, find it strange that the intense AI of Unreal/Unreal Tournament 1 should be lost in Deus Ex. It would have been cool to see the enemies with more animations and movements, but I still think the enemy's AI during the stealth gameplay is remarkable achievement, EVEN if they are easy to dupe (though at times, they can be surprisingly sensitive, if not always slow). So what if they lose you easily? You're a special agent! You're supposed to feel like one! And the point of feeling like one, is that you're smarter than the enemy thinks you are (not to mention, smarter than the enemy themselves). Besides, manipulating the enemy AI to follow you into a vent, or notice that the vent is open, or other AI quirks, have not been mastered yet during that time. It may be mastered now, but enemy AI still has far to go.

As for the stiff animations, when you're coverting an insanely fast game with fluid animations to a slower action RPG with multiple approaches, stiffiness is to be expected. Okay, maybe that's not a good explanation. Look at System Shock 2, for example. It's been praised by PC Gamer for being funner than Half-Life, but it's animations are rather stiff during combat, and are not as sophisticated as Half-Life's. Deus Ex is pretty much the Unreal engine equivalent of System Shock 2, and while both are not super fluid in their animations, their role-playing elements are quite advanced for a first person shooter.

Deus Ex's plot is predictable, but it was never meant to have an unpredictable plot full of twists, like Metal Gear Solid or Legacy of Kain. It's inspired by Metal Gear Solid, but it states right away that the people you working for are conspiratorial evildoers. It's deliberately cartoonish in much of the game, which adds to the game's fun.

In all, Deus Ex is very much the super RPG offspring of Unreal 1. Warren Spector himself said that he appreciated that sophistication that went into Unreal, but felt more could be done with it. He must have noticed how in Unreal, you could choose to explore a level more, either in search of better items, or to learn more about the story. Of course, there's also the element where if you save a Nali from getting killed, or not kill them, they'll help you, and give you a reward. He certainly expands upon this concept, because all of the civilians in Unreal, I think, are Earthling incarnations of the Nali: you either become their savior, or kil them because you hate them, and there are consequences either way.

Take my advice: just try to play the game as is, and experiment with every gameplay tactic you can away with, and see what happens.
Train yourself in the skills you think will make the gameplay easier for you. If you're having a hard time on the difficult setting, play on easy for awhile: you'll enjoy the game more (until you need more of a challenge). If you still can't understand it, play the tutorial level until you feel you know how to do the game (unless of course you, like me, had trouble passing the stealth bit of training, and skipped right to the main game). Keep in mind, too, that you don't have to use every single augmentation just to play the game right, so you don't have to bother with too many buttons. All you need is the WSAD keys, the crouch button, the right and left mouse button, the jump button, and F1 for menu. It's not that hard.

However, I've long since mastered how to play the game, so I am surprised when other are slow at it, so I should be more sympathetic. Although, I do get irritated when Half-Life players complain about jumping in HL1, or about the long-jumping puzzles in Xen, like jumping is the hardest thing to do.

Ed: I see, Leo, that you already beat the game, so don't think that this applies to you. Think of this as applying to others who still don't get the game. ;)
 
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Leo(T.C.K.)

I did something m0tarded and now I have read only access! :(
May 14, 2006
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Yes I did beat the game, I was basically angry at it at the first mission and tutorial. The tutorial did far worse to my enjoyment of the game, if I knew I would have skipped it. But the buttons i talked about I meant were like the separate button for zooming, button for laser sight and the slow menu interaction and all that GUI style that got on my nerves at first.
But yes the aiming system for me was a bit annoying problem at first, until I trained the skills a bit.

And about looks I complained mostly about menu and some of the maps, they are very amateurish, especially compared to Unreal maps or Wheel of Time. Sure they offer lots of choices, but some of them don't and some of them look just plain ugly, like that level with the ship you need to blow up, the outside part of the level. I explored the area all around, so empty and nothing to do much, at the back of the ship etc and the turbine was a really lazy 2D editor job. That was a bad level for me. Could have been done much better, but then again seeing the level designer names, they were all new to this, so it's not a surprise they didn't do as great job in the feeling of the levels as Epic did or Legend.

When you mentioned Xen from Half Life I don't understand why so many hated it. I think the worst level was the one with all those conveyor belts and shit, Residual Processing I believe. That was a really terrible one and much much worse than Xen. Was one of the Casali's levels and I never really liked his design (not even his Doom era work with TNT), until Half Life 2 where he got better (Ravenholm).
 

Vortex Convict

New Member
May 23, 2010
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Perhaps, Leo, you should design your own DEUS EX maps and levels, and show the level designers how to really make DEUS EX more interesting, and more like WHEEL OF TIME and UNREAL. I'd be really curious to see if you could pull it off. ;):D
 

Leo(T.C.K.)

I did something m0tarded and now I have read only access! :(
May 14, 2006
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Perhaps, Leo, you should design your own DEUS EX maps and levels, and show the level designers how to really make DEUS EX more interesting, and more like WHEEL OF TIME and UNREAL. I'd be really curious to see if you could pull it off. ;):D

I think there's already a project doing that, among those conversions, remaking the levels, but well I am just a hobby level designer anyway (and seriously, my own mapping projects take rather long, already had one big project lost years back), but yes I believe I could at least improve a bit on few levels there, in aligment and other stuff mostly (I wouldn't change it too much though). But still it's a decent game and I am glad I played it all the way through (played on Hard btw).
 
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Feb 3, 2010
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as much as I think deus ex (the original) is a good game, and respect it for its gameplay innovations. I can't say its one of those games I have come back to a lot. for me it was an experience I played through back then and had no interest to return to, not because the experience was bad but it never really captivated me in the way other games have.
 

HugoMarques

☆☆☆☆☆
Dec 14, 2010
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We've had 8 pages of opinions of all types of flavours, so the only thing IMO is worth mentioning in this thread ATM is this.

It won't make the game comparable to HR, but a facelift is always welcome nonethless. Personaly I'm on the edge of my butt waiting for this thing...