Malf on 2/6/2010 at 10:30
I didn't kill a single person in my first playthrough. Anyone I took down, I did via stealth takedown, CQC or tranq dart.
Well, that's a lie, as I did snipe Darcy, but there didn't appear to be any other option, which disappointed me.
After the first boss encounter in Saudi, I was hoping there would be stealthy means of taking out all the bosses, but instead it degenerated into typical boss fights where your normal moves didn't work. That pissed me off a bit, especially when as a recruit I poured all of my points into Stealth, Sabotage and Martial Arts. I wish some developers would be brave enough to abandon the boss paradigm and treat them just like any other enemy.
Of course, except for Darcy, all other boss encounters gave me a choice of what to do with them after defeating them, which was nice.
mothra on 2/6/2010 at 11:02
did you play on hard ? so you tranq darted Brayko ? how did you do that and stay alive. on hard he needs 2 hits with the knive to my frail stealth body without any armor and I'm dead. also: how can you do the moscow embassy mission stealthy ? I killed noone and still got the "embassy guards were shot" thing ???? that's another bug imo.....
Malf on 2/6/2010 at 11:54
Quote Posted by mothra
did you play on hard ? so you tranq darted
Brayko ? how did you do that and stay alive. on hard he needs 2 hits with the knive to my frail stealth body without any armor and I'm dead. also:
how can you do the moscow embassy mission stealthy ? I killed noone and still got the "embassy guards were shot" thing ???? that's another bug imo.....
Didn't play on hard, but tranq darts damage bosses. The rest was CQC. By the time I fought
Brayko, I'd maxed out martial arts.
Oh, and I think you're right about the embassy too. I took down every single guard with even using my tranqs, and just CQCed all the guys in the final courtyard, yet still got my handler complaining about me killing people.
mothra on 2/6/2010 at 12:04
wow, maxed out. so you did not start with the moscow hub first ?
I am at the end of my soldier/hard playthrough and about half with spy/hard. And I must say: I will give up and restart with spy/normal. The game just works against you, if the mechanics would work and the kb-mouse input be more reliable (even ME2 failed in a few aspects although it's the considerably better shooter) I would gladly try stealth again. Even Soldier, the easiest imo is a chore on hard. Btw, I even tried a few missions to ghost but only managed to ghost a few rooms. The game tends to have hidden triggers and if you avoid them by not killing/disabling and ghosting you can trigger it later which means: Baddies respawn IN YOUR FACE !!!
Malf on 2/6/2010 at 12:17
Nah, I went Rome > Tai Pei > Moscow.
This time though, I've learned that you can change hubs whenever you like, so I'm going to mix it up, see if I can get some interesting character encounters outside of their hubs.
I loved Heck, Nolan North's character in this. He was just completely batshit. I always joined in with his insanity when I was speaking to him or mailing him, and the results were always hilarious. Okay, sure, it was basically a manic, slightly psychotic Drake, but that's no bad thing :D
He even looked a bit like Drake.
mothra on 2/6/2010 at 12:41
yeah, after moscow I did jump to Rome for 2 missions, got frustrated at another stealth-broken mission and hopped to Taipei. The game does a formidable job of aknowledging everything you did, some characters you meet know things of you already, I think that is the main reason I keep playing it. If it would not have had this story options and tense dialogue scenes I would have stopped after the first bossfight in Saudi. I think I did put 40 hours into it and only finished one char and have 2 others running.
btw, what is so hard to do profiles in the game menue ? so you can switch without troubles between different careers ? Another annoying thing to add to the big list of no-no's.
let's see:
Deus Ex 1 + Call of Cthulu + Vampire Bloodlines + Alpha Protocol (the rpg part) ==
DX3 in my dream world.
Jason Moyer on 2/6/2010 at 20:16
Anyone playing as a Recruit on their first playthrough and bitching about the stealth/hacking being too hard/cumbersome needs whacked in the fucking head, stat.
Re: the the hacking, if the mouse control wouldn't be so floaty or you could use WASD for the left side and numpad/arrows for the right side it wouldn't be bad. Then again I'm starting out with my hacking skill upgraded so maybe it sucks more otherwise.
Playing a Freelancer with a balanced focus on stealth, pistols, and gadgets. Also a severe focus on hitting on every chick and being a jackass to every male authority figure. So I'm a male Cate Archer with a libido.
Xenith on 2/6/2010 at 21:51
I'm really enjoying this. I don't find the minigames hard (said it before, started out a Recruit), although I wish I wouldn't have to strain my eyes when hacking. For some reason it's a bit hard to see sometimes where those code snippets are. The only thing that annoys me is the camera, because it spazez out like it's having a seizure sometimes and confuses the heck out of me. There was one time where I couldn't aim properly because of that and I ended up pulling out the assault rifle for two guys that I could have taken from afar with the pistol neatly. Also, one time I just strolled out of cover and got seen accidentally.
I just finished Saudi Arabia and headed out to Tai Pei. I'm really liking the way it turned out so far story wise. I'm getting used to the gameplay a little bit more. I don't see anything wrong with all the yellow thingies that show you where stuff is or where you can climb things and so on, but I can't help feeling that there were so many more other stealthy paths I could have taken on a map instead of climbing the specific box arrangement in the middle of an enemy base. Eh, no big deal though.
Cool game.
Jason Moyer on 3/6/2010 at 00:08
Chris Avellone can bear my children.
(
http://www.simracingsucks.com/jasonmoyer/stuff/suave.jpg)
The camera spazzing out is really shitty. That's probably my only real gripe so far, going through Saudi Arabia. I thought the walking/running animations were awkward initially, but they're not that bad once you get used to them. The game is playing surprisingly close to how I expected for some reason.
