Deus Ex 2 first impressions

Epos Nix on 22/11/2003 at 20:11

Quote:

We also now have Thief 3 in Ion Storm's hands... I would have much preffered the project given to Irrational Games... Oh well.

What... the idea of nano-arrows, nano-flash bombs, and nano-potions doesn't sound appealing to you?

In all actuality, I am very disappointed as well. Not just in the demo, but this year as a whole. e3 made it look as if this was THE year of the PC; Half-Life 2, Deus Ex 2, Doom 3, Max Payne 2 coming this year with Thief 3 right around the corner... what more could you want? Well, no Half-Life 2 for the time being, Max Payne 2 lasted a little over half an hour, Doom 3 was shoved to sometime next year and now things look iffy for Deus Ex 2 and possibly Thief 3.

Oh well :(

MechLean on 22/11/2003 at 20:23

At first, I was a bit dissapointed in the demo, but I played it a couple of times anyway, and discovered that even the elements that have drawn the most complaints are good.

I even liked it without the tweaks suggested, I might even keep two .ini files to switch back and forth in the final game, depending on what atmosphere I'm going for at the moment, although I do admit it will be mostly the modded one.

First off, DX:IW is NOT Deus Ex, its a different game. (for instance, the riot prod is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT weapon this time around, and requires a different attitude, and AI behave much differently) I look forward to learning the new mechanics of gameplay, and the potential is great. It's great that Ion Storm took some risks with the franchise, because they pay off nicely.

AI behaves well, the minor problems are easily fixed. Took a gander at the AI ini file and was glad to see that AI reacts on EVIDENCE! You can take down the frount guards 'silently' and the inner guards don't know that it was you, so if you are not conspicuous, they don't attack. Evidence is Auditory, Visual, and Tactile (no more Thief bumps), with explicit difference between primary and secondary evidence. (Someone did this, but who? Was it you? Be suspicious.) MUCH better than in DX1.

In all, I get what Ion Storm was trying to accompllish, and REALLY appreciate it! I was able to get INTO the game!

(Took a couple of hours of finally figuring out how to play well, for instance, you can de-equip your selection by pressing a number key twice, or the number key assigned once more, turning interface to 0%, and learning the alternate key commands for menu browsing)

No reload, simpler inventory, non-intrusive GUI, and no skills IS A GOOD THING once you realize its potential. I often find myself (esp. in RPG's) getting too much into the micro-management and optimization and losing a rapport with the plot and storyline. DX:IW looks very promising in streamlining this! I look forward to strategizing more about how to get out of a particular situation than what item to drop next, which skill to upgrade first, and second-guessing the game mechanics.

I can understand the complaints (not realistic enough, not like DX1 enough, etc.), I had them myself, but now realize that it is very possible to get immersed in this world once you accept the way it behaves (physics, AI health, ammo, control), and the lack of realism actually adds to the immersion once this happens.

I had lost immersion many times when playing Deus Ex the first, and look forward to a much more immersive play this time around. (I finished the game from HK on more in a state of semi-detachment than not)

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My biggest hope: that Ion Storm will allow us to play with the AI a bit via *.ini files, so we can create our own challanges. The basis is there for unprecendented AI, just needs a week's (max) more work to finish its implementation. (Also my biggest peeve about the demo: soooo close to being great, the small problems left over appear enormous).

Long post, at least (I hope) most of it wasn't said before.

David on 22/11/2003 at 20:39

I've gone through it a few times now and it is much more fun than that first frustrating time through.
Movement
After setting the movement speed to 0.8 and the mouselag to 0 in the ini files the movment feels pretty good. Being able to scale fences is cool. Some head bobbing would be nice and jumpng is a little weird, maybe the augmentations at work?

Physics
Good and bad here. The collision boxes could certainly do with some work, cats half way through doors, and barrels clipping each other spring to mind. On the other hand throwing a metal bin at the wall and having it bounce off the wall with a resounding clang while a pillow just slides down the wall is excellent. Death motions were a little...forceful and Alex sure does throw dead guards a long way, maybe that was augs again? It might be explained in the full game.

AI Models
Again with the good and bad. I like <a href="http://www.concretedonkey.net/img/games/dx2/1.jpg">this</a> but I don't like <a href="http://www.concretedonkey.net/img/games/dx2/8.jpg">this</a>. Oh the eyes! Unless they have been at the zyme, in which case fair play I guess.

AI
Shooting the neutral AI two or three times in the head and only having them bitch at you a bit is a little unnerving, for this kind of game I can understand once.
The greasel fight was damn boring, no way in hell would that get a 'World Championship' in real life, even in the underground! :bored:
I took over the landing pad turret (upside down view is a nice touch) and liked the reactions of the AI to my taking potshots at them. That was good.
Once or twice I saw an AI continually playing walking motions while walking into a door as he couldn't seem to find his way round it.
I hope that the AI idle-conversations were cut down to save space because as I was wandering around the bar I heard the same characters having the same conversation eight times. If I hear about his brother Danny once more... ;)

Graphics
Textures - Some are good and some are pretty poor, but I hear that they may be half resolution to save on download size. Ground textures in the greasel section of the bar are nice, didn't notice any obvious tiling of the stains etc.
The lighting is excellent, Alex's flashlight alters the shadows in a pleasing manner, although I think the shadows are a little on the sharp side.

Interface
First run through it was awful, really poor. Now that I've played it more and set the interface to 0% translucency (or whatever it says) I actually quite like it. Sure it isn't terrible intuative and a regular interface would have probably been better, but it isn't hard to get used to.
I want to be able to enter and exit the inventory using a single key, not pressing 'Escape' to accept and leave. Escape is the cancel key, or it should be.
I don't like not being able to move between sections (to the bar for example) while the infolink is active - Not Fun. Also the text is on the large side, giving the user the ability to select a range of sizes would be excellent.
Oh yeah, and the Soy takes up as much space in my inventory as a shotgun? That's big soy. I thought DX2 was an RPG-style thing?

Hacking
I miss the little pictures of the security camera views from DX1, and hacking the ATM should at least take you to the ATM screen and show you who you are stealing from. Pretty please :angel:. I don't really remember DX1 having hacking that was more complex than DX2, but it is a while since I have played it so I may be forgetting stuff.
I prefer the little blue waves from DX1's multi-tool to the lightning bolt from DX2's, but it isn't a big thing.

Weaponry
Meh, I'm not really bothered either way by the unified ammo thing. Only once did I run out of ammo after playing 'shoot the corpse' with my SMG and then I felt silly. :angel:
The pistol is an odd creature, on one hand it takes about eight shots to kill someone, yet a single shot can cause a corpse to dance around like Wayne-fecking-Sleep :weird:
Flamethrower is fun, as is the SMG. I haven't used the shotgun much yet, only to see if I could shoot a door down (I couldn't).

Game World
Destorying items in-game ala Max Payne 2 would be excellent. IE shooting a TV causes the glass to shatter and the Tv to spark and short out - not for the TV to sit there happily while to smack it, until it disappears into a shard (singular) of metal.

Bugs
On one occasion I had deactivated the turrets and cameras using the security terminal behind the fence. Later on I smashed a window in the building and ran to a security terminal to see if I could shut the alarm up (I couldn't I don't think). When I exited this terminal I was magically transported to the first one again. Odd.

Performance
Game performs fine on my machine after I tweaked my driver settings a little. I can run it nicely at 1280x1024 with 4x multisampling and everything turned on high - but then I should be able to, as I have an Uber-PC (Athlon 2500 @ 3200, 1GB DDR400 RAM, FX5900). The only time it became sluggish was when I had three guards shooting at me at the same time, while I was returning fire.

Hrm, that may sound more negative than positive - and to be honest it was the first time I played through it, however I really enjoyed it on subsequent runs. :)

Uncia on 22/11/2003 at 20:48

So far, most complaints are just "it's not the same game with prettier graphics!" disguised behind iffy rationalizations. Stop trying to play it like DE1 and it'll get a whole lot better.

To say nothing of "it didn't enlighten me the moment I ran it, THIEF 3 WILL SUCK!!". And Australia was like WTF mate.

sergeantgiggles on 22/11/2003 at 21:03

I tried that ion storm forum link, but I cant seem to get to the second page of the post (nor any other part of the forum). Could you paste just how to change mouselag to zero, please?

Uncia on 22/11/2003 at 21:27

Get this:
(http://www.deusexzone.info/downloads.php?file_id=451)

Just use the optimal settings [there's a button for them]. Or, you could manually change the MouseLag option to 0 in default.ini, but that one adjusts more parts at the same time.

Morte on 22/11/2003 at 21:28

I hate you all for being able to run the demo. :(

Mine just hangs. At the very latest when a new game has loaded.

Renzatic on 22/11/2003 at 21:29

Something interesting I stumbled across when I was goofing with the default.ini file:

[MetaReader]
StringTagFilename__t=String_Tag_Def.txt
TextFilePath__d=..\Content\DX2\AquiredDataText\english\
TextFilePath__t=..\Content\T3\books\english\

[T3Settings]
BodyAwarenessMode=1
GarrettFootstep=1
PlayAmbientSound=1
PlayTorchSOund=1
DrawHUD=0
HighlightMinLevel=0.5
HighlightMaxLevel=0.76
HighlightAdd=0.02
GhostSpeed=400
CurrentDifficulty=NORMAL
Lookspring=false

Ooooh! Thief 3 stuff.

d'Spair on 22/11/2003 at 21:39

I've always been nervous about DX2 and Thief 3. I've never believed it would be as good as the previous games. But I have NEVER thought it would be SO bad. Damn, now I realize a few things:

1) I don't respect people who love X-Box more then PC.
2) I don't believe any word by Spector starting up from this moment.
3) I don't believe that the full game will be much better than the demo.
4) I think that we should hate X-Box. Really. Praise Valve with their PC-only Half-Life 2. Microsoft will kill us all.

Epos Nix on 22/11/2003 at 21:42

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So far, most complaints are just "it's not the same game with prettier graphics!" disguised behind iffy rationalizations

Actually, after reading that petition, it seems most complaints are of the "you ditched us for the Xbox crowd" variety... and I kinda have the same problem. It's very clear the demo was optimized for the Xbox, even though I've read time and time again that the PC was top priority. It's like getting a card on your birthday with your brother's name in it -- shows someone just didn't give a shit.

And therein lay my biggest gripe: this demo could've been welcomed with open arms, minus any stupid petitions, if they had spent just another half an hour making sure everything looked and played well. I mean, not even a day after its release and people already have it "modded" to a more PC-like form? This could've very easily been avoided and I'm sure Mr. Spector is piping mad right now. And deservedly so.

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Quote:

Praise Valve with their PC-only Half-Life 2

'fraid not... Xbox users get to enjoy HL2 as well. Fortunatly it's being designed from the ground up as a PC game with Xbox port, rather than the other way around.