Flamineo on 6/11/2001 at 23:42
New here; greetings one and all, and that.
Finally started playing this thing after reading coverage about dynamic plot, multiple solution paths, showering of awards, etc, etc, with the assumption that I'd want to go through it a few times. Because the plot is supposed to be unusually decent, I've done my best to avoid excessive spoilerage so I don't know much about where it's heading.
The gameplay mechanics seem decent enough so far -- SS2 with nicer level design, cleaner interface, prettier renderer, oh, and people who aren't dead yet. Shame about the dire sound propagation, but you can't have everything. However, from what I've gleaned of the game's reputation I wasn't expecting to encounter a moustache-twirling camp villain in the introductory movie clip.
[Possible early-game spoilers for anyone in a similar position follow.]
The fact I'm presumably at least indirectly working for Dr Evil, coupled with the info I pulled off everyone else's terminals at UNATCO when playing the demo in nosey, unprofessional bastard mode (out-of-character knowledge, but never mind) make it insultingly obvious that the designers "want" JC to turn against UNATCO at some point.
So, naturally, I've gone out of my way so far to do exactly as I'm told, which I thought would be good fun in a role-playing sort of way. I certainly don't sympathise with the NSF, so it's not been as hard a role to get into as I'm starting to wonder if it was supposed to be. Up to assassinating Lebedev I'm sure I've done nothing much to annoy UNATCO. I listened in on the conversation between Manderley and Simons because I couldn't work out any other way to advance the script, but I didn't try to follow him to the interrogation cells despite the "don't look in the basement" prompts that wouldn't have felt out of place in a Square RPG. Next mission starts and, bang!, Paul's on the run and I'm helping him out by looking for proof of what nasty people UNATCO really are, as if I still need to. Out of interest, I tried blowing up Navarre instead: different conversation with Manderley, same plot.
So far I'm feeling somewhat disappointed, which probably owes a great deal to my preconceptions and very little to the game. Without giving too much away, could someone let me know if I'm coming at this from the wrong angle? I think I was expecting a storyline vaguely akin to Planescape: Torment in terms of openness. Instead, it looks so far like the central conflict is fairly uncomplicated good vs evil (ok, oppressed, desperate and struggling to survive vs near-omnipotent conspiracy of cackling evil genius types), and aside from the window-dressing of Paul and the grizzled veteran guy at UNATCO not liking me very much any more, the plot is on rails.
My apologies if I seem overly negative -- I don't mean to. The point is, I'm new to Deus Ex and suspect I've misunderstood what its much-vaunted open-endedness actually is -- we're talking about deciding how (or, for the really patient, whether) to incapacitate the bad guys and not much else of consequence, right? If so, I don't think I should waste any more time on my current Rather Nasty JC incarnation, since all I've effectively done is skipped some back-story. Might I just as well start again as Stealthy Hacker NSF Sympathising JC (the originally-intended second go) and enjoy the story for what it is? Thanks in advance for any help.
Agent Monkeysee on 7/11/2001 at 00:10
I'd say enjoy the story for what it is. The realities of current (and past) computer capability, coupled with what Ion Storm tried to achieve with this game, resulted in a less open-ended game then would have been possible had it been an RPG or something.
There are some choices you can make throughout the storyline that affect certain details, but overall the plot and progression of the story is pretty much set in stone. It's a good story though, and a fun game. So enjoy it for what it is. Perhaps DX2 will be more open-ended.
Phobia on 7/11/2001 at 16:30
The plot is not a simple good vs evil though it may seem so at that stage of the game. Without giving too much away, it is more of a fairly obvious evil against several lesser evils. There is plenty of choice within the game but in the end you are on a fairly linear path.
Flamineo on 7/11/2001 at 20:32
Ok, glad to hear there at least aren't any unqualified 'nice' conclusions coming. I've skimmed some of the other posts on the game's moral dilemmas and limitations on player freedom -- I don't think there's much here to object to. The game's been frightfully overhyped for what amounts to an FPS with a decent story and some spliced-in RPG elements (remember Strife?), but I suppose hype isn't generally known for its factual accuracy.
One thing I'd disagree with is the claim that technical limitations prevent the player having the freedom to make more significant choices. There's no technical reason the plot couldn't have diverged along a number of branches by tracking responses to key situations. That this can't be done is more a result of the development process: a multi-threaded plot would have taken far longer and/or more people to develop, and would probably not have significantly increased financial return.
I've gone back to Liberty Island with a better idea of the parameters of the game; it is a lot more fun when not trying to play another plot than the one you're in! I've even had an immensely satisfying time running manically around UNATCO HQ hurling a basketball at all my colleagues (and boss). A basketball with vaguely accurate physics! What more could anyone ask for?
Agent Monkeysee on 8/11/2001 at 09:50
The "end result being mostly due to the development process" was kinda what I tried to capture when saying "what Ion Storm attempted to achieve with this game." I didn't get that across though and you're right, part of the problem was the limited development resources in order to make a more complex-branching storyline.
However there are also technical limitations, the main one of which the Unreal engine is NOT an RPG engine and would have most likely needed far more radical reworking in order to handle multiple game paths and a complex web of interrelationships. Secondly the hard drive foot print would get proportionally larger as the game got more complex. The more areas and more characters the more space that takes up and a fully-realized 3-D environment is much more byte hungry than essentially an animated bitmap similar to a Baldur's Gate interface.
rhalibus on 10/11/2001 at 01:06
The "multiple-solutions" philosophy lends itself better to the objectives in the game rather than the plot. You may always go through the same general story, but getting to each plot point requires completing tasks in
your style--this is the main innovation of Deus Ex. Need to get inside a building? pick the lock to the front door. Or find the code to the keypad. Or blow up the door. Or find a different way in through a high window/maintenance shaft/underwater tunnel. Each of these solutions may require a different skill set or conversational path or sacrifice; the combination of these choices produces a rich, immersive world that is ground zero for the next paradigm of interactive entertainment. Deus Ex is nothing more than the proto-holodeck.
So there. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
Flamineo on 2/12/2001 at 15:32
Quote:
However there are also technical limitations, the main one of which [is] the Unreal engine<hr></blockquote>
Hadn't considered that at all; very good point. Actually, the comparison to Strife, in terms of explaining the limitations, is looking ever more appropriate.
Quote:
Deus Ex is nothing more than the proto-holodeck<hr></blockquote>
Yeeees. Doesn't that mean it regularly goes wrong with potentially lethal but ultimately resolvable consequences? I've read an interview with one of the developers since first posting (Witchboy? not sure) in which he reckoned that the multiple solution sleight of hand sometimes works very well, and other times amounts to signposting 'swimmers: west; snipers: up; sneakers: south' in a fairly cheesy manner. I suppose you know it's working really well when you don't notice it at all.
I'm finding the game very diverting now, but I must confess its advancement of the art, for want of a better phrase, feels to me like more of a pigeon step than a quantum leap. Since most people would disagree, I'll just blithely assume I'm wrong and continue hoping Thief 3 will fail to suck.
Homoludens on 3/12/2001 at 07:44
As with any other game with a substantial storyline (i.e., story driven), Deus Ex must stay on a track of linearity to succeed. Take the story away, and you can certainly have a gameworld in which you make your own rules and do whatever you want. But where would that get you, especially in a single player campaign? What Ion Storm has done is set a new template as reference for future titles wishing to be more complex (NOLF was good to use this template). DX has taken the best elements of various genres and composed them delicately, for better or worse: plot progression through puzzle/action combos and branching dialogue (adventure), a full 3D world with potential pitfalls and enemies to negotiate (FPS action/shooter), skills to upgrade, tasks, and excellent interactivity with characters and objects (RPG). The results, I think, were extremely good.
One of the most powerful qualities of DX is that it's fun to play regardless of your age, but if you're an adult you truly do have the upper edge, because it truly is an adult game, not in terms of blood and gore or sex, but in terms of ideas and issues. If you're a fourteen year old you can't possibly understand precisely what is going on, even though you're having a blast throwing LAMs at MJ12s. This, Flamineo, should be one of the crucial values you extract from playing this game.
BTW, this is my favourite review of the game, from Shawn Rider of GamesFirst!: <a href="http://www.gamesfirst.com/reviews/shawn/deus_ex/deus_ex.asp" target="_blank">http://www.gamesfirst.com/reviews/shawn/deus_ex/deus_ex.asp</a>
Flamineo on 3/12/2001 at 23:08
Note: possible minor spoilers.
That is a sterling review. Don't know the site -- is it usually that sound? I'd about despaired of finding a specialist game review site that isn't semi-literate and frequently factually inaccurate.
Quote:
Take the story away, and you can certainly have a gameworld in which you make your own rules and do whatever you want. But where would that get you, especially in a single player campaign?<hr></blockquote>
Daggerfall. Even Planescape: Torment, whose player choices more or less
are the game, is still completely linear if you look only at the main things you have to do to reach the end. And PS:T had a far easier time creating the illusion of freedom than Deus Ex, since it was an extremely old-fashioned text adventure that happened to have graphics, if you see what I mean, and was a much smaller story.
I agree that Deus Ex goes out on a limb by incorporating mature (as you say, distinct from 'adult') content, and I'm thoroughly grateful for that. I'm more doubtful regarding the focus of the story. Only about halfway through, so this is a very premature response, I've often felt subjected to a mixed bag of scattershot references -- medieval philosophy one moment and bog-standard geek culture the next (
what are Area 51 aliens doing in this story?). It's as if the development process involved a bit much 'a-and we could work this in' and not enough attention to narrative coherence. Not that it doesn't leave most of the competition standing, just that I feel video games have further than this to go to escape their current ghettoisation.
I think my only gameplay problem is that the more shooty bits are something of a chore, but that's because I don't like FPS games; fairly dim of me not to expect it. Fortunately, running away seems often to be a valid tactic.
Homoludens on 4/12/2001 at 01:11
I'm pretty much on the same level as you, Flamineo, regarding the 'scatteredness' of ideologies in DX. In the most critical sense, the player is bombarded by so may conflicting issues at hand, on top of struggling to negotiating him/herself just to keep alive and accomplish the given mission. In hindsight it could have been not so much better integrated, but better DISTILLED. Looks like Warren Spector had a gas incorporating all these conspiracy theories into one single campaign, and that is part of the problem, that there are too many things going on. Still, not bad at all for an intellectually sophisticated computer game. I'm curious to see how he'll refine all these ideas for Deus Ex 2.
As far as gameplay, I realized that stealth was much easier than sheer firepower, and this has nothing to do my personal preference for being sneaky. Rather, it was actually more awkward to combat enemies using powerful weapons. It was as if the game design was nudging you to choose stealth over shoot-em-up, which really isn't fair if that's how you want to play.
Semi-spoiler:
BTW, about 2/3 of the way into the game I realized I had to upgrade a couple of my combat skills, especially with the heavy firearms, in order to progress. I'm not sure if if that was the intention of the game.
