Deus Ex Franchise - Immersive Sims

[Dom Cruise]

Or at least finish the cliffhanger of a plot from Mankind Divided. The Czech Rep. setting was cool and immersive but it didn't feel like the globe trotting conspiracy you find yourself in Human Revolution.

Haven't played that one yet, you're telling me it's only set in one city? Talk about missing the point.

When I first played it, I went with the Tong ending, but whenever I replay it, I now choose Helios. I guess I became more cynical.

The Tong ending has its heart in the right place, but the inevitable result would be global famines, insurgencies and murder. Anarchy breeds brutal oppression, since the guy with the biggest stick ends up ruling over everyone else.

The Illuminati ending is kind of cool, but on one hand, you just know JC would get Eppsteined eventually and even if he didn't, at some point someone else would take over anyway and the kind of power you created would allow them to do whatever they like.

Helios ending at least leaves you in charge, so you can safeguard humanity against all these other fuckers. It's a dictatorship in a way, but at least it's not a dictatorship run by some asshole with a big stick who crept on top of the cinder pile of the Tong ending or a dictatorship by old men playing at ruling the world in the Illuminati ending.
Also, as an omniscient AI god, you can manipulate every vending machine to sell only lemon lime.

The Helios ending is creepier in Invisible War, the Illuminati ending seems more well rounded but is creepy it's own way and the other two endings are full on nightmarish, it's interesting how the games don't give you a clear cut "good ending"

FTFY.

It's not just games, new movies in old franchises deliberately go out of their way to screw over old fans and to make a product as chokeful with toxic ideology that has no reason to be there as possible. You oftentimes feel like these movies aren't even pretend to attempt to be entertaining. They are outright garbage start to finish. Same with games, books and so on.

People in the entertainment industry have stopped trying to produce entertainment or art, their only mission is to spite their enemies, the only thing they have to say is "I'm better than you", it's a weapon to demoralize us, they know we hate that shit and they get off on our misery.

I'm really wondering what Hollywood will do once they have fucked up every single franchise of the 80s and 90s with terrible reboots. Will they go back further and fuck over franchises of the 60s and 70s? I doubt it, those can't be milked for millenial nostalgia. Maybe some smallscale attempts (like "Little House in the Prairie - Woke Edition"), will they instead turn towards original stuff? Ha. Fuck me. Can't even write that with a straight face. Nah, come 2030, everything will be rebooted again. Look forward to wokefied Marvel remakes.
To paraphrase a book as relevant today as ever:
If you want a vision of the future, imagine reboots regurgitating Hollywood stinkers -- forever.

What's next is the death of story and art, entertainment in the future will be stuff like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, meaningless distractions no different than the centrifugal bumble puppy in Brave New World, art and storytelling might make people think and we can't have that.

That's what comes next after the dare I say purposeful ruination of our culture.

Seems to be the theme of Eidos' Deus Ex games. HR was also blatantly unfinished when it came out. The game was still a blast and I think it holds up even to the likes of the original DE in places, but it's one of gaming's biggest "what if"s. Just imagine an Upper Hengsha hub... now that would have been amazing, the contrast between the shitty, dystopian Lower Hengsha and the super-clean iPod-design of Upper Hengsha (which would be undeniably equally as dystopian, just in different ways).

Man...
View attachment 2533198

I really don't understand why HR had to be a 2011 game and not a 2012 game so they could add more to it, same deal with why Mankind Divided had to be 2016 instead of 2017.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

The Helios ending is creepier in Invisible War, the Illuminati ending seems more well rounded but is creepy it's own way and the other two endings are full on nightmarish, it's interesting how the games don't give you a clear cut "good ending"

I never managed to play IW until the end. I played it a year after it came out and stopped in... Egypt. Maybe? I dunno. I think it was some sandy place where I got stuck and just couldn't convince myself I enjoyed that game enough to overcome whatever hurdle had stopped me. I attempted to play it last year (after finishing Deus Ex shortly before) and boy does it suck.

For at least a decade, I said the mantra "It's a decent game, it's just not a good Deus Ex sequel. It's good if seen on its own." But nope. The game is trash. I tried to be fair. I tried to give it a shot, but it sucks and the list of things that pissed me off in the first hour or so could fill an entire page.

I mean, no disrespect to those that like and enjoy it, but I can't find anything positive about it except one thing: Passive augmentations. Everything else makes me shudder.

art and storytelling might make people think and we can't have that.

That's what comes next after the dare I say purposeful ruination of our culture.

A German entertainer (the kind that we unfortunately no longer have) was once asked in an interview what he thinks about trashy TV shows dumbing down their audiences. His response was this: "I don't think that these bad shows dumb down their audiences, it's the audiences that choose what to watch - and by doing so, they create their own programm. If no one watched these trashy shows, they'd be off the air in no time and something better was on."

I think what the guy said holds true. I know you buy into the whole shishkabibble about (((someone))) trying to dumb people down by shitty movies and TV, but to me, the thing the entertainer said just holds true: If people didn't want to watch that garbage, they'd watch something less shitty. But there's obviously a market for this lowest common denominator bullshit, so that's why we get more of it.

Of course, Hollywood and its investment structure somewhat changes things, cause as long as some faggot is convinced that "Dangerhair TransThor: Dilating Wars" will sell, he'll allow blatantly obvious ideological bullshit to be made by an out-of-touch elite of first-world-problems ivory-tower cocksuckers who have identified the most evil creature imaginable: White men. Not saying there's not a shitty ideology at play here, I just think it's not wise to discard the fact that the masses vote with their wallets, and a lot enjoy formulaic Marvel capeshit or Dr. Pimple Popper or whatever and they don't give enough of a shit to really get annoyed by feminazi stuff like Captain Mehvel beating up a guy for winking at her suggestively.
Overall, it's not a single entity's deliberate work to create shitty shows to make people complacent voter-cattle. It's in large part something they do to themselves and that's even more sad.

I really don't understand why HR had to be a 2011 game and not a 2012 game so they could add more to it

It was all about the money. The game went over budget and took longer than expected, Eidos got squirmy and forced the studio to release the game in a half-finished state. Those boss-battles in the original, pre-patch game were atrocious. I mean, everything you need to know about how buttfucked the game was on release is this: The game had a trophy for a non-lethal playthrough that ignores you killing the bosses, cause you can't get past them without killing them. And the bossfight against that cloaking lady was pure misery.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I never managed to play IW until the end. I played it a year after it came out and stopped in... Egypt. Maybe? I dunno. I think it was some sandy place where I got stuck and just couldn't convince myself I enjoyed that game enough to overcome whatever hurdle had stopped me. I attempted to play it last year (after finishing Deus Ex shortly before) and boy does it suck.

For at least a decade, I said the mantra "It's a decent game, it's just not a good Deus Ex sequel. It's good if seen on its own." But nope. The game is trash. I tried to be fair. I tried to give it a shot, but it sucks and the list of things that pissed me off in the first hour or so could fill an entire page. I mean, no disrespect to those that like and enjoy it, but I can't find anything positive about it except one thing: Passive augmentations. Everything else makes me shudder.

I have a soft spot for IW because I played it on the Xbox in 2003 and was both too young to really know any better and also games with that level of freedom were still very much a novelty, replaying both the first game and IW in 2010 I could tell IW was definitely not as good but still had a decent time with it, no clue what I'd think of it today though.

A German entertainer (the kind that we unfortunately no longer have) was once asked in an interview what he thinks about trashy TV shows dumbing down their audiences. His response was this: "I don't think that these bad shows dumb down their audiences, it's the audiences that choose what to watch - and by doing so, they create their own programm. If no one watched these trashy shows, they'd be off the air in no time and something better was on."

I think what the guy said holds true. I know you buy into the whole shishkabibble about (((someone))) trying to dumb people down by shitty movies and TV, but to me, the thing the entertainer said just holds true: If people didn't want to watch that garbage, they'd watch something less shitty. But there's obviously a market for this lowest common denominator bullshit, so that's why we get more of it.

Of course, Hollywood and its investment structure somewhat changes things, cause as long as some faggot is convinced that "Dangerhair TransThor: Dilating Wars" will sell, he'll allow blatantly obvious ideological bullshit to be made by an out-of-touch elite of first-world-problems ivory-tower cocksuckers who have identified the most evil creature imaginable: White men. Not saying there's not a shitty ideology at play here, I just think it's not wise to discard the fact that the masses vote with their wallets, and a lot enjoy formulaic Marvel capeshit or Dr. Pimple Popper or whatever and they don't give enough of a shit to really get annoyed by feminazi stuff like Captain Mehvel beating up a guy for winking at her suggestively.
Overall, it's not a single entity's deliberate work to create shitty shows to make people complacent voter-cattle. It's in large part something they do to themselves and that's even more sad.

It isn't entirely a top down conspiracy, part of it is simply the fact that a generation of people turned out to be narcissistic, sociopathic scumbags and the media they create reflects that, but you also have to look at the environment that generation grew up in and ask yourself the question of how much they were purposely directed down that path.

But while it's fun to conspiracy theorize (I mean hey, Deus Ex is a whole series about that) it could just come down to the simple fact that most people are dumb and mean and have always been that way, it's just that modern technology has given them the power to hurt others like never before.

It was all about the money. The game went over budget and took longer than expected, Eidos got squirmy and forced the studio to release the game in a half-finished state. Those boss-battles in the original, pre-patch game were atrocious. I mean, everything you need to know about how buttfucked the game was on release is this: The game had a trophy for a non-lethal playthrough that ignores you killing the bosses, cause you can't get past them without killing them. And the bossfight against that cloaking lady was pure misery.

Yeah, I remember the bossfights sucked, I know they fixed that in the Director's Cut but I've read that on PC the DC has newfound crashes, I enjoyed my time with HR well enough when it first released but I'm not sure I care to revisit it, I'd rather put that times towards revisiting the original again.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

Haven't played that one yet, you're telling me it's only set in one city? Talk about missing the point.

The intro sequence of Mankind Divided takes place in Dubai, but after that the story begins and you spend the rest of the game in Prague and some other location in the Czech Rep.

 

[Dom Cruise]

The intro sequence of Mankind Divided takes place in Dubai, but after that the story begins and you spend the rest of the game in Prague and some other location in the Czech Rep.

It's not really Deus Ex if you're not globe hopping, reminds me of how there was no dive bar in Detroit in HR even though dive bars were in both the first and second games, it's a perfect example of "knowing the words but not the music"

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I have a soft spot for IW because I played it on the Xbox in 2003 and was both too young to really know any better and also games with that level of freedom were still very much a novelty, replaying both the first game and IW in 2010 I could tell IW was definitely not as good but still had a decent time with it, no clue what I'd think of it today though.

I guess I might be more benevolent on the game if I had played it and enjoyed it a lot back in the day, but there are just too many things that rub me the wrong way about the game. It doesn't really pick an ending for DE and runs with it, it sorta blends them all together. Instead of a slow burn with the conspiracy stuff, it shows you right away that your living quarters are being supervised and that the company you work for is into shady shit.
And that's before I get into the poor level design, bad world building, the worst ammo-mechanic I have ever seen in a game and balancing issues. Last year, I just went with melee weapon and clobbered anything to death cause that way, I didn't have to deal with that ammo nonsense.

Though admittedly, the Typhoon Mexican New Year augment in HR was almost as silly as the ammo in IW.

Yeah, I remember the bossfights sucked, I know they fixed that in the Director's Cut but I've that on PC the DC has newfound crashes, I enjoyed my time with HR well enough when it first released but I'm not sure I care to revisit it, I'd rather put that times towards revisiting the original again.

Well said. I tried replaying HR last year after being bummed out by IW... sheesh. The game aged like milk. The graphics looked great back in the day, but now, I think the original is the game with graphics that hold up the best. They were lackluster on release, but in their own weird way, they still hold up. In IW everyone looks like a sex doll and all objects feel like they are made of styrofoam, HR also looks very plastic-y and weird.

Meanwhile, I was endlessly amazed when I realized that DE has characters with 3D modelled mouths.
DE's graphics and design aged like wine, they are better now then they ever looked before.

But while it's fun to conspiracy theorize (I mean hey, Deus Ex is a whole series about that) it could just come down to the simple fact that most people are dumb and mean and have always been that way, it's just that modern technology has given them the power to hurt others like never before.

I think we have a weird mix where producers want the cheapest product with the broadest appeal and lowest risk while audiences want some light entertainment and are happy enough to enjoy something formulaic and inoffensive. When you add the kind of political bullshit that white upper class trust-fund kids come up with and hand them over the control over your franchises, you have a recipe for desaster. Doesn't help that the writers strike put a lot of decent writers out of commission and they got replaced either by cheap talentless hacks or by cheap talentless hacks with an agenda.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I guess I might be more benevolent on the game if I had played it and enjoyed it a lot back in the day, but there are just too many things that rub me the wrong way about the game. It doesn't really pick an ending for DE and runs with it, it sorta blends them all together. Instead of a slow burn with the conspiracy stuff, it shows you right away that your living quarters are being supervised and that the company you work for is into shady shit.
And that's before I get into the poor level design, bad world building, the worst ammo-mechanic I have ever seen in a game and balancing issues. Last year, I just went with melee weapon and clobbered anything to death cause that way, I didn't have to deal with that ammo nonsense.

Oh yeah, the ammo thing in IW is infamous, you can see what they were going for, not wanting penalize players for picking such and such gun but not finding enough ammo for it, but they didn't think it through well enough and realized that having universal ammo only created more problems than it solved and part of the spirit of the first game was having to improvise.

Though admittedly, the Typhoon Mexican New Year augment in HR was almost as silly as the ammo in IW.

Which one was that exactly?

Well said. I tried replaying HR last year after being bummed out by IW... sheesh. The game aged like milk. The graphics looked great back in the day, but now, I think the original is the game with graphics that hold up the best. They were lackluster on release, but in their own weird way, they still hold up. In IW everyone looks like a sex doll and all objects feel like they are made of styrofoam, HR also looks very plastic-y and weird.

Meanwhile, I was endlessly amazed when I realized that DE has characters with 3D modelled mouths.
DE's graphics and design aged like wine, they are better now then they ever looked before.

Oh yeah, I know what you mean about DX1's graphics, they have a distinct charm, I think what often happens with old graphics is your imagination kind of fills in the blanks, whereas when graphics are more recent and thus more "realistic" but still old enough to be dated it sticks out more to you more like an uncanny valley thing.

I think we have a weird mix where producers want the cheapest product with the broadest appeal and lowest risk while audiences want some light entertainment and are happy enough to enjoy something formulaic and inoffensive. When you add the kind of political bullshit that white upper class trust-fund kids come up with and hand them over the control over your franchises, you have a recipe for desaster. Doesn't help that the writers strike put a lot of decent writers out of commission and they got replaced either by cheap talentless hacks or by cheap talentless hacks with an agenda.

I often wonder why everything seems like varying degrees of shitty since 2007 and forget about the writer's strike being one key reason why, thanks for that, Hollywood.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Oh yeah, the ammo thing in IW is infamous, you can see what they were going for, not wanting penalize players for picking such and such gun but not finding enough ammo for it, but they didn't think it through well enough and realized that having universal ammo only created more problems than it solved and part of the spirit of the first game was having to improvise.

When I read in an article that the guns in IW all use the same ammo pool, I thought the idea was so ungodly stupid, I expected this to only apply to new guns in IW and there'd still be the guns from DE with regular ammo, simply cause I could not fathom someone would go for such a game mechanic and nothing else

The very idea of some nano-sludge turning into napalm for a flamethrower, rockets for an RPG or bullets for a regular gun is way too silly for me.
I just love running out of ammo for literally every gun I own at the same time. It meant that the game essentially bullied you out of using almost all ranged weapons and give up on the fun you might have using them in favor of using whatever gun is the most 'fuel efficient'. Oni was a weird and glorious cyberpunk beat-em-up-shooter hybrid and even that game, that forced you to use weapons as little as possible, gave you two seperate types of weapons using two seperate pools of ammo.

It also makes no sense that everyone suddenly has these nano-sludge-based weapons.
The Cyberpunk 2020 PnP had the right attitude, that book outright stated that guns like the AK47 won't go anywhere no matter what will ever happen. Those guns are tried and tested designs that will not go fully out of style for a long time.

tl;dr: Yeah, the gun thing was really not a smart idea.

Which one was that exactly?

The one that launches grenades out of your arms and makes everything explode around you. I can't help but imagine generic mexican fiesta sounds and fireworks when I see that thing go off.

Oh yeah, I know what you mean about DX1's graphics, they have a distinct charm, I think what often happens with old graphics is your imagination kind of fills in the blanks, whereas when graphics are more recent and thus more "realistic" but still old enough to be dated it sticks out more to you more like an uncanny valley thing.

Though when HR came out, the graphics really impressed me (well, the tiny heads on people looked silly, it was a design decision the makers ultimately regretted when release rolled around but by then it was too late to change). Other than that, I have to give massive props to HR. The design was top notch, it not only looked great, but I also could believe that it was set in the DE world - with some give or take of course. HR looked more futuristic than DE and had this weird victorian style everywhere, but I can accept that as being necessary for a game that is made a decade after the original. There's just different standards that it has to meet. And besides: it gave it an almost Blade-Runner-like feeling at times, so that's a plus.
I even liked the piss filter.

On a sidenote:
My biggest issue with HR was that melee was "push button to kill/knock out enemy" only. I would have loved regular melee combat in that game, the QTE-like style they went with was just so boring.

 

[Snekposter]

The one that launches grenades out of your arms and makes everything explode around you. I can't help but imagine generic mexican fiesta sounds and fireworks when I see that thing go off.

Its a great weapon although the fact you can pop off the fireworks and keep your trenchcoat intact is hilarious. That said, Jensen's trenchcoat puts JC's to shame. I'm a sucker for gold thread on black like he has. And neo-victorianism makes a lot of sense. Its the sort of baroque ostentation you'd expect from such a dividing and divided society, plus it evokes memories of the Gilded Age, which is important since this is basically a second one of those.

And don't forget the recharging stuff. The augments for that were pretty meaningless since you could only recharge a partially-depleted bar, and you almost never had those.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

I really like the gold and black color theme in HR too. The game is cyberpunk/scifi/police detective/neo noir so it really sets the mood well.

 

[evilsponge]

I really like the gold and black color theme in HR too. The game is cyberpunk/scifi/police detective/neo noir so it really sets the mood well.

Playing the directors cut version of HR with no gold filter felt weird

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Its a great weapon although the fact you can pop off the fireworks and keep your trenchcoat intact is hilarious. That said, Jensen's trenchcoat puts JC's to shame. I'm a sucker for gold thread on black like he has. And neo-victorianism makes a lot of sense. Its the sort of baroque ostentation you'd expect from such a dividing and divided society, plus it evokes memories of the Gilded Age, which is important since this is basically a second one of those.

And don't forget the recharging stuff. The augments for that were pretty meaningless since you could only recharge a partially-depleted bar, and you almost never had those.

I think at one point in the game, I was forced to get that upgrade and use it... if I am not mistaken for the invisible chick boss fight. That one was bullshit on steroids in the original release of the game, until I realized that the best defense is to wait till she's close, hit her with the typhoon and then, while she's staggered, just throw every piece of explosives I got at her feet

Can't deny its effectiveness, but it's a really silly weapon.

 

[Myles the Potatophile]

I played this right after 9/11 and haven't forgotten it. I replay it every few years and it feels less and less like fiction each time. The follow-up games don't even scratch the surface on material like the first game did.

Over the years I listen to the most insane conspiracy shit because it's always turned out to be true in the end, anyway.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Just replayed Deus Ex with the Give Me Deus Ex mod. Very good time. Still fun and better than both the salami and the bologna combined.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Just replayed Deus Ex with the Give Me Deus Ex mod. Very good time. Still fun and better than both the salami and the bologna combined.

GMDX should be considered the gold standard of overhaul mods. Everything about it makes complete and utter sense. The changes they made to level design makes total sense and nothing clashes with the original game. I don't think the old Ion Storm team would have any gripses with the tweaks the modders made.

It's a type of tasteful overhaul I wish could happen for Morrowind, System Shock 2, and Fallout New Vegas so I wouldn't have to tinker with 15+ some odd mods to get those games to my ideal.

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

Invisible War is fucking trash

 

[biozeminadae1]

one of the plot elements would have involved the Chinese secretly trying to take over the US, what an absurd premise.

Deus Ex: Manchurian War
Chinese taking over the USA is surprisingly an old plot idea.

Invisible War is fucking trash

It's really only the first game that's good. The Square games aren't really what I want from sequels to Deus Ex. And all this Golden Age/Bronze age bullshit with the tints and tech in Human Revolution with Renaissance clothing is the most pretentious thing.

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

Alright boys, time for the ultimate question that any self respecting Deus Ex player knows by heart...

Which ending did you choose, and why was it Helios?

Wait, there are endings other than Helios!?

 

[LightDragonman1]

Two others, but as I'm sure we all know, those feel like much worse options.

On the note of immersive sims, at the risk of being dogpiled, I actually would argue that Zelda Breath Of The Wild, while not completely one (the head of Arkane Studios even lamented how Gerudo Town only allowed one way to get into it), is filled to the brim with the mechanics and interactivity that are hallmarks of this sort of design. There's a reason as to why people are still sharing videos and discoveries of what all they can pull off in the game, years after its initial release. Because like the games of Looking Glass and Ion Storm Austin, it gives you a whole bunch of tools, and then just lets you go wild with how you use them, with multiple ways of interacting with the game world.

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if that is why it has become one of the most acclaimed games of the 2010s.

 

[Mullti Port RDRAM]

I know this is a Deus Ex thread but can we give some love to Arkane's Prey? I love this game dearly and it felt like the real Bioshock 3. And now Arkane is making trash for Xbox. Sad.