quote

if Eidos pulls off Thief 4 in the same vein

You mean Thiaf

Good review, I loved the first Deus Ex and this game really lived up to the hype for me. At times it seems a little dumbed down or casual compared to the first but it's an all-around great game. My only gripe is the boss fights and how they're unskippable... Oh, and the idiotic AI and graphics/character models, but the original Deus Ex had dumb AI and pretty bad graphics for its time too.

The cover system works fine and the regenerating health is pretty much useless anyways. I just wish there was more hubs, they originally planned four I think, and Square made them cut it down to two. I have no idea why they would do that and purposely make the game short, the last mission felt pretty rushed... Without giving away spoilers, the endings were a disappointment and didn't actually show what happened in detail like the first. But it was a prequel so...

I just hope it sold well in the PC community and Square allows them to make a DE4. Hopefully they'll scrap Invisable Wars canon.

This game shows me how much I've changed compared to 8 years ago. I tried to play Invisible War on the Xbox when it first came out and I never played it for more than an hour. And I love playing this game.

chautemoc

Yeah but they are based around the same concepts and approach to gameplay. I remember quite clearly I loaded up the game and kept asking "When the hell am I gonna shoot people?" and have no regard to stealth haha

It's a pity about the terribad 3D vision performance. If anyone cares at all, you can check out my 3D Vision & SLI Impressions thread...Somehow it has over 740 views, but not a single reply >_>

quote chautemoc

Shadow of Death Linked it.

Thanks ^_^

Now it will get even more reviews (and probably still no replies XD).

You can beat the entire game with only killing bosses, and alerting like, maybe ten total guards to your presence. It's only if you either mess up stealthing horribly, or if you actually attempt a frontal assault, that you will ever have to get in a large-scale firefight. I actually didn't kill any robots at all my first run, wasn't aware you could without using the EMP mines I always saved for bosses.
There is more than one correct way to skirt around a situation. If you don't find "The Golden Vent", you're not screwed. Failed hacking attempts set off building alarms, aka guards know you're there. Though hacking is so easy you probably shouldn't be failing.
I liked talking to the characters, well, most of them. Many of the characters actually were interesting to talk to, had ambitions, secret agendas, etc. Some were wafer thin, but not everybody in life is a complicated spyman bent on world domination. Heck, somebody had his bomb armed with the code 0000. The important characters, and some side-shows, all had backstories and connections to others in the town. If you walk around the whore house you can hear people discussing Mei for example, fleshing out her character. The only character I felt was on shaky ground was Hugh.


I've played through three times now, and it really felt like a game where you take out what you put into it. I had a playthrough where I didn't listen to any speech, killed everything that moved, and generally acted like I was playing Call of Duty 6: Chest High Walls Edition. Felt really dull and not all that fun, save for a couple times when I led guards into mine-filled hallways. But when I actually listened, tried to get through situations in interesting ways, had a blast. In a way it's a bit of a vicious cycle. If you take your time and really pay attention and explore, you'll learn a lot about the world and have a ton of fun. But if you're speeding through it on purpose, you'll miss the little side conversations people are having that you can eavesdrop on, the partially-hidden sidequests, the Viagra email, etc. Heck I'm still finding new things on my 3rd/4th playthroughs. There's a ton of crap to do and find.

Load times aren't great but the patch that came through really improved them a lot to the point where they're not so much an issue for me anymore. The only real downer I have about this game is the Aug Edition preorder goodies are a bit all over the place. Extra mission/items aren't there for people who bought it through Steam.

In short, I think it rather deserved the 9/10.

No, actually, I couldn't wait for the game. I played all the Looking Glass snd early stealth games...Thief 1, 2, and 3, Deus Ex 1 and 2 and IW, and System Shock 1 and 2. However, this game has no ambience and no "expanse" if you will. It is too tightly woven. Cubicle after cubicle, staircase after staircase. It is cramped and claustrophobic. I like room to breathe! The load times are hideous, and if you screw up and get spotted it's as long of a wait to reload as it is that the hacking system locks you out and makes you sit there and wait. It is so full of little negative nuances that it ultimately ruins the experience.

Even when you disable a soldier in a hallway or cubicle area, it turns you around so that you are no longer facing the way you were before you disabled the soldier. Then you have to look around and get bearings to drag the body somewhere, and often in the wrong direction, and then get yet another long arse reload when you get swarmed.

It's these little things that keep piling up. The map system is worthless. Splitting the map into tiers doesn't help you when all the streets you are on are dead ends. Over and over, the game FIGHTS you every step of the way to make sure you aren't enjoying it.