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toblix

Deus Ex Universe

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There's a trailer out:

 

 

Not sure what to make of the cyborg Magneto antagonist.

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Not sure what to make of the cyborg Magneto antagonist.

 

Yeah, it's all very Brotherhood of Mutants. But the archetype fits well, and can make for an interesting storyline, so I'm willing to go along with it.

 

Jensen's voice still feels generic and silly to me, though, which isn't helped by the generic and silly writing of the trailer (but, you know, it's a trailer).

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I know I'm being a party pooper, but the writing in that trailer. Please... no. Am I old? Is this marketed at 14 year olds? I was younger than that when I played Deus Ex and I liked it because it partially went over my head and didn't pander. I hope it's still a cool systems driven game, but I wish it could be intelligent and subtle too. Not "this is our theme our game is about this isn't it thought provoking also it's a war so you can kill stuff".

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Yup me too. Deus Ex: HR was Ok but Jensen was one of the things I hated about that game.

Really? How come you didn't like him?

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Just watched the trailer, and I'm not happy with the direct reference to Jensen going after the Illuminati. Because we know how that shit turns out.

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Probably the best thing I can say about the Adam Jensen character is he could have turned out a lot worse. Probably my favorite thing from HR was his apartment where I think the game did some nice bits of low key environmental storytelling.

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I guess when I think about it, Jensen was a contrarian, where everyone he spoke to he had to disagree with in some way or another.

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"They've worked from the shadows for years. Their darkness must end!" -Says guy wearing black trench-coat, black metal skin, sunglasses, invisibility cloak in a hushed, gravelly whisper

 

"Innocents have died as they play their game!" -Player protagonist, slicing a dozen throats and straight-up murdering everyone in badass stealth-combo

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"They've worked from the shadows for years. Their darkness must end!" -Says guy wearing black trench-coat, black metal skin, sunglasses, invisibility cloak in a hushed, gravelly whisper

 

"Innocents have died as they play their game!" -Player protagonist, slicing a dozen throats and straight-up murdering everyone in badass stealth-combo

There's innocents and then there's willing soldiers / terrorists / murderers, to be fair.

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And let's not forget that he never asked for the thankless duty of dispatching evil virus authors.

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I know I'm being a party pooper, but the writing in that trailer. Please... no. Am I old? Is this marketed at 14 year olds? I was younger than that when I played Deus Ex and I liked it because it partially went over my head and didn't pander. I hope it's still a cool systems driven game, but I wish it could be intelligent and subtle too. Not "this is our theme our game is about this isn't it thought provoking also it's a war so you can kill stuff".

 

Dues Ex has always been a world so chocked full of over the top conspiracy and villains it always falls into lame action movie trailers and dialog. You can't have FEMA death camps and the Illuminati and not just throw subtlety/intelligence out the window.

 

I found the story and lack of choice in the missions to be really off-putting in HR. Really seems like CoD (silly story and railroad levels) with some RPG elements. I had hoped for something with more open levels with augmentations to accent your playstyle instead of essentially requiring stealth.

 

 

There's innocents and then there's willing soldiers / terrorists / murderers, to be fair.

But if the Illuminati control the media, then those soldiers/terrorists/murders mostly just sheeple being tricked into following. Aside from bosses, it wasn't clear how many true believers there were in HR. How many of the people you kill in HR would have made the right choice if they knew the truth? 

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Dues Ex has always been a world so chocked full of over the top conspiracy and villains it always falls into lame action movie trailers and dialog. You can't have FEMA death camps and the Illuminati and not just throw subtlety/intelligence out the window.

I agree that the conspiracy part of Deus Ex was the least subtle thing ever, I mean, just watch the intro. However, I thought it dealt with for example transhumanism much better (and yes, subtly) than HR which was expressly about transhumanism. They couldn't have made it more about that if they tried and that was part of the problem. Also, the writing in Deus Ex is all over the place in terms of quality, but I think there is some intelligent, thought provoking and prescient stuff in there.

 

Anyway, I know it's just a trailer, but the narration did put me off.

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I really loved Deus Ex Human Revolution, it was very unique for me. I never played the original, so it was fantastic to see a game with such a subtle open-ended level design. It was great to find my own path through the game without clear cues of which approach I should take, and I never really focused on one or other approach, it demanded some variety through the different missions. Another thing that was fantastic were the confrontational dialogues, it actually had some really good reasoning to confront the sloppy answers given by the NPCs. The only weak point of the game for me was its ending.

 

I know that there's some criticism about the game apparentely being a step back when compared to the original, but playing Human Revolution without any baggage was a truly fresh and original experience, one of the highest points of AAA gaming in the recent years for me.

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Worth remembering that the trailers for HR were pretty bad too.

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However, I thought it dealt with for example transhumanism much better (and yes, subtly) than HR which was expressly about transhumanism. They couldn't have made it more about that if they tried and that was part of the problem.

 

In what way was HR about transhumanism? It didn't have a single thing to say about it, augmentations served as a thematic stand-in for technology as a whole. You could do a find and replace of "augmentations" -> "technology" and most of the game's dialogue would still scan perfectly, especially the villain's plot at the end which is when the plot ostensibly really starts being about augs.

 

I feel exactly the opposite, for a setting with cyborgs, I'm not sure they could have been any less about transhumanism if they'd tried. The original had things to say, about power, governance, technology. HR had Sarriff saying "Augs are great and are going to help people!" (in vague ways I'll never much explain) versus the villain saying "Augs are bad and are going to hurt people!" (in vague ways I'll never much explain).

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Worth remembering that the trailers for HR were pretty bad too.

 

The original Icarus trailer was one of the best game trailers ever made, if you ask me. I still watch it occasionally even though it didn't resemble the game very much in reality, but I found that forgivable because I loved that game.

 

 

Also, I feel like a lot of you guys are kinda misremembering what the marketing push for Human Revolution was. It was a lot of guns, shooting, stabbing, etc. Not as much as the new trailer, for sure- but it also had to do the setup of who Jensen was, and that's done now. Now, it's how he moves forward- which if you notice, from the moment they're "done" with his introduction to his new body, the trailer went into "lol kill" mode.

 

And as to dialogue, yeah it could be better for sure. Then again, the original Deus Ex's dialogue was pretty awful too. So I dunno.

 

Maybe I've been around too long, but at this point I watch trailers for implied features, art style, soundtrack, and otherwise to hold my attention. Games take a long time to make, and are not nearly as straightforward as movies to reach the conclusion of their development. So making a trailer that is more specific, less generic in a story-dominated game, just sounds like a bad, bad plan to me. Remember, it isn't uncommon for AAA games to have entire levels dropped late in development because of changing story beats.

 

 

In what way was HR about transhumanism? It didn't have a single thing to say about it, augmentations served as a thematic stand-in for technology as a whole. You could do a find and replace of "augmentations" -> "technology" and most of the game's dialogue would still scan perfectly, especially the villain's plot at the end which is when the plot ostensibly really starts being about augs.

 

I feel exactly the opposite, for a setting with cyborgs, I'm not sure they could have been any less about transhumanism if they'd tried. The original had things to say, about power, governance, technology. HR had Sarriff saying "Augs are great and are going to help people!" (in vague ways I'll never much explain) versus the villain saying "Augs are bad and are going to hurt people!" (in vague ways I'll never much explain).

 

Um, what? The game entirely explained both sides, in what was effectively an allegory for economic systems. They help people by allowing humans to accomplish more, be more effective, and thus be able to help more people. Augs are bad by creating an underclass who don't want augs but are effectively punished because they are less effective than those with them, but they think it should be valid to not want your body invaded by technology.

 

This was explained at length, multiple times throughout the game.

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You could do a find and replace of "augmentations" -> "technology" and most of the game's dialogue would still scan perfectly

 

Um, what? The game entirely explained both sides, in what was effectively an allegory for economic systems. Technology helps people by allowing humans to accomplish more, be more effective, and thus be able to help more people. Technology is bad by creating an underclass who don't want technology but are effectively punished because they are less effective than those with it, but they think it should be valid to not want technology.

 

You see my point? It's not about transhumanism because none of that is about augmentations in particular. Everything it says could be said of any technology.

 

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Maybe I've been around too long, but at this point I watch trailers for implied features, art style, soundtrack, and otherwise to hold my attention. Games take a long time to make, and are not nearly as straightforward as movies to reach the conclusion of their development. So making a trailer that is more specific, less generic in a story-dominated game, just sounds like a bad, bad plan to me. Remember, it isn't uncommon for AAA games to have entire levels dropped late in development because of changing story beats.

 

Yeah, it's just a trailer and it's fine on those terms. The trailer for Wolfenstein: The New Order actively turned me off to that game (which turned out to be my favorite shooter since HR despite the lousy marketing). This one just doesn't move the needle either way.

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You see my point? It's not about transhumanism because none of that is about augmentations in particular. Everything it says could be said of any technology.

Your point is valid but I don't see why it's a problem. The fact that there are parallels with the way we use and think about technology now is precisely what makes it such a relatable story that speculates about a road we could start going down quite soon considering recent advancements in robotics and prosthetics.

It's not exactly revolutionary sci-fi, but it still provides a very enjoyable backbone for a game with some of the best mechanics I've enjoyed on years. Admittedly I'm a big fan of stealth games like Metal Gear Solid, which it takes a good few beats from — maybe it's not so great did action-orientated play.

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Maybe I've been around too long, but at this point I watch trailers for implied features, art style, soundtrack, and otherwise to hold my attention. Games take a long time to make, and are not nearly as straightforward as movies to reach the conclusion of their development. So making a trailer that is more specific, less generic in a story-dominated game, just sounds like a bad, bad plan to me. Remember, it isn't uncommon for AAA games to have entire levels dropped late in development because of changing story beats.

Exactly.

It's also worth remembering how some good game trailers - Dead Island - didin't reflect the tone or quality of the game.

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HR was a fantastic game to me because it supported (mostly) a non-lethal playstyle that turned every area into a 3D puzzle to navigate and solve.  If they pull that off again, I'll be happy with it. 

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AAA marketing has to appeal to as wide a range as possible, and thus making it so that it'll appeal to highly informed audience members is a bad idea if it means they alienate uninformed audience members.

 

AAA is eating itself

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Very happy to have more Deus Ex. I was just thinking the other day that I really wanted another good stealth action game again after finishing MGS Ground Zeroes, though it looks from the trailer like they went bonkers on offensive augmentations with which to fuck dudes up with. A little more Raiden than Snake, say. But I must say I like Jensen because he is a character totally in the same vein as JC Denton, who was a ridiculous brooding leather-clad man in retrospect too, but back then that was fine and cool and God help me I dig that Matrix-y stuff.

 

I suppose they will retcon one of the multiple endings, as they did from DX1 to DX2, where Paul Denton was alive and well as opposed to murdered by me.

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Also, I feel like a lot of you guys are kinda misremembering what the marketing push for Human Revolution was. It was a lot of guns, shooting, stabbing, etc. Not as much as the new trailer, for sure- but it also had to do the setup of who Jensen was, and that's done now. Now, it's how he moves forward- which if you notice, from the moment they're "done" with his introduction to his new body, the trailer went into "lol kill" mode.

 

This is basically what I was getting at with my earlier comment. The trailers I remember seeing for HR looked way more action-y and shoot-y than the game we ended up getting.

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I know there's no way they could do it logically, but it's a shame that we won't see more of Malik in this.  Malik was probably my favourite NPC from HR and one of my favourite characters in recent memory.  She was fascinating and interesting and really likeable.  

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