By Alec Meer on December 1st, 2007 at 1:13 pm.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Lest We Forget
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Read our finest words
Respond to our gibber
- Treebard : “Ra is fun. Not my favorite game - bidding mechanics aren't exactly my thing - but as far as bidding games go, it's one of ...” on Cardboard Diaries: A Change Of Pace
- Wizardry : “What do you mean? Is there an implementation of auto-resolved combat where the results end up being just as favourable as if you manually played ...” on Obsidian Want To Know What You Want Them To Make
- DrGonzo : “I thought the art style of hell was really bland. Browny brown brown. Flat dated looking landscapes made of awkward polygons.” on Wot I Think: The Darkness II
- Kadayi : “@Chandos Whats even stranger is that if you play through the commentary tracks of HL2:EP1 & EP2 as Well as Portal 1&2 you'll find that ...” on The Sunday Papers
- Chris D : “Here's Gaiman's full blog post. http://journal.n~ And here's the bit where Hematite disagrees entirely "You're complaining about George doing other things than writing the books ...” on The Sunday Papers
A BOMB!
I’d forgotten just how out of place that was.
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Another Deus Ex video for chuckles. :) Short but hobo-tastic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G90nxowqGt8
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Wow, that’s wooden.
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Hahaha, I remember seeing that a while back Mark-P.
Best. Video. Ever.
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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IgOKduU05t4
Still the best comic timing in any game video I’ve seen.
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How can DX3 live up to this?
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Lest We Forget, a compilation album by Marilyn Manson.
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A bomb! Oh wait, that’s just my reflection. Nevermind..
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Wait, there’s a BOMB in this post!
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uh….. Uh?
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I’m sorry, can someone explain what point this article is trying to make? Are we supposed to get some perspective that DX wasn’t a perfect game?
Yeah, this moment was a real dud – a jarring note. Though I’d say it is kind of cruel to point and laugh at this tiny and unrepresentative piece of a huge game.
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Kast: relax.
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Damn.
I didn’t realize that that could be avoided.
He blew up in area 52.
RIP Jock.
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If you killed the mechanic on the roof you could save Jock.
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Video’s down :(
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JC DENTON IN DA FRESH!
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OMG!!! WHOA!!! Okay…….lets go.
they get over it so darn quick. Ahhhh, such is the life of a super agent.
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I VANTED ORANGE!
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I always found it somewhat disappointing that uncovering the great assassination attempt was just brushed off by everyone, always felt like it needed some sort of a better conclusion than being shrugged about.
“A worker of yours tried to assassinate my pilot”
“Oh, okay.”
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Alec Meer said: “Kast: relax.”
Relaxing. *Takes deep breaths and counts to 10*
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One of the downsides of recording conversation lines seperately, as usual.
I love how Crimson Skies recorded all of their dialouge with everyone in the same room, just like an old radio drama (or even presumably VO a cartoon). Great stuff, made it all so much more natural since they were always responding appropriate to the previous line.
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If i still haven’t played the first Deus Ex would it be worth doing so now? Or would it just feel incredible dated?
I feel like I’m missing out…
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Get the PS2 version if you can. I find that it plays better and helps accentuate the fact that you’re supposed to be a cybernetically enhanced badass.
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It’s always worth it to play one of the greatest games ever.
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I’d say it’s worth a shot. I suspect the AI will be what ages worst – it was twitchy even then, and now may be deeply inconvincing.
It’s available cheaply from Steam, so I figure it’s worth a shot. I’ve been meaning to replay it myself, actually.
KG
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How is the A.I. any worse than now? I’m not defending it, I’m just saying… A.I. hasn’t really changed since.. I have no idea.
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DX’s AI is fucking horrible in a combat situation.
(It does okay if you bear in mind all the other non-combat situations it has to cope with, but it certainly deals with – say – stealth badly. It’s hearing isn’t very good. Its combat AI is basically running around confusedly, shooting and kneeling randomly. Its animation being penelope pitstop doesn’t help, in that point.)
I may be a little over-criticial on DX because I modded the bloody thing.
KG
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DX’s AI: Fire weapon. Strafe left. Crouch. Stand up. Strafe right. Repeat.
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Both. Lots of things from long before it look better, animate better, sound better, play better. So now it’s something of a horror show, as the above clip reminds us. But it’s worth it to note the various spectrum of options you have for each situation and things like failing certain missions doesn’t end the game and the story reacts accordingly. It doesn’t necessarily react a lot, but it does react and that produced a weird sensation for me.
(And you could actually take many moments and make clips like that and it’d be similarly clunky and hilarious. Deus Ex for all you zealots/fans/lovers etc is like, and this will sound harsh but it’s not, a day time soap opera; most moments are hilariously bad to the unfamiliar and couldn’t win people over emotionally with its acting, production values and dialogue by itself. But you give it a chance and the complexity hooks people and you want to know what happens next. There’s more to it obviously, but analogies are like that.)
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Dracko: you’re forgetting the most astonishing part of the AI. Take Damage. Run Away.
The amount of time I spent legging it after NSF troopers with the crowbar…
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That voice clip was A BOMB!
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JC and Jock the talking helicopter as the Knightrider follow-up that never was.
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Also, shouldn’t Jock’s accent have been Scottish? BY LAW?
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A BOMB!
(Sorry. I just can’t seem to stop saying that this weekend.)
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It’s the little things in life…
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How much will I get flamed if I say I never played Deus Ex. I played the first level, didn’t really like it and never went back.
Should I be hitting myself with Birch twigs?
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Not really – almost everyone I know hated the first level of Deus Ex. Ironically, it improves dramatically after that (personally, when I replayed it, I cheated through the first level just to get it over with).
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Deus Ex is the best single player game I’ve ever played. I didn’t mind the first level so much, but I know it turned a lot of people of. It doesn’t help that that was also the demo level.
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The first level’s great. It’s just way, way too much to take in when going in cold.
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I agree. Love the first level so much.
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Funny, I thought the first level was one of the best in the entire game, myself.
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*Stands up*
*Clears throat*
My name is Seniath, and I have never played past the first level of Deus Ex.
I actually went to play it last night, after failing to get onto the Eve test server. Alas, I appear to have misplaced my game cd =(
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while i’ve played the fark out of dx (and even completed invisible war for the sake of kicking myself in the nuts) i’ve never played anything in the thief series.
is deadly shadows worth getting off of steam?
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hehe we need a confession forum or post. ‘What games have you always thought you should have played to call youurself a gamer but haven’t.’
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I remember playing the hell out of the extended demo that came with PCG years back. It had Liberty Island and the first New York proper bit, up to when Gunther arrives at the NSF warehouse and Jock ‘copters you back to Liberty.
It was a massive chunk of game, really.
And Deus Ex is still great fun today. Replaying it is still fun. And it’s one of the few games that I can play on the hardest setting – Realistic isn’t punishingly hard, just, well, realistic. Take a couple of shots and you die. It puts an edge on things.
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Heh, quite possibly. In the early days of the RPS Steam chat room, I got chided for having never played a Total War game =F.
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Things that make you realise how bad you must be at playing games, #1: Reading someone comment on how the hardest setting for Deus Ex isn’t “punishingly hard”, when you barely completed the game on the easiest setting…
And, as far as confessions for games you’ve never played – any of the Thief games. I own the first Thief game, it’s just that I’ve never completed the first level, due to my tendency to freeze in shadows and then never move again (and to freak out at guards appearing, and the like). Which is also why I’ve never, ever, played System Shock (2), and only completed HL2′s Ravenholme with all the lights on, during the day, after taking anti-stress pills…
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Sam, I thought like you about Deus Ex first of all.
I played it through on the easiest setting first of all, and only got to Paris or so before giving up. But a later forum-organised replay of it made me play on Realistic – everyone made a pact to do so, and I decided I might as well try it. If I failed, then at least I’d be in good company.
And I found that as long as I adapted and played more like I was actually risking my life every time I did something dangerous, then the Realistic setting wasn’t that bad. The worst was the Paris catacombs and the abundance of MJ12 commandos, but other than that it was almost like a one-man tactical shooter at times.
It’s the only game I’ve ever played on the hardest setting, barring RTS games.
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Which is also why I’ve never, ever, played System Shock (2), and only completed HL2’s Ravenholme with all the lights on, during the day, after taking anti-stress pills…
i can appreciate that. i don’t care much for the level the first time i went through it (in a good way though) with headphones at some ungodly hour like 5 or 6 am.
of course i would have appreciated some stress pills if you know what i mean. (i.e. i have a drug problem)
i must agree about DX’s difficulty. it’s one of the few games i’ve tried on the hardest setting and actually done well at. it helps that you become motherfucking superman at some point.
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In many respects its a poor shadow (ar ar) of the former games. But the gameplay is mostly intact at the small scale and its looks nice. The older ones are hard to get these days I think and can be tough to get running properly.
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I really liked Thief 3.
The first two games are superior – especially Thief 2, which I only played properly for the first time last year and I loved it to bits – but Thief 3 really shouldn’t be dismissed.
It’s definitely a better continuation of its series than its sister game, Invisible War.
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Deadly shadows was fantastic IMO. Perhaps a little linear and small, as has been said, but the presentation is very slick and responsive.
It helps somewhat that the asylum level is without doubt the scariest thing i’ve ever done in a game. I spent at least an hour stalking around that haunted deathtrap without seeing a single enemy(but hearing them constantly).
I was so on edge and totally wigged out that by the time I actually found one, I found myself quite incapable of reacting well enough to kill it -_- Epic memories.
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dhex, it’s tantamount criminal that you haven’t played the first two Thief games yet. I’d consider them superior to System Shock 2 and even BioShock. They are testaments to perfect and interesting world-building (Which I find is a rare feat within the genre of fantasy) and characterisation, and have for thematic resonance than any of Ken Levine’s later works.
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very well then! i shall have to peep this, as the kids say.
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It is definitely worth getting deadly shadows off steam – in my, massively controversial, opinion it is better than the first two. :o.
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The tackiness of DX’s ‘acting’ is one of its greatest delights! I wish they’d stressed the comedy in the ‘bomb’ scene, actually.
“Oh my god, JC, a bomb!”
“A BOMB?!”
“A BOMB!”
“A bomb…”
…My favourite is probably the South African(?) barman in Hong Kong who discusses the nature of freedom with JC, namedropping his favourite philosopher in a tone like he’s having trouble reading from a shopping list. Ion Storm spared no expense on casting!
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