Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Little Arithmetics: Deus Ex 3 Shots

By Kieron Gillen on June 1st, 2010 at 2:33 pm.

Nooooooo! You gave PC Gamer the exclusive! NOOOOOOOOOOO!

PCG have just put up four screens from the new Deus Ex 3 trailer which will debut on the 4th. As in, Friday. They’re also bragging about 21,500 (Count ‘em!) words of preview, which hopefully are all different, and not just Tom Francis cutting and pasting the same paragraph again and again and again. As is his wont. Anyway, go look here or skip below to get my initial impressions.

Picture 1:

Well, we know these are from the trailer, but we don’t know if they’re in-engine or out of engine. Ooh – I dunno. I suspect it’ll be out of engine, but you really don’t know in this day and age.

Anyway – a bloke in shades staring through a hole in the wall. This shows that shades will feature prominently. Also, blokes. The hole in the wall may hint towards some kind of destructible scenery or – more likely – being a metaphorical hole, referencing Neitzches famous maxim about not gazing into the abyss in case the abyss gazes into you. Of course, from the perspective of the shot, WE are the abyss. As such, we can assume that this is a j’accuse aimed directly at the heart of early 21st Century Consumerism.

Picture 2:

We can a couple of other dudes joining our dude in shades. The hole in the wall is nowhere to be scene, its absence being a statement of belief in the future, the idea that the hole isn’t necessarily a part of existence, but something we can move past. One of the dudes is getting shot. The other dude is not getting shot. Since they’re either side of our lead, I can only assume this is a reference to the Calvary scene in the bible, with one of the men (having rejected Jesus) missing eternal life (i.e. “Dying”) and the other (having accepted him) keeping it. JC=Jesus Christ, etc. It’s all so obvious. Also note JC has a sort of robo-arm thing, I think, which is a metaphor for something so clever that if I explained it to you, you’d never understand. I will save it for my second book.

Picture 3:

Ah – here’s a little fan-service. This exploding helicopter is clearly a referencing to the famous helicopter bomb sequence. This sort of thing is what gives everyone complete and absolute confidence the game’s going to be okay. No, really. It’s all going to be fine.

Picture 4:

Deus Ex will be featuring skyboxes.

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159 Comments »

  1. 01/06/2010 at 14:36 mrmud says:

    Without reading much of anything about DeusEx 3, who wants to bet that Alpha Protocol will be more like DeusEx than this will?

    • 01/06/2010 at 14:42 Huggster says:

      You got that right.

    • 01/06/2010 at 14:56 Morph says:

      Alpha Protocol feels like DeusEx if it had been made for a console and hated the PC.

      And wasn’t as good.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:12 Paradukes says:

      It’s a depressing thought, and, I suspect, quite likely to be true…

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:25 sfury says:

      I want some Alpha Protocol in my Deus Ex 3. :(

      …but, you know, like, polished.

      (p.s. why do i keep writing “Desu Ex”? looks awesome though)

    • 01/06/2010 at 18:04 Rond says:

      Alpha Protocol looks more like a sequel to Deus Ex sequel, while Deus Ex 3 will hopefully be an appropriate sequel to Deus Ex itself.

    • 02/06/2010 at 01:09 TeeJay says:

      “why do i keep writing “Desu Ex”?”

      Because you’re turning Japanese?

    • 02/06/2010 at 05:30 whalleywhat says:

      @Rond: What’s your basis for either of those statements?

    • 02/06/2010 at 11:59 Rond says:

      @whalleywhat:
      If Alpha Protocol was a Deus Ex game, it would continue the trend of quality decrease among Deus Ex series. Here’s my basis for this one: I liked DXIW better than Alpha protocol.
      Still, I hope DE3 will be better than both DXIW and Alpha Protocol. Also, I called DE3 an appropriate sequel not because I’m oblivious to the word’s meaning, but because I don’t think a video game can have a prequel – unlike books or films (plot-based stuff) videogames are more gameplay-based, so they should be put not on a plot progress timeline, but on a line of gameplay progress. Of course it’s only my opinion, so it can differ greatly from more popular opinions or the objective truth itself, in case such a thing exists.

  2. 01/06/2010 at 14:39 Ashen says:

    The major problem I have with these screenshots is that while this is supposed to be a prequel, everything looks so much more hi-tech than the original one. Show these shots unlabeled and noone would ever guess it’s a Deus Ex title.

    Also known as the Star Wars prequels syndrome.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:01 DrGonzo says:

      Star Wars syndrome! I was thinking the same thing. It is really pretty though.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:14 Rich says:

      Ah, Ashen, you beat me to it.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:25 Sonic Goo says:

      Of course, that does open the door for a high definition remake of the original game(s).

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:32 Vitamin Powered says:

      Yeah, I had the same feeling, mostly from the final image. The original has a very run-down future vibe going, whereas DE3 seems to have a higher tech. art style going for it.

      Of course, this may be due to the respective years in which they were developed. Graphics hardware has moved on, and what we’re seeing these days from concept art has moved on as well. What we’re seeing from DE3 may just be a reflection of that.

    • 02/06/2010 at 01:42 FRIENDLYUNIT says:

      *already curls up into ball and starts quietly sobbing *

    • 02/06/2010 at 04:33 Tacroy says:

      To be fair, in Deus Ex 1 & 2 the world had been rocked by that nanovirus you spend part of the first game figuring out. It’s entirely possible that the reason why everything was run down is because of what happens in this prequel.

  3. 01/06/2010 at 14:40 Antsy says:

    Deus Mio!

  4. 01/06/2010 at 14:42 AndrewC says:

    It should be noted that JC Denton looked like a total douche in the first one too.

  5. 01/06/2010 at 14:44 Peter Radiator Full Pig says:

    It should be noted the amount of fake screenshots going up on this site as of late.
    I dont trust these ones, in recent light.

  6. 01/06/2010 at 14:44 AndrewC says:

    Also this article was worse than Hitler!

    Also I really like the 4th picture.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:09 robrob says:

      Yeah, Blade Runner was great.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:11 AndrewC says:

      This is Blade Runner timesed by at least 3.5.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:15 robrob says:

      A game 3.5 times as good as Blade Runner? Ebert will have to accept us now.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:55 Alexander Norris says:

      You all suck. It’s clearly the Bay Bridge sprawl from Virtual Light/Idoru/All Tomorrow’s Parties.

      Seriously. You people. *harrumphs*

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:00 AndrewC says:

      No! It is you who sucks! For all future cities are the future city from Metropolis!

      In this case crossed with Stickle Bricks.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:13 robrob says:

      Clearly it is both of you who are wrong and also have poor personal hygiene. The screenshot is an obvious allusion to Claude von Papappa’s seminal 1957 work Coureur de la Grande Couteau only you probably didn’t realise it because you are a bit of a thicky. Anyway that is enough associating with you simpletons, my ivory tower needs vacuuming. Away!

    • 01/06/2010 at 19:56 Bret says:

      Are you blind, or do subtler references make your tiny brains suffer?

      Obviously, it’s a very complicated homage to Godard’s Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution. Geeze, does nobody watch French pulp dystopian film noir these days?

    • 01/06/2010 at 20:12 AndrewC says:

      Pish! You are all as goldfish in a bowl, staring at but a picture of the sea! Are you not aware that *all* speculative fiction is but a dim reflection of Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which all potential futures of man, both dystopian and utopian, are laid out as like unto a map of a country in which the petty tales of recent authors are but tiny villages! Pah!

      Now if you’ll excuse me I must be about finishing my refutation of Post-Baudrillardian Aesthetics.

    • 01/06/2010 at 20:53 Frosty says:

      I like shooting bad men. Does this game let me shoot bad men?

    • 01/06/2010 at 22:14 Thants says:

      Something something La jetée.

    • 02/06/2010 at 05:46 Muzman says:

      You’re all wrong. Pic 4 is a left over render from Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.
      Expect invasion by interplanetary ghosts, followed by abrupt bankruptcy.

  7. 01/06/2010 at 14:44 Azazel says:

    Of course the final picture clevery invokes the topos of ineffability – a grand profusion of lights which hints at the receding infinity extending beyond our feeble human perception.

    Like a skybox.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:16 jeremypeel says:

      The skybox symbolises the social and financial ‘glass ceiling’ forced upon the underclass of Deus Ex 3′s dystopia.

  8. 01/06/2010 at 14:47 Mario Figueiredo says:

    Anywhere in the tube confirming that these are actual action screenshots? Because, quite frankly, I’m very much doubting it.

    • 01/06/2010 at 14:49 Kieron Gillen says:

      The answer’s in the article.

      KG

    • 01/06/2010 at 14:53 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Yeah. I had noticed you couldn’t confirm Kieron. I was asking generally if anyone knew any further information.

    • 01/06/2010 at 14:55 Kieron Gillen says:

      Well, nowt out in the public bar PCG’s post. I suspect we’ll know pretty swiftly on Friday.

      KG

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:25 Sagan says:

      I can confirm that these are not real screenshots. Screenshot 1: The lighting is too realistic. Look at how those god rays are reacting to the dust in the air. I have never seen that done in real time in a game. Also I don’t think they would make his hair so detailed if the model is to be used in game.
      Screenshot 2: The reflection in the helmet is way too detailed. You would need a high end graphics card to render that in real time.
      Screenshot 3: Could be real. The amount of particles in the explosion is a little higher than I have seen in games. But that certainly isn’t impossible.
      Screenshot 4: I don’t know, you would have to be very clever to get that good-looking lighting in real time. With so many light sources and all that indirect lighting, they would have to have applied tricks to get it looking like that. But it isn’t impossible.

      All of these screenshots would be very hard to do on anything but a high end graphics card though. Since this game is also for consoles, you bet it won’t look like this.

    • 01/06/2010 at 15:39 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Those were more or less my thoughts too.
      And you got me on #3. That’s the one I had more trouble coming to a conclusion of my own.

      #4 I actually think it’s just impossible to get that light detail in modern games. Not just difficult. But… big disclaimer… I’m just an enthusiast. Not an actual artist who works with the tools of the trade.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:18 jeremypeel says:

      From a purely stylistic perspective, they sure do look like the work of Square Enix, who are working on the games’ cutscenes seperately from Eido’s studio.

    • 01/06/2010 at 18:57 Koozer says:

      It’s being developed for the consoles too, therefore there is no way in hell it will look like this in-game. I can’t think of a recent game that has actually pushed the graphical boundaries. Gone are the days of grinning with glee and awe at the plains unfolding when exiting that sewer in Oblivion, or admiring the smoke effects, pinging bullets and soldiers taking cover in Company of Heroes. Crysis doesn’t count, you bloody well expected and deserved the shiny graphics after the hours of tweaking it needed to run smoothly.

      So, yeah, Deus Ex 3. These are trailer shots fo sho.

    • 01/06/2010 at 21:56 Jimbo says:

      Of course they aren’t in-engine. Are you people high? Look at them.

      The rest of the article is all true.

  9. 01/06/2010 at 14:49 Cinnamon says:

    dEUS are better than Deus Ex. I put that down to a lack of a strong Captain Beefheart influence in Ion Storm Austin.

  10. 01/06/2010 at 14:50 Longrat says:

    I don’t get where the skyline in the 4th picture was in DE1 and 2. It looks kind of like new york only with really tall buildings and such. But the skyline didn’t look like THIS in DE1!
    Hope they aren’t gonna retcon DE1.

    • 01/06/2010 at 14:55 CHR says:

      I think that’s supposed to be Seattle, which does have that double layered city thing going on in DX2.

    • 01/06/2010 at 14:57 faelnor says:

      That’s Shanghai, not NY, despite what the article says.

      Anyway, there comes a point when a homage to Masamune Shirow’s (body augs, characters, architecture and general tech) and Mamoru Oshii’s (black & gold color tones with a lot of contrast) views of cyberpunk becomes plagiarism. DE3 is miles past that point.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:45 Sonic Goo says:

      I believe those themes were present in cyberpunk even before the two people you mentioned.

    • 01/06/2010 at 21:25 august says:

      I’m pretty sure Blade Runner did the black and gold city-scape first.

      Although Japan evolved the cyberpunk style significantly, they certainly did not invent it.

    • 01/06/2010 at 21:51 MadMatty says:

      the guy who worked on Blade Runner is a brilliant ol guy called Syd Mead, who does futuristic Industrial designs, and also did a bit on Alien and Tron to name a few.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Mead

  11. 01/06/2010 at 14:56 JohnArr says:

    Definitely shots from the pre-rendered cinematics. Done by Square-Enix’s cinematics house I think. Or was it Ubisoft’s?

  12. 01/06/2010 at 14:56 Frankle says:

    Has there actually been ANY in game screenshots of this yet?
    I want to see what it will actually look like.

  13. 01/06/2010 at 14:58 Vadermath says:

    I certainly hope that the pic 4 city isn’t New York, seeing as, IIRC, nothing of the sort existed in the original Deus Ex.

    And I always RC.

  14. 01/06/2010 at 15:03 Denton says:

    It isn’t JC Denton. It’s Adam Jensen.

  15. 01/06/2010 at 15:03 Inigo says:

    “Alpha Protocol feels like DeusEx if it had been made for a console and hated the PC.

    And wasn’t as good.”

    So… Invisible War, then?

  16. 01/06/2010 at 15:03 Krimson says:

    That’s, uh… That’s not JC. He’s not even a Denton, as far as I’m aware.

    Also, what’s up with all the blatantly futuristic stuff? Apparently, prequel doesn’t mean what I thought it did.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:04 sbs says:

      yeah he’s just some dude, they said that somewhere

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:30 jeremypeel says:

      I think the prequel decision probably came about to avoid Invisible War’s disappointing neon sci-fi future in favour of something a little closer to home, and to make sure they didn’t devalue our previous decisions like Invisible War did: “ALL the endings you could have chosen came to pass! At once!!”

      The prequel format comes with its own set of problems though. Part of Deus Ex’s appeal was in how recognisable a world it was, being NEAR future and all – if you take it too far back you’re pretty much in present day.

  17. 01/06/2010 at 15:04 Matt says:

    @morph

    So… it’s like Deus Ex 2?

  18. 01/06/2010 at 15:13 Rich says:

    So Deus Ex 3, set before Deus Ex, is going to have even more futuristic skylines and helicopter-thingies than anything we’ve seen previously.

    It’s all a bit to Bladerunner to be Deus Ex, if you ask me.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:04 durr says:

      The prequel: The obvious choice if you can’t come up with a proper sequel.

      It makes no fucking sense at all. The game is set, like… 20 years from now! 17, actually. That would be 1993 in comparison.

      Remember DX1? How methodically researched it was? How it showed a world in 50 years that doesn’t look much different from ours… until you look at the details? How, each year, more and more stuff that seemed crazy when the game was released is becoming reality?

      Well, now we have DX3 and they chose to make it look like Blade Runner because it looks cool. Not to mention that mechanical body enhancements have already become so popular then that the people who use them have become a significant (and discriminated against) minority shaping history.

      Warren Spector was were clear about how everything in Deus Ex always followed real-world technological trends, political shifts or, in the most extreme case, plausible conspiracy theories. DX3 has cool mecha cyborgs and a stylish Renaissance theme… sigh.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:33 jeremypeel says:

      Again, should have read through all posts before getting stuck in myself… Durr’s gone into greater eloquent detail with the prequel problem and described why I found the original Deus Ex’s setting is so powerful. Children of Men hit me in a similar way.

    • 01/06/2010 at 18:01 LionsPhil says:

      durr hit the nail on the head. Deus Ex got twenty-minutes-into-the-future down PERFECTLY, and managed to make it look like a run down place where people live without slipping into grey and grimdark.

      This isn’t a graphics technology thing, it’s an art direction thing. These DE3 shots look entirely like a sofi-sci-fi fictional place.

    • 01/06/2010 at 22:09 Psychopomp says:

      You people seem to be missing something. Deus Ex was gritty and rundown, because the world was still recovering from a worldwide crash. Before that, there was a golden age of just about everything. Deux Ex 3 takes place during that golden age.

    • 02/06/2010 at 08:16 JackShandy says:

      I think Psychopomp hit the nail on the head here: Despite being set in the same universe, this game is NOT DEUS EX. C’mon, haters: Isn’t it better that they’re trying to give the game it’s own identity, instead of fruitlessly trying to copy a game that nailed a specific look and feel perfectly?

      Personally, I think it’s fine that the game looks all pretty and sci-fi utopian, instead of trying to be a gritty five-minutes-into-the-future dystopia. The first Deus Ex already nailed that completely! Better that this game steps out from under the first’s (Enormous) shadow and does something new within the same universe.

  19. 01/06/2010 at 15:26 BigJonno says:

    My weakness to all things cyberpunk combined with the general awesomeness of that skyline shot are overwhelming any ability I have to make negative comparisons with Deus Ex

    • 01/06/2010 at 18:04 LionsPhil says:

      That last shot is wallpaper-grade pretty, but the mind is an irrational beast, and I cannot help but associate it with a failure to grasp the mood of Deus Ex.

  20. 01/06/2010 at 15:27 Sobric says:

    I shall oil my knee and buy a new caps lock key in preparation for the PCG article.

  21. 01/06/2010 at 15:27 Omroth says:

    +++++++ to this post

  22. 01/06/2010 at 15:30 Huggster says:

    Pfff. More excited about “action/RPG” games like Witcher 2 to be honest, though I never finished the first one. Different genre I know.

  23. 01/06/2010 at 15:34 v says:

    That should be ‘deus meus’ (latin).
    Alternately, in Italian it would be ‘dio mio’.

  24. 01/06/2010 at 15:36 v says:

    That reply was aimed at antsy

  25. 01/06/2010 at 15:37 damien says:

    nietzsche is one of those names i always cringe at before spelling.

  26. 01/06/2010 at 15:46 M says:

    They’re not still paying Tom by the word, are they?

  27. 01/06/2010 at 16:02 Brulleks says:

    Ooh, nice musical reference there, Mr Gillen.

    Was only listening to ‘Under the Sea’ at the weekend, by bizarre coincidence.

  28. 01/06/2010 at 16:03 -F. says:

    dEUS Ex 4: The Rise of Tom Barman.

    Now that would be awesome..

  29. 01/06/2010 at 16:04 Leifland says:

    Suds and soda?

  30. 01/06/2010 at 16:12 Shadrach says:

    Nice reference, In A Bar Under The Sea is a great album :)

  31. 01/06/2010 at 16:18 Adrian says:

    I i never played the original deus ex but i love the art style of the new one! Reminds me of Blade Runner. Anything that looks like Blade Runner I will play :)

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:21 durr says:

      Well, you’re exactly their target group.

    • 01/06/2010 at 16:40 Adrian says:

      So what?

    • 01/06/2010 at 22:23 durr says:

      It means that it’s not a Deus Ex game. They could have called it “Supercop 2027″, and it would be OK. But no, they chose to mock fans of the original game by using its name but not its depth.

      The original DX theme is a delicate exception in game design, an oasis of awesome that should be protected from flashy newcomer studios (Eidos Montreal hasn’t shipped a single game but is now working on two classic franchises). They should have given this to a developer who has at least some credibility. And some balls. Eidos Montreal is playing it so safe with DX3, it’s saddening. They are picking every cliche of recent blockbuster games (regenerating health, 3rd person cover) and are removing everything that could confuse your average ADHD gamer. Then they change the setting from real-world/cyberpunk to some Blade-Runner-city/Kung-Fu-ass-kicking.

      They are taking a gaming classic, probably my favorite game of all time, and use its outer shell (name, mecha-augs, story-choice) to fill it with a default console shooter. And the worst thing? They already did it before with Deus Ex: Invisible War… a game that flopped horribly, both financially and critically. Now they’re doing the exact same thing. And they get away with it because people who never played DX1 dig the Blade Runner screenshots.

      You might never be able to understand, but this just makes my gamer heart cry.

    • 01/06/2010 at 23:12 Jimbo says:

      You don’t speak for all of us. Deus Ex is my bestest game ever also and I have no such issue with anything we’ve seen so far. Deus Ex was set after everything started going to shit, this is before – I have no problem with that.

      Deus Ex’s greatness was not defined by health packs, the camera view or even the setting. It was defined by (as they put it) the “multi-path, multi-solution approach in a non-linear space” and a perfectly balanced character progression system. Things that barely anybody has even tried to imitate since then, let alone matched or bettered. The interview back along made it sound like they very much “get it”.

      If / When Deus Ex 3 fails to live up to Deus Ex’s greatness, it won’t be because of a camera angle or a slightly shinier art style. If that’s what you believe, then I think you are entirely misunderstanding why Deus Ex is held in such high regard.

    • 02/06/2010 at 00:11 Adrian says:

      No I can completely understand you. See its the same for me with ultima online. I have so many great memories of this game it just makes me cry when i see that they are now making a browsergame that has nothing to do with ultima except the name.
      I actually had a copy of deus ex when it was published but for some reason i can’t remember i never even finished the first mission.

    • 02/06/2010 at 12:04 Stijn says:

      Maybe we should wait until we’ve actually seen the game and not just some stills from cutscenes before claiming “it’s not a deus ex game” and such?

  32. 01/06/2010 at 16:19 durr says:

    Yea, it’s basically over. I have never become positively surprised by a game that I disliked in the previews. Never. They all tell you “Don’t be so negative, wait till it’s out…” but whenever it’s out, it’s just as bad as it looked in the first place. SquareEnix Japan doing cut-scenes? WTF? They don’t even bother showing us a second of meaningful gameplay.

    It will probably have some rather impressive cityscape scenes, some bare bones “press A to choose first path, press B to choose second” story-branching, but that’s it. I’m confident, though, that it will have excellent controller support.

  33. 01/06/2010 at 16:21 Radiant says:

    Ooooh shiny!
    Pretty!

  34. 01/06/2010 at 16:32 N says:

    LOOK AT MY FABULOUS MONKEY FUR HAIR!

    Wow. This is pretty nasty, lol. Those shades! GAHAHAHAH, oh man, I’m busting a rib laughing. The character’s name should be Twink Mc’Tight.

  35. 01/06/2010 at 16:34 jon_hill987 says:

    This game has been dead to me since they announced the “contextual third person” and “cover system” that would be featuring. I generally don’t like third person games.

    • 01/06/2010 at 17:06 Rich says:

      Oh please, God, no!

    • 01/06/2010 at 18:20 Vadermath says:

      Doesn’t “contextual third person” mean it’ll be third person only for certain things, like cutscenes and conversations, as it was in the original Deus Ex?

    • 01/06/2010 at 18:27 Taillefer says:

      If it was just cut-scenes/conversations, I’m not sure it would have been mentioned at all. I think, in this case, they also meant using cover, consoles or possibly even climbing ladders and such. But hopefully not quite that far.

    • 01/06/2010 at 22:18 jon_hill987 says:

      If it was just conversations I don’t have a problem, I have a feeling it will be for far more than that though. Think about the third person bits in Thief 3, when you hug the wall. And as for the cover system, what is wrong with the old type of “cover system” when you just press WASD to move behind something? Why do we need a Press X to move to a pre-defined point? I like to decide where I am going to hide for myself thank you.

    • 01/06/2010 at 22:22 jon_hill987 says:

      And another thing. Let it be know that I hate the “contextual third person” in Left 4 Dead (when the hunter or smoker gets you) and I hate it in Team Fortress 2 (when you get bonked), why Valve couldn’t have done those animations from a first person perspective I don’t know, it would be a far more immersive experience.

    • 01/06/2010 at 22:25 Thants says:

      The knee, she is jerked!

    • 01/06/2010 at 22:38 jon_hill987 says:

      knee-jerk reaction? maybe, but with good reason. If the game it isn’t ruined by a console style push X to win game feature I will buy a hat so I can eat it.

    • 01/06/2010 at 23:26 Jimbo says:

      ‘Contextual Third Person’ almost certainly means “Like Rainbow Six Vegas” – which was first person unless you were behind cover, stacked up on a door, on the corner of a wall etc, but even then the third person was really tight in.

      I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad fit for Deus Ex.

    • 02/06/2010 at 08:50 jon_hill987 says:

      Well I think it is a bad fit, as I said already, that sort of thing really breaks the immersion for me, if I duck behind something I can’t suddenly see the back of my head. I also hate the idea that only developer designated areas might be considered cover.

  36. 01/06/2010 at 16:41 TooNu says:

    HAH! that was hilarious :)

  37. 01/06/2010 at 16:48 V. Tchitcherine. says:

    I’m rather excited; I resolved a while ago that if the game just captures the essential elements of choice of action in both character philosophy and gameplay then I will be satisfied. Mass Effect 2 had no option for stealth or avoiding conflict yet was still an incredible experience though not on par with say Deus Ex or System Shock 2.

    What gives me hope? A designer stated they were looking towards Hong Kong from Deus Ex rather than the levels of Invisible War… well, that’s an incredibly reassuring and wonderful thing to say to a massive admirer of the level design of the first. If the sequel (Invisible War) had levels like the first game it would have be immeasurably better because of it.

    The atmosphere looks really compelling and whilst there are noted concerns of being ‘too hi-tech’, Seattle was already a bifurcated city at the time of Deus Ex I believe, nothing shown has been implausible in the time-line presented and the developers in forums have stated they want the game to mirror gross economic disparities by presenting both dilapidated and cutting-edge environs.

  38. 01/06/2010 at 17:41 Cooper says:

    I SPILL MY DRINK

  39. 01/06/2010 at 17:49 richmcc says:

    Tom’s 21,500 words are some really, really exciting 21,500 words.

  40. 01/06/2010 at 17:55 Adventurous Putty says:

    Of course, from the perspective of the shot, WE are the abyss. As such, we can assume that this is a j’accuse aimed directly at the heart of early 21st Century Consumerism.

    I love you Kieron Gillen and were it physically possible I would most likely desire to have your babies but since it isn’t I’ll refrain from saying so because that would be creepy and unseemly.

    …wait, oops.

  41. 01/06/2010 at 17:56 LionsPhil says:

    “nowhere to be scene”

    My invoice for proofreading services is in the post.

  42. 01/06/2010 at 18:22 Taillefer says:

    That isn’t his robot arm, it’s a rogue robot arm which was just leapt straight through the guard on the left. Hence the blood and everything. So Adam is “Arrh! Whoa! What! Robot arm!”.

    Not really, but now I can’t unsee it.

  43. 01/06/2010 at 20:25 Rond says:

    To all who say that DE1 is set in near future and DE3 is set just about tomorrow: DE1 is rather retro-future than near future, its world lacked some of today’s tech (like cellphones), but had wicked nano-implants, plasmaguns, even sentient AIs and magnificent Universal Constructor. It had both datacubes and books, public infoterminals and newspapers, lightsabres nanoswords and crowbars, lunar colonies and poor homeless guys. So DE3 shouldn’t be set between today and DE1, it should be set in retro-future’s past. I’m not sure if it is possible at all.

    • 01/06/2010 at 21:13 Lukasz says:

      wait…
      are you saying that in future-future we won’t have newspapers, books, homeless people, crowbars? Or am I missing point of your post?

      And i am pretty sure mobile phones were in DE1. JC didn’t need one tough as he had one in his head or something.

    • 01/06/2010 at 21:33 august says:

      Er, no… it wasn’t really retro-futuristic or stylized at all. It was just near-future. Or a 2000 vision of the near-future.

  44. 01/06/2010 at 20:48 matte_k says:

    Tried to think of a dEUS related pun, closest I got was “That Hotel Lounge (in the first trailer) would be the death of him, then”. Fail.
    Still, you have no idea how much it pleases me to see dEUS referenced in the comments thread :D

    (Now I have to find “Worst Case Scenario” and listen to it)

  45. 01/06/2010 at 21:33 MadMatty says:

    Its nice to know, thAT in the future there will be styling mousse so effective, that you can stab multiple people to death, and your hair will still be perfect LoL
    It´s always been the way with computergames, but its like its more obvious now in hi-res.

  46. 01/06/2010 at 22:03 Psychopomp says:

    I get the feeling this game with bomb at retail.

  47. 01/06/2010 at 22:10 Farfarer says:

    I know it’s just a skybox… but goddamn, it’s beautiful.

  48. 01/06/2010 at 22:13 Tei says:

    Since this look like screenshots from a cinematic, we are like.. humm… 2 universe of separation from the game. From these shots we can’t judge the cinematic, and from the cinematic we can’t judge the game.
    Other than that, looks really awesome, almost like fine artwork.

  49. 01/06/2010 at 23:00 Gabe McGrath says:

    “Deus Ex. Deeeeeeeeus Ex.
    Daylight come ‘n me wanna go home.”

  50. 01/06/2010 at 23:02 Feet says:

    So this is definately coming to PC then? And not delayed a year? Actually you know, the same time as the consoles?

  51. 01/06/2010 at 23:19 cjlr says:

    I’d like to be excited. I really would. But it just ain’t happening with this dross to go on.

    I concur wholeheartedly that the Deus Ex aesthetic has been taken behind the barn and shot.

    Thing is, DX1 [er, I mean DX - there was no sequel, right guys?] was set after/during a big-ass plague and associated calamities. The things (objects, buildings, etc) in DX3 should be all of the stuff in DX1 from before they got worn down, right? It, uh… It doesn’t exactly look like that.

  52. 01/06/2010 at 23:40 eclipse mattaru says:

    Remember when David Wong wrote that Gamer’s Manifesto and he took a stab at those fucking developers that try to build up hype by releasing screenshots that quite obviously belong to pre-rendered cutscenes, and to ourselves for being so stupid as to fall for them? In, like, 2005?

    Yeah, good times.

    • 02/06/2010 at 09:03 Hmm-Hmm. says:

      The public is almost as predictable as the marketing people are. The same old tricks, maybe not even in new suits, and they keep on working.

  53. 02/06/2010 at 00:58 Bozzley says:

    Goddamnit.

    A Look Around You reference, and I’m there pretty chuffing quickly. A dEUS reference, and I only just get it now.

    *hands back the keys to the RPS-reference-o-meter*

    *hopes there’s violins and happy endings*

  54. 02/06/2010 at 02:47 TeeJay says:

    2010 conspiracy theories are a bit different from 80s/90s, also the anti-capitalist globalisation protests have morphed into something slightly different as well therefore…

    …edgy zeitgeist 10s cyber-punk needs to be a bit different to 80s and 90s cyber-punk (still noir-ish, still counter-cultural … but but but ….erm ***something about ironically-80s polish-brazilian indie odd-beard-wearing celebutants playing ersatz folk crossed with islamic oil-spill twitterf@cked something something something*** <>

  55. 02/06/2010 at 03:30 circadianwolf says:

    Admittedly, the “all possible endings happened” thing was great in Morrowind (re: Daggerfall), but yeah, did not work in DX2.

  56. 02/06/2010 at 06:09 Wragglz says:

    4) Is either a skybox or concept work, if it’s a skybox then there is no lighting, it’s just a picture.
    3) The model and environment seem fine, but that particle effect seems to be generating light considering the reflections on the chopper…while mipressive, it’s not implausible to do this in some clever fashion
    2) is nuts, real time hair and subsurface scattering….I think not.
    1) Dust effects are nothing, but again, unless that hair stays perfectly still, and they’re using some really clever optimisation to mimic the sub surface scattering on his ear…

  57. 02/06/2010 at 14:15 whaleloever says:

    I must be the only person in the world who gets – and likes – Kieron’s esoteric Brit (Belg?) pop references.

  59. 02/06/2010 at 20:30 elmuerte says:

    What? No cyberpunk?

  60. 03/06/2010 at 00:18 Kieran C says:

    Screenshots were published in an issue of Edge (I think) last year, showing a slightly cartoony, look, like a more realistic TF2 (well, kind of) but that was all early alpha type stuff. (I hope)

  61. 04/06/2010 at 11:56 bob says:

    >The hole in the wall is nowhere to be scene (sic?!), its absence being a statement of belief in the >future, the idea that the hole isn’t necessarily a part of existence, but something we can move past.

    So…the hole is a lie?

  62. 06/06/2010 at 12:27 EyeMessiah says:

    This has got me down!

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