Deus Ex: Human Revolution's Social Boss Fights Swap Bullets for Words

[Logan Westbrook]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution's Social Boss Fights Swap Bullets for Words

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That silver tongue augmentation will come in very handy in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Sometimes, the best way to handle a situation is to talk it out, and while most games only offer one form of conflict resolution - frequent and extreme violence - if you want to talk up a storm in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Eidos Montreal has you covered. It's even thrown in some conversational boss battles for good measure.

In a new trailer, staff at Eidos Montreal talked about how social skills, which are considered one of Human Revolution's four pillars of gameplay, could help the player in the game. Narrative game designer Mary DeMarle said that the social boss fights were the most complex expression of the game's social mechanics. The trailer showed an example of a man holding a woman hostage at gunpoint, with Adam trying to talk to the man into letting the hostage go. It sounds tricky, but fortunately, certain augmentations can make it much easier to see what makes a person tick, giving the player an advantage in social situations.

I'm a bit of a Chatty Cathy when it comes to RPGs, so the idea that talking is not only a perfectly valid way of playing Human Revolution, but there's even special provision in there for people like me is pretty exciting. It's also a very good sign that Eidos Montreal is trying to make a worthy successor to the original Deus Ex by giving the player as many options as possible.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution comes out for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on August 23rd.

Source: PC Gamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/01/deus-ex-human-revolution-trailer-gets-talky-unleashes-pheromones/]


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[Nooners]

Imagine if you could bluff your way straight through the front doors of the evil PMC. That would be awesome.

 

[Irridium]

Alright. That cements it. I will own this game. It will be mine, and I will love it.

Too few RPG's these days give a decent social way to play(fighting with words, rather than bullets). Good god I want this. So hard.

 

[Marudas]

Would the last level boss fight for the social pillar involve convincing senators in congress to stop bickering with each other? That sounds like it'd be a pretty difficult challenge. (Ba-dum-tish!)

No, you have to convert a fundamental christian/catholic to atheism or Islamic.


I think i might get in trouble for that one.

 

[Brian Hendershot]

The marketing for this game is slowly making me want to make it a day one purchase...

 

[Brian Hendershot]

The marketing for this game is slowly making me want to make it a day one purchase...

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Ok Deus Ex, OK! You Win! I will buy you when you come out, so you don't have to keep proving to me that you are gonna be an awesome game.

I was wondering how social interaction with the game was going to be used in the game when it was first announced and I was hoping they would explain it further. Now this makes total sense and I think I'm going to actually use that when I play it and not feel like I'm being forced to use it.

 

[subject_87]

That looks pretty awesome; I don't think I've ever seen anything like this in a game before.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

i tried playing Deus Ex recently... it touts "choice" but in the end your character is a pussy and the game is horrible with direction.

give me a pistol?
Game: HA! it only kills people after 5 shots and its COMPLETELY inaccurate even if the game says you're a master at it!
Me: How about a rifle?
Game: Zooming in is completely ineffectual! Your crosshair may SAY you're aiming at the head, but you're actually aiming slightly below it and he's gonna run off and alert a dozen guys to EXACTLY the location you're at and kill you in 2 shots. Also, we're only gonna give you 5 shots that will land in fuck-all places and never give you more ammo for it.
Me: Okay... can i go melee?
Game: The moment you go within 2 miles of anyone, they can pinpoint exactly where you are and kill you in two shots... pussy.
Me: Fine! I'll just sneak around them!
Game: Didn't I just tell you you can be seen within a two mile radius? In the shadows? and while crouching? And this is just the first level that's supposed to get you used to things?
Me: Fuck you game.

Human Revolution can only be an improvement from there.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Would the last level boss fight for the social pillar involve convincing senators in congress to stop bickering with each other? That sounds like it'd be a pretty difficult challenge. (Ba-dum-tish!)

Alright, I kid, I kid, but in truth this does look interesting. At first I was worried that they'd pull an "Alpha Protocol" where you can play most of the game as either of the four pillars of gameplay, however every single boss fight would involve combat, and if you spent most of your time leveling something like social you'd be screwed. It looks like this eased my worries.

Unfortunately, it is more like Alpha Protocol in this regard, the social boss fights aren't the same as the boss fights in the game. There are times you're going to have to fight a boss in Deus Ex 3, which I seen mentioned from message board posts that are about the few reviews that have came out so far. Still anticipating Deus Ex 3 but found this game design choice to be moronic when in the first two Deus Ex's, I think all the boss fights could be avoided, some way to defeat the boss without having to actually fight them, ran away from, or knocked out.

 

[kouriichi]

I dont care if its not half as good as the hype makes it out to be.
I want this game, for the specific reason its a single player, non-CoD/BF rip off.
Same with Skyrim and Saints Row 3. Im tired of all these multiplayer games.
Good single players games! thats what we need!

 

[thenamelessloser]

i tried playing Deus Ex recently... it touts "choice" but in the end your character is a pussy and the game is horrible with direction.

give me a pistol?
Game: HA! it only kills people after 5 shots and its COMPLETELY inaccurate even if the game says you're a master at it!
Me: How about a rifle?
Game: Zooming in is completely ineffectual! Your crosshair may SAY you're aiming at the head, but you're actually aiming slightly below it and he's gonna run off and alert a dozen guys to EXACTLY the location you're at and kill you in 2 shots. Also, we're only gonna give you 5 shots that will land in fuck-all places and never give you more ammo for it.
Me: Okay... can i go melee?
Game: The moment you go within 2 miles of anyone, they can pinpoint exactly where you are and kill you in two shots... pussy.
Me: Fine! I'll just sneak around them!
Game: Didn't I just tell you you can be seen within a two mile radius? In the shadows? and while crouching? And this is just the first level that's supposed to get you used to things?
Me: Fuck you game.

Human Revolution can only be an improvement from there.

You explicitly lie about the stealth in in the first level or your game has some kind of bug. Did the first levet recently I think it was on easy but I'm not sure how that effects the ai, but it was extremely easy to sneak past everyone and I SUCK at stealth games generally. Never used rile except for sniper rifles but the zoom is useful and on easy or realistic with rifle skill high and mods for the sniper you will kill normal dues with a single shot. Pistols do a lot of damage and can be accurate with the silence pistol even being able to kill a dude with one or two headshots. Melee in the beginning is mostly about knocking people out for stealth. Later on in the game though with augmentatiosn and the dragon tooth sword you can pretty much use straight melee combat But I only have played the game on easy and realistic difficulty settings.

I think there may be some story and gameplay disintegration at the beginning. You're supposed to be some nanoaugmentated elite agent for a world wide organization but you're relatively weak and unskilled in the beginning. But gameplay wise it works, remember Deus Ex is an RPG mechanics wise.

Funnily enough your post is similar to what many people complained about Alpha Protocol as well.

 

[metal eslaved]

i tried playing Deus Ex recently... it touts "choice" but in the end your character is a pussy and the game is horrible with direction.

give me a pistol?
Game: HA! it only kills people after 5 shots and its COMPLETELY inaccurate even if the game says you're a master at it!
Me: How about a rifle?
Game: Zooming in is completely ineffectual! Your crosshair may SAY you're aiming at the head, but you're actually aiming slightly below it and he's gonna run off and alert a dozen guys to EXACTLY the location you're at and kill you in 2 shots. Also, we're only gonna give you 5 shots that will land in fuck-all places and never give you more ammo for it.
Me: Okay... can i go melee?
Game: The moment you go within 2 miles of anyone, they can pinpoint exactly where you are and kill you in two shots... pussy.
Me: Fine! I'll just sneak around them!
Game: Didn't I just tell you you can be seen within a two mile radius? In the shadows? and while crouching? And this is just the first level that's supposed to get you used to things?
Me: Fuck you game.

Human Revolution can only be an improvement from there.

And that whats great about Deus Ex, it never hold your hand from the first level you are on your on.

you suck with weapons, barely know anything about the world and hadto make choices without a lot of information.

offtopic:In what difficulty were you playing.

 

[Jumplion]

Funnily enough your post is similar to what many people complained about Alpha Protocol as well.

It's weird, because I am also trying to play through Deus Ex and I'm enjoying Alpha Protocol along side it. It's a shame, Alpha Protocol could have done with more polish and spit-shine, it's got some pretty neat concepts.

And that whats great about Deus Ex, it never hold your hand from the first level you are on your on.

you suck with weapons, barely know anything about the world and hadto make choices without a lot of information.

offtopic:In what difficulty were you playing.

Eh, there's a difference between letting you figure things out for yourself and not giving you any help whatsoever to do shit. Deus Ex doesn't really seem to click with me so far, but I will keep at it for a bit.

Regardless, Human Revolution looks fantastic. Considering my PC isn't quite up to snuff with it's "recommended" specs, I'll have to get it for my PS3 but overall it looks neat-o.

 

[kidd25]

Imagine if you could bluff your way straight through the front doors of the evil PMC. That would be awesome.

that might happen on some levels, but i'm sure when it does, it won't be easy.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

Wow. Never played a Dues-Ex game before. This will be my starting point in the series.

 

[Marohen]

Charisma has been around since the DnD days, I'm glad they allow you to pursue this but this warrants as much an article as the hacking capability explained in the latter half of the video, nothing particularly interesting here.

 

[Wicky_42]

Ok, this might be the first game that I will enjoy playing through multiple times... holy crap it looks like they've gone all out! Can't wait ^_^