Yet another Deus Ex: Human Revolution thread

[Avaholic03]

Yes, we've seen a lot of these lately. Partly because there aren't a lot of games coming out righ tnow, and partly because there's a lot of discussion value in the various themes and ideas in the game.

However, one thing I haven't seen discussed is also one area I think DE:HR dropped the ball. You go right from horrible life-threatening injuries to 6-months later you're a fully augmented person who's done with rehab and ready to kick some ass. Some NPC's comment on how quickly you recovered and how different you are now, but we never get to experience the transition for ourselves. We never got that "what the hell happened to me?" realization that might explain why the mirror is broken in Jensen's apartment. And I think going through the rehab would have also been a perfect opportunity for a tutorial level that actually had some weight to it (as opposed to the opening sequence that could have easily just been a cutscene).

So, discussion value...
1. Do you agree that the game missed an opportunity to portray Jensen's recovery?
2. How would you have reacted to that kind of situation (i.e. waking up to find you've been augmented against your will)?
3. What other ideas can you think of that could have made the gameplay or storytelling better?

 

[Jandau]

1. Yep. Even as simple cutscenes or flashbacks spaced throughout the game, it would let us learn more about Jensen and relate to him. Perhaps the cutscenes could reflet to some degree our dialogue choices. If I talked fondly about augments, we could see Jensen adapting to his new state, and if I openly objected to the alterations we could see Jensen raging against what was done to him.

2. I would NOT be happy about it, to the extent that David Sarif would likely be a dead man. Medically, augmentation was needed only on one of Jensen's arms and some of his head, the rest of him could be healed normally (it says as much in some medical files you can come across). Chopping up his other arm, both his legs and scooping out most of his insides was going WAAAAAAAAY too far.

3. Tying the bosses into the story more. They seemed like interesting lunatics, shame we only catch a few glimpses of them before killing them. Exploring Jensen's relation to his augments more. Generally what I talked about in 1. More divergent endings, with one or two of them being "canon" and leading into the events of the original game and the others going the other way. More consequences for Jensen's action throughout the game.

 

[hellflame]

just a heads up: i haven't yet finished the game!
1. Not much gameplay in there imho
2. propably happy i was still alive, then pissed to know i was brought back from the dead just mourn my GF( ** spoiler alert** ye i know she's not dead, but you don't know that right away). be thrilled my boss paid for these expensive updates i now get to play with.
3. dunno, i was pretty pleased with the story telling. mind you i was way more focused on finding ammo then reading E-books, newspapers and waiting near a TV.

the mirrior, I assumed it was an emotional outburst, wich seem to have happend a couple times since there was a note saying "notify the landlord, again".

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I think that it is quite intentional that we don't see Adam's recovery at all. In case it isn't obvious (what with the sign board blaring it out and all nea the LIMB clinic), the entire idea is to portray Adam's metamorphosis from normal human to superhuman, from "just" chief of security to Sarif's attack dog. By not letting the player see the recovery, we aren't immediately pushed in one way or the other on the topic of augmentations. We get to experience the difference that the augmentations make for ourselves and decide what we think. In a way, the reborn Adam Jensen is a clean slate that we as the player can mold in anyway we want. He can either dwell on the past and reject what he's become or he can look ahead and embrace his new found power, it all depends on the players perspective and the game doesn't force you to think about it in either way.

 

[Stall]

You couldn't be further from the truth. The way the game handles Jensen's recovery is perfect. It shows you literally everything you need to know about it the second you walk into his apartment. No gameplay or story could possibly add anything more to the first time you explore his apartment and see how his life has fallen into complete and utter disarray. That brief five minutes of in his apartment told me exactly how those six months were for Jensen. I didn't need to play some random scene to tell me exactly what I already figured out.

It's perfectly done as it is. That segment would add absolutely NOTHING to the game. If anything, adding to such a segment would totally detract from that first time you step into his apartment. It's a terrible fucking idea.

 

[Zhukov]

1. Yeah, that would have cool. As it was, I got the feeling that the developers were saying, "Quick, here's your robo-arms, now go punch some dudes." I can understand why they did that. After all, you don't want to bore anyone. But personally I would not have minded a slower build-up.

Incidentally, I really liked that touch with the mirror. It said a lot without shoving your face in it. (It's also kind of amusing when you learn that the apartment owners are deliberately refusing to replace it.) Also, the clock-building set, which I assume Adam was using to practice motor control of his new hands.

2. "Holy crap, I'm alive!" "Jesus! My arms are plastic... eww." Beyond that, I really don't know how I'd feel. On the one hand, being alive with prosthetics sure beats being dead without them. However, like the first reply pointed out, Adam was augmented far beyond what was neccesary to save his life. One of his doctor's emails explains that all he needed was a new arm, some patching-up on his head and few organ replacements in his chest. Instead Sarif ordered his other arm and both legs amputated, as well as tons of augmentations to the torso and brain. If I were Jensen I'd be upset about that. Besides, no matter how cool the cybernetic limbs are, at the end of the day, looking down and seeing plastic and metal plugged into your living skin would be pretty disturbing.

3. Ditto first reply. More about the boss characters. Apparently they starred in a prequel tie-in novel of some kind, but I haven't read it. In the game we just got a few tidbits. The cloak-happy lady is hinted to be pretty much dead inside due to a standard murdered family backstory. And Namir had that one very interesting line, "Men like us... we never get back the things we love." But that's pretty much all we got.

Also, I would have liked more personal story elements. The globe-spanning conspiracy is cool and all, but the parts that really got me hooked were the ones that dealt with characters and motivations and whatnot. One of the high points for me was that one side mission where Adam is investigating his own past. Y'know, the one involving the wounded PI and the senile old lady. Also, the part where you have to defend Malick.

 

[StriderShinryu]

You couldn't be further from the truth. The way the game handles Jensen's recovery is perfect. It shows you literally everything you need to know about it the second you walk into his apartment. No gameplay or story could possibly add anything more to the first time you explore his apartment and see how his life has fallen into complete and utter disarray. That brief five minutes of in his apartment told me exactly how those six months were for Jensen. I didn't need to play some random scene to tell me exactly what I already figured out.

I totally agree here. As much as I loved the scenes shown in the initial teaser trailers for the game (the doctors talking over Jensen's surgery about how the body recovers but the mind doesn't always, a bandaged Jensen sitting with drink in mind, etc.) I got all I really needed to know about Jensen from his apartment. The shattered mirror but the almost desperate attempts to get it replaced, the guns laying out in the open, the desire to build/understand a mechanical object like a clock (nevermind the various metaphorical meanings of the clock itself), etc.

 

[Thespian]

1 - Excellent point, I definitely agree. I understand if they wanted to just get the intro out of the way, but it all felt very "So yeah, there were these dudes with robot arms, and now you're a cyborg. Go kill stuff!" It would have been great to see him interacting with things in the world differently, crushing glasses accidentally with his robot arms, pulling strange looks from the crowds, forgetting he was augmented and setting off metal detectors and stuff. Really show the transition. Actually, with things like the mirror, I wouldn't be surprised if the team had prepared something like this but had to scrap it, since it sure looks like some scenes are missing. I don't like how Jensen just cheerfully employs his robo-death arms against terrorists the first day he's back.

2 - Thankful for life, first of all - It's a very precious thing, but also kinda violated. If I was given any more than the bare minimum needed to survive, I'd consider it close enough to exploitation.

3 - Like most people have said, the Boss battles needed to be changed. Almost everything else in the game had multiple pathways to it, the bosses, not so much. I didn't mind them so much, actually, it just would have been nice to be able to see the specific style you specialized in to pay off in a big, explosive way at the end of a section, instead of just scraping by and spraying bullets.