Zero Punctuation: Deus Ex Mankind Divided

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I mean, to be honest, what you described is exactly how Black Lives Matter sees racism. Rachel Dolzeal and Sean King are the equivalent of the pacemaker-equipped person being "augmented".

But I don't expect Eidos to have that sort of subtlety, so it's safe to determine that it is basically just bad writing.

 

[balladbird]

My biggest issue with the cutscenes triggered by takedowns was that if two characters are close to each other when you do them, the game seems to semi-randomly choose which one you use the takedown on.

there were two or three times in the game where there was a friendly NPC being hurt or threatened by an enemy, and I would be forced to reload because, even though I made sure I was practically running into the enemy before pushing the button, the cutscene would trigger showing Jensen taking down the goddamn friendly NPC instead. DX

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Heh. No game ever benefited from standing in the shadow of a classic huh? Well you've given me a lot to think about. I was impressed by Human Revolution, but I'd like to be impressed some more. If Invisible War was considered dumbed down compared to Dues Ex, then I really need to see what it has to offer.

...of course, I could just be an IW fanboy disagreeing with Deus Ex fanboys, so don't trust a single thing I say/said. ;-) If you watched that clip and liked what you saw, however, then there's probably a fair bit to enjoy about IW even now, as those kinds of conversations are obviously included for each dogmatic path.

It was a rather remarkably ugly game design wise, though... as in the colours and many of the designs for buildings and weapons. Oh, Laura Bailey voices the female PC, btw, so that's another small mark in its favour, even if it's not exactly her greatest or most expressive role.

For 2000, Deus Ex's voice acting was out of this world, when it came to video games. Today, of course, it is garbage. That's one area where the new games excel, of course--the pretty bells and whistles that increase immersion.

Whilst that ideally shouldn't be an issue, can you understand how it is for some (hell, even IW would appear pretty bad compared to HR)? There are some purists who can play older games and not have any issue with the visuals, interfaces, and production values, but I see it is as only natural that those kinds of details provide stumbling blocks for newcomers to older series. I adore Morrowind, and having played it when it came out, can overlook most of its aged elements. But I could understand if it seems unplayable for various reasons to those familiar with Skyrim or Fallout 4.

Even today, the level design of the original stands out--Hell's Kitchen and Hong Kong feel nearly as big as the Detroit hub of Human Revolution, and just as stuffed with things to do and discover. As I said, IW's biggest failing; Upper Seattle is barely as big as Sarif Industries.

If a smaller scale suits what's actually done in that area in terms of story and gameplay, is that much of a negative?

I actually haven't played the original in about five years, and the sequel in about ten; this thread is making me want to fire them back up.

I bought DE with a mind to do a trilogy run as an excuse to replay HR, but clearly never got very far... It may sound like heresy, but if DE has decent controller support, I'd probably try to return to it and see it out. Me and keyboards/mouses just don't mix with gaming.

(just googled briefly; huh, seems there are ways to play it with a pad. now I just need a pad that'll work with my PC... ah, nifty, the Elite pad's the only one I actually own right now, and apparently that already works with Windows)

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I did like the concepts that JC brought up, it was just a bit annoying that Alex didn't really offer any counter-arguments, even half baked ones.

JC: Philosophy.

Alex: Ok.

I mean I saw one clip from the original Dues Ex in which JC argues with Morpheus. He doesn't get the BEST counter-arguments, but it's clear he does disagree with the concepts Morpheus is bringing up. And Morpheus' arguments and ideas about humanity are some of the kind that have become even more relevant since the game came out.


But personally, I think BOTH games are probably worth checking out. Although they're both in dire need of HD remakes in which most things stay the same, but they get new graphics and better voice acting.

 

[Transdude1996]

But personally, I think BOTH games are probably worth checking out. Although they're both in dire need of HD remakes in which most things stay the same, but they get new graphics and better voice acting.

My mind immediately thought of the Silent Hill HD Collection and I laughed.

Though, to my knowledge, Square doesn't make HD remasters (Aside from FF X and XII). Everything is either is a reboot or a remake. And, now I have a sinking feeling they're going to "remake" Deus Ex because why not?

 

[Transdude1996]

Sorry, for some reason, my phone decided to double post.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I really hate it when I fall in a dumpsters full of bells and air horns while I am trying to do more conspiracies.

 

[parenthephobia]

I thought the augs v. naturals thing was more analogous to Islamophobia than racism, in particular because one can choose to be augmented. Having said that, I don't expect the game to exactly mirror any particular real-life form of prejudice.

The setting is really perfectly set up to allow both the player and Jensen to reasonably support either side of the argument, since Jensen was augmented involuntarily, and "the incident" gives people good reason to be wary of augs, but holds the augs blameless for it.

Unfortunately, the actual game doesn't really make effective use of that set up. There were hints of the game trying to address issues with nuance - such as the aug who had been disowned by his family because he killed his grandchild during the incident - but mostly anti-aug prejudice is just presented as bad.

Perhaps nuance was one of the victims of executive meddling.

 

[Dalisclock]

I liked the game quite a bit. (Aside from the DLC issues and such, which I can ignore by not buying it.) Interesting characters, the main storyline was fine, the side missions were very good, very nice aesthetic, fun stealth gameplay.

However, there are some major limitations in prequels just by their nature, and the DE prequels are doing nothing to avoid them--indeed, MD steers right into them. At the end, Adam tells Alex he is going to bring the people behind the conspiracy into the light, namely Joseph Manderley and Bob Page.

But we already know he's going to do no such thing; in fact, they are only going to become more powerful in the years to come, whereas Adam and his allies (with the possible exception of Samizdat, merging into Silhouette) disappear. Nor will he be exposing others behind the scenes, like Simons or DeBeers or DuClare or Everett. The best he can do is take out low level terrorists like he did in this game; setting him up to take down forces we know he won't take down paints Square Enix into a very small corner.

Yeah, I tend to groan now when I hear something is going to be a prequel. We already know what's going to happen later, so you're pretty much locked into certain events. Which means you either have to dance around that to create suspense or you cheat and retcon events from the original story. One of the reasons Star Trek Enterprise killed the entire franchise for me(because it did both, and through in some shitty Time Travel Hijinks to boot).

Of course, more infuriating is when a story ends on a cliffhanger and then the next move is to go make a prequel, pushing back any resolution even farther(assuming we get any at all). Yeah, I'm looking at you Twin Peaks! Sure, sometimes the prequel is used to set up the stories closing act but most of the time it seems like the writer wrote themselves into a corner and is trying to buy time with a prequel.

Anyway,back to the OP, I think I'm skipping this one. I found HR okay but never really got into it the same way I did the original, for numerous reasons, and now that it seems obvious that they're gonna milk the prequels for all their worth(by having 3, maybe 4 of them including HR), I just stopped caring.

 

[deadish]

First of all, I've never played this game, so take what I say with a grain of salt. BUT, the racism against augs seems pretty fucking on-par with reality. Since when has racism EVER made logical sense? Furthermore,

This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand.

Also, just because you're not racist doesn't mean a lot of people in this world aren't.

Finally, Yahtzee wanting this game to tackle the same themes the first Deus Ex had smells like bullshit. I'm sure if they did that, he'd say instead, "Oh, they're just retreading the same ground, the unoriginal twats."

He did address that. Is it really racism to be afraid of augs when augs have a serious chance of going berserk against their own will and killing someone?

Rethreading the same ground is fine - don't fix what isn't broken. It's rethreading the same ground with no improvements that he has issues with.

 

[Deathhappens]

Given the trend of the comments in this thread, I have to assume several people missed or forgot about a theme that was fairly central to Human Revolution: Getting augmented isn't so much a choice for some people as it is a neccessity.Non-aug'ed workers were unceremoniously being replaced by augmented ones in rapid rates. That was what caused the anti-augmentation riots that sparked the first part of the game's narrative in the first place. So while I also think that "mechanical racism" is a rather awkward term (and grammatically incorrect, too,as "being augmented" is not a race), that particular part of narratival logic stands.

So.. am I the only one that is annoyed with the title of this series? Deus Ex. God in.....

Come on now, finish the damn phrase!

I believe tha, technically, it's "God from", referencing the theatrical term "Deus Ex Machina", which literally translated would be "God from the Machine".
Quite apt for what the franchise represents, wouldn't you agree?

 

[4Aces]

The only arguement that matters - where is the other flippin' half of my game you greedy bastards!? Oh, that is what the $30 DLC pack 1 is for? Right Ubi, time for you to get the hell out of my country. I hear Winter is coming, and the South is much warmer. I suggest Juarez Valley, where you might learn the meaning of karma.