Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

[V3zna]

On 19/12/2016 at 13:53, Doctor Shark said:

I'm going to be honest; I'm really not enjoying this. Admittedly I'm not very far in, having just discovered I've got some dodgy augs installed thanks to that doctor guy, but I'm just not finding it much fun to play. It feels really clunky and sluggish to control, Jensen is probably one of the least likeable protagonists I've seen and the whole thing seems a bit of a chore right now. I'm assuming I'm just not "getting it", given how popular this game and the series as a whole are, so I may try to persevere, but with so much else on my to do list I can see it slipping ever further down the pile of shame. 

I have to agree. I've been playing this series since the start but this feels tired and really dated. Just isn't grabbing me and the story is really uninteresting. 

 

As said before, the derp head npcs yap on way, way too much. 

[Sarlaccfood]

How are you guys playing it?

 

Stealthy or shooty?

 

[dr_manhattan^]

I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone, but I thought it was fantastic

[Mr Do 71]

13 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:

How are you guys playing it?

 

Stealthy or shooty?

 

 

Stealth 

[Uzi]

53 minutes ago, dr_manhattan^ said:

I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone, but I thought it was fantastic

Me too. I can actively see why people would dislike the game - it has quite a few narrative and character holes. But it is easily one of my fave game of the year.

 

I was even motivated to write a steam review for it after seeing so many negative ones

 

"It has narrative and plot line resolution issues, some imbalance in gameplay but damn if Mankind Divided isn't the best cat burglar simulator ever made. On top of that, it has some of the most dense, well designed and intelligent hub design. It has a small city that is packed with things to do and see from top to bottom. More "open world" games should take note. Reduce the square milage and fill it with detail and interesting things to see and do and this is where this game leaves most other ones behind in the dust."

 

These videos really speak to that last point

 

 

 

[Wiper]

1 hour ago, Uzi said:

It has narrative and plot line resolution issues, some imbalance in gameplay but damn if Mankind Divided isn't the best cat burglar simulator ever made. On top of that, it has some of the most dense, well designed and intelligent hub design. It has a small city that is packed with things to do and see from top to bottom. More "open world" games should take note. Reduce the square milage and fill it with detail and interesting things to see and do and this is where this game leaves most other ones behind in the dust.

 

I really enjoyed Mankind Divided (it's comfortably in my top 5 of the year at the moment), and the focus on a small, dense open-world is a primary reason that I love it; it's a very different game, but elements of its design resonate with me for the same reason Shenmue does - the sense of the world being deep rather than broad. I just wish the NPCs were a bit less, well, static, as that does break the illusion in a way Shenmue's meandering NPCs didn't.

 

On the other hand, I do have to take you to task for one comment - for all its qualities, gifting Mankind Divided the crown of best cat burglar simulator is (fittingly) bordering on criminal in a world that contains Thief and Thief 2!

[Uzi]

Ah but in Thief can you read peoples emails and find their drug stashes behind fridge freezer units? (I've never played too much of the original thief games - might need to give them another go. I just remember zombies (?) on a certain level of one and it put me off)

[V3zna]

2 hours ago, Sarlaccfood said:

How are you guys playing it?

 

Stealthy or shooty?

 

 

Stealthy unless it all goes to shit.

 

I've kinda found the same situation with Dishonoured 2. Just feels a bit too similar to the last game. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Not a lot of innovation but I guess they're competent  games at least. 

[Wiper]

1 hour ago, Uzi said:

Ah but in Thief can you read peoples emails and find their drug stashes behind fridge freezer units? (I've never played too much of the original thief games - might need to give them another go. I just remember zombies (?) on a certain level of one and it put me off)

 

 

Not so much of the emails and drug stashes, no, but plenty of conversations to overhear, letters to read, and stashes of jewels, valuable items and the like to uncover and fence.

 

The zombies were comfortably the worst part of 1, and unfortunately appear very early (in some particularly tedious subterranean environment) to put you off the game, but it still has great levels later on; Thief 2, by contrast, is all killer, with a purer focus on human foes (and their mechanical security devices) and superbly designed levels.

[HarryBizzle]

Just made a start on this. Got up to when you meet Vaclav Koller. So far, so Deus Ex. Bit of a slow start and the plot is a bit too convoluted for my liking.

I think I made a mistake by picking the tranq rifle instead of the stun gun. Someone please tell me you can find them elsewhere in the game?

 

Really liking Prague. It's cool being able to speak Czech and hear quite a bit of it in use. And it looks nice, too:

 

[Uzi]

You can find multiple copies of each standard weapon throughout the game and also some unique ones

[HarryBizzle]

I love the metro stations. Parts of them look exactly the same as the real thing.

 

I think they need to chill out on the exposition though. There's so much going on it's very easy to miss things.

 

Even in the tutorial the prompts disappear and then don't come back if you repeat the tutorial so you don't know what you're doing!

[HarryBizzle]

Vaclav is proper creepy and Jensen is an idiot for letting him anywhere near him. 

[HarryBizzle]

I'm really getting into this. I've just been to the Ruzicka train station and the game seems to have hit it's stride now.

 

The more time I spend in Prague, the more weird little things I notice and that keeps breaking the immersion for me. I kind of wish they had made more effort in this regard but I realise that I'm certainly going to be in the minority here. The spoken Czech sounds very odd in places and very robotic. There's one line of dialogue which gets repeated a lot and it's just Czech guards walking around going "THERE. ISN'T. ANYTHING. HERE." while walking around the streets of Prague.

 

I appreciate how they've sort of tried to push for authenticity but in a lot of places it just feels odd. Arun Singh is not an arab name but ethnically he appears to be and speaks Arabic. His voice actor is a white guy and his accent is really quite rubbish. A lot of the civilians and cops don't sound Czech even when they're speaking English and sometimes when they're speaking Czech they even sound Russian.

 

It's weird because a lot of it seems like it would be easy to fix.

Also, none of the locations seem to be real places in Prague. They sound similar in places but it would have been pretty cool if they had used real names (I don't know what the legal ins and outs of that would have been).

 

In a sort of similar vein, the people having LOUD conversations in the streets with their neighbours about how much they hate those darned, dirty augs really feels quite last gen and clumsy. You'd hope we were past this level of story telling in games to some extent.

 

 

 

Anyway, the gameplay itself is pretty damn cool.

[Vemsie]

On 16-9-2016 at 16:27, Majora said:

We don't get loads of games like this even though it's no longer so unique so it'd be a real shame if the franchise is dead now.

 

Dishonored 2, despite strong reviews, did worse than the first game as well unfortunately.  Here's hoping Prey fares better.

[Curtis]

The game is still crashing every time i use the Metro. I thought they fixed this back in August?

 

 

[HarryBizzle]

24 minutes ago, Vemsie said:

 

Dishonored 2, despite strong reviews, did worse than the first game as well unfortunately.  Here's hoping Prey fares better.

 

This seems to have reviewed well but come GOTY time no one cares in the slightest.

 

Dishonored 2 was hurt by Bethesda not giving out review copies I think. Doom came out with relatively little competition so had time to build word of mouth and people were more open to try it. At this time of year to launch a game with zero hype is just daft, there's too much other stuff vying for your wallet.

[hmm]

On 18/09/2016 at 16:42, sandman said:

This is a bit shit isn't it. It's simply nowhere near as good as HR. I have no idea what's going on plot wise and the voice acting is just bloody awful (particularly Macready). It's no 3/10 but I've played HR multiple times and doubt I will ever replay this. It's a weak 7/10 at best whereas HR was a strong 9/10 for me.

 

Bit belated but what is this nonsense? The line for

 

Spoiler

letting Singh die

 

in the opening mission is delivered perfectly

 

Spoiler

 

 

[HarryBizzle]

That's your choice of good VA?

 

sandman is correct the voice acting in this is very, very "video game." Stilted in places, unnatural. I can literally picture the voice actor in the studio hamming it up for the line you've picked out.

 

Edit: even the character animations look weird and unintentionally comical.

 

But any time a cop is an arse to me, I brutally knock them out and run off. 

[hmm]

May have been slightly tongue in cheek...

 

Though honestly, with very few exceptions, game plot, dialogue and cutscenes are unmitigated arse. I'd take a line that has me giggling over the usual fare any day.

[HarryBizzle]

I honestly can't remember being as obsessed with a game since Human Revolution. I sat down to play this at about half two today and have only really stopped now.

 

I'm up to about mission 10 in the main story. Doing all the side missions as they come along. Aparrently there's 16 missions in the game, so does that mean I'm more than half way through? I've just:

 

Spoiler

Used the NSN to find out more about Miller's conversation and am about to meet Janus.

 

 

The story is still the drawn out, metal gear lite nonsense that's actually easier to follow with the loading screen recaps rather than what's going on in game, but I'm still really enjoying it.

 

 

It looks ridiculously good in places:

 

 

That tower:

 

And possible spoilery screenshots:

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[df0]

I very much enjoy this, but as a Dutch native the name Rucker makes me laugh. You see, it literally means Wanker in Dutch.

[HarryBizzle]

One of the names that annoy me (apart from the mispronunciations) is Utulek - it means 'pound' (i.e dog pound). Which doesn't make much sense as it was supposed to be temporary housing for augs who the Czech Republic was happy to attract pre-incident. It also makes it a fitting name for what it is now, so they wouldn't feel the need to rename it Golem city which doesn't really make much sense.

 

 

Just had a look at the Steam sales of this - just over half a million according to SteamSpy. Can't be considered a success by SE and it's their fault.

And it seems they've just sort of bailed on their season pass?

[Down by Law]

There's another slice of story DLC to come early this year, but I think that's it. 

 

Hopefully it will get a re-release with all the content as the season pass is woefully overpriced. It's the square enix way after all

[Down by Law]

1 hour ago, HarryBizzle said:

Just had a look at the Steam sales of this - just over half a million according to SteamSpy. Can't be considered a success by SE and it's their fault.

And it seems they've just sort of bailed on their season pass?

 

Dishonored 2 is sitting around 400k - I know it's been out a couple months longer but that seemed to have more pre-release hype (i.e not handled by square enix)

 

I still hope to see a 3rd game, and if not, I really hope they go all out on the last piece of DLC.

[Nespresso]

I've just started this, despite me having pre-ordered it at the time, and have just arrived at Prague. Sucks that I have to get up early otherwise I could've probably kept on playing for hours more. The attention to detail to literally every centimetre in the environment is quite staggering. It just oozes atmosphere throughout (so far anyway). Can't wait to get stuck in for realsies this weekend!

 

I've been surprised by the performance on my ageing PC btw, it's been running great so far at a near constant 60fps on high to mid settings. 

[Nespresso]

Is it worth installing the app on my phone to scan those Deus Ex QR code thingies btw? What do they give you? 

[HarryBizzle]

1 hour ago, Down by Law said:

 

Dishonored 2 is sitting around 400k - I know it's been out a couple months longer but that seemed to have more pre-release hype (i.e not handled by square enix)

 

I still hope to see a 3rd game, and if not, I really hope they go all out on the last piece of DLC.

 

 

I really hope they do, though I'm not exactly hopeful. Took them long enough to get this out and HR was a success.

 

I really hope they get to make a sequel - lot's of people in the thread have said the ending is abrupt/unsatisfying. I'd like them to take it to a place where the events and state of the world in these games is not miles apart from where Deus Ex starts, because at the moment I have no idea how things get to the point they are in Deus Ex.

[hmm]

12 hours ago, HarryBizzle said:

Just had a look at the Steam sales of this - just over half a million according to SteamSpy. Can't be considered a success by SE and it's their fault.

 

I'm probably out of touch but is that especially low for the PC version of a multi-platform title? 

 

One of your screenshots captured one of my favourite bits: revisiting Prague, where it's now night and the red light district is in full swing. (Well... moderate swing; a few more NPCs wouldn't have hurt.) Looked magnificent in 4k/HDR, and there's some wonderful attention to detail in the environments.

[Hexx]

14 hours ago, HarryBizzle said:

I'm up to about mission 10 in the main story. Doing all the side missions as they come along. Aparrently there's 16 missions in the game, so does that mean I'm more than half way through? I've just:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Used the NSN to find out more about Miller's conversation and am about to meet Janus.

 

 

 

Depends on how mcuh side stuff you've done/got to go - but yeah I'd say you're over the half way point (although some of the upcoming missions are bigger than you've seen before, and other stuff can take longer because...you'll see)