2821

Finished it. Took me 44 hours according to Steam, playing mostly Stealth / Takedowns. It’s worth noting that this is one of those games that rewards you for sitting through the entire, interminable credits. Given the extraordinary number of people who seem to have worked on this, I hate to think what the budget was.

Despite the frustrations I expressed up-thread, it was really quite good. I’m not sure it’s in my top 10 of all time, and certainly I liked the original game better, but it definitely deserves to be called excellent.

2822

I was sure the voice actor for Sarif was that guy from “Ned and Stacy”, but it turns out its not.

2823

He does a hell of a job though, doesn’t he? I don’t think I’ve heard a better voice acting performance in a game this year.

2824

I went with the “be honest” ending, and was disappointed that this turned out to be the Luddite ending. I don’t think B follows from A. I didn’t like Sarif, didn’t like covering up what happened, and wanted to punch Taggert in the mouth from the first time I met him. I think if I play it again, I’ll shoot him in the head when I get a chance.

Tough call for me, mainly because I like FO3 and New Vegas a lot. The writing in DXHR is miles better than either of those two games, the character progression much more interesting, and stealth is implemented much better than in any game I can recall. On the other hand, I like the sandbox nature of the Fallout games, and enjoy the Fallout combat much more, despite its flaws. I’ve played through both Fallout games at least 3 times each, I can’t see playing DXHR that much, though I’m tempted to try it again and be more combat-focused. Maybe try a pseudo “Iron Man” approach, only allow myself to use auto-saves or saves where I’m exiting the game. I think feeling compelled to reload after every stealth failure hurt the game a lot for me, so avoiding creepsaving might help, but it’s difficult for me.

I thought it was pretty clear what your ultimate target was. I used the laser rifle for that one, it was remarkably effective. The whole thing lasted just a few seconds once I realized the other targets were just distractions. Despite how very, very easy it was, it was satisfying because it was the first time I really got much use out of a long-range heavy weapon. I’m really not very good at shooters, so I appreciate games that let me play sniper effectively.

I was fine with the ending, though felt the final choice was ultimately kind of meaningless. I don’t get the hate for the Fallout 3 ending, I was fine with that. The final boss in Mass Effect 2 though… urgh. That was certified retarded. Not so much fighting it, the nature of it. That alone was the main reason I was never tempted to replay the game.

It certainly has potential as casual strategy game, though as I’ve said before, the element of chance is much too high for my taste. Though my pack-rat tendencies clearly came back to bite me again on this, I had 20+ Stop and 30+ Nuke viruses at the end. I think if I were to play again, I could get through all the hacking in the game without save/reload, now that I understand that you have 2-4 attempts per device, and that you really should use those viruses liberally when your skill is low because there will be plenty more available in the future.

2825

The hacking game, and the studio that made this game, clearly needs to make a Shadowrun RPG for me!

2826

Heh, I executed Taggert in our final meeting with two magic cyber-blades through the chest when he admitted his alignment. Of course all the people in the room just smiled and nodded. No effect on the game at that point, but it was pretty satisfying, I must say.

2827

Playing Deus Ex has been going slowly for me because it keeps sending me back to reread my old Shadowrun books. Cyberpunk has this weird future-nostalgia now. Like watching old Star Trek episodes.

Tony

2828

Agreed about the probability thing if you consider it as a pure game. It’s not so bad in the RPG context as a minigame, though. The randomness adds some tension when you are on your second attempt at a level 5 terminal; do I burn my not-so-precious nuke on this node, or not? If not, you may have to spend several worms, so there’s a trade-off decision to make in real-time, which isn’t a bad thing. I had about 30 or 40 worms and viruses myself by the end of the game too. Also, I never once used “Fortify” – didn’t see the point, really.

But anyway, it’s still the best hacking minigame I’ve seen in this kind of RPG to date, better than timed word searches, gear maze puzzles, or code block matching, to name some recent attempts at the same kind of thing.

2829

I know you guys aren’t posting any explicit spoilers, but there’s also no need to casually discuss the endgame. The spoiler thread is for those uh… great… posts where you list the story choices you made in an RPG.

2830

Yeah. I was about to come in here to post that. Easy, folks. I didn’t need to know that <spoiler>test - about to edit</spoiler>.

2831

As far as I can tell, there isn’t one. The strategy guide agrees with me. Any time that you might spend fortifying would be better spent hacking closer to one of the exits or a useful API node or figuring out what your next move should be.

It’d also be nice if I got a special prize (like maybe 25 XP) for killing the MCP, but that’s a minor quibble.

On my third restart now, after I discovered that I’d missed an achievement that you can only get in the prologue. This time I’m doing what I did in the original Deus Ex around my third time through and trying to straight-up unconsciousize all the dudes in the factory. I’ll probably get just about as much respect for all the help I gave the SWAT team in this one as I did in the first one, won’t I?

2832

Yeah, I was just about to come in here and post that. I didn’t need to know that
Spoiler

Taggart has the potential to die.

.

2833

I did use Fortify, right in the first mission. Why do you say it’s not useful? It delays the system reaching your entry node which is pretty vital if you’re running out of time.

2834

In all the hacks I’ve done (mind you, only the first mission and Detroit because I’ve had to restart three times), Fortify was my indication that I was doing something wrong. If we’re talking about the same puzzle, I believe the quickest way out was simply to hack back to the MCP (which you can’t always do - stupid arrow paths), because as soon as you crack the MCP you get everything in all the database nodes and you win. Maybe there are more challenging hacks later on that I’ll run into after I get over my personal insane need to fully capture everything I can capture (and it took me half an hour to find that damn toy car), but as far as I’ve gotten, I’ve never actually successfully fortified anything (I lost the time I tried to fortify my way through a puzzle).

2835

It’s because the time spent on fortifying is better spent on reaching your goal, especially since fortify almost always is harder to = bigger chance of being discovered.

2836

What do you mean by “time spent?” I sometimes backfill with fortifies if I’m waiting for new nodes to finish. Yeah it usually kicks off an alarm but it gives me something useful to click on during yet another hacking minigame. I had capture 5 and stealth 1 so maybe I didn’t need to play it as strategically.

2837

You guys know that you can fortify and go for another node at the same time right? As long as the nodes are connected, you can hack them. You don’t have to do them one by one.

It makes that much more tense when you’re fruit to hack 3 nodes at once.

2838

Are you on console or PC? I’m on the 360, and just navigating around the forest of nodes can take long enough to make the difference between winning the race to the end and losing. I imagine that’s probably a lot easier with free pointing.

2839

Was going to post the same thing. Discussing endgame is spoilery and belongs in the spoiler thread.

I just got to the second area and finally installed the social mod aug. It really makes conversations alot more fun. I highly recommend installing this one as early as you can and wish they had it installed by default.

2840

Fortify has two costs: the very high chance of setting off an alarm, and the time you spend clicking on the node.

If you’ve already set off the alarm, that’s not a problem, but you’re now racing against the clock. You can initiate as many actions as you like simultaneously, but may want to spend those precious seconds starting attacks rather than Fortify. If you’re stuck waiting because you’re cracking a level-4 or 5 node that will take several seconds to complete, it makes sense to use that time to Fortify.

If you haven’t set off the alarm, you’ve got all the time in the world. However, Fortify is an extremely risky action, so it only makes sense if you’re attacking a difficult node, and you’re pretty sure you’re going to set off the alarm anyway. In that case, you start the attack - preferably multiple attacks - and then start the Fortify immediately, so it finishes about the time your attack finishes.

In any case, Fortify is so rarely useful that I can’t see spending any upgrade points on it.