stusser
3221
Well, you could play on easy. Difficulty settings only affect damage taken and dealt.
True, I’m just saying it reinforces my opinion on how the game works. It strongly encourages stealth, lethal combat is part of that. Of course, I did almost no “real” combat in my first play through beyond the required boss fights. Instead, I always did stuff which was completely safe, i.e. takedowns and those instant-success stun weapons while hidden. It may be that combat’s easier with practice.
His chest is augmented.
But seriously, he is supposed to have had his chest cavity area replaced. It was in the comic, or the game, I can’t remember where I saw it.
Grifman
3224
It was mentioned in the game where you find out about the details of your augmentation.
Just finished up my second playthrough in around 12 hours, on hard this time, full stealth, non lethal. Of course since the game is a bastard, I didn’t get either achievement.
I found the game considerably easier playing non lethal. Had to spend a lot less time scavenging for items and such.
Warning
3226
I just finished for the first time and it took 39 hours according to Steam. I explored a lot, hacked everything and by the end I was a murdering psychopath. Overall, I give the game a B+. The boss fights really sucked and I thought the game overstayed its welcome. When I was done I was glad to be done. I’d rather finish a game and be left wanting more.
That’s a pretty impressive speed run. Did you skip side quests or explore less? My first game only took 24 hours but if I could cut that down to 12 I might be more likely to do a second playthrough sooner rather than later.
Giaddon
3228
I’m really amazed at the variety in completion times, since Human Revolution isn’t, you know, Fallout 3 or anything. I’d expect a difference of ~5 hours, maybe even 10 hours for some real completionists, but I finished the game in 19 hours (I wasn’t exactly speeding through it, I finished all but 3 of the sidequests according to the achievements), and some people have reported as high as fifty hours! That’s over twice as long in a pretty linear game.
There’s a lot to explore, and sometimes it took me a while to figure things out. Getting into Derelict Row without getting spotted for example, had me going over a lot of stuff multiple times before I got it.
There’s also save and reload. I’m playing through a second time, with the idea that I’m not going to do creepsaving. Autosaves for times when I die, and that’s it. I’m not reloading hacks, but part of that is that I understand the hacking game better. Fortify does help if your hacking Stealth skill is still low, and you need to be able to delay the trace until you can make it through. The critical thing is to Fortify after the alarm trace starts, to Fortify multiple nodes at once, and to keep your intrusion going while you’re Fortifying.
I’m also finding the stealth easier, which makes for fewer reloads. Practice I guess. I had intended on just shooting people, but stealth is still the path of least resistance most of the time, since firefights usually get me killed. Still, I blew sneaking into that MCB hideout, and ended up just shooting everyone with the stun gun, and that worked out OK, whereas before I’d probably have taken much longer as I re-tried each aborted stealth attempt. I didn’t go with something more lethal only because the quest requires it.
I skipped most of the cutscenes, but did most of the side quests. I think there are still 2 that I didn’t bother doing. My first play through took around 20 hours.
I didn’t spend nearly as much time searching every nook and crany because I didn’t need as many items. Like I said, I found playing stealth considerably easier. I found the key to being sneaky is being fast, enemies can’t find you if you aren’t there. I didn’t do everything the same way I did in my first play through and was happy to find a good bit of variation in the ways to approach the missions.
Also, running + invisibility is insanely OP. In fact, if you aren’t worried about triggering alarms, just running on its own is OP.
WarrenM
3231
since firefights usually get me killed.
Do you guys just not have good weapons or is it way harder on the hardest skill level? Most of the time, I’m in zero danger of getting killed if I fire from cover. And since I’m head shotting, it’s usually 1 shot per enemy.
It’s FAR faster for me to just shoot the guy in the hallway than try to sneak past him.
He’s probably referring to enemies walking around your cover, or getting caught in the open. Even on Easy, a few hits will in fact kill you.
Yeah, shooting from cover or getting the drop on a guy, I had no problem. Get caught in the open or have more than one or two enemies firing at me at once? Dead in seconds.
You take a lot of damage on the hardest skill level. I don’t even know how many times I’ve popped around a corner to kill a guy with a shotgun 15-20 feet away, only to be instantly shot dead before I can even get a shot off.
By the way…this post here was great advice. Combat has become a lot more viable and fun since I pumped up these augs.
WarrenM
3235
Oh yeah, I agree that if you get caught in the open you’re pretty fucked. That doesn’t happen often but when it does it’s infuriating and means that everyone dies when I reload my save game. “Didn’t think that one through, did ya!!?”
Chris has the right of it. If I have cover against the guys shooting at me, I’m fine. It’s the guys running around the side to shoot me that are a problem. If there are enough of them and it’s close, they can just charge.
Agh, my resolve to avoid save-and-reload lasted until I discovered, just before turning it in, that I’d failed a “remain undetected” condition of a side-quest. I have a pretty good idea how it happened, but it meant re-playing about 30 minutes of the game. It’s not really necessary, of course, but failing that part kind of offended my sensibilities.
Case
3238
The best moment for me in the game was sneaking into a roomful of guards, cloaked, and hacking a terminal that turned a turret into an ally. Then I just ducked behind a wall and watch the turret mow down the guards.
Tony_M
3239
I find that the more resolved I am to avoid quicksaving, the longer the game takes. Now I spend alot of time studying patrol patterns and moving around for the best starting point to crack open a defense. When I was relying on quicksave I’d take a quick look and rush towards the most likely first victim. Mostly it worked, but if it didn’t I just reloaded.
Tony
I got through the second time through the Chinese place with a single turret that I just picked up and walked around with.
