Deus Ex : Mankind Divided

No argument from me there, but I did pay for it and it’s the last Deus Ex we’re getting for a while, so I’m going to dive in.

So yeah… BREACH MODE…

More like the player base wanted nothing to do with a f2p game inside the full priced game they just bought.

Did anyone play that? I was so meh with MD’s blandness that I didn’t even bother before uninstalling.

It’s a collection of levels of pure gameplay, and I was tired of MD super bland gameplay after finishing the campaign.

Man you guys are so harsh. I loved Mankind Divided and didn’t find anything about it bland (well ok the main narrative wasn’t the most explosive/emotional stuff out there, but it did its job for me).

But Breach? Yeah fuck that. Completely idiotic to waste time and money on something like that. Reminds me of another one of Squeenix’s failed ventures, Sleeping Dogs Triad Wars. Such idiotic decisions, completely ignoring why people like these games in the first place.

I enjoyed my run through the game, and got a third of the way maybe through another before boredom set in. I managed two or more runs through HR, so my feelings about MD are influenced by that. But I never even thought about trying that Breach crap.

I was not up for the story DLC that I’d already paid for after I finished Mankind Divided, much less some weirdass no-story mode. Not that I disliked the game at all, I’d just had as much of that experience as I needed.

So this seems good! Couple of hours in, very rich. Enjoying… Hope the series isn’t dead :(

Mankind Divided is my GOTY for 2016, with a small chance i might switch to Dishonored 2 if i finish it (i am downloading it right now). Excellent game and vastly underrated. I think i understand why. The reason is twofold:

  1. Games like Mankind Divided aren’t suitable for the ADD generation. They require patience and creativity/exploration, something that most kids can’t do these days, they want instant gratification call of duty style

  2. Kids are too easy to jump on the bandwagon of hate. Someone mentioned microtransactions and “incomplete story”, and every kid started parroting this on the internet without actually having played the damn game.

There are 3 criticims i hear all the time about the game, and all 3 are wrong :

  1. Microtransactions aren’t necessary. The game gives you more praxis points than Human Revolution, and doesn’t require grinding for it. It also doesn’t shove buying them in your face, in fact, for most of my playthrough i was blissfuly unaware of the potential of buying them. You don’t have to pay for them, they are just cheats. While i hate the practice of microtransactions in sp games, at least they were just an addon, not something that affected the vanilla experience.

  2. (WARNING FOR SPOILERS) The game is a complete chapter in Jensen’s story arc. It is not a “half finished game” like most idiots online claim. It took me approximately 40 hours to complete and i left 2 minor sidequests unfinished. It is fully replayable. It is a big game. And the story, is about Jensen finding out about the terrorist group with the golden masks, preventing them from making another hit, and bringing them to justice. The game ends when you accomplish those goals. Sure, you do not uncover the illimunati behind the scene, but the story is supposed to continue in a sequel. This isn’t bad or incomplete, you didn’t call Mass Effect 1 and 2 incomplete because you didn’t stop the reaper threat in those games… They were part of a story arc. This is the most unfair criticism of the 3.

  3. The game is not unoptimized as some people claim. The game has a stellar game engine which produces incredible graphics. Graphics look really good even on low or medium. I managed to run the game perfectly fine on a FX-6300 with an R9 380 on high settings. This game is like the original Crysis, the ultra settings are supposed to be for future or very expensive hardware. But you don’t require them to enjoy the graphics, it still looks stellar at high. It is not unoptimized at all.

All i have to say, if any of you reading this are fans of immersive sims like Deus Ex games or thiefs, this is a must buy. Great game, totally underrated. I really hope we get a sequel.

Welcome to the board, TemplarGR.

My biggest problem with DE:MD is none of the points that you listed above. Rather, it’s that the game feels like a soulless “fill out all the checkboxes of an immersive sim” to me. All of the “immersive sim” parts are there, but there’s no creativity or imagination behind any of it. It’s all a rote busybox of hacking terminals, opening doors, crawling through vents, and the like – all of which had been done before.

And, just a suggestion: take it down a notch. There are very few CoD mouthbreathers here, if any, and coming out both fists swinging is just going to get you gently touched.

Good info - I bought the game but haven’t played it yet, kind of been waiting until I could focus on it completely. But then that day never comes so I should just jump in, damn the torpedoes.

I feel like you’re onto something with this, or at least I’m seeing this weird bandwagon thing going on with lots of games. My little pet cause I guess would be Mass Effect Andromeda, which seemed to get blasted in reviews and discussion boards way out of proportion with its quality. Not that everyone will or should like the same stuff, but there’s this weird leap to shoot something down, to trash things as broken or hopeless when they’re really just flawed to varying degrees. Maybe it’s always been this way and I’m only now noticing.

I didn’t feel that way. Why does it feel “soulless” to you? I am really curious. This game has plenty of detail put into it and the levels are pretty well designed. This isn’t a boring copy-pasted openworld like most Ubisoft games for example. Every stage can be approached in multiple ways, gameplay is fluid and fun, the story is really good in my opinion (although not “epic” like most rpg fans want), the voice acting is quite decent and i liked the writting. The game world is really close to what a cyberpunk future Prague might be. It even has some really cool easter eggs, quite a lot in fact. I really don’t understand this criticism of “lack of soul” at all. I think this is a personal thing. I have been gaming hardcore for almost 3 decades now, i am as jaded as the next 30-something guy, but i was really immersed in this game. Which is something only a few games have managed to do to me in the last 5 years.

As for my tone, you are right, but this particular game and its reception are making me somewhat angry. Every time discussion about this game happens online (not on this forum, but elsewhere), all i see are users calling it “hot garbage” and “trash”. Recently we had news that sales were bad and a sequel was put on hold. This is why i feel so strongly about this game, it is one of the most unfairly treated games of 2016. We might never see a sequel, and it would be a shame since it is a good game.

I don’t think the poster crossed any lines. Hell, I’d say we need more folks going to bat for things they love. I’d much rather read an impassioned and well reasoned defense of a game (or movie, etc.) that someone clearly feels strongly about than a fiery takedown. There’s enough cynics in the world already.

This game is really good. Trust me, you are going to like it. Of course the best way to experience it is with a non lethal + stealth approach. It is the most fun i had since Witcher 3. But unlike the Witcher 3, you aren’t playing it for the story. You are playing it for the pretty cool gameplay. Some of the most fun i had was trying to figure out how to break into a bank and steal all secrets locked inside. This bank (once you play you will know what i am talking about), is so heavily guarded it is insane. At first it will seem impossible. Yet i managed to do it nonlethally and stealthy, with a few tries. So much fun and i felt so good afterwards. Games like these are a perfect example of what an immersive sim can do.

As for Andromeda, you are right, again. In my opinion, Andromeda is a good but flawed game. Prior to the updates it was a 7/10 for me, now at 1.10 version it is a solid 8/10. Most technical problems have been fixed. It is an enjoyable experience, although it is grindy and repetitive after a while and the story is worse than the original trilogy. But the hate this game received was unwarranted. And the sad part is that most of the hate is propagated by kids who never played Andromeda, they just repeat what they heard elsewhere. And no, it wasn’t like that a few years ago.

Games are sold solely on hype now. The only things that sell are heavily advertised AAA games and fads. If a game is not 10/10 on metacritic, it is “absolute shit” for these kids. It is all black and white, you are either GOTY, or you deserve 0 sales and hanging all devs from a tree for punishment. LOL.

I don’t get this response myself - where was he being too … whatever he was being, in your estimation?

The only thing I’d mention was the reference to “kids” and ADD. Not all the overdone criticism of MD online is from kids, and bringing in a legitimate mental health condition in a way that can be perceived as unnecessarily derogatory and insulting isn’t perhaps the best approach to what is otherwise a very cogent counter-critique.

I got through 1.5 playthroughs, so I got my money’s worth, but I liked HR better. Partly it was the locations. Though Prague is nicely done, and there is a lot of “stuff” there, there was for me a bit too much back and forth and back and forth for my taste.

If I try it again, which I might well do, I will go for a stealth approach, though I’m not sure how much I can take of the non-lethal stuff, as some of the baddies are so in need of a good shooting.

Ah, sure, I can see that I suppose. I read it as more “younger people these days don’t have the patience to sit and play a game like this for the hours it would require” and as someone who more and more can’t sit through an entire movie before I want to get up and move onto a new project, I can imagine how younger people may take it. I just didn’t see any COD mouthbreather references, which confused me.

You are right. Well, when i say ADD, i don’t mean the medical condition per se, but the short attention span of most people these days. In other words, my intention is not to insult anyone with a genuine medical condition, but more to indicate a problem with most people demanding instant gratification. I don’t believe most gamers today have ADD in strict medical terms, but they do have short attention spans.

So, if someone was insulted by me, i really apologize. It doesn’t help that i am not a native english speaker so i may use some things i have read online without really thinking of how those things are perceived in native english speaking countries. We foreigners lack the ability to understand how “heavy” some things sound for you.

As for MD, definitely go for a stealth approach if you haven’t already. It will be frustrating because it will be hard, but it is so satisfying to pull off.

yup its a good game. its too bad we get so fucking many of them these days! not enough hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a life.

if old grump scharmers is bullying you, just ignore it. hes old and cant afford to live his childhood dreams in vr. i gots two fists here for ya buddy! 😋

lets crowdfund him one!

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DE:MD was a by-the-numbers immersive sim, and is the weakest of the three DE’s. (Invisible War doesn’t count).

Andromeda didn’t suck, but it was like a big bowl of watered-down alphabet soup compared to the previous three.

I guess that my tolerance for corporate AAA filler that’s intended to be dumped out there for big presales and day one sales then quickly abandoned is pegging low these days.