Deus Ex 2 Again

[Jericho]

Well, my Deus Ex 2 finally arrived from Canada. Only took a month (Nice one DVDBoxOffice). I downloaded the 1.1 patch before playing, so my comments are only based on that version.

After all the bad press I had read (and after playing the demo) I had expected a load of rubbish. But it is no where near as bad as I had first thought.

True the RPG element has been completely removed (Ion Storm's idea of RPG is now a 7-slot inventory).

The new patch fixes a couple of interface issues as well as allowing you to trun off dynamic shadows which boosts performance (and as you could barely see the dynamic shadows anyway, there is no point in having them)

My frame rate is more then acceptibale on XP, 512MB, AMD 1900+ and GeForce 4400ti at 1024*768 without light blooms (which look pants anyway) so i don't understand these people with huge problems.

The engine itself is odd, not looking so different from Deus Ex 1. Angular objects, quite blocky. I have only played for a couple of hours admitedly, but so far there have been ventilation-ducts around every level allowing you to avoid every obsticle. And multi tools lie around everywhere. I have 11 spare at the moment and I have been using a fair few. Loads of ammo too, and I have shot a fair few spider bots.

The music is nicely updated from Deus Ex 1. So far I preffered Deus Ex 1, this feels almost like a prequal adn Deus Ex 1 would be the great improvement if you know what I mean.

So far it is nothing like the game that was promised, but nowhere near as bad as some people have been saying, but I have only been playing for a couple of hours.

Oh, and the patch added increased damage for head shots (1 round for sniper rifle, couple of rounds for pistol). The universal ammo thing is crap idea. Ammo, bio-mod power, and health are all represented by graphics. So you don't know if there are 5 shots left in your pistol or 6 (In all the confusioin I've kind of forgotten my self. Sorry for the bad Dirty-Harry mis-quote). You don't know how much health you have (is that 25% or 35%?) and even when your helth is full, it doesn't reach the top of the graph just to make it even more difficult.

My advice is wait for it to go budget, then buy it. Not worth a full asking price, but is worth a budget release.

[nobbystyles]

youve only played it a few hours? then you must be near the end hehe.

its really too short. some biomods are good if a litle too powerful.

your inventory can be increased if you choose the strength upgrade. althoughas you progress you find that you carry a lot of things you dont uuse and ordinary food does a better job than med packs. u can carry 10 med packs in 1 slot or 50 food in one slot. it takes about 3 packs to heal you totally and takes about 9 bits of food to heal youtotal. plus there is lots of snack machines arounf to hack.

[Theopoli]

i got it on recommendation from pcgamer/pczone reviews....:evil:

saves me £10 a month i suppose,cancelled subs.

[Jericho]

youve only played it a few hours? then you must be near the end hehe.

its really too short. some biomods are good if a litle too powerful.

your inventory can be increased if you choose the strength upgrade. althoughas you progress you find that you carry a lot of things you dont uuse and ordinary food does a better job than med packs. u can carry 10 med packs in 1 slot or 50 food in one slot. it takes about 3 packs to heal you totally and takes about 9 bits of food to heal youtotal. plus there is lots of snack machines arounf to hack.

Oh yeah, all the food heals the same. Where as the original had the high-protein soya meals as high-healers. And of course alcohol takes away health in this one.

@ Theopoli: PC Gamer gave it 92% and called it perfect. I read that review too. You have to wonder how much they were paid to give that review. I agree everyone has different tastes, but that kind of score is impossible.

[Jasperodus]

i got it on recommendation from pcgamer/pczone reviews....:evil:

saves me £10 a month i suppose,cancelled subs.

The PCGamer review was written by Deus Ex-modder Kieron Gillen who clearly had a certain investment in saying the thing was great.

I don't know why PCZone should be criticised though, their review clearly pointed out the problems with DX2 and slapped a great big 'handle with care' sticker on the whole enterprise.

Jasp

[Theopoli]

to jasperodeus

your right,it seems they changed thier minds about it.
now if they had done editted opinion sooner i would be £30 better off.
my faith in mag reviews is gone,i only read user reviews now.
at least you can make a decision based on the majority view this way.

[nobbystyles]

its not a bad game. its just not a great game. on the deus ex 2 form there wasa screenshot of what th egame wqs supposed to be like. there was extra wepons, extra biomod slots and you had clips for ballistic ammo and clips for energy weapons. I cant see why they removed these. they must have thought the game was too short and people wouldnt really bother with those extras.

what is really unbalanced is the extra strength biomod coupled with the EMP discharge mod makes you virtually unstoppable. only thing that can stop you is a paladin knight. you an then use your baton to emp those laser protection devices. just hit the little node thing and it goes offline.

[Jericho]

I cant see why they removed these. they must have thought the game was too short and people wouldnt really bother with those extras.

Console. That is your one word answer. The whole thing plays like a quick console game. Like the PS2 version of Half Life, what the hell was that about?

I agree with you that it is not a bad game, just not a good game. But the real bitter taste in everyone's mouths is the comments from Warren Spector who essentially lied to people after the game had gone gold. Once I have completed it I will try again on a harder setting, normal is just too easy so far. The patch has really made a difference according to some of the forums. Maybe I will re-install without the patch to see what the problems were. Apparently the inventory/interface is much better now. Christ it must have been bloody awefull before.

The .ini files that you have to modify by hand to make the game perform all have xBox references in and comments like "Do not ship with this in". Jesus, couldn't they have got the work experience student to strip that out before it went gold? And making that .ini file read-only so non of your video resolutions/mappings are saved is just plain careless. Those are the things that annoyed people too, the lack of forethought. Like me when I open my big mouth.

[nobbystyles]

Dont take the patch off. the game is much better with it.

lets say we open up our inventory in 1.0 and we ar eon a pistol. there are no mouse clickable butons for install mod or drop. but it will say press tab to show wepon mods. now click the pistol again and it will now say press tab to drop. seems to save a button for console owners.

swapping equipment was a pet hate of mine. say we open out inventory again and we are on the pistol. now you want to take a look at your new flamethrower so if you click on the flamethrower straight away those two items are swapped and yourr view is still on the pistol. first you have to click ont he weapon a second time to deselect then click on the flamethrower. gets real tiresome real fast when all you want to do is take a look. glad the patch fixed that one.

the patch also allows you to turn off shadows for a performance boost. glad it did cos i never noticed they were gone.

Idont think you have to restart DX2 for a new difficulty setting. you have access to it during the game. i should probably go back and do that too maybe ifits a bit harder i might not be able to knock them on their asses with my baton before they can pull their guns out. altho since there isnt any bonus whatsoever for knocking people out instead of killig them you may aswell use an energy blade i suppose. should kill them a fair bit quicker.

[Jericho]

Dont take the patch off. the game is much better with it.

lets say we open up our inventory in 1.0 and we ar eon a pistol. there are no mouse clickable butons for install mod or drop. but it will say press tab to show wepon mods. now click the pistol again and it will now say press tab to drop. seems to save a button for console owners.

swapping equipment was a pet hate of mine. say we open out inventory again and we are on the pistol. now you want to take a look at your new flamethrower so if you click on the flamethrower straight away those two items are swapped and yourr view is still on the pistol. first you have to click ont he weapon a second time to deselect then click on the flamethrower. gets real tiresome real fast when all you want to do is take a look. glad the patch fixed that one.

the patch also allows you to turn off shadows for a performance boost. glad it did cos i never noticed they were gone.

Idont think you have to restart DX2 for a new difficulty setting. you have access to it during the game. i should probably go back and do that too maybe ifits a bit harder i might not be able to knock them on their asses with my baton before they can pull their guns out. altho since there isnt any bonus whatsoever for knocking people out instead of killig them you may aswell use an energy blade i suppose. should kill them a fair bit quicker.

Yeah I tried with shadows on and found no graphical difference in the game, but lost fps. Drawback of the energy blade is thebloody awefull noise it makes when you select/deselect, espieclly in heaphones. At least in this game there is a difference in knocking someone out and killing them. e.g. I knocked out that lawyer with a tranq dart, and couldn't understand why I wasn't getting my reward for killing him. So had to go back and mutilate his corpse with my lightsaber (sorry, energy blade) to get reward.

Very different from the first game where you knock out that terrorist leader guy and get rewarded for killing him, and a telling off by Sam Carter for killing innocent people.