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First Deus Ex 3 Details Emerge 157

Ostracus writes "Deus Ex 3, the third entry in the influential FPS/RPG series, was confirmed to be in development by Eidos Montreal nearly a year ago — and now the first solid details on the game have finally emerged. UK magazine PC Zone has a cover story on Deus Ex 3 for their 200th issue (which has reportedly just begun reaching subscribers), and CVG has relayed a number of interesting tidbits from the preview: '... this time around combat won't be influenced by stats, but will rely purely on your personal marksmanship skills. Instead stats will influence "a vast array of fully upgradeable and customisable weapons," and you'll be able to tailor your arsenal to your play style with mag upgrades, scopes and other add-ons. What's more, stealth will now rely on a cover system rather than shadows, and damage will be dealt with by a very Call of Duty-style auto-heal.'"
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First Deus Ex 3 Details Emerge

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  • by kbrasee ( 1379057 ) on Sunday October 05, 2008 @10:48PM (#25269595)
    ... please don't make it ANYTHING like Deus Ex 2. The original was fantastic, but the sequel was a horrifying dumbed-down heavy-handed console mess. Ugh, and the stupid intrusive HUD... I played through the original 3 or 4 times, but the demo of Deus Ex 2 was way more than enough.
    • by Adriax ( 746043 )

      On the plus side, it won't be ANYTHING like Deus Ex 2.
      Unfortunately the same can be said about 1 as well.

    • I agree with you completely. I played the original atleast 4 times but I couldn't play the sequel more than a couple hours. Deux Ex also happens to be the only game I've purchased twice (whipped out the CD last month and found it was cracked - thankfully the annoying D2D had it for download). The graphics of Deus Ex look horrendous but the gameplay and the storyline (not to mention the awesome music) are really engaging even today.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MrHanky ( 141717 )

      Invisible War isn't nearly as bad as many people think it is. It's just not nearly as good as the original Deus Ex. Its main problems were that it was painfully slow even on the fastest computers at the time of its release, despite the fact that the graphics weren't that fantastic. It lacked the sense of freedom and exploration you got in Deus Ex, since the areas were very small and had a painfully long load time, and the story wasn't as good. But in the end, it had an OK gameplay experience. Nothing specia

      • Invisible War isn't nearly as bad as many people think it is. It's just not nearly as good as the original Deus Ex. Its main problems were that it was painfully slow even on the fastest computers at the time of its release, despite the fact that the graphics weren't that fantastic. It lacked the sense of freedom and exploration you got in Deus Ex, since the areas were very small and had a painfully long load time, and the story wasn't as good. But in the end, it had an OK gameplay experience. Nothing special, but far from Daikatana.

        Let's see:

        * Poor performance
        * Uninspired visuals
        * Lacked sense of freedom and exploration
        * Long load times
        * Story not so great
        * "OK" gamplay experience
        * Better than Daikatana!

        Have you heard of the expression "damning with faint praise"?

    • I'd second that!

      Apart from the general dumbing down, the other thing which partly ruint the sequal for me was the way it was built for consoles.

      Deus Ex 1 had vast open spaces which made the epic nature of the game feel even grander, whereas Deus Ex 2 felt far too boxed in and Quake-like.

      It was a pity as the basic story-line and concept of the sequal was amazing. Anything featuring arcologies is a winner in my book!

    • The original had Warren Spector involved, a truly visionary designer.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Spector [wikipedia.org]

      The sequel, and part 3 as well, have nothing to do with Spector.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Wordplay ( 54438 )

        He was the designer of 2, and gave many interviews at the time supporting all design decisions.

        From your posted Wiki link:

        Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003), Ion Storm Austin

        From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Invisible_War [wikipedia.org] :

        Designer(s) Warren Spector, Harvey Smith

        • Except he said many times in interviews that Eidos wouldn't allow him to make a game he wanted, and forced many decisions on him. He washed his hands of that game. His name was used, but he didn't design the game.

  • by Shadukar ( 102027 ) on Sunday October 05, 2008 @10:51PM (#25269605)

    I have re-played original deus ex upwards of 20-30 times ...sometimes just for the pure reading joy, sometimes for discovering new/hidden stuff i always seem to stumble upon and sometimes to just try something different (I did give up one attempt after I got out of Paris catacombs without directly killing a single enemy in combat)

    deus ex 2 was piece of crap. i had none of the depth, none of atmosphere (despite obvious attempts at it), it had none of the fun game play, none of the re-playability. The only two good things I liked about dx2 was: machine supremacy soundtrack and the idoru.

    If they want to make successful sequel, they could have went into more detail about how they have learned from the mistakes of the 2nd one, not just saying "oh yeah the universal ammo was bad but we still think console game ideas are good so we'll be putting more of them in"

    personally, i would love to see an expansion pack for deus ex 1 - upgrade engine/graphics, maybe add some additional content, incorporate some half-finished mods/add-ons,etc.

    Also, a real prequel where you play Paul Denton - that would be awesome! Especially all the adventures that are alluded in hong kong, miss chow, tracer tong, etc. Maybe starting with the formation of unatco - the statue of liberty being bombed, the start of grey plague, the climb to power by illuminati, and let us not forget a certain young french lady and her chatteau :)

    Oh well, there is still time, the released information was not much to go by ...maybe all of these things will be part of the story line.

    • by mqduck ( 232646 ) <mqduck@mqduck3.1415926.net minus pi> on Sunday October 05, 2008 @11:09PM (#25269713)

      Agreed. The original formula worked so well. Why do they feel the need fuck it up? I think everyone would be thrilled with a Deus Ex sequel with a great new story and mostly the same gameplay (obviously the AI needs to be smarter and such).

      And speaking of DX1 with upgraded graphics, check out:

      High Definition Texture Pack
      supposedly very close to completion
      http://offtopicproductions.com/hdtp/ [offtopicproductions.com]

      Deux Ex: Reborn (a UT2004 engine port)
      unknown if this'll ever get finished. i believe the creator put it on hold to help finish the HDTP
      http://dxr.deusexgaming.com/ [deusexgaming.com]

    • SO i am not the only one who played Deus Ex repeat and repeat over time.

      I haven't play the second one, and may be do it later when the price goes down to $9.

      It will be nice to see they put this one through steam and setup a achievement system like the orange box.

      • by mqduck ( 232646 )

        Same here. I play through DX1 once or twice a year.

      • by Pope ( 17780 )

        It was one of the few games I had on my Mac, and each year after I first played it, I played it again because I had an upgrade (more RAM, faster processor, better video card) that made it even better. Hell, I started it up again running it in Classic on my G5, which wasn't as seamless due to the way the OS interpreted the 2nd mouse button, but was the fastest machine I had.

        Then I found out a way to run it in Cider on my MBP, so it's off to start it up again! :)

    • "I have re-played original deus ex upwards of 20-30 times ..."

      Obviously you didn't run into the same bug that I did with the GOTY version.

      If you save too many time the game can't continue when it does an auto save.

    • You are my new best friend shadukar. You pretty much described exactly how I feel about deus ex (after the 10th play through) and what I thought about dx2.

      I played dx2 for like an hour and then never touched it again due to my disgust.

      A remade dx1 would be the best case I think. Additional areas to explore + side missions would make it worthwhile for the not so devoted.

      • I think most people feel that way about it tbh. My little bro used to restart it all the time (before he'd even got to the end, which was the part I didn't understand, tho he did complete it too obviously). I was totally psyched for it, love the demo, and for some reason started playing through on Realistic difficulty when we got the full game. I spent a lot of time dying and loading up again, especially when it came to those crazy rocket launching robot dudes (or perhaps I was launching the rockets, can't

    • by Toonol ( 1057698 ) on Sunday October 05, 2008 @11:46PM (#25269887)
      I don't think 2 was a piece of crap, but I played it first, so I probably didn't have your expectations. I thought it was a fairly typical example of FPS/RPG hybrid. Later, playing the first one, I understand how you feel. Going from superb to mediocre is a jolt, even if the mediocre game isn't really that bad.

      Sounds like 3 will be worse, from the description.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    CVG is a Versalife PR front. Posted anon. cantlet them find me.
  • by Shadukar ( 102027 ) on Sunday October 05, 2008 @11:00PM (#25269665)

    * Sinister voice of Simons will be returning to announce ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKS !
    * mulitplayer death match via XBOX LIVE
    * development focusing on volumetric 3d shadows.
    * all NPCs that can offer quests will have a yellow exclamation mark over their head so you don't waste time talking to pointless NPCS!
    * 2 ammo types. better than 1/universal ammo (see? we learn/listen to feedback)
    * reading is for intellectualfags/pc fags. you play console games for fun, so there'll be none of that rubbish in dx3!
    * It is a prequel where you play a character completely unrelated to the original game, in circumstances only vaguel related to the original game, in a storyline completely separate to the original game. It is a prequel.
    * You will not be going anywhere near a certain chateau in France.
    * maggie chow and tracer tong storylines unlockable via paid downloadable content.
    * One install per device guaranteed by SecuROM

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 05, 2008 @11:19PM (#25269759)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Monday October 06, 2008 @12:07PM (#25274853) Journal

        1. Unfortunately, "critically acclaimed" doesn't really mean much. It means that at least one reviewer wrote a glowing review, whether because he really bends over that easily for the publisher's ads and freebies, or because he liked the idea lots after playing for 5 minutes on God mode.

        Anarchy Online was "critically acclaimed" and it was launched as an unplayable mess of bugs, with bad balance. It lost players hand over fist _fast_ and only stabilized after being turned into a freebie ad-supported game, and even then at a _pitiful_ number of subscribers. So not that many players liked it either.

        Aiken's Artefact was "critically acclaimed" and IIRC it sold a pitiful 800 copies in the beginning. (Not sure how many more were bundled later in "top X games" bundles.)

        Looking Glass's games were "critically acclaimed" and had such a rabid following that, arguably, it was the "OMG, Eidos killed Looking Glass to keep funding Daikatana" that broke the camel's back and triggered the devastating backlash against what would have otherwise have been merely a mediocre game with outdated graphics. But, funnily enough, Looking Glass had more rabid fanboys, than it had paying customers. Their last couple of games (e.g., the Terra Nova experiment) sold pitifully few copies, and even other publishers (e.g., Microsoft) no longer wanted to touch them with a ten foot polearm. Reviewers and fanboys ranted and raved about how great and innovative the Looking Glass games are, but people didn't actually buy those games.

        So aiming for "critically acclaimed" instead of sales, is a bit like aiming to be the ugly girl with a great personality.

        Now I'm not saying that DX1 was "bad", so hold yer horses. But if it didn't sell great, it didn't sell great, and that's that. I can see why a publisher or developper would try to change a few bits and see if it does better.

        2. And part of its problem was that it wasn't really anything anyone could put their finger upon. It was barely even an FPS, but it required FPS skills to get out of a firefight alive. It wasn't a forced stealth game, but mostly you had to anyway... except when it wouldn't work and you'd be back to needing FPS skills again. It was barely even a CRPG, but it tried to tell CRPG fans that it was one. Then they'd need FPS skills or have to deal with forced stealth, instead of the usual concentrating on the semi-interactive storyline while letting the computer roll the targeting dice. Etc.

        Now I'm not saying that _only_ FPS skills worked, but... let's put it like this: from all that bewildering array of possibilities for solving any problem, there'd be at least one point in the game where _your_ favourite approach just didn't work and you had to do something else. For each category of players, a different one.

        Basically instead of catering to the union of FPS, stealth and RPG fans, it really catered to an intersection of the three sets. You had to be the kind of guy who enjoys all three, to go through the whole game and like it. Because otherwise sooner or later a section of the game would come up which forced you to do the one you dislike.

        Now if you were indeed at least semi-comfortable with all 3, I'm not going to say you shouldn't like it. In fact, I'm happy for you. But, well, that's one possibility as to why it had only mediocre sales. Because it really catered to a minority.

        And from that point of view, again I can see why a publisher would try to enlarge that target market segment.

    • by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Sunday October 05, 2008 @11:53PM (#25269925)

      Indeed, that's the impression I got as well. And that focus on weapons is just depressing. Remember where you start off at the dock in DX1, and you get berated for choosing the GEP-gun? *That* is how DX1 dealt with weapons. Sure, it was also a shooter, but the real draw was the fantastic storyline, the various RPG mechanics were a lot of fun, and you had to live with the choices that you made.

      I have had my fill of nameless, faceless muscle guys with big guns. I have already stopped buying games that only seem to get reviews that focus on the details of the weapons instead of on gameplay or storyline - evidentally these games are now so much alike that there is no need to talk about anything else anymore.

      Anyway, let's rejoice that we had games like DX1 at all, that there was a time when such things were possible. Like the 2D scrolling shooter they are dead now, but they are fondly remembered as the grand experiments that they were...

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Goaway ( 82658 )

        the various RPG mechanics were a lot of fun, and you had to live with the choices that you made.

        See, that's the thing. If I wanted to "live with the choices that I made", I would be living my real life, not playing a game.

        "Living with the choices that I made" is not fun. It just creates stress and worry when I am supposed to be enjoying myself.

        • by shish ( 588640 )

          stress and worry when I am supposed to be enjoying myself

          When you play tetris, do you play the variant with only one column, and all your blocks are 1x1? :P

          Stress and worry are very enjoyable, when you overcome them. Where's the enjoyment in getting to the end of a game with zero challenge?

          I found the specialisation aspects of DX1 to be one of my favourite parts, as it allowed me to play the game according to my own personality (making use of stealth and gadgets); then once I'd done that a couple of times, trying different approaches (athlete, heavy weapons s

          • by Goaway ( 82658 )

            In Tetris, all my choices and consequences are laid open before me. The gameplay is unchanging throughout the game, and I know exactly how it will proceed at any given point. Moreover, it is a game that is played again over and over.

            A game like Deus Ex, however, doesn't show me how my actions will influence future events up front. And neither is it a game that is played over and over again so that you grow used to what kind of action is advisable in what circumstance. You are left guessing at every step.

        • It is called an element of strategy. Making different choices gives the game replay value than a standard FPS game wouldn't have.

        • Uhm, you can restart the game and make different choices, so it is actually rather unlike life in that sense. And it probably depends on our personality types, but I find games that feature no meaningful choices on my part to be rather unsatisfying in the end.

          • by Goaway ( 82658 )

            Uhm, you can restart the game and make different choices, so it is actually rather unlike life in that sense.

            Sure, and waste ten to twenty hours of work I might have put into the game up to that point. No thanks.

            If a game takes fifteen minutes or so to play, I'll happily restart it. However, modern games tend to brag about the multiple tens of hours they take to complete.

            • Your effort is not wasted. If you follow sub-optimal strategies the game just gets harder, not impossible.

              Were you happy with the good/evil system in Bioshock? No matter how you played, you always got the same amount of adam. So what is the point of making one choice or another? A different movie at the end? That's kinda weak... Why not add some real consequences to such a choice?

              Whereas in Deus Ex, if you chose certain upgrades (speed over strength, for example), you would have to use different strategies

              • by Goaway ( 82658 )

                Were you happy with the good/evil system in Bioshock?

                No, I did not play it, and don't plan to.

                There are other games than FPSes out there, you know.

    • * One install per device guaranteed by SecuROM

      if this is true, are any of us going to buy it?

    • Sinister voice of Simons will be returning to announce ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKS !

      Isn't that basically what most RPG games do? Unlock levels or upgrade equipment. The unlocks in more recent games have often been the things that kept me interested. Recently I replayed "Uncharted!" on a couple of difficulty modes just to get all the unlocks, and I basically never replay single player games. Unfortunately with Battlefield Bad Company I got to level 25 (which means most unlocked weapons) and I've never loaded it again for some reason.

      I'm used to multiplayer games being about the fun experien

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      * all NPCs that can offer quests will have a yellow exclamation mark over their head so you don't waste time talking to pointless NPCS!

      That would be really useful the next time i go to the pub, yellow exclamation marks over the girls I should talk to.

    • Holy crap, I thought you were joking. But then I RTFA...

      "Augmentations have been bumped up and sound fantastic. 20 have been promised for the final game, ranging from 'bungee jump' tentacles that shoot from your back and anchor to a wall when you jump off a building, and the ability to punch through walls to grab enemies in neighbouring rooms."

      What is this, City of Zeroes? This comic book madness has to stop. It sounds like this is going to be worse than the second one.

    • inister voice of Simons will be returning to announce ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKS !

      FYI, the "Voice of Simmons" is none other then legendary game developer Tom Hall. [wordpress.com]

      Since he's working on his own MMO right now, I don't know how keen* he'd be on returning to the Deus Ex world for some voiceover.

      *lol, I made a pun [mobygames.com]

  • Bad decision (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kallahan ( 599898 ) on Sunday October 05, 2008 @11:06PM (#25269701)
    One of the main reasons Deus Ex 2 was such a let down was the removal of the skill system affecting marksmanship. It was and extremely pivotal game device that affected how you'd play the game from level 1. You could not run in gun in the end game unless you were trained to run and gun.
  • I was just thinking "I really need to start playing Deus Ex". I've always meant too but life just drags you away from epic ness... perhaps it was to prevent me from knowing joy, or perhaps it was to prevent me from feeling depressed if Deus Ex3 fails... suppose we shall soon see.

    ~
    NoName

  • No No No (Score:5, Insightful)

    by p0tat03 ( 985078 ) on Monday October 06, 2008 @12:22AM (#25270017)

    What are they thinking with Call of Duty style regenerating health? Seriously... Deus Ex is not a run and gun game, it's a game that rewards resourcefulness and steathiness. The COD-style recharging health mechanic has *no place* here. The sole reason for recharging health is to keep the game pace up and allow the player to keep charging into frenetic combat in action games. Deus Ex is not one of these games.

    I was looking forward to this, no longer following this now. Wake me up if this turns out to be good somehow.

    • Re:No No No (Score:4, Informative)

      by LarsWestergren ( 9033 ) on Monday October 06, 2008 @02:25AM (#25270521) Homepage Journal

      What are they thinking with Call of Duty style regenerating health? Seriously... Deus Ex is not a run and gun game, it's a game that rewards resourcefulness and steathiness.

      I had a brief fit of nerd-rage when I read this article. It occasionally sounded like they were turning it into a lame console shooter...even more than DX:IW. But It has the head writer from the first game back, and the community representative have allayed some of my fears.

      When they said a "cover system" many people have taken that to mean it is going to be something like Gears of War, but apparently it is still a sneaky game. The sneak mechanics uses line of sight instead than light/shadow. Having only light/shadow could be a bit silly sometimes when you were crouching in a shadow spot in the middle of a open lawn just meters away from someone and they didn't see you. Personally I'd like a combination of the two mechanics, but maybe that is difficult/time consuming to implement.

      They have also promised an open non-linear world this time, choice and consequences, good dialogue and characters. Also XP/upgrades, and that "Deus Ex 3 is an RPG. An action/RPG like the first one".

      • by p0tat03 ( 985078 )

        Open-linear is good. It was where the original game excelled and where the second game failed. Think back to the Liberty Island mission in DX1 - you could finish any number of objectives in any order, using any approach. It was true gaming freedom. The whole game was like that, and I loved it.

        I don't mind the cover system for stealth. I enjoyed Splinter Cell, even the ones operating in broad daylight, and those games are constantly a lot of fun.

        The main beef I have is the health system. There is *no point*

        • by Haeleth ( 414428 )

          Oops, did I let that security camera see me? Oh well, I'll just duck behind this crate here and snipe at enemies, regenerating health when necessary, until they're all dead.

          Possibly. Possibly not, if the AI's good enough. Maybe once you've been spotted, they'll just surround the room with mechs and then start lobbing in gas grenades, while keeping the security camera trained on the crate so they'll see if you make a break for it.

          Deus Ex 1 had regenerating health, if you took the right aug. It made things

    • by ozphx ( 1061292 )

      Yes yes yes. Lack of regenerating health has always been something I've hated about games. An injury model? Sure. That would rule.

      But the whole crawling around on 10% health bullshit is a hangover from the days of Wolf/Doom where you were given 100% health and had to kill X enemies. Then you got more health for the next encounter.

      Deus Ex doesn't have to be like that, and it doesnt have to make it into a run and gun game.

      Stuff up while getting past a guard, manage to barely take him out but the alarm is rais

      • Re:No No No (Score:5, Insightful)

        by p0tat03 ( 985078 ) on Monday October 06, 2008 @02:45AM (#25270577)

        Regenerating health is an easy (and crappy) solution to a problem. The problem was that game pace was getting broken up when players ran low on health. Instead of having fun shooting things players were scrounging around for medkits (or worse, quickloading constantly).

        Regenerating health gets you back into the action, back to shooting stuff, faster. But it's precisely this reason why it doesn't fit with a game like Deus Ex.

        With DX half the fun isn't shooting people, it's avoiding them, hacking systems around them, or using indirect ways to kill them. The player is outgunned and in many cases outclassed by the enemy, which unlike most games doesn't mean constant medkit hunting, it simply means that you have to explore the various ways the game lets you outsmart your enemies... Hack that turret and turn it against the guards. Or, disable the security camera so the guards are never summoned. That was the fun of the game, because getting into a fight was a resource drain, and forced the player to think outside of the standard run and gun combination. I've had problems in many shooters from the Deus Ex era that had you constantly low on health and quickloading, but DX wasn't ever one of them.

        Stuff up while getting past a guard, manage to barely take him out but the alarm is raised? Limp off to a hiding spot and wait for the alert to die down.

        Or do it like the original game did. Raised the alarm? Get into a hiding spot quick, and use hit and run tactics to take out your enemies. Or, you race back to a room you were in before with thre auto-turret you conveniently hacked, instant death to your enemies. Or you drop a few tear gas grenades and get the hell out of there. Regenerating health removes the incentive to try ANY of the above options. All it does is tell the player "don't worry, don't bother thinking, just retreat, pull out your biggest gun, and keep shooting", which IMHO is really the wrong way for Deus Ex of all games to be going.

        Now on the flip side you have GRAW regeneration, which I'm a fan of. GRAW divided your life bar into multiple segments. Your health will regenerate slowly up to your current life bar segment (e.g. you can recharge from 63 to 75, but not higher. To actually "heal" requires medpacks. This is a great way to keep the player from hanging on by a thread of a few health points, but at the same time institutes a real penalty for getting careless and getting shot. I would much prefer this system in DX.

        • The problem was that game pace was getting broken up when players ran low on health. Instead of having fun shooting things players were scrounging around for medkits (or worse, quickloading constantly).

          Oh, the horror! They had to reload a save game and play better! They actually faced the prospect of failure!

          Today's games coddle the player. They're way too easy.

          • by Goaway ( 82658 )

            That's not "facing the prospect of failure". It's just doing the same thing over and over again.

            "Facing the prospect of failure" would be to not have saves.

          • by ozphx ( 1061292 )

            If you are thinking about your health and medkits then you are metagaming. You are not immersed. The game is probably less enjoyable, unless you are into the sort of faggotry which comes with memorising weapon stats and spray patterns like CS kiddies.

            • by p0tat03 ( 985078 )

              Deus Ex was never about the immersion. The graphics were lackluster even when it came out, the music was often distractingly bad, and the voice acting was a little sub-par as well.

              But keep in mind of the game's origins: Warren Spector started his career as a traditional gamer - which is to say card games, board games, and the such. He knows that to make a fun game you don't necessarily need VR goggles and surround sound.

              Think about a game like Risk. Tons of fun, but not immersive in the least, nor realistic

          • Today's games coddle the player. They're way too easy.

            So true. Most games today are only made difficult by the fact that they are overly complicated. Nowadays I find myself spending the most time playing games I paid $10 for XBLA, specifically geometry wars 1 and 2, and megaman 9.

          • by p0tat03 ( 985078 )

            I would argue today's games are about fun. I don't sit down after work to prove my awesomeness to the game. I want to have fun, not pass a gauntlet of impossible challenges.

            That being said, a game shouldn't be TOO easy, and by and large action games with the regen system *aren't* too easy, simply by the fact that now you are facing a barrage of fire from all sides, and dying is still a distinct possibility. All it does is keep the player IN the game, as opposed to slinking off to look for medkits.

            One of the

        • by ozphx ( 1061292 )

          I agree. I think you perhaps misinterpreted my intention of the regenerating health. Running backwards would not cut it. Regen would be a balance issue, and just say you pegged it at 1 hp/sec and you are being chased by a bunch of blokes doing 10 hp/sec, the regen is negligable to the outcome.

          I'm definitely not advocating a duck-behind cover, full health in 2 seconds system. That would obviously ruin the game. Going and hiding and tooling around with medkits in an inventory system isn't a great game mechani

          • by p0tat03 ( 985078 )

            Going and hiding and tooling around with medkits in an inventory system isn't a great game mechanic though.

            I agree. I think excessive inventory shuffling was something that was a distinct weakness of DX1. Honestly, I want to hack something, kill something, etc etc, not play virtual Tetris with my inventory items. I'm in favor of a simpler system - e.g. only X weapons, only X lockpicks, etc. Juggling medkits is also not a great way to go.

            BioShock handled this well. You can carry around a certain number of medkits that are quick to access without flipping through menus. I think DX would be greatly improved if we k

      • Deus Ex doesn't have to be like that, and it doesnt have to make it into a run and gun game.

        It wasn't like that. However, if you trained your character that way, you could indeed play run and gun. That was the beauty of that game.

        You keep referencing some imaginary scenario in which you're forced to survive the rest of some impossible level with low health, ignoring the fact that there were tons of medkits lying around in Wolf/Doom. In fact, in Deus Ex, you had an inventory to store your medkits and coul

        • by ozphx ( 1061292 )

          One of the most entertaining modern FPSs I've played was the R6 Vegas games on the hardest difficulty. That came with regenerating health and a cover system.

          It worked _well_. On the hardest difficulty, you could be killed in a single 3 round burst from an SMG, or a direct hit to your center of mass from a rifle. You had to be careful. A glancing hit to an extremity or a stray low velocity round to the armour would knock you for six. Your character would act like you just got punched in the guts, blurred vis

          • You know what's an infinitely better game than R6 Vegas? Rainbow Six: Raven Shield.

            No medkits there. And, for that matter, no regenerative health bullshit either. To balance things out you had up to seven heavily armed doodz coming with you to take down a few dozen terrorists. Again, in contrast to Vegas where they send 3 guys to kill hundreds of bad guys. Oh, and terrorists did not spawn in empty dead-end rooms by the side of your travel route once triggered.

            Goddamn I could rant about this for hours. How a

            • by ozphx ( 1061292 )

              So, errr, play on the difficulty levels that aren't targetted at people on console or GTFO?

              You know the only realistic game I played? Operation Flashpoint. That had all the realism of walking for ten kilometers and then being the first guy in your patrol to be sniped in the head! Great fun!

              Or we could play any other old FPS. Look daddy I have 10hp and no health packs! I'm going to duck behind this fence and jump and peg people for 3hp using my shitty pistol. Notice how the AI doesn't come and hunt me down!

      • by Haeleth ( 414428 )

        Think of it like the typical game alarm system. You fuck up but hide, the alert level goes down over time.

        I never understood this.

        "Sir, Sergeant Smith's been brutally murdered!"
        "That was nearly a whole minute ago, Private. Return to your regular patrol route immediately, completely ignoring the corpse every time you pass it, and don't let me catch you looking over your shoulder as you pass that shadowy corner by the crates."

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 )
      What are they thinking with Call of Duty style regenerating health? Seriously...

      That the player-character is a nano-engineered cyborg superman and that automatic damage repair is the absolute first thing that UNATCO would have installed in all its agents?

      • What, you mean like how JC Denton started out with the regeneration bio-mod? No, wait, he didn't - you had to work hard to get it and then use it wisely to make the most of it.

      • by Haeleth ( 414428 )

        Oh, that's okay then. As long as it's going to make my roleplaying of a nano-engineered superman with bungee tentacles more realistic, I guess I don't care whether it ruins the gameplay or not.

      • Mod parent both insightful and funny, please!
  • by babalouies ( 1050410 ) on Monday October 06, 2008 @12:50AM (#25270143)

    "stealth will now rely on a cover system rather than shadows", eh?

    It looks like they got my letter about adding the ubiquitous cardboard boxes as an inventory item!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by babalouies ( 1050410 )

      ...and here I thought I was kidding. An excerpt from TFA in PCZ:

      "Stealth is also receiving a major revamp and will now utilise cover rather than shadow as its primary function, with a Metal Gear Solid-style cone of vision mechanic (available only through augmentation) used to ascertain an enemy's field of view."

  • Biomods (Score:4, Funny)

    by mqduck ( 232646 ) <mqduck@mqduck3.1415926.net minus pi> on Monday October 06, 2008 @12:50AM (#25270145)

    TFA says that DX2 will have 20 different biomods, some pretty far-out. If this is a "prequel", why didn't they exist in the "future"?

    • by Fweeky ( 41046 )

      Nano-augs were supposed to be pretty new, so they could probably explain it by saying some of the more advanced bio-mech mods just weren't ported to the new architecture.

      • by mqduck ( 232646 )

        Yes, but lots of old-fashion bioauged people were still around. And your nano-augs were a lot more powerful than those.

        • But none of your nano-augs were things like an arm cannon ripped off of Mega Man's arm... and DX2 made the existence of skull-guns canon (likely in reference to the Diamond Age, but I expect to see - and mod - one in this game). Really, if you want to see what can be done with cyber and not nano, go look up Cyberpunk 2020 - the chromebooks, some of the fan-made cybernetics - sometime. I mean good god, they had the cyberarm chainsaw for chrissakes. Missile launchers, capacitor-lasers, silenced submachine
    • by k_187 ( 61692 )
      I never played DX2, but there's a line in the first one that the technology is just now hitting the market and is therefore pretty rare. It could be that you just didn't find this stuff.
    • by Haeleth ( 414428 )

      For the same reason that the Rebels and Imperials had to rely on humans to do their fighting, while the baddies in Star Wars 1 (who were so forgettable that I can't even remember their name) had kick-ass war robots.

      Basically, it's hard to make a decent sci-fi prequel when your corporate masters are demanding you appeal to teenaged boys who want bigger bangs every time.

    • by mqduck ( 232646 )

      TFA says that DX2 will have 20 different biomods, some pretty far-out. If this is a "prequel", why didn't they exist in the "future"?

      I meant, of course, DX3. But a thought occurred to me on how they could make bioaugs both new and interesting (from the player's point of view) and older and less advanced (from the storyline point of view):

      Give players a choice of a bunch of (physical, visible) bioaugs that have serious disadvantages to them. Make it so that if you mount a fucking cannon on your head, you can't hide as effectively. Make it so that if you get cushy feet to make you move more quietly, you can't jump as high. And so on.

  • !$%* third person (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fweeky ( 41046 ) on Monday October 06, 2008 @01:29AM (#25270301) Homepage

    One of the points of a FPS being first person is to add immersion; you're looking out of the protagonist's eyes, so you *are* the protagonist. Even if most of the time it's really just a floating camera, at least it's a floating camera where your eyes should be.

    Now, cover systems.. fair enough. They can be done well; see, for example, GRAW. All first person, with your body actually modelled so you can see yourself, and when you enter cover you get the impression of actually.. entering cover.

    But noooo, that's too hard to get right, so they're going to do what everybody else does and give you an out of body experience every time you lean against a fucking wall. None of this nonsense where entering cover is an important tactical decision because it blocks your line of sight just as much as it blocks bullets; this is a console game, so we'll make it easy and let you look around corners with magic floating vision.

    And why bother spending time balancing the game when they can just give you magic regenerating health? *sigh*, they could at least make them optional augmentations, you know, like in the critically acclaimed original?

    • by ozphx ( 1061292 )

      Bullshit. First person cover would be fine if I could edge along a wall and peek around.

      When you are stuck with a dinky control system with your eyes right on the centreline of mass, so you have to expose half your damn body to look around a corner - then it just plain sucks. The new cover systems may be pretty generous with the camera angles allowed, but that could be fixed.

      If you want realistic vision and all that jazz, look at the relative unplayability of Op Flashpoint. Whats next, complaining that hold

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        Deus Ex allowed you to tilt your body to peek around corners. Just sayin'.
      • by Fweeky ( 41046 )

        Bullshit. First person cover would be fine if I could edge along a wall and peek around.

        That's exactly what you do in GRAW. A single shot can kill you, so a usable cover system's vital, and it managed it without making your eyes pop out 8ft behind you.

        If you want realistic vision and all that jazz, look at the relative unplayability of Op Flashpoint. Whats next, complaining that holding W doesnt have the intricicies of running over rough terrain, and that we need to use a joystick to balance the characters legs?

        Oh please, there's plenty of space between Wolf3D style floating camera and Op Flashpoint style wobble-o-vision, there's no need to turn into Gears of War to make cover work. GRAW managed to make you aware of your body and your use of cover without smashing the fourth wall with a sledgehammer and without making the controls any more difficult t

      • Hell, I expect they'll have a cyber-mod for that - the "rabbit ears" Masamune Shirow put on cyborgs like Birarios from Appleseed, and his landmate mecha with a wee bitty camera for peeking around cover... it'd be perfect.
  • DX3 has been a huge wildcard in my mind, simply because it offers so much promise, and as a result, even greater chance of dissapointment. DX2: Invisible War was a dissapointment because it felt like a 'dumbed down' distilled console version of the basic premese offered by Deus Ex, much as Bioshock offered a distilled version of the System Shock experience. This is not to say that Invisible War was a bad game, as I found it quite entertaining. It just didn't seem like a sequel, and it certainly didn't del
  • of the first two games just prior to the release of DX2. 3DActionPlanet was trying a new interview thing [3dactionplanet.com], in which we interviewed game characters by sending questions to their writers and project directors. The second game was disappointing, because of the pandering to console gamers. From what I've read of TFA, they're promising to try the same kind of a thing again. The problem is that developers are being pressured to make games that work on a variety of different platforms. These games are limited
  • Somewhat on a tangent, but thinking back to why I liked the first so much, one of the things that comes to mind is the number of completely optional areas, each of which has just as much detail as the necessary parts. Things like the MJ12 base in the sewers, the flooded tunnel, the prototype AI...

    My other favourite game, FFVII, was very similar -- you could reach the credits in under 20 hours, but even after playing for so long that the in-game timer ran out of digits, I was still finding new bits.

    I won

  • So it sounds like they are getting rid of what I liked about the original game... you can't hide in the shadows (which I guess makes the programming easier), you can't invest training in a particular weapon and get better at it... it sounds like it's just going to be another run and gun shooter.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell

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