Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[Xeio]

Icarus is a story about human hubris, how reaching to far can kill you.

Doesn't mean the risk isn't worth it.

[psion]

The augmentations are incidental to the game's conflicts. Apart from a couple minor plot points like the killswitch, you could replace augmentations with medieval swords or magical holy crystals for all it matters. It's not about going too far with technological hubris, it's about greed for power and secret agendas. Augmentations are just their tool.

[SlyReaper]

It's also the single defining characteristic of the protagonist. Otherwise, he's just some guy with a gravelly voice and a penchant for wearing sunglasses at night.

[You, sir, name?]

The next 16 days need to pass by as though I was playing civilization.

[Izawwlgood]

The augmentations are incidental to the game's conflicts. Apart from a couple minor plot points like the killswitch, you could replace augmentations with medieval swords or magical holy crystals for all it matters. It's not about going too far with technological hubris, it's about greed for power and secret agendas. Augmentations are just their tool.

Yes... Greed for power... Which is related to Icarus...

[psion]

How?
That's more of a rhetorical question I suppose. If Icarus is symbolic of any event where someone pushes something too far and it costs them, then everything is about Icarus. I ate too much and got a stomach ache, story of Icarus right there.

[Izawwlgood]

Yeah, I suppose you can be as non-specific as you want about it; the parable of Icarus is about someone reaching to far and it costing them. Ergo, using the name Icarus as a company that is in the business of enhancing humans is likely trying to tell you something. As for why the company would choose the name, I can only guess that it is also associated with flight. Even though Icarus eventually failed, he soared.

That's kind of the pathos of the story: while we smirk at Icarus for his eventual obvious downfall, we're also supposed to admire his tenacity, his indomitable spirit and all that. He was told it was dangerous, but he reached anyway.

[cephalopod9]

I thought it might also be a sort of pun, but then I remembered seraphims are the angel type things, with an M not an N like in Sarif Industries.

[Enokh]

How?
That's more of a rhetorical question I suppose. If Icarus is symbolic of any event where someone pushes something too far and it costs them, then everything is about Icarus. I ate too much and got a stomach ache, story of Icarus right there.

The story of Icarus specifically involved the usage of new technology (the wings they built). So, yes, while you could stretch the moral of the story to encompass damned near anything, it's much better suited to stories of technological advancement (and even more specifically, the sort of technological advancement that augments or adds to a person's abilities).

[You, sir, name?]

Eidos has -not- fucked up the PC controls.

Fuck. Yeah!

[Xeio]

I'll probably be using my 360 controller anyway unless there's a compelling reason not to, or for some reason they left out support on the PC for it...

[You, sir, name?]

I usually only resort to using the controller in games with bad UI ports. These guys seem to have put in the work, so keyboard+mouse it is.

[Enokh]

And this will be the game that finally makes me dig up the drivers for my mouse so that I can use the side buttons. The addition of the "take cover" bit kinda leaves things crowded.

[SecondTalon]

How?
That's more of a rhetorical question I suppose. If Icarus is symbolic of any event where someone pushes something too far and it costs them, then everything is about Icarus. I ate too much and got a stomach ache, story of Icarus right there.

The story of Icarus specifically involved the usage of new technology (the wings they built). So, yes, while you could stretch the moral of the story to encompass damned near anything, it's much better suited to stories of technological advancement (and even more specifically, the sort of technological advancement that augments or adds to a person's abilities).

Sorta? It's more about using technology before you fully understand it. Remember, Icarus's dad was perfectly fine because he understood the tech better and knew of it's limitations, which he tried to pass on to Icarus. His kid, the dumbfuck that he was, didn't pay a bit of attention, used the tech in whatever way felt awesome and ended up wormfood as a result.

So it's.. kinda specific. New Tech is awesome, just understand the shit before you do crazy stuff with it.

[Enokh]

I suppose I should have been more specific, but yes, that's what I was talking about: new technology and how it's used.

Has anyone played the leak?

Because. . .I totally haven't. Pre-ordered it on Steam and am counting down the days Thankfully From Dust comes out in two days.

[Decker]

Because. . .I totally haven't. Pre-ordered it on Steam and am counting down the days Thankfully From Dust comes out in two days.

Same situation here, except I'm waiting for Bastion to come out tomorrow.

[psion]

I haven't seen any reason for me to think that they don't fully understand their technology. It's not exactly Ghost in the Shell... Unless they're taking it in that direction with this game.

[Izawwlgood]

It's more about using technology before you fully understand it.

Guh. That is a significantly better description than what I was operating under.

[Decker]

I haven't seen any reason for me to think that they don't fully understand their technology. It's not exactly Ghost in the Shell... Unless they're taking it in that direction with this game.

For some reason, I would be okay with this.

[Xeio]

Well, it is a prequel*...

*I just realized prequel is a play on pre- and sequel. HOW HAVE I BEEN SO BLIND?

[Izawwlgood]

Daedalus understood the wings; Icarus did not. The tech doesn't have to be a great mystery; the user of said technology has to simply not recognize the implicit dangers in it's use.

[thecommabandit]

Daedalus understood the wings; Icarus did not. The tech doesn't have to be a great mystery; the user of said technology has to simply not recognize the implicit dangers in it's use.

Which is present. There's a live-action trailer that you may have missed, ostensibly authored by Purity First, the anti-augmentation faction. According to them, augmentations require life-long dosing of a specific chemical to avoid the body rejecting the implant and pushing it out of the body. This drug is like gold dust and there are people who have lost everything because they got an augmentation but couldn't afford the anti-rejection drug. After having learnt this, I'm totally on Purity First's side and would campaign for all commercialisation of augmentations to be ceased until medical research can find a better way to deal with the rejection problem. In this case, users of augmentations are Icarus and Purity First are (kind of) Daedalus.

[Chen]

Which is present. There's a live-action trailer that you may have missed, ostensibly authored by Purity First, the anti-augmentation faction. According to them, augmentations require life-long dosing of a specific chemical to avoid the body rejecting the implant and pushing it out of the body. This drug is like gold dust and there are people who have lost everything because they got an augmentation but couldn't afford the anti-rejection drug. After having learnt this, I'm totally on Purity First's side and would campaign for all commercialisation of augmentations to be ceased until medical research can find a better way to deal with the rejection problem. In this case, users of augmentations are Icarus and Purity First are (kind of) Daedalus.

After seeing that trailer I wondered if that drug part was just propaganda or if its true. I mean if you need to take something for the rest of your life and they're mass producing these augments it should stand to reason the price would remain relatively fixed on the drug (or at least you'd have some sort of contract to obtain the drug for the rest of your life).

[Ortus]

Hmmm, too poor to afford Deus Ex on the 23rd. I need a new job, or more properly a third new job.

[Enokh]

The anti-rejection drug part is accurate.

It'll be interesting to see how things fall in to place in order to be in line with DX1. Especially the plague and Ambrosia. I REALLY hope that one of the endings is Jensen being the guy that releases it. I can't remember where in the timeline HR takes place, though.

EDIT: Also, the hacking minigame is AMAZING. Easily the best I'm aware of. I will almost assuredly play a hacker now.

You get XP for doing certain things -- you'll get it for killing people (and more for doing it with a headshot), and you'll get pretty sizable gains if you complete a mission without killing anyone, or without getting seen, etc. If you're not interested in the "roleplay" side of it, it's basically an issue of XP vs. Loot. On the other hand, most of the loot you get from dead bodies will be guns and ammo, so. . .if you're a non-killer, you aren't missing out on much.

There is a LOT of background information. TONS of emails, news broadcasts, newspapers.

EDIT again!

There are a LOT of Augmentations. Screw that, there are a lot of augmentation CATEGORIES, let alone the 2-7 upgrades per category. It costs 2 points to unlock a category, though you get the first upgrade for "free". Each upgrade only costs 1 point to buy, no matter how high in a tree it's in. It absolutely pays to specialize, though. . .being an invisible, wall-destroying, super-jumping bomb would be pretty funny. I'm not really sure how the energy thing words specifically, but it's upgradable -- both in how much you have, and how fast it recharges (recharging is limited in some fashion). Doing the sneak-attacks requires a whole bar of energy. And. . .the non-lethal "silent" takedown is REALLY obvious. That video that's floating around of Jensen punching the shit out of people? That's the silent takedown.

[Xeio]

Pre-loaded and waiting to go.

[SecondTalon]

I haven't seen any reason for me to think that they don't fully understand their technology. It's not exactly Ghost in the Shell... Unless they're taking it in that direction with this game.

What are the societal implications of having a few individuals able to see through walls while others cannot?

How will police need to respond when most individuals can be subdued and possibly killed by rubber bullets while people who have subdermal armor barely even notice rubber bullets and are merely scratched by real lead ones... and both the armored and unarmored individual look the same.

How will the modern financial world continue when there exist individuals who can access computers by looking at them?

I mean, if you have people who can run faster, run farther, lift more, react faster and more precisely, take more physical punishment, breath air that is toxic, see through walls and so on living in a world where people do not.. especially as one involves a hefty price tag thus putting it firmly in the hands of the wealthy - how is society going to react to the superman class?

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

WANT

Wait, this comes out tomorrow? I will soon have money to afford it, but no time to play it.

[You, sir, name?]

Pre-ordered it, but I'm cursed with living in yourup.

[psion]

I haven't seen any reason for me to think that they don't fully understand their technology. It's not exactly Ghost in the Shell... Unless they're taking it in that direction with this game.

What are the societal implications of having a few individuals able to see through walls while others cannot?

How will police need to respond when most individuals can be subdued and possibly killed by rubber bullets while people who have subdermal armor barely even notice rubber bullets and are merely scratched by real lead ones... and both the armored and unarmored individual look the same.

How will the modern financial world continue when there exist individuals who can access computers by looking at them?

I mean, if you have people who can run faster, run farther, lift more, react faster and more precisely, take more physical punishment, breath air that is toxic, see through walls and so on living in a world where people do not.. especially as one involves a hefty price tag thus putting it firmly in the hands of the wealthy - how is society going to react to the superman class?

Oh, don't get me wrong. It has massive societal implications. I was saying that they seem to understand the technology itself. Society has already changed several times (collectively or not) because of technology. Take the invention of the gun as just a small example. The question becomes why should we avoid using technology? Should we not cure diseases or genetically enhance crops because of a threat of overpopulation? Should we shut down our power generators because of the potential effects it has on the environment? Should we not colonize space because of a fear of a drastic societal split, causing a war as seen in so many science fiction novels? If I choose to indulge that line of thought, I believe that since nature created us, anything we choose to do is also natural. The rest of the universe is just as beautiful and fucked up as humanity is. There's no reason to ignore progression for fear of change, no matter how scary the change might be. The Earth could be destroyed 5 minutes after you read this post, and I'd like to think that we as a species did not impede our advancement in order to live in a benign ambience for our brief existence. Maybe that's just me.

(i.e. not about Icarus. It's a different principle. It's the bee that strays from the hive in order to look for food. The bee might die to a predator along the way, but it's a worthwhile endeavor for the hive to prosper. Icarus was just a git. The moral of the story is don't be a git.)

[Enokh]

Alright, so, as it's coming out in a few (10ish?) hours, I'm pretty much going to be 100% avoiding this thread. The things I love most in Deus Ex are the little things I find by exploring or just random events, and I don't want to have to worry about non-spoiler'd spoilers.

Enjoy said game! I'm planning on doing a generalist (with a lot of hacking) run, and then a super-stealth where I plan on getting Ghost on every single mission and never killing anyone.

I still don't understand why non-lethal takedowns are worth more XP than lethal ones, despite being quieter and having zero drawbacks (aside from having to hide the body so it doesn't wake up, I guess?) Wait. . .really annoying time-consuming infinite XP right there? Knock someone out, wait for them to be revived, and then knock someone out again?

[Izawwlgood]

(i.e. not about Icarus. It's a different principle. It's the bee that strays from the hive in order to look for food. The bee might die to a predator along the way, but it's a worthwhile endeavor for the hive to prosper. Icarus was just a git. The moral of the story is don't be a git.)

Yeah, still think you're missing the point here.

[Xeio]

Ok, yea, the boss fight is definitely bad (as if I need to echo all the reviews that have said such). Other than that, quite fun so far. Also, hacking is kinda crazy hard now, I'm too greedy I think since I always want to go for all the goodies.

[Dark567]

Does anyone else notice how terribly shaky the controls seem? Or am I just getting a bad framerate?

[Xeio]

Does anyone else notice how terribly shaky the controls seem? Or am I just getting a bad framerate?

You mean the walking (or worse, running)? I hate that because it makes me motion sick after a while, but I haven't noticed any issue with the responsiveness of the controls (though peeking out from cover is a bit finicky).

Also, I remembered something else. Loading screens. Why the hell are these sooooo loooooooooong. Even running off my SSD...

[sunami]

Also, I remembered something else. Loading screens. Why the hell are these sooooo loooooooooong. Even running off my SSD...

MMmmmm, that's the first thing that I hated about DX:2, there were ~3 minute load times for those puny levels. Hopefully your computer is just terrible and it's not the game. I really want this one to be good.

[Ortus]

Also, I remembered something else. Loading screens. Why the hell are these sooooo loooooooooong. Even running off my SSD...

MMmmmm, that's the first thing that I hated about DX:2, there were ~3 minute load times for those puny levels. Hopefully your computer is just terrible and it's not the game. I really want this one to be good.

If he has an SSD, chances are, it's not his computer.

[EmptySet]

The reviews I have read also complain of long loading times.

[Chen]

The loading times are more than 10 seconds which tends to make people feel them more. I think at worst I had it was ~30-35 sec on an almost brand new computer (though no SSD). Its only a pain since I've been storing stuff in my apartment in Detroit. Otherwise the areas are fairly big and I didn't find much loading at all during any of the missions (the whole area seems to be pre-loaded).

There is a LOT of stuff to explore. Im thinking of keeping my hacking at only 2 so Im actually forced to try and find the codes to a bunch of the doors/safes/etc. I like the bonus xp for finding hidden areas and such, it gives another incentive to just wander around. I suspect I'm going to need to take the augment that prevents me from dying from falling because I have the super jump augment and jumping off of anything that I jumped onto can damage/kill you depending on its height.

I've been playing more of a stealth/kill everyone playthrough and here are some observations

Spoiler:

First mission is pretty easy, though you can't treat the assault rifle like the machine gun you would in other games, at least at the start. You'll blow through the clip they give you EXTREMELY fast. Once I picked up a 10 mm pistol though headshots from hiding tend to make the fights very easy. Once you get a laser sight even more so. I killed everyone in the FEMA facility (before the first boss) with just a silenced handgun. I had my sniper rifle and combat rifle but they didn't seem necessary (until the boss). I could see the first boss being tough if you didn't take any combat augs. I had my arms improved so I had 0 recoil so I could shoot him pretty consistently in the head for a whole clip which made it pretty easy. Still took a lot of damage during the fight (I had already increased my health to 200% before by chance since I was running out of inventory room) and I think I ended it around 50-60%. He's pretty inaccurate with his grenades. Also don't get close or he'll melee you for a TON of damage. I'm at the point after this now wandering Detroit to search for things before heading to China. Aside from the first boss and falling off things by accident the only time I died legitimately so far was when I had to take out the two drug dealers at the basketball court. I figured throwing a dumpster at them would kill them both but it just knocked them down. So when I got close to loot them one got up and shot me with a shotgun one shotting me. The guy did say they were augmented so maybe a dumpster wasn't enough to kill em

I don't like the fact you can't turn the headbob off, which tends to make me motion sick, but its not as bad since there isn't a lot of running and gunning so to speak (since you get killed pretty fast trying to do that). The mouse seems like it can be a bit jerky too but I'm not sure if thats the game or my terrible mouse/mousepad (doesn't happen in any other games though).

[Enokh]

I've got an SSD and 16 gigs of ram on a six-core computer -- I'm pretty sure the slow load times aren't because of my rig.