Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Impressions and stuff! [Official Review too!]

[EddieA]

It looks like the special codes have turned into a full-blown treasure hunt.

[Wargus]

I finished the game and really enjoyed it for the most part.

Spoiler for Hiden:

But the ending choices and scenes sucked. I remember the first one being a lot more poignant.

[Giles Habibula]

Does anyone know if Gratch figured out his stealth problem yet?  I started playing around the same time that he did, except I haven't had any problem slipping around undetected.

I keep waiting for the big reveal when Gratch sheepishly admits he's been constantly hitting the "Loud Fart" hotkey or something....

-Autistic Angel

All I can think is that I know there are two "sneak" speeds while crouching. Toggled by the caps lock key.
Useful when trying to get past those pesky proximity mines.

[CeeKay]

Does anyone know if Gratch figured out his stealth problem yet?  I started playing around the same time that he did, except I haven't had any problem slipping around undetected.

I keep waiting for the big reveal when Gratch sheepishly admits he's been constantly hitting the "Loud Fart" hotkey or something....

-Autistic Angel

All I can think is that I know there are two "sneak" speeds while crouching. Toggled by the caps lock key.
Useful when trying to get past those pesky proximity mines.

I did not realize this; I figured when I went into crouch I was moving at the slowest speed.  thanks for the heads up!


now to figure out what to spend these 10 Praxis points I have built up on.....

[Razgon]

Hacking, stealth hacking, turret hacking, cloaking, jumping and strength to smash through walls - All give acces to nice goodies.

You'r welcome ;-)

[Gratch]

Does anyone know if Gratch figured out his stealth problem yet?  I started playing around the same time that he did, except I haven't had any problem slipping around undetected.

I keep waiting for the big reveal when Gratch sheepishly admits he's been constantly hitting the "Loud Fart" hotkey or something....

Been out of town since Sunday, so haven't had a chance to delve in more.  Will update on the fart button status when I get back this weekend.  

[CeeKay]

Hacking, stealth hacking, turret hacking, cloaking, jumping and strength to smash through walls - All give acces to nice goodies.

You'r welcome ;-)

is smashing through walls contextual, or do I need to go around Wolfenstein 3D style trying it every so many feet?

I haven't had any issues hacking yet, although a few came down to less than a second left after triggering a trace.

it's funny, last night I was about to quit the game and ask if there were really any hidden Praxis packs when I stumbled on one in the second hub.

[Asharak]

is smashing through walls contextual, or do I need to go around Wolfenstein 3D style trying it every so many feet?

It's contextual. There's a visual clue that you can see even if you haven't taken the smashing-through-walls augmentation yet (which lets you know you're missing stuff, you slacker) and then, once you have taken it, you'll get a little tool tip any time you're close enough to a breakable wall telling you to press E to do so.

- Ash

[Razgon]

Hacking, stealth hacking, turret hacking, cloaking, jumping and strength to smash through walls - All give acces to nice goodies.

You'r welcome ;-)

is smashing through walls contextual, or do I need to go around Wolfenstein 3D style trying it every so many feet?

I haven't had any issues hacking yet, although a few came down to less than a second left after triggering a trace.

it's funny, last night I was about to quit the game and ask if there were really any hidden Praxis packs when I stumbled on one in the second hub.

Aye, what Ash said - also, I know you are probably way past that, but there's appearently a wall very early on that gives you a praxis point, meaning it *could* have been a freebie. Even without that though, I've found some interesting stuff by ..eh..smashing things :-D

As for hacking, I'd love to have had hacking 4 and 5 in the beginning and a bit later on, since I love the tidbits of story you find in emails, meaning the few sec4 and sec5 places I've found annoyed me like crazy

[Lockdown]

I'm not that far in yet... maybe 10 hours, and I play slow.

But here's my early review:  I freaking love this game!  If the enemy A.I. weren't nearly completely brain-dead, I would score it very close to 10/10.  This game is right up my alley.  Unfortunately, the A.I. can not be ignored, and that is a shame.

[Vidiot]

I'm not that far in yet... maybe 10 hours, and I play slow.

But here's my early review:  I freaking love this game!  If the enemy A.I. weren't nearly completely brain-dead, I would score it very close to 10/10.  This game is right up my alley.  Unfortunately, the A.I. can not be ignored, and that is a shame.

Since the AI isn't on my team I am not really bothered by it.  In fact it is kinda charming.  It reminds me of a throw back to past games shooting one guy, then just building a pile of bodies as the AI wanders over the corpses one at a time.

Now if the AI is just as dumb in DX4 I will need to knock them a point.  You only get to play the throw back card once.

[CeeKay]

Is it bad that, after I got the ghost bonus for a particular mission, that I went back and senselessly slaughtered all the guards at said location for even more xp?

[Soulchilde]

DLC revealed  I'm not too excited spending the majority of the DLC being without Augs

[CeeKay]

Unless it gets rave reviews I'll probably hold off until a Steam sale on the DLC.

[ibdoomed]

I just finished it at 110 hours according to Steam.

Awesome.

Time to start over.

[CeeKay]

jeebus, 110 hours?

on another note, I upgraded my radar.  it feels like I'm cheating now.

[Creepy_Smell]

I just finished it at 110 hours according to Steam.

Awesome.

Time to start over.

Since I maybe get 1hr a night to play, if I choose gaming in that free slot, its going to take me forever Tired of upgrading rigs anyway

[Destructor]

I just finished it at 110 hours according to Steam.

Awesome.

Time to start over.

There's absolutely no way you spent 110 hours playing the game on your first playthrough, unless you fired the game up and walked away from it at hours at a time. I beat it at 38ish hours, but that was with hacking every terminal, shooting every guard, stealing everything that wasn't bolted down, reading every e-mail, and had like two dozen upgrade points that I just willy-nilly picked because I had the points to blow.

I am curious though - what did you spend that time on?

[Glycerine]

I'm probably 3/4 way on my hard/pacifist/no alarms run, which was my third restart by the way, and Steam says I have 37.2 hours.  On this game I have literally went everywhere I could go, took everything that wasn't bolted down, hacked every device (even tried to get every data store, but ended up missing a few here and there), and talked to just about everyone.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Just got back to Heng Sha for the second time.  I actually managed to save Malik without anyone getting killed, but damn if it didn't take quite a few reloads.  I tossed all my gas grenades, then ran around cloaked with the stun gun.  When the bot dropped I tossed an EMP and managed to drag one guard away from the explosion.  After it was all over I went around to each one and made sure they were knocked out and not dead. 

[Tokek]

I got a question for the pacifist achievement. Does turning turrets and bots to attack enemies counts as them being killed by "your hand"?

I noticed when I did that, even though I get them going hostile, I still got the "ghost" experience.

[baelthazar]

Just finished my first run at 23 hours. I tried to get pacifist, but I it didn't take, so someone much have gotten killed at some point (I threw an EMP grenade at a robot and the explosion killed a guard). I'm wondering, for the bloodthirsty out there, does the end monologue change if you kill people (mine certainly emphasized by morality)? I couldn't tell if they were pulling a "Fallout Ending" on us or if it was a canned monologue.

Overall, great game. RPS had it dead on, the boss fights are idiotic so it is best to ignore they even happened. My next playthrough will probably be a killer - shooting everything and uber violence. The pacifist Stealth route seem rather difficult, IMHO.

[CeeKay]

Still only first playthrough, I haven't had more than 2 or so hours to play most nights.  On the fun side I just got my hands on the heavy assault rifle last night 

I'm still bogarting praxis points. I upped hacking to 5 but haven't been having issues with traces yet so no stealth.

[baelthazar]

Still only first playthrough, I haven't had more than 2 or so hours to play most nights.  On the fun side I just got my hands on the heavy assault rifle last night 

I'm still bogarting praxis points. I upped hacking to 5 but haven't been having issues with traces yet so no stealth.

Yeah, I was stuffed full of nukes and stop programs, so Hacking Stealth was a wasted investment. Much better to have gotten dermal armor earlier. Don't neglect cloaking... it makes the game much more fun! I tended to hoard my Praxis points too, then drop them all into one line (the best thing to do with cloaking, as the 3 sec cloak per battery is next to worthless). Part of the reason I want to play using deadly force is to get to use all the awesome weapons I neglected in my first run!

[jersoc]

wow fuck the 3rd boss seriously

Spoiler for Hiden:

i knew that chip upgrade was a damn trap but i decided to see what it does because why not? wow, what bullshit. why are boss battles still around in games like this? i went back and got the turret and that was not doable. so i said fuck it and unloaded a bunch of gas, emp and frag nades and killed him in like 5 seconds

if you want to know what happens if you take it. SPOILERS TOWARDS END GAME TOO

Spoiler for Hiden:

the chip shuts you down and you can't do jack but shoot. you have no augs and your entire screen is fucked up. what bullshit to do for that ridiculous boss

[baelthazar]

wow fuck the 3rd boss seriously

Spoiler for Hiden:

i knew that chip upgrade was a damn trap but i decided to see what it does because why not? wow, what bullshit. why are boss battles still around in games like this? i went back and got the turret and that was not doable. so i said fuck it and unloaded a bunch of gas, emp and frag nades and killed him in like 5 seconds

if you want to know what happens if you take it. SPOILERS TOWARDS END GAME TOO

Spoiler for Hiden:

the chip shuts you down and you can't do jack but shoot. you have no augs and your entire screen is fucked up. what bullshit to do for that ridiculous boss

I wonder what happens if you don't take it? Surely some other part of the game changes to be more difficult.

[Destructor]

wow fuck the 3rd boss seriously

Spoiler for Hiden:

i knew that chip upgrade was a damn trap but i decided to see what it does because why not? wow, what bullshit. why are boss battles still around in games like this? i went back and got the turret and that was not doable. so i said fuck it and unloaded a bunch of gas, emp and frag nades and killed him in like 5 seconds

if you want to know what happens if you take it. SPOILERS TOWARDS END GAME TOO

Spoiler for Hiden:

the chip shuts you down and you can't do jack but shoot. you have no augs and your entire screen is fucked up. what bullshit to do for that ridiculous boss

I wonder what happens if you don't take it? Surely some other part of the game changes to be more difficult.

Spoiler alert for what happens otherwise:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Absolutely nothing happens. The 'malfunctioning' chips were entirely a ploy to get the new versions out that could be controlled by and/or shut down by the chip maker. The 'failure' never shows up again.

In short, not taking the chip is the right decision and there's no downside to not taking it at all.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Does anyone know if Gratch figured out his stealth problem yet?  I started playing around the same time that he did, except I haven't had any problem slipping around undetected.

I keep waiting for the big reveal when Gratch sheepishly admits he's been constantly hitting the "Loud Fart" hotkey or something....

Been out of town since Sunday, so haven't had a chance to delve in more.  Will update on the fart button status when I get back this weekend.  

Perhaps you aren't noticing a camera in the room?

[Glycerine]

Just finished on hard, managed to get both pacifist and no alarm achievements.

Spoiler for Hiden:

In the end I self destructed the facility, but went back and looked at two of the other endings.  Overall I think Darrow's would be the best.  I didn't get Sarif's because I never went and talked to him before the end.  Last two boss battles were a breeze with upgraded dermal armor and the typhoon.  For the third one I tossed out several frag mines, the hit him the typhoon.  The last boss was easy after using Darrow's shut down code and then blasting Zhou.

[Gratch]

Put in a couple more hours last night (8 hours in), and I think I'm just going to add this one to the "everyone loves it but me" pile.   After I got another laundry list quest which required 14 different steps to complete it, I realized that I simply wasn't all that interested in what was going on.  Still having a bit of trouble with the stealth (although I was getting a little better), but I'm honestly just not into this game enough to put in the effort to figure it out.

I honestly think part of the problem is that my real life is so stupid crazy right now that I don't have the brain cells at the end of the day that are required for a game like this.  Think I'm going to put Deus Ex aside and try it again when things settle down a little and I can actually dedicate some effort towards it.

[Big Jake]

I give up.  The more I play this game, the less fun it gets.  A glitched quest where someone magically spawns in an inaccesible location?  (and many people have posted on this on the forums)  And the 'fix' is to load an earlier save?  Screw you, get better at programming you pieces of crap.  Then, I get to the first boss with my stealth/hacking build...

...and a cutscene leaves me in the middle of a large room with a tank unloading on me with a minigun, who has no health bar or anything to tell me how bad he is hurt.  My choices are (1) play gears of war with him, apparently, or ...(2) play Gears of War with him.  Guys(Eidos Montreal): If I'm focusing on stealth, I DON'T CARE that you added a cover system from GoW.  The final straw came when I chucked an EMP grenade at him, circle around behind him while he's stunned, and he chucks a grenade...which despise me despite him facing away from me, comes out of his hands directly at me despite the fact I'm at his 7.  Game Over (by which I mean, not that I died, but Im done playing a game designed by people who apparently failed the portion of Game Design 101 that dealt with Boss battles).

[drifter]

After the cut scene hit C to crouch behind the cement barrier and let him unload, then its stick and move.

[Tokek]

I usually stock up on EMP, gas and frag nades and mines prior to boss battles. I find those to be pretty effective for killing bosses.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I finished the game and I don't remember any of the bosses being immune to EMP and gas

I wish the grenades would stack up in the inventory though.

[Blackjack]

...and a cutscene leaves me in the middle of a large room with a tank unloading on me with a minigun, who has no health bar or anything to tell me how bad he is hurt.  My choices are (1) play gears of war with him, apparently, or ...(2) play Gears of War with him.  Guys(Eidos Montreal): If I'm focusing on stealth, I DON'T CARE that you added a cover system from GoW.  The final straw came when I chucked an EMP grenade at him, circle around behind him while he's stunned, and he chucks a grenade...which despise me despite him facing away from me, comes out of his hands directly at me despite the fact I'm at his 7.  Game Over (by which I mean, not that I died, but Im done playing a game designed by people who apparently failed the portion of Game Design 101 that dealt with Boss battles).

Is this what Penny Arcade was poking fun at the other day?  
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/9/2
It sounded similar. It seems their complaint is more that the game doesn't really let you create the kind of character you want, because it rubs your face in the ground if you didn't develop a character suited to mega-boss battles. I'm kinda surprised they don't let you hack a security turret or something, for that kind of situation.

[MonkeyFinger]

According to the guide, this is the 'recommended strategy' for Lawrence Barrett:

Spoiler for Barrett:

This strategy requires you have at least 2 frag grenades with you to start the fight. It is still possible with other grenades, but it will take longer. To begin, immediately throw a frag grenade at his feet as he prepares to fire his gun. As soon as you have thrown it, turn to your right and look in the corner of the room. There should be 2 gas cannisters resting against the wall. Pick one of them up and toss it directly at Barrett. Do it quickly, while he is still stunned from the frag grenade, but do it accurately so the cannister makes contact with him directly. If you throw it directly onto him, it will explode, stunning him again.

Now throw your second frag grenade at him. Just like before, grab the second gas cannister from the wall and toss it at him. As soon as it explodes on him, run to the right hand side of the center of the room. There you will find a red explosive cannister. It should be roughly to the right of where Barrett is currently standing. Grab it and throw it directly at him just like you did with the gas cannister, making sure to throw it directly onto him. If you have done this correctly, this final cannister should spell the end of Barrett.

They also list longer ways to fight him, basically the "stick and move" that drifter mentioned to evade his "triple grenade toss".

FWIW, I get the impression that the designers did in fact want you to be able to create whatever character you wanted and still survive the boss fights. However it's not necessarily by taking whatever path may be optimal for your build but rather by allowing you to leverage all of the items they've scattered around the encounter area regardless of build.

[Razgon]

...and a cutscene leaves me in the middle of a large room with a tank unloading on me with a minigun, who has no health bar or anything to tell me how bad he is hurt.  My choices are (1) play gears of war with him, apparently, or ...(2) play Gears of War with him.  Guys(Eidos Montreal): If I'm focusing on stealth, I DON'T CARE that you added a cover system from GoW.  The final straw came when I chucked an EMP grenade at him, circle around behind him while he's stunned, and he chucks a grenade...which despise me despite him facing away from me, comes out of his hands directly at me despite the fact I'm at his 7.  Game Over (by which I mean, not that I died, but Im done playing a game designed by people who apparently failed the portion of Game Design 101 that dealt with Boss battles).

Is this what Penny Arcade was poking fun at the other day?  
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/9/2
It sounded similar. It seems their complaint is more that the game doesn't really let you create the kind of character you want, because it rubs your face in the ground if you didn't develop a character suited to mega-boss battles. I'm kinda surprised they don't let you hack a security turret or something, for that kind of situation.

Apparently, the turret thing is a way to deal with some boss battles - You can pick them up and take them with you :-D

[Jaymeson]

I'm guessing the left-out hubs will find their way to market via DLC - and I will probably gladly pay for all of them.
I'm in about 26 hours, just finished Montreal, pacifist and stealth build.  Hoping I am only half way through - don't want it to end!

Actually, i second the earlier question on being a pacifist.  I haven't killed anyone "directly" so far, but......I may have hacked a turrent or two and indirectly caused the death of 15-20 guards so far.
Assuming there is some notice of playstyle at end of game, does using turrents impact whether I "acted with restraint" and/or impact which ending of the game I get?  Anyone know?

[MonkeyFinger]

The Pacifist trophy/achievement is a tough one as no NPCs can be killed period and that includes by hacked turrets or having them "accidentally" fall off a roof. Bosses don't count, of course, nor do "robotic" enemies.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Is it possible to tranq Barrett so that you don't have to kill him?

[MonkeyFinger]

Nope.

[CeeKay]

just had a bug with the second bass fight.  the enemy just stopped in their tracks and I was able to kill it with the pistol.

am I going back and replaying it to do it fairly?

FUCK NO.