the way Deus Ex Human Revolution was clearly a not very ambitious derivative of like Batman Arkham City and not really at all anything like the original in scope or aesthetics. And how that game bowled over players and reviewers at the time. I had played Deus Ex 1 before I played DXHR. And I was still really pleased with the game.
But in hindsight, I don’t think I would ever want to play that game again. Or that I could really find much to praise it for, in the context of all the other games, triple-A especially, coming out around that time. I think most people just had their expectations set so low for that game, the fact that it was decent felt like a huge win.
This is basically what I think is going on with that Bloober team SH2 remake. Seems clear to me that game isn’t actually either boldly different enough and that it doesn’t capture any of the qualities unique to the original. But we’ll see. There has never been a critical reappraisal for DXHR – probably because the game isn’t really worth thinking about. So we’ll see. And maybe this is just what it feels like to be wrong?
there was a big Hbomberguy video about it a few years back. it’s basically 4 hours of “it’s okay, i guess” - kinda gets to what you were saying about there not being much worth talking about it in hindsight.
i think as far as the combat and visual design goes, it’s pretty good. i kinda like the weird orange hazey look and some of the environmental design. the story is really stupid though - especially as a Deus Ex game. i had to stop playing back in the day because of i just found the story so interminable. but i also was an AAA hater in general that was only playing the game because of being such a fan of DX1. something like Prey basically supersedes it in every way.
i guess in the future a lot of boneheaded late 00’s/early 2010’s AAA landscape might develop more of a nostalgic kitsch time capsule appeal that i think DX:HR fits into. but we’ll see
You’re right, the art direction is actually super solid. Even in the second game. I’ll also give credit to the VO direction to the extent that it did succeed at making some pretty iconic lines and characters come to life in a campy videogame fashion, with Jensen and Prichart at least. But you can’t really give the VO direction too much credit when it would be responsible for this…
My enduring memory of DXHR, other than the art direction and everyone thinking the pilot was meant to die, is just the weapon equip animations and sound design. For whatever reason the PEPS in particular stuck with me.
yeah that character is pretty egregious. not to discount the racism of anywhere else but i feel like only the French (or in this case French Canadians) could put a literal Stepin Fetchit character in their AAA game in 2010 lol
one thing never see talked about with stealth in DEUS EX: HR is that you can throw things to distract guards. The game never tells you this and never obviously leaves shit out specifically to do it but its really effective to toss a can or a box, or a whole vending machine to get a guard to leave a post.
I stopped playing the sequel to this game because besides the part where it drove me insane with your boss talking about muslims declaring jihad on augs I did the entire bank robbery mission by hiding behind a photo copier I kept moving like a cartoon and it felt so fucking dumb that I wanted to beat the developers with a stick
like this is the contrast for me: you can play the first game without ever spending a skill point or healing or picking up an item
there’s the blockade in the mole people tunnels you’re supposed to use a LAM to destroy and there’s no nearby tnt crates so you can’t even use it with a toss even if you wanted to, so you have to like build a stepladder and carefully platform through this level geometry. this is actually cool and interesting and requires you to think about your environs
in both human revolution and mankind divided you can just evade security by picking up a crouch height object and putting it down every time anyone looks in your direction. this fucking sucks because the AI looks stupid and it doesn’t feel like I’m using my brain! it works on every guy and camera in the game without fail
My first youtube series was me playing dxhr on the hardest mode and killing every enemy in the game. Let’s just say I was never inspired to do this in the real deus ex
I don’t think there is anything good about DXHR, just a complete misfire on every level
It’s been so normalized now but I remember the irritation I felt about the on screen objective markers ruining all sense of exploration in the game. Heavy handed tutorialization and formularization of Deus Ex. Every room has an air vent to crawl through and a door to hack so you can progress through the linear levels Your Way™. But even if you ghost your way through a level, you’ll end up in an unavoidable locked room bossfight complete with pre-rendered cutscene.
I mean I played the follow up game (I wanna say… Mankind Divided) a year ago and had a pretty solid time with it, but I also am much more able to go along with above average AAA stuff than many others here. Even bought the DLC afterwards when it was on sale.
Also my time with the original game was beyond cursed so it was nice to play one of these where things just kinda worked.
