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Prognosticating Deus Ex 3
Deus Ex is a big deal(tm) for PC gamers, and the news of Deus Ex 3 now being on the way is well worth celebrating. Rock, Paper, Shotgun takes it to (perhaps) an unhealthy level. Kieron Gillen starts with the brand-new trailer, analyzes the imagery from the piece, and jumps off into an intensely detailed theory session about what the newest chapter set in our dystopic future might entail. "In a list, the themes are fairly striking - we hit the primary icons of the human body and perfection in nature, with Da Vinci's work as the perpetual primary shorthand. The other trend is that of social upheaval and prejudice - the signs are all deliberately retro, harking back to the more obvious prejudice and societal injustices. The key bit relevant to the plot is the Biopolitic vote of 2027, which places it twenty-five years before the start of the first Deus Ex game. Which would imply prequel or (as an outside bet, which is a shame, as it's my preferred option) alternate time-line story."
Well, yeah, it's a big deal. I think though that the /. crowd blew most of its load on the article that was posted about the original announcement. Crazy kids these days (tm) who think that good games started with Halo and ended with World of Warcraft need to get back to their roots...
DX1 was fantastic because you got presented with a world in which it was possible to think about the philosophy of surveillance and posthumanism, and conversate with well-realized characters, and also in between the chats get to regulate the bad guys with some serious hardware.
While many here have already expressed their disdain for DX:IW, I liked its presentation of a morally bleak world with many possible futures (of varying bleakness), all seriously discussed and described, and also how in between you got to regulate the bad guys with some serious fucking hardware.
Me, if the thing is thoughtful and not an intellectual hack-job, and there is the possibility of some serious bad-guy regulation (preferably with hardware, though after Half-life 2 I've become more flexible on that point), then I think we'll have ourselves a winner.
p.s. to the Editors...perhaps it would be a good plan to space out the almost-dupes a little more; it's hard to get excited today about a game that doesn't yet exist if we were just all excited about it *yesterday* and got it out of our systems.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
But I'm afraid that at the moment both are still overwhelmed by fear.
The most interesting new rumor today: I see that someone at Wikipedia claims to have noticed "coop" as one of the listed features on a Deus Ex 3 whiteboard on the Eidos Montreal webpage. This could mean, in decreasing order of probability:
A. Cooperative multiplayer was an idea they were tossing around but eventually dropped when they realized how much extra work it would be for the designers.
B. The "storyline" is so noninteractive and linear that it can be played either in single player or coop without too much extra work (i.e. they're just using the "Deus Ex" name to sell more copies).
C. They're managing to take the complex universe, huge multipath levels, engaging writing and interactive branching of the original Deus Ex story to make something which is just as brilliant but which still works seamlessly when you and your friends/significant other play together.
I'm pretty sure C can't be true... I mean, the "Baldur's Gate" games only pulled it off because even the single player game included a party of characters... but I WANT TO BELIEVE.
And also, I am deeply indebted to DX1 for turning me on to G. K. Chesterton. If DX3 could do something similar for some other forgotten but important thinker, that would at least be a public service, regardless of all other considerations on plot, character, intellectual rigor, interface, or bad-guy regulating issues (with or without hardware).
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
The other thing that I believe really set apart Deus Ex and DX:IW was familiarity. The first Deus Ex was the modern world plus a few interesting and logical steps forward. Police and military units augment their force with armed robots. Government surveillance is increasingly pervasive. The voice of 'the people' is increasingly dismissed by those in power.
Deus Ex started with real life and added to it logically, thus creating a world that was different, but still recognizable and 'real'. Which made the plot more relevant and interesting. The crappy part is how well it seems the writer(s) could forecast the future.
The world of DX:IW was different enough that I couldn't relate to it in the same way. In Invisible War, I had to be told the 'rules', for the most part in Deus Ex, I knew the 'rules' already. This also helped set up plot twists that actually worked.
As for prequel/alternate history, those would be my best hope for a great game. I don't think any real evidence exists either way at this point.
The only thing you can conclude from this trailer is that video game trailers are now being generated by the same VoiceOver 3000 Random Voiceover Writing Machine that seems to generate every film trailer. All that's missing are the phrases, "In a world where..." and "Now, one man must..."
Arr! Read The Government Manual for New Pirates!
Have to disagree with regards to gameplay. Common ammunition in DXIW: suck. Weapons: suck. No skills system: stupid. Less biomods: dumb. Biomod efficacy: ranges from complete uselessness to moderately useful - sucked. Real choices actually effecting outcome, few and far between and more near the endgame. Weapon modes, a lot of mutual exclusion and mostly suck. Ammo consumption of the useful weapons: alarmingly high, even with mods. Hacking terminals defocused - dumb. Encumbrance / inventory system - complete trash, it was a horrible setback going from DX to DXIW in terms of game play with the total loss of a useful inventory system. Readable content related to the storyline (newspapers, computer hacks, etc): complete trash in DXIW. Depth of world (desire to look under every pillow to find everything: nearly zero in DXIW )
I have never seen a game fo from such highs in DX to such horrible lows in DXIW. Everything that made DX great was either excluded or nerfed in DX.
They seriously would do well to simply update the DX to UT2004 or better, and simply add content with the same characters, and forget what they are doing now. I have little faith.
Without Warren Specter, this thing is doomed. I really feel bad how they are destroying the Deus Ex name and how they cater to horrible console play.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
I stopped liking that game after I asked for Deus Ex II for Christmas. I asked my mom for it, and she whapped me across the face hard.
I was completely shocked and scared by that, until I realized that asking my mom for "Deus Ex II" sounds a lot like I was asking to "Do Sex Too".
What kind of fucking name is that for a game? Right up there with Windows Sex Pee.
But it *was* dumbed down.
No locational damage, horrible menus that were clearly designed for a controller not a mouse, only one type of ammo, no weapon reloading, skills removed, ATMs gone. The excellent storyline and the characters were still there, it just wasn't Deus Ex.