Deus Ex: Human Revolution Catch-All

Picked The Missing Link up during the holiday sale and played through it over the last two nights (roughly 8 hours). It felt nice to be playing Jensen again and the mechanics were as engaging as ever. I actually liked the whole story arc and the boss room was quite well designed with regards to the ways one could go about clearing it (compared to the vanilla game). When it was over, I contemplated that I would have liked a chapter-driven game (with several self-contained story lines) with the same mechanics more than the way they did the one over-arcing plot in DE:HR. Maybe Thief 4 can deliver on that idea?

I had one gripe again though. Like with the main game, they threw too much XP my way for playing non-lethal. At the end I had 10 Praxis left over and had several skills maxed (hacking, hacking stealth, disabling) plus most of the 2-point Ghost skills like jumping, double-takedown etc.

Also, did anyone ever find the Tranq rifle? I found quite a bit of ammunition for it, but never the rifle. Although that would have made the last mission quite trivial.

Also, did anyone ever find the Tranq rifle? I found quite a bit of ammunition for it, but never the rifle. Although that would have made the last mission quite trivial.

I did, but it was near the end of the DLC when I was backtracking to finish exploring a room. I found it

Spoiler:

in a big cargo container, in one of the larger warehouse rooms, behind a punchable wall

.

Super late to the party, but I recently started it. I'm assuming there's no real need for spoiler protection at this stage, since I am slow-poke.

That silenced sniper rifle is a ...disappointment. I made a character like my favorite Deus Ex classic character, silent sniper/hacker. Except the sniper rifle doesn't 1shot 1 kill with a headshot. But the pistol does (with addons). I was getting the Ghost bonus on every mission until the FEMA camp, in which I discovered my rifle only enraged soldiers when I shot them which made it not good for me. Also these soldiers are apparently on lots of coffee, cause I tranqed them and they woke up 15 sec later.

Rather a disappointment, since I used the beginning mods on that sniper rifle.

Otherwise So far I'm loving the entire atmosphere and all the little details put into the emails and books, it's definitely worthy of the Deus Ex name. I make it my duty to hack every computer to read the emails, except for the police station, couldn't hack the main cubicle part with all those officers. Only minor gripe I have is the Barrett boss fight feels totally that sneakery spirit, I must have died like 10x against him, I have no battle augmentations, just a bunch of hacking and utility stuff.

When is a good time to play the DLC, after completion of the whole game or a certain chapter? I'm assuming I import my character and all that.

mooosicle wrote:

That silenced sniper rifle is a ...disappointment. I made a character like my favorite Deus Ex classic character, silent sniper/hacker. Except the sniper rifle doesn't 1shot 1 kill with a headshot. But the pistol does (with addons). I was getting the Ghost bonus on every mission until the FEMA camp, in which I discovered my rifle only enraged soldiers when I shot them which made it not good for me. Also these soldiers are apparently on lots of coffee, cause I tranqed them and they woke up 15 sec later.

They don't wake up by themselves. If they get up, it's because another soldier woke them up.

I think highland park is also where you first meet a lot of enemies with armour, and head armour. I think this is what makes the upgraded 10mm pistol such a beast going for one shot kills for those enemies.

Puce Moose wrote:
Also, did anyone ever find the Tranq rifle? I found quite a bit of ammunition for it, but never the rifle. Although that would have made the last mission quite trivial.

I did, but it was near the end of the DLC when I was backtracking to finish exploring a room. I found it

Spoiler:

in a big cargo container, in one of the larger warehouse rooms, behind a punchable wall

.

I got the tranq rifle in the very first mission. Tell David you're not going to kill anyone and he'll hook you up. The only combat aug I chose so far is the Typhoon with upgrade. Man is that thing fun to use.

Also, the social enhancing aug is pretty interesting. After you assess the person's personality you can pick a reply and sometimes release influential pheromones (out of your anal gland, I guess).

@Running Man: my question was with regards to the DLC, but that's a good hint for players starting the main game just now.

@moosicle: if you want it to tie in with the storyline, play the DLC after finishing Belltower Docks. But remember that the progress from the DLC does not transfer to the main game.

Luggage wrote:

@moosicle: if you want it to tie in with the storyline, play the DLC after finishing Belltower Docks. But remember that the progress from the DLC does not transfer to the main game.

More specifically, just after Adam goes into cryosleep.

Random speculation - I am thinking all this mystery genetic stuff and the fact that Manderly is "back" (although a prequel) doing bastardly espionage-y things leads me to believe the secret tech is somehow involved with the creation of the Dentons in the original game.

So far I just entered China and I'm glad it's a large improvement over Hong Kong in the original, in terms of face models and voicing.

mooosicle wrote:

Random speculation

Watch past the credits.

Hah - still got a ways to go. Just speculating as I advance and read these emails.

Has anyone of you beat the game on the Deus Ex difficulty with a run-n-gun? Even with level 3 of that armor, even gangsters can kill me pretty easily if I don't watch out. That FEMA camp I imagine would be totally insane. Other than the outside, I only maybe silently tookdown like 3 guys I could find that wasn't being covered by like 9 other guys.

mooosicle wrote:

Hah - still got a ways to go. Just speculating as I advance and read these emails.

Has anyone of you beat the game on the Deus Ex difficulty with a run-n-gun? Even with level 3 of that armor, even gangsters can kill me pretty easily if I don't watch out. That FEMA camp I imagine would be totally insane. Other than the outside, I only maybe silently tookdown like 3 guys I could find that wasn't being covered by like 9 other guys.

Run-and-gun is maybe overselling what the game allows. More like a cover mechanic game. After certain events that got me riled up, I did that plenty.

I've only had one opportunity to punch through a wall, for Zeke's brother's secret lair. I have yet to do a wall-punch takedown like in the trailer.

Being a non stealthy soldier doesn't seem that great. Due to the shortage of weapon mods, I've only focused on my stealthy 10mm pistol, which actually seems to be also the best combat weapon from what I can see. It also doesn't seem possible to really upgrade more than two weapons heavily, especially with a drastic shortage of damage mods.

I tried different weapons (without weapon upgrades) and they don't seem that great at all. A crossbow has really high default damage rating (higher than a silenced sniper) and some heavy rifle dude took 4 of them without dying. I can only imagine it takes a ton of machine pistol/combat rifle bullets to take them out. I seem to get shot a whole lot when I try to use the heavy rifle also.

Also I dunno if I'm {ableist slur} but that smart-tracking on tranqs and crossbows, it doesn't really work for me, I kind of see how it works, but I find it hard to get headshots when they're at a slant angle and my crosshair is bobbing around.

In short, takedowns, tranq/stungun, and pistol seems way more reliable than the bigger more lethal looking guns.

Also, who drives the chopper if Malik dies in Hesha? Just wondering, I managed to save her.

mooosicle wrote:

Also, who drives the chopper if Malik dies in Hesha? Just wondering, I managed to save her.

As far as future flights? People just start hijacking VTOLs. It really is nothing special, just you don't have a name to the pilot.

[size=6]And for the record, I did save her using all non-lethal means, but with people falling off buildings after being knocked out or getting killed in the robot's explosion, I decided to go back and let her die rather than risk losing my Pacifist achievement.[/size]

mooosicle wrote:

I've only had one opportunity to punch through a wall, for Zeke's brother's secret lair. I have yet to do a wall-punch takedown like in the trailer.

There aren't very many opportunities to do the wall-punch kill. It's a little disappointing.

The revolver with explosive ammo works really well against the heavily armored guys. I'm with you on the smart targeting thing. All of the bad guys regularly stop walking anyway so it's pretty useless.

The one time I wanted to pick up the wall-punch skill, it was a wall-punch-kill location, and I was trying to be non-lethal. T_T;;; So I reloaded and didn't get the wall-punch skill.

I decided to go back and let her die rather than risk losing my Pacifist achievement.

Wow, dude, that's cold.

I did the same thing. Little did I know I had already failed the pacifist achievement by accident...

Man, I'd have given up every achievement, ever, if that's what it took to keep her alive. That was a go/no-go moment in that game for me -- either I managed to save her, or we'd both die. I wouldn't have continued if she didn't make it.

Well to be honest I didn't know I can save her at the time. And armed with mostly a tranquilizer gun and a few nades didn't seem like a smart fight to pick xd

I didn't even think saving her was a possibility (it felt like a scripted event where you were supposed to get out of there while the fire rained down on the chopper), so she died in my adventure.

I guess just like the unexpected "get to the place quickly and quit looking in trash cans or the hostages die" early in the game there were a few real-time RPG choices trying to poke their way out of the mesh.

Malor wrote:

Man, I'd have given up every achievement, ever, if that's what it took to keep her alive. That was a go/no-go moment in that game for me -- either I managed to save her, or we'd both die. I wouldn't have continued if she didn't make it.

When I play through again, and I will, I'll need to plan with this in mind. I was playing the game very organically and I was the same way. I had to save her. Once it occurred to me that I could I had to. If I go the pacifist route next time I'll have to plan ahead, I suppose.

Malor wrote:
I decided to go back and let her die rather than risk losing my Pacifist achievement.

Wow, dude, that's cold.

Yeah, well, I had already messed up and let the hostages at the beginning die, so I figured things were already screwed up.

Funny, everyone died in my play through, just no one died directly from my Jensen's hands... ACHIEVEMENT! :p

mooosicle wrote:

I tried different weapons (without weapon upgrades) and they don't seem that great at all. A crossbow has really high default damage rating (higher than a silenced sniper) and some heavy rifle dude took 4 of them without dying. I can only imagine it takes a ton of machine pistol/combat rifle bullets to take them out. I seem to get shot a whole lot when I try to use the heavy rifle also.

The intended mode of play is to either stealth kill, surprise, or use cover extensively and pop out to fire. Assuming you aren't going for a pacifist achievement, the shotgun is a great point-blank weapon, so alert a dude to prowl near you then let him have it. The upgraded combat rifle is probably the best all-around weapon--you can take down most enemies with one good burst, particularly to the head. Save the heavy weapons for armored enemies. I found the sniper rifle to have limited utility because it so often alerted enemies when taking someone down. That's a huge contrast from the original DX where an upgraded sniper was pretty much broken it was so powerful.

Puce Moose wrote:

I didn't even think saving her was a possibility (it felt like a scripted event where you were supposed to get out of there while the fire rained down on the chopper), so she died in my adventure.

I guess just like the unexpected "get to the place quickly and quit looking in trash cans or the hostages die" early in the game there were a few real-time RPG choices trying to poke their way out of the mesh.

Aww, you can save her?! Damn it.

Hey, is everyone done talking about the ending(s)? I was annoyed that you just pressed a button to choose the ending, but I thought the choices were fairly interesting, and wondered what buttons people pressed and why.

Wow, they throw me a final weapon this late in the game, that takes a crapload of upgrades. Kind of hard to use unless you've been specifically lugging around upgrades for the plasma rifle in anticipation

Also, found a sweet use for all those mines I disarmed in Hesha/Detroit sewers - Namir likes to step on them.

Some storyline confusion - One of the computer logs said that they basically planted Schvenko's arm so Tong would implant it, that it was a trap. Not sure of purpose?

Puce Moose wrote:

I didn't even think saving her was a possibility (it felt like a scripted event where you were supposed to get out of there while the fire rained down on the chopper), so she died in my adventure.

It reminded me a bit of the original Deus Ex, where I had absolutely no idea you could save the brother.

Just started the game, so I'm trying to get in/out of this thread without seeing any spoilers...

Is there a good video tutorial for the hacking minigame out there? I found my first attempt to be really obtuse.

carrotpanic wrote:

Just started the game, so I'm trying to get in/out of this thread without seeing any spoilers...

Is there a good video tutorial for the hacking minigame out there? I found my first attempt to be really obtuse.

I was the same way, but you actually pick it up pretty quickly. I'm not sure of a guide, but if you really want to make it a bit easier make sure you invest your Praxis kits into the hacking Capture Aug and the Stealth and/or Fortify Augs.

Maximus wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

Just started the game, so I'm trying to get in/out of this thread without seeing any spoilers...

Is there a good video tutorial for the hacking minigame out there? I found my first attempt to be really obtuse.

I was the same way, but you actually pick it up pretty quickly. I'm not sure of a guide, but if you really want to make it a bit easier make sure you invest your Praxis kits into the hacking Capture Aug and the Stealth and/or Fortify Augs.

Right but I don't really know what those do?