Deus Ex

The problem with the UI fix is that text becomes unreadable

I just let the game scale it (plain patched DE + d3d10 renderer), which at my resolution is just pixel doubling I think. It reminds me of when I was playing at 1024x768.

Just started another play of this last night. To get in the mood for more sci-fi RPG later this summer.

OK, I've got everything running smoothly now. Thanks all.

OK, I'm not sure I'm doing this right.

I've finished the first mission at the Statue of Liberty but didn't like the way it went down. Is stealth supposed to be a viable option or am I just not trained enough yet to get away with it?

Here's what's happening. I stealth up behind a couple of guards and try to take them out. Unfortunately, nothing seems to work short of a headshot to kill them.

I've got a cattle-prod thing that stuns them but it takes two or three hits to actually knock them out and it completely runs out of charges after the second or third guard.

I've also got a crossbow thing with "tranquilizer darts" and the game even says something about silent takedowns when I get it but I've never had it seem to have any effect other than letting them know I'm there.

I've gotten all the way into the building by completely avoiding the guards but eventually I reach a point where I have to engage them and there doesn't seem to be a way to do it except to go in guns blazing. So what am I doing wrong?

The Riot Prod takes like two or three hits, but yeah, it does run out of charges, it's quite good though. There are extra charges scattered around that you can find. I think you also start with a baton, but if you don't I know you can get one right away. As for the mini-crossbow you need to make sure you have tranq. darts loaded. If you hit someone with it they'll start grunting and fall over after a while. Then there are gas grenades too which can be really handy.

Just getting to the NSF leader without killing anyone shouldn't be a problem when you're comfortable with the mechanics, but if you want to break out Günther as well then it gets a lot harder. You can dump your skillpoints into melee which makes the Baton decent, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

I haven't done a complete non-lethal playthrough. It's harder than using lethal weapons for sure. It probably gets easier when you get better skills and augs, but then it will eventually get harder again. Bots will be a problem since you only find so many scramble grenades.

Also, I wouldn't say you're doing it wrong if you kill someone. You have to be stealthy even if you try to kill everyone.

When you start out your skills for pretty much everything are crap, which you can upgrade when you get experience.

Silent takedowns are hard, for melee you need to move up to them quietly, or rush them, and hit them with a stun prod then keep hitting them with the prod or stun prod to incapacitate them. That's pretty much the only way to down someone without them fighting back.

The dart gun works as a pistol (same skill) and puts a damage over time effect on them, if they 'die' from that they're incapacitated rather than killed, but there's little functional difference than how other plot characters react (Paul gets uppity if you kill). Once down, enemies stay down, rather than awakening again.

For the first mission, I usually evade enemies as they're quite spread out and few have much loot to be bothered with. (once you've completed the mission you can wander the island in safety looking for loot). The enemy AI isn't that brilliant in terms of squad tactics, so don't worry about one guy running off, or taking a few shots at a guy and running away so you slowly whittle his health down, they won't deliberately go and collect a bunch of friends to flush you out. However they do react to some things that you can use to your advantage, for example shooting a wall near them with a silenced gun, they won't hear the shot but will hear the impact, so they'll turn around.

kyrieee wrote:

Also, I wouldn't say you're doing it wrong if you kill someone. You have to be stealthy even if you try to kill everyone.

That's the thing with DE, you're not doing it wrong, but doing it your way. It's just early on that you're crap so you can't just rush in guns blazing and expect to win.

tanstaafl wrote:

Yeah, there are two guards at the top of the stairs that you have to engage to get to the NSF leader. I did get that far clean but couldn't get past them without a fight.

And there are a couple of guards in the room outside of Gunther's cell; I couldn't get past without killing at least one of them.

Gas grenade and run.

Yeah, there are two guards at the top of the stairs that you have to engage to get to the NSF leader. I did get that far clean but couldn't get past them without a fight.

And there are a couple of guards in the room outside of Gunther's cell; I couldn't get past without killing at least one of them.

And I did have a couple of alerted guards run off and hit an alarm.

I was surprised when one patrolling guard saw a fallen comrade and called an alert. That may be the first time I've actually seen a video game enemy actually acknowledge something like that.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Some aspects of it have aged, some aspects are still superior to anything made in the last decade.

You must have posted this in the wrong thread.

Scratched wrote:
kyrieee wrote:

Also, I wouldn't say you're doing it wrong if you kill someone. You have to be stealthy even if you try to kill everyone.

That's the thing with DE, you're not doing it wrong, but doing it your way. It's just early on that you're crap so you can't just rush in guns blazing and expect to win.

Yeah, I know but I'm trying to play a "good guy" here; just so I can get the justifiable rage when I inevitably find out I'm on the wrong side. (Have no clue as to what DE's plot looks like but I'm pretty sure it's going to go that way already.) And several characters do comment on your killing/not killing opponents so the game does at least acknowledge it.

I just started the mission after the Statue of Liberty.. Still deciding whether or not I like it.

Going through the training mission for DE for the first time. Feels a bit like starting "Barry Lyndon" or "Last Year at Marienbad". You've heard that this is one of the best games, but it's so long, and so slow. My goal is to get at least 10 hours in before I choose to continue playing. Wish me luck!!

I quit during training.
The controls just didn't feel good.
No, you can't take my Gamer card away.

Maybe there's a novelization I could read instead, or a choose your own adventure book. Haha!

Ariskany Evan wrote:

Going through the training mission for DE for the first time. Feels a bit like starting "Barry Lyndon" or "Last Year at Marienbad". You've heard that this is one of the best games, but it's so long, and so slow. My goal is to get at least 10 hours in before I choose to continue playing. Wish me luck!!

Good luck!
The game has not aged well. I just recently finished a replay and found the (re-)learning curve to be steep. The shooting is very unsatisfying. The graphics, even with the HD Textures mod, are pretty ugly (this is usually something I don't care about too much but, man, there's some ugly textures in this game).

One of the biggest problems with the game is that the designer really, really were stretching the technology to tell an "epic" story and it really shows.

But, that said, the actual game is great, the plot is as convoluted and twisty (and awesome!) as anything that's ever been done, the stealth is still pretty good (I hate stealth games, but I liked the stealth in this), and, since the game is so hard, the augmentations really matter, which is something I found lacking in DE:HR. There are some great characters in the game and some really good story-telling. I really enjoyed my playthrough, even if I did curse quite bit at some sections.

Yeah, there are some really annoying difficulty spikes here and there, though I found abandoning my pure stealth approach has made things easier. Upgraded, silenced sniper rifles do wonders.

The sniper rifle is undoubtedly the best gun in the game.

I can never play anything as full stealth (too impatient, I guess) but the stealth in DE was satisfying enough (and the AI dumb enough) for me to use it successfully a lot, so I could get into good positions for my inevitable firefights.

Thanks for the heads-up!

I treated the Statue of Liberty mission as a tutorial and used a guide, as the game doesn't really do a lot to let you know where to go or what to do. I know that's The Point with a game like Deus Ex, explore, complete the mission in whichever way you want, but it's a bit daunting to be thrown in there with such an old game. Demon/Dark Souls at least has the trimmings of the current generation, so you're excited to see what you'll find around the next corner. Whereas the sheer "ugliness" of Deus Ex (playing the Game of the Year Edition on Onlive, so no HD textures mod), takes away the excitement of exploring. I'm glad to hear that aspects of the game still hold up; from what I played last night I'm definitely going to be continuing.

Hello all

Has anyone tried the 'nameless mod' thingy for deus ex? Playing through HR on the xbox has brought back many happy memories of crawling through airducts and influencing the future of the world all that time ago.

Deus ex, was at the time, the best game I had ever played and is still at the top of my all time list along with Doom and the original call of duty.

Apologies if there is another thread on this somewhere, I looked but couldn't find.

Would be interested to know if the nameless mod is worth a playthrough, bearing in mind that I manage about half an hour a day on the games nowadays and haven't played a PC game for a long while (i've been playing DE:HR since release day and have just got to Eliza's office!)

Nameless mod is good, but it's very different. You shouldn't really think of it as being in the DE universe.

If you're looking for other mods, I remember liking Hotel Carone.

The Nameless Mod was one of the games I enjoyed most in 2009, but it starts off quite slow and the premise is weird. After a while that stuff just exists in the background though and it becomes a story like any other.

This is a hell of a necro, but this is the closest thing I could find to a Catch-all, so this seems like the right thread.

I started playing this recently. I ran through a good bit of the Liberty Island mission the other day, then restarted and ran through all of that first mission last night. I've previously gotten as far as probably halfway through the second mission. It hasn't grabbed me so far (to be fair, it's only an hour in) and I don't remember it grabbing me in that previous playthrough either. I was probably 2 or 2.5 hours in, and I don't think I even had Augs yet, except for the flashlight and healing.

Is there a particular point at which it becomes clear whether I'll dig this? Like, play until at least mission X then decide? Right now, it just looks like ass, and seems poorly paced if I can get 2 hours in before it gets interesting, but that may just be how older games were designed.

I have a couple other "classic" games on my Pile as well, and most of them have current gen iterations, or at least spiritual successors. I'm considering dropping the old versions and just playing the new ones.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Right now, it just looks like ass

Go install New Vision immediately. Also, Kentie's launcher + DX10 renderer (which might be included in New Vision).

Also, try it with Shifter. That tweaks some stuff to make it a little more palatable to modern sensibilities, although I really can't recommend a point where the game "clicked" for me even though I haven't finished it (and I think I'm on the final mission).

I'd say by the end of the second mission or heading out to the airport you should be either in it or not. One thing I'd advise is not just making a bee-line straight for your main objective, to check out side areas and talk to people, explore, take your time a bit.

Yeah, I think to get anything out of the game you have to be a bit curious and have the patience to poke around. When isn't grabbing you that can be hard to muster. If you're not having fun by the airport there's not going to be some amazing moment that will win you over.

I tried installing New Vision, but it either didn't work, or had such little impact that I didn't notice. Maybe I should try again.

To be clear, I am interested in the game, or I wouldn't have picked it up. I dig cyberpunk and the world seems really cool, as does the concept of augs. I'm not looking for reasons to dislike it, it's more that I'm trying to determine whether this one still holds up, or if I should just jump ahead to DE:HR, which will look and play like a modern game, plus I can play it on my couch.

The graphics are bad, but I can look past them. The far bigger problem so far is that the AI is atrocious. "Huh, I thought I heard something... must be a homeless guy" is kind of standard for stealth games, but the enemies in DE must be blind to not see me from 50 feet away. Except that there is some magic distance that they can see me and start shooting, but because I haven't figured out where that line is, it feels arbitrary and unfair.

The way the weapons work early on is also frustrating because I can miss a guy from 10 feet away with the cross hair centered on his torso, if I don't wait for the cone to shrink. I get that this is more of an RPG, and it will get better later, so I can look past that too. It's also less of a problem if I plan ahead, but when a firefight breaks out, I may as well just quick load.

I'll take a look at Shifter, though I've heard conflicting things on it. A lot of people seem to think it's better for a second playthrough, since it changes some mechanics.

Having the airport as a milestone will be helpful. I'll definitely play at least that far before I make a decision either way.

Also, I have a question about weapon upgrades. Do they stay with the weapon, or with you? I have an accuracy and mag size upgrade for a pistol, but I haven't applied them yet. When I broke out Gunther, I ended up giving him my pistol (I found another one later). Is that the kind of thing I need to watch for? I'd hate to hand over a weapon to an NPC later on and lose my upgrades.

I believe weapon mods travel with the weapon. So if you give up a tweaked gun it's gone for good.

Deus Ex is VERY much an RPG. Headshots matter like most modern shooters, but it's more dependent on your stats, skills, and augs than where you point the cursor. Upgrading stealth capabilities lets you walk right behind dudes unaware. In general the enemies are fairly powerful so unless you spec for a straight up war machine, you need to pick your battles carefully and decide when to fight or flee. Or sneak.

The game is fairly long, and the pacing isn't very good. Some missions can take you a few hours to do with no progression in the story in the meantime. A lot of people get burned out around the halfway point, in Hong Kong. The biggest trouble with the game is that the mechanics and abilities don't change or improve enough to sustain the game's length. Once your play style is established by the halfway point, that's ALL you'll be doing for the next couple dozen hours, and the only variation is in the levels and encounters (which, admittedly, they did a good job of having a large variety of levels so the spaces you move through don't feel stale).

The story is fairly interesting, especially in the first half of the game, but again, after a while it drags out and doesn't do enough to keep you motivated to continue on its own.

shoptroll wrote:

I believe weapon mods travel with the weapon. So if you give up a tweaked gun it's gone for good.

Thanks. I'll have to be careful not to give away my modded weapons.

beanman101283 wrote:

Deus Ex is VERY much an RPG. Headshots matter like most modern shooters, but it's more dependent on your stats, skills, and augs than where you point the cursor.

I'm fine with it being an RPG and therefore having stat-driven combat / other mechanics. Hell, I'm one of those weirdos who defends the RPG-ness of Mass Effect and thinks "make the shooting better" was a bad direction for the series.

beanman101283 wrote:

The game is fairly long, and the pacing isn't very good.

That my biggest concern, really. That really seems to be a common theme for late 90's games. Probably due to games being expensive and trying to justify the price, which is still and issue for the industry. I'm at a point in my life now, with limited time and other interests that I actually prefer shorter games. Long games are fine, but they have to be really good. Padding the playlength with filler content is a good way to bore me. Upto 20 hours though is usually fine, and I think DE is supposed to be around 25 hours, so if it grabs me by the airport, I'll probably stick with it to the end. I suppose if it really starts dragging in Hong Kong, I can drop it and read a summary.

Garden Ninja wrote:

That really seems to be a common theme for late 90's games. Probably due to games being expensive and trying to justify the price, which is still and issue for the industry.

I'd say it's more that due to the constraints of hardware at the time, making content to those constraints was quicker, so they could make more of it. Simply put, it doesn't take long to make a box room with blocky furniture and slap a texture on each surface as it does making a room filled with clutter and high detailed furniture. There's a lot of games where things were just drawn out, but I'd say DE is a lesser offender compared to some (NOLF by Monolith comes to mind). Take a screenshot of a typical DE room, and when you get around to it compare it to a DEHR room.

As you note, without the right balance you do get lots of bland boring content to pad it out, and the length vs quality debate rages still today.