Post by legios on Apr 6, 2014 20:03:11 GMT
So, I lucked into finding this for the grand sum of 9.99 in my local videogames shop a couple of months ago - the benefits of the end of a consoles life-span, the prices of games drop like rocks. It is almost as if they actually don't want me to upgrade...
But anyway, my love of the Deus Ex series is well-known to some long-standing members of various incarnations of the forum. I really can't think of many games which give me the freedom to operate that this series does - forget "Stealth sections" and "shooter bits", the Deus Ex games mostly just give you objectives, tools and let you get on with forging your own path to your objectives. Hence whilst some folks have a tendency to blast their way to their goal with explosive, rockets and torrents of dakka, I have the opportunity to operate as a half-heard, half-glimpsed dispenser of inexplicable concussions and mysterious long-distance cranial-ectomys to the footsoldiers of shadowy conspiracies. (and it is so convenient that they so often bring lethal security turrets and robots that are ever so obliging to the passing stealthy hacker...).
I'd played Human Revolution before of course - I was an early adopter and purchaser of one of the weighty collectors edition packages back when it launched - and thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt like a suitable prequel, turning the "blackhelicoptersnewworldorderillumantisecretmasters" conspiracy stuff down to about eight compared to the original game whilst turning the "80's neon chromed Street-Ronin" slider up a couple of notches and adding a dash of the "megacorporation fear" of the mid-period of "mainstream" Cyberpunk. (Crikey, it has just occured to me that there is a distinct flavour of Cyberpunk which did get co-opted by the mainstream for a while. Or more to a point, that the mainstream actually thinks that things like Terminator are what Cyberpunk looks like and that Robocop is the aberration...). So I hadn't planned on spending thirty quid on buying the game again. But for a tenner, sure. Take a chance and see what they've done.
Some of the changes didn't come as a great surprise to me - the "Tong's Rescue" bonus mission and both extra bundles of gear had been in my Collectors Edition anyway. Integrating "Missing Link" the other DLC mission into the story, rather than it being a stand-alone "extra level" is so seamless that I am starting to wonder whether it is more a case that it has been "put back" than "put in".
But the redesigned boss-fights... These are a thing of wonder - firstly they have doubled the physical area each one takes up (at least - the Jason Namir fight actually takes place in an area three times the original size). But secondly they have added options as to how to resolve them. Instead of being purely about "apply bullets/explosions to boss until dead" there are other things you can do - terrain and cover that a stealth-focused character can use to get an advantage, gas hazards or turrets or security drones which a hacker can set against the foe... In fact I went through two of the boss battles without even drawing a weapon. From the most frustrating and aggravating part of the original game, they have gone to being genuinely fun set-pieces which let you show off your style and approach.
It isn't that which I really have come to adore though, even though the re-designed boss fights are very much a "we're really sorry. We know they should have been like this the first time around, thank you for having faith we can fix it". No, the greatest extra in the Director's Cut package is the "Newgame+" mode. Once you have completed the game you can choose to start over, but this time with all of the cybernetic abilities that you had chosen by the end of the game. So instead of starting as basically a bloke with metal arms who can punch people unconcious and then slowly developing into (in my case) a silent moving, master hacker with optical camouflage skin that turns you into a virtual ghost, you are starting as the wraith-like hacker. I like the pacing and the power-curve of the game as written - it has a lovely sense of reward and a good pacing of your opportunities to develop your abilities. "Newgame+" by contrast really does feel like a different game.
There is a freedom in having so many upgrades already unlocked which allows you to approach the game in a wholly different way - you feel tough and capable normally, but with "New Game+" you feel more like Batou or Mokoto Kusanagi - there is a very liberating sense of being well ahead of the State of The Art.
Final analysis, from my perspective the Director's Cut edition fixes all the things that kept Human Revolution merely a great game, and allows it to upgrade itself to being a truly superb one. (And to be honest, that is the opportunity David Sarif would want for us all...)
Karl
But anyway, my love of the Deus Ex series is well-known to some long-standing members of various incarnations of the forum. I really can't think of many games which give me the freedom to operate that this series does - forget "Stealth sections" and "shooter bits", the Deus Ex games mostly just give you objectives, tools and let you get on with forging your own path to your objectives. Hence whilst some folks have a tendency to blast their way to their goal with explosive, rockets and torrents of dakka, I have the opportunity to operate as a half-heard, half-glimpsed dispenser of inexplicable concussions and mysterious long-distance cranial-ectomys to the footsoldiers of shadowy conspiracies. (and it is so convenient that they so often bring lethal security turrets and robots that are ever so obliging to the passing stealthy hacker...).
I'd played Human Revolution before of course - I was an early adopter and purchaser of one of the weighty collectors edition packages back when it launched - and thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt like a suitable prequel, turning the "blackhelicoptersnewworldorderillumantisecretmasters" conspiracy stuff down to about eight compared to the original game whilst turning the "80's neon chromed Street-Ronin" slider up a couple of notches and adding a dash of the "megacorporation fear" of the mid-period of "mainstream" Cyberpunk. (Crikey, it has just occured to me that there is a distinct flavour of Cyberpunk which did get co-opted by the mainstream for a while. Or more to a point, that the mainstream actually thinks that things like Terminator are what Cyberpunk looks like and that Robocop is the aberration...). So I hadn't planned on spending thirty quid on buying the game again. But for a tenner, sure. Take a chance and see what they've done.
Some of the changes didn't come as a great surprise to me - the "Tong's Rescue" bonus mission and both extra bundles of gear had been in my Collectors Edition anyway. Integrating "Missing Link" the other DLC mission into the story, rather than it being a stand-alone "extra level" is so seamless that I am starting to wonder whether it is more a case that it has been "put back" than "put in".
But the redesigned boss-fights... These are a thing of wonder - firstly they have doubled the physical area each one takes up (at least - the Jason Namir fight actually takes place in an area three times the original size). But secondly they have added options as to how to resolve them. Instead of being purely about "apply bullets/explosions to boss until dead" there are other things you can do - terrain and cover that a stealth-focused character can use to get an advantage, gas hazards or turrets or security drones which a hacker can set against the foe... In fact I went through two of the boss battles without even drawing a weapon. From the most frustrating and aggravating part of the original game, they have gone to being genuinely fun set-pieces which let you show off your style and approach.
It isn't that which I really have come to adore though, even though the re-designed boss fights are very much a "we're really sorry. We know they should have been like this the first time around, thank you for having faith we can fix it". No, the greatest extra in the Director's Cut package is the "Newgame+" mode. Once you have completed the game you can choose to start over, but this time with all of the cybernetic abilities that you had chosen by the end of the game. So instead of starting as basically a bloke with metal arms who can punch people unconcious and then slowly developing into (in my case) a silent moving, master hacker with optical camouflage skin that turns you into a virtual ghost, you are starting as the wraith-like hacker. I like the pacing and the power-curve of the game as written - it has a lovely sense of reward and a good pacing of your opportunities to develop your abilities. "Newgame+" by contrast really does feel like a different game.
There is a freedom in having so many upgrades already unlocked which allows you to approach the game in a wholly different way - you feel tough and capable normally, but with "New Game+" you feel more like Batou or Mokoto Kusanagi - there is a very liberating sense of being well ahead of the State of The Art.
Final analysis, from my perspective the Director's Cut edition fixes all the things that kept Human Revolution merely a great game, and allows it to upgrade itself to being a truly superb one. (And to be honest, that is the opportunity David Sarif would want for us all...)
Karl
). I have the original but never got around to playing it. With my Xbox One enthusiasm drying up, I'm gravitating back to my 360 and everything you've described ensures me that all the minor niggles reported in revies have been addressed. As an interesting bit of trivia, the reason the boss encounters were at odds with the rest of the game is that they were outsourced to another company. It sounds like Square Enix have taken those back and applied their own standards to them, as you say, making the game they originally wanted - a literal Director's Cut and not just a movie term used to describe an extended video game.