["I'm looking for Tracer Tong.
It is urgent that I find him." ["Those elements mixed together
is definitely like a sauce." ["What?!" ["ICARUS!!!"] [Subtitles by danielsangeo] Hey! Welcome back to the Game Dungeon. Today, we're looking at "Deus
Ex: Human Revolution". Now this is the conclusion of
the previous "Deus Ex" episodes so let's have a quick recap of those first. [screaming] "INVISIBLE WAR, MY ASS!" All right! Let's get started. We start off and--Hey! It's a young Bob Page with the same voice actor
from the first game. This almost makes me not care
about the other characters now. ["What do you mean, 'almost'?"] Human Revolution is a prequel to Deus Ex
set 25 years before the original game. Now this is cool bringing back Bob Page
because he can be an interesting character, he's great as a villain, and I
like the voice actor's performance. So naturally, this is all we're
going to see of him. He's absent the entire rest of the game
except for a kicker after the credits. Yeah, that's all you see. On another note, I'm surprised
they show him with augmentations since he was one of the first people
to receive nano-augmentations in 2052. I always assumed these little extra wires
were just the minimum mechanical element like Paul and JC Denton have, not the old-fashioned ones which
were a bit more visible. But whatever. This intro is
nothing but a Bob Page tease and like the other games, full of dialog where we won't know what's
happening until we actually beat the game. Now I have a lot to say about
this entire intro sequence but I'm going to restrain myself for now
so we can understand what we're looking at. We start off playing Adam Jensen. He's an ex-cop that's been hired as
chief of security for Sarif Industries, a company that makes augmentations
like we've seen in the other games. Augmentations are cybernetic enhancements that replace some of your body
parts to restore functionality, or give you new abilities. So you're escorting your head
researcher/girlfriend to a conference when--whoops! Terrorists have attacked
the building and you need to stop them. Well... you don't. Instead they
kick your ass six months to Sunday and you're rushed to intensive care and given a truckload of cybernetic
enhancements since you're a company favorite. So in other words, almost the
same beginning as "RoboCop" which is probably why this game
takes place in Detroit. Months later, you've recovered
and are going back to work because the company is under attack AGAIN. From there, more questions are raised about why the hell your company
keeps getting attacked so much and that sends you on a globetrotting
adventure like the other games. Although, I feel like
Montrรฉal here shouldn't count because the whole thing is one just big
office building. This could be anywhere. Quick! Can you spot the difference? I guess technically you get a
brief skyline shot but that's it. They're just including Montrรฉal because
that's where the game was developed. Well, they wouldn't be the first
company to do that. There's more to the story but before I go
off the rails, let's look at the gameplay. I don't have too much to say
here because it's pretty good. It feels like a refinement and
more thought out. I'd say the game might even be a
little harder, but it's harder in all the right ways. Look at this. This is the first level. In almost any other first-person shooter, you could take down these guys
like they're balloon animals. Not here. They shoot back--bam, you're dead. People also detect you faster
than the original, but hey, that's more true to life. My guns hurt, their guns hurt, and they didn't dumb down the
RPG complexity. It's a winner. The only things I didn't like
about the gameplay are all minor. Sometimes there are invisible
edges you can't shoot through. Also in the game, you can get a
social augmentation where you confront some characters and
try to persuade them to do something. I didn't like this because your responses
and their reactions feel a little random. Some people you're supposed to mix up
compassionate and understanding responses with aggressive ones and it felt
more like going through the motions of a dialog slot machine rather
than a believable conversation. Look at these. These responses
say practically the same thing. It's like being penalized for saying
"Good day" instead of "How do you do?" I'd rather just cut the crap and
tell characters what I think and have them react
like normal human beings. This feels a little unnatural
and way hazier. Another thing is that the button for
looting is a little too sensitive and I found myself
firing my gun half the time while looting the body like a
manic kleptomaniac. Oh boy, oh boy! He's got stuff!
HE'S GOT STUFF! [gunshot] And finally, I am sorry to say, I consider the body moving mechanics
a downgrade from the former games. You can only limply drag them now. You can't pick them up and you
can't even open the Dumpsters. This is a missed opportunity here, folks. But the game almost makes up for
that by having takedown moves. You can walk up to people and
take them out in one move. Now they have both lethal and
non-lethal moves, but honestly, I found the
non-lethal methods way more fun. We have chokeholds and some throws, but
it's really the punching that stuck with me. They go a little overboard but
it's really great how you can see the saliva
flying out of their mouth. And on top of all that, the game keeps calling me a merciful
soul for beating the crap out of people. This isn't really what comes to mind when I think of the word "mercy"
but sure, I'll take it. 20 points. Some of the gameplay is a little
more simplified like removing area damage and leaning, but I don't feel like I'm being robbed
the way I was with "Invisible War" especially since the combat is so fluid now. I give it a thumbs up. I wish I could say the same
about the graphics. Now you might be thinking, "What are you
talking about? These graphics are great!" And they are... ...if you're color blind. I know this has been brought up
a bunch elsewhere, but I seriously can't ignore this. This game is yellow. Or yellow-orange...
gold, whatever. That's just splitting hairs. The point is, it is tinted to hell and back. Actually, I'm not completely
sure what's going on because I tried turning post-processing off and that helps some things,
didn't do much for others. What I think is happening is the
artist has taken a texture, added a small shade of yellow to that, then in many cases, the mapper
adds a yellow light to the level, then adds a yellow fog to the
entire map on top of that, and then finally, the game adds
a yellow tinting on top of that. I have seen the future and it is yellow. I tried using mods to correct this, but it just pushes things too
far in the other direction. This is so invasive, I'm not sure
it's possible to separate cleanly. Now if you just look at this briefly,
you might think this looks warm and nice. But no. It's one thing to tint a
stylized photo, it's another thing to tint the
HELL out of a 30-hour game. Have you ever been out in the
snow on a sunny day then when you come back into a dark
room, everything looks kind of purple? Well if I play this game long
enough, that happens to me slightly. Now the director's cut did try to
tone down the yellow tinting a bit, but then they replaced it with a
muddy gray filter. What the hell? Why are art directors obsessed with
tinting the hell out of everything? Do their eyes work differently than mine? I saw this nasty gray tint added recently
to "Fable: Anniversary Edition" also. The original looks better now. Why does this keep happening? I'm not against the color yellow. In fact, this game has a lot of
street lamps at night. Yeah, that should be yellowish
orange, but why EVERYTHING? Tinting should be like a spice.
Save it for a flashback sequence. Or hey, in the game when you get shot, the
screen turns red. That's a good use of it. Tinting the ENTIRE GAME is like dumping
two cups of nutmeg into your dish. You'll kill people. For anyone trying to defend this,
what if every game did this? This game came out in 2011. Imagine if the industry decided
yellow filters were the hot new thing and part of their "artistic vision", so every game that year had a
yellow filter slapped on it. You'd think the industry would've gone
insane. So why should this game get a pass? Or hey, how about the best of both worlds
and just give me an OPTION to turn it off? Then everybody wins. Speaking of 2011 games, there was actually
a color mod released for "Battlefield 3" that restored the color to the
game to make it more natural. Well, DICE started banning
people for using the mod because they said it had "too much color"
and gave people an unfair advantage. Then they changed their minds
and said it was okay and would be adding an option to
remove the color tinting. But then they changed their mind again saying that tinted screens were
the way of the future and will continue to ban people
trying to change it. When I did the Deus Ex episode, I
looked up various conspiracy theories, and one that came up was that there
are secretly lizard people among us. Well I don't know how lizard eyes work, but I think some of them have
jobs as game art directors. Now I normally don't devote so
much time to the graphics but Human Revolution is a special case. Once again, one of the strengths
of the original Deus Ex is that it had some sci-fi elements but most
things feel very grounded and believable. Well Invisible War tosses that out
the window being FAR into the future. But Human Revolution is a prequel so it's even closer in feel to the
present day than the original Deus Ex. ...just kidding. It tosses that
out the window, too. It doesn't have flying hover robots but it
likes to exaggerate almost everything else. It's one thing to have outlandish
fancy architecture in a corporate lobby or executive office, because
they do sort of thing sometimes. This gets a free pass. It's another thing to do this... everywhere. Let's throw up a bunch of
skyscrapers in Detroit with exotic, difficult to
build--and clean--architectures. Let's have hologram communicators
that require no visible equipment and are so lifelike, they pass for REAL, even though the originals look
like modern day ones. Let's have jet-propulsion airships even though the original game
only had planes and helicopters. Or hey, let's have a GIGANTIC
SUSPENDED TECHNO-CITY making this the largest manmade
structure in HISTORY by a large margin. Oh yeah. I'm sure we'll be finishing
this up in, what, eleven years now? Y'know, most of you watching this
are going to live to see 2027. It's not like Invisible War where
you really need to do your sit-ups and eat your vegetables if you
plan on making it that long. So yeah, 2027. Right around the corner. So, despite all this amazing
technology to dazzle you, the REAL star of this game is
the costume design. Now the creators of Deus Ex probably
watched "The Matrix" a few too many times so it had a bit of an obsession
with trench coats, but beyond that, its styles, like the
rest of its looks, were pretty believable. Well this game wasn't about to
be known for THAT, so without further ado, let's start
the Human Revolution Fashion Show! First up is our hero: Adam Jensen. With a neatly trimmed goatee and
understated faux hawk, Adam is wearing a fashionable leather
trench coat with heightened shoulder pads and additional leather strips
with a paisley pattern. This look screams
"I am the head of security" and is a popular look among
former cops like himself. Next up is his girlfriend. Dr.
Reed is all work and no play with her snap-up black leather pants, lace-patterned white leather
doublet with pointed shoulders, poofed up collar and origami hairpiece. This look states that she is a
serious researcher to be respected, which is good because she's testifying
before Congress in a few hours. Now their boss, David Sarif, won't
be setting any records this year as he's business-first, but his
origami vest is all the rage this year and that, combined with
his gold pocket chain and gold engraved prosthetic
arm, keeps him looking sharp. And speaking of executives, let
us not forget Zhao Yun Ru, the CEO of a major biotech company. Starting from her swirl-patterned
Athenian sandals-cum-high heels, to her queen bee ridged thorax dress, to her vine-patterned corset and
Elizabethan collar her looks command authority, especially in China, a country
known for its respect of women. But let's move on down and look at the
Sarif Industries' workers themselves. From the gold-trim leather buckle shoes and nylon pants with puffy
diamond-patterned sides, to the pleather popped collar tuxedo
with patterned polyester strips and matching silk neck scarf, this employee says "Not only do I live in
the Capitol District from 'The Hunger Games' "but also, I am a productive
employee ready for work." His coworker could very well be
the yin to his yang, with his business casual pants
with patterned polyester pockets and pleather long sleeve shirt with gold
frond trimmings on his icosahedral cuffs. Yes, fashion is taking the world by storm as variations on these looks can be found
not only on most white-collar employees but on people on the street both
in Detroit and around the world. Oh, did I say "white-collar"?
I meant "gold". So whether your clothes say "I am a
waiter at an S&M club masquerade ball" or "I am a disco king who is also
attending a Mexican wedding", there is something for everyone. And last, but certainly not least, is
leading worldwide newscaster, Eliza Cassan. Reporting the news is serious business and what could be more serious
than a magenta Elizabethan collar, black neck collar with a lace top, flower-shaped hair braid,
lingerie top with lace stockings and a coattail jacket with
high-heeled rubber boots? So, uh... Yeah, you might be
noticing a pattern here. Hold that thought because NOW
we'll talk about the story. The story to Human Revolution might be
even more knotted up than the original, but it's easier to follow if you
work backwards. The Illuminati thinks mankind is
becoming too powerful from augmentations so they put a plan into play to
sabotage Dr. Reed's discovery of allowing anyone to use
augmentations without medication. That attack sets you on the trail
of discovering what happened, which leads you back to this guy: The
inventor of augmentations and ex-Illuminati. He's decided it's all a mistake and
is using them to kill everyone instead so that everyone will hate
augmentations and ban them. Also, there's a computer powered
by screaming women. I got a little lost on that part. And that's the main plot. But Deus Ex games all have their
character stories and larger themes, and this is where I start seeing
some bumps in the road. I can get into the most fantastical
story you can throw at me but if the people in it don't act like
actual people, then that kills it for me. Now both the other Deus Ex games had
plenty of questionable situations, but by and large, if you were to
accept those as true, then the characters largely
acted like real people would. The original was great at this. Invisible War was more like a "Star
Trek" episode but it basically worked. Well, with Human Revolution from the intro
onward, I start getting a lot of red flags. First, Adam Jensen is a stoic
no-nonsense character, but we immediately get an
overacted exaggerated eye rolling, because that's what really serious
and intense people like to do. Just like that. Next, we get a researcher who is
easily in his sixties giving off this extremely animated
and humble body language to Dr. Reed who is a woman in her early thirties
dressed like a fashion model. Now she does have a higher
position than him at the company, but most men in their sixties tend to
have a certain degree of self-respect, that they're not going to behave like
she is the Empress of... Detroit, no matter what her job title is. I mean, he's still an important
scientist at the company, but he's approaching her like a
nervous intern. Oh, wait, did I say HE was acting humble? Well, this next guy is GROVELING before her! Look at this body language! "Oh please, Dr. Reed! I do not deserve
to stand in your glorious presence, "but if this ever-so-humble servant "may please have your attention
for a single moment, "it would be an honor I would never forget!" Okay...? This is all minor, though, so
let's keep going. We get our ass kicked and are back on
the job after six months of recovery. I check in with my irritating IT
guy who makes a fourth-wall joke that doesn't even make sense
within the context of the game, and isn't funny. ["About time. What happened? You get
stuck in an air duct on the way over?"] That's not good. Also, here we have a clear
conflict of interest. My boss is calling me into work right
away because there's a hostage situation; he'll even chastise me if I
start taking too long. ["You don't have time to mess around. ["Get to the helipad or something
SERIOUSLY bad is going to happen."] So there's some sense of urgency, yet the game is dumping me into the largest
narrative portion of the game so far. I can talk to people, check emails...
there's tons of exposition here. So I'm being ripped out of the experience because the GAME is telling me to take my
time, explore every inch of this place, but the STORY is telling me to hurry
up and get to the hostages right away. In Deus Ex, you resolve the
dangerous situation first, THEN you got to chill out back at
headquarters and get a bunch of narrative. This is just bad design. But hey, let's say I DO talk to people. Everyone is talking to me like
they know me personally. ["Jensen? I knew the boss had an
ace up his sleeve."] ["Adam? Welcome back!"] ["Welcome back, Jensen!"] ["Jensen! Nice surprise."] ["Adam, are you here because
of Milwaukee Junction?"] ["Jensen!"] ["Adam! You're in today, too?"] ["Jensen! God damn, it's good to
see you up and around so... soon."] I'm wondering why this is because I
don't seem like a very personable guy, so how do they know me? In Deus Ex soldiers will talk to you,
but you're essentially brothers in arms. Plus you make a big splash by rescuing an
agent and taking down a terrorist leader, so you're a rising star
right from the get-go. These are just coworkers who don't
even share the same department as me. I mean hell, I've worked at
corporate offices before. I never knew who the head of
security was when I was there, but everyone is talking to me like they
meet me every Friday night for poker. More people are friends with me than the nice lady at your office
who brings in doughnuts for everyone. This world isn't natural. It's all about me. So this is taking me out of the
experience a bit, but the first mission is where
the bombs start falling. First, my IT guy is making snide comments even though I'm in a super-dangerous
situation and could be killed and there are hostages that will
die if I screw up. He doesn't seem to take this very seriously. ["Pritchard, I'm in. The door
worked just fine." ["I'm happy for you."] Okay? Whatever. I save everyone and
stop the bad guys. I'm a hero. So, what does Detroit Police
have to say to me? ["What the hell were you thinking, Jensen?! ["You can't just blow a guy away like that! ["Did you forget about interrogation? ["You can't get information out
of a corpse, idiot!"] Oh, I'm sorry! You mean THIS guy? The
one holding a gun to that lady's head? Oh, sure! It'd be nice to take
him for questioning, but how do I know this guy isn't
hopped up on PCP? Or hey, he's a vet. Maybe he's
having a PTSD attack right now. It's not like crazy veterans can
be really dangerous or anything. Why should I gamble with her life
AND mine if I can end this right now? ["Her blood--"] [gunshot] That is justifiable homicide
right there, people. He had a gun to her head, I had
a clean shot, I took it. This wasn't a 13-year-old waving
around a Nerf gun. No cop in the world is going to
blame you for taking that shot. Except this one, apparently. Y'know, I've heard a great quote
from a REAL cop that goes, "Warriors have weeks to go over
decisions we have seconds to make." This is REALLY hurting the credibil-- ["Now you're the one
that killed all the vandals. ["You're a God damned murderer
as far as I'm concerned."] What? ["If I wasn't under orders not to, ["I'd slap you in jail until your arms
rusted right off your FUCKING CORPSE!"] Oh! So that's TWO cops blaming me now! Yeah. "Vandals". You mean THESE guys? The ones
shooting at the police? Oh yeah. I can totally believe Detroit
PD is really sympathetic towards them. There were about three dozen
terrorists in the building. They had a bomb, eight hostages,
and already killed a worker. I think we have a
communication problem here. You seem to think I shot teenagers
spray-painting the building. Every single terrorist was armed
with a handgun or submachine gun. It wasn't even like "Batman" where there's
a bunch of guys with baseball bats. I took out all the bad guys, defused
a bomb, and saved all the hostages. The mayor of Detroit should be
giving me a medal! Now the cops could come down
hard on me for being reckless, because one man going in by
himself totally is, but no cop would EVER
say what these guys do. It makes me wonder if the writer has ever
actually talked to a police officer before, or even been to Detroit. This is demolishing the credibility for me. But whoa! Once I get back,
not only is every employee immediately informed of what went
down, they're judging my tactics. ["Jensen, is it true Sanders acted
surprised when he heard about the hacker?"] ["Better start practicing your
stealth approach, ["unless you enjoy RAMMING your
way through a problem."] ["Well, well. If it isn't Atilla the
Hun, fresh from the killing fields."] And I get even more
cringe-worthy dialog than before. ["I didn't risk my neck to have you lose
it in a pile of CPUs and SCSI adapters." ["Well, look at you, using the big words. ["Don't think just because you hacked
through the plant's security system so fast ["that you're an expert on
everything computer."] None of the other Deus Ex games
made me cringe. And that's my first issue with the writing. It's very detailed and intricate
and a lot of it is interesting, but about half of it is even
remotely believable human behavior. These are the lizard people! ["You saved the hostages,
didn't you, Jensen? ["Sounds cold but... it might've
been better for us if they'd died."] Look at this. What's this? What's
that hand behind the head gesture? Nobody does that unless they're
trying to find their car keys. That's what anime characters do.
They do that all the time. This is a prominent special
interest group leader, but his body language is saying,
"I am a bashful anime school boy." This game is loaded with crap like this. Take a look at this cop who was
formerly on the SWAT team. And never mind that his hair makes him look like he's one of
the Martians from "Mars Attacks!". Listen, if you're on the SWAT team in a
major city like Detroit, you're a bad ass. That's pretty much the short and long of it. Now he is having some PTSD issues
because he shot a kid a couple years ago, and that's understandable--that
could crack a lot of people-- but listen to him: ["It's just so hard. ["What happened wasn't my fault! ["And you just walked out of my life! ["That's when everything went to
SHIT! When you abandoned me! ["Adam, please! I need to hear
you say it wasn't my fault. ["Adam, I--"] I'm sorry. Is he supposed to be a hard-ass
Detroit cop with some trauma issues or is he auditioning for a new soap opera? Jesus, you wouldn't make it into ACADEMY
talking like that, let alone the SWAT team. And this happened two years ago,
not this morning. Way too many people in this game
just don't act real. It's like these 'debates' about whether I
did the 'right thing' rescuing the hostages. This is artificial controversy. Not only would most of these people not be
talking about the topic in the first place but the game arbitrarily divides them up to make it look like as though this
a real issue. It's all bullshit. When you talk to everyone, even
random people on the street, about 95% of them is talking
about augmentations. They're acting like David Sarif
is their uncle. Everyone. I said the original Deus Ex was a
little in-your-face about terrorism. Well, it has nothing on Human Revolution
when it comes to augmentation. Rather than building up those
world stories from the original, everything is centered on
whatever you're doing at the time, and of course, augmentation. And that brings me to the other
issue with the writing. Deus Ex is a game of themes. Each game has major and minor themes
going on; you can debate which is which. Not Human Revolution. It has a few
minor themes and ONE major theme: Cyborgs, cyborgs, cyborgs, cyborgs.
Or transhumanism, same difference. If you were to remove one theme
from any of the other Deus Ex games, you would still have a story. If you remove "cyborgs" from Human
Revolution, you have no story. All you have then is a guy flying around to
companies and shooting up security guards. Now having one central theme as
opposed to multiple large ones isn't necessarily a bad thing.
On the contrary. But it means you'd better know what
you're doing with that one theme. Well, my issue with Human Revolution
is it never really makes the case why augmentation is a big deal
within the world. They use sweeping generalities all the time like how they're the "next stage
of human evolution" and "naturals don't have a chance" but don't give me much of a reason WHY. ["Rhetoric. Always more rhetoric."] The only concrete reason I hear is
that people with augs are taking jobs. But wait a minute. Let's look at
your augmentations. I have super-speed,
super-strength, super-vision, I'm a super-hacker, and I have
that socialization mod. Although I'm not very impressed
with this social mod since it feels a little random
when you helps me or not. Compare this to something like
"Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines" where if you persuade somebody,
you CHANGE THEIR MIND. If augmented people had that kind of
power where it's almost like mind control, yeah, THAT would change society, but they never paint it anywhere
near that extreme. But back to jobs. How many jobs
would this actually apply to? Well, here's some top ten jobs
now. Let's have a look. Okay, sales. That social mod could help. However I've seen plenty of salespeople with far
more natural talent than this social mod ever adds. Plus you have to weigh the
benefits against the drawbacks of the customer getting a little creeped out talking to someone with an implant
sticking out of their skull. So yeah, it might help SOME, but
isn't a slam dunk. The world already has
tons of people-persons. Cashiers? No, not really. Office clerks? Not really. Food prep? No. Nurses? Not really. Bedside manner isn't
as important as just being competent. Waiters? Same situation as sales.
Could help, could creep people out. Customer service? Not really. It
would be over the phone. Janitors? No. Material mover laborers? Yes.
Strength would help out there. Secretaries and administrative
assistants? Not really. So I'm not seeing all these jobs
being lost by augmentations and the game doesn't like to
talk about it either. The only ones that really comes up
are military special forces, athletes, prostitutes who have clients that
have a preference for augmented girls, and anyone who works
on a secret Arctic base. So that's, what, still less than
1% of the job market? There are plenty of reasons to think that
the job market is going to get worse, but rather than look at the real
reasons the way Deus Ex might, Human Revolution just steers every
conversation towards augmentations. And let's not forget the
drawbacks of being augmented. In order to be an augmented
individual, you have to: 1. Be able to afford them, as
they're very expensive, 2. Cut out your relevant body parts and/or
have circuits inserted into your skull, and 3. Take an anti-rejection drug
for the rest of your life that is only produced by one company. Now take all these together and I don't see
augmentations catching on like wildfire, especially the "cutting off your
arm and gouging out your eyes" part. So realistically, this would be a drastically
small percentage of the population. Even in Deus Ex, the vast majority of
people are not augmented, maybe five percent and most of them are involved with either
the military or corporate security. So even by 2052, this is not an
issue that affects most people. The only people augmentations
would be great for would be the ones missing
parts to begin with. So if you're a war vet and lost
your legs to a landmine, hell yeah! Augmentations are great! And I think the rest of society
would be happy FOR you, to see your functionality restored. But in Human Revolution, people
are so divided over this issue, there are eventually RIOTS IN THE
STREET over it! Are you kidding me? Out of all the problems Detroit
has to choose from, they settle on augmentations to riot over? How about NOT HAVING WATER? Y'know, where the city is so mismanaged that keeps shutting off water to
large numbers of residents that even the United Nations declared
it a human rights' violation? There's a reason RoboCop is
still so relevant today. It's because Detroit is still going to hell! I mean, what do you want-- pollution, crime, poverty, unemployment,
the economy? Take your pick, man. Human Revolution doesn't get it. This is supposed to be happening closest
to the present out of all the games yet it's one of the farthest from reality. This isn't some small plot hole
that you only notice later. I was waiting the whole time for
the game to tell me WHY augmentation is such a big deal in this
world, and they couldn't explain it either. In one part of the game, you can even
point blank ask a real estate broker, couldn't you just do your job
without augmentations? And she straight-up doesn't
answer the question! I guess that's because the answer is "yes" which kind of undermines the
whole damned plot. I'm already throwing the game a bone and assuming augmentations work
the way they do and all these capabilities are possible. I'm not even questioning that. But I'm supposed to suspend my disbelief about a plot that the game itself
can't explain why it exists, so I can further suspend my disbelief to
talk to characters who don't act human so they can talk about the plot. [screaming] The story just collapses
under its own weight. It was a lot simpler, but the writing
in Invisible War was stronger than this. So I'm less than thrilled with the story but it does do a few things I like. First, I like how you have a
problem in your firmware and are encouraged to get an update,
which ends up being a really bad idea. I personally am kind of paranoid about software I have no control
over if it changes, because it could be modified in future
in a way I don't want or simply not work. I mean, hell, the director's cut
added that gray filter. That trend of less control is happening
more and more with games and software and I think it's a bad precedent, because then you're screwed if
something goes wrong; you can't just go back to the
version that worked. ["You should be offline!"] So it was a nice touch seeing
this sort of thing in the game. The game actually takes this to a
more extreme level with the plot, because later, a switch is activated to turn all people with augmentations
into monstrous techno-zombies where they're being forced to attack
everyone else against their will. Okay, full disclosure. I am definitely
biased in favor of zombie survival games and this part started feeling
like a zombie game. So, not very Deus Ex-ish, but I
like this part; you could make a whole side game
on this concept. And the final thing I liked about the story, while I was rescuing the hostages,
I stumbled across an article here. Hm. The Oil Crash of 2015?
Rising economic power of China? Opening of oil reserves and
emergency powers to restore order? Now THIS is what I want to see in a Deus
Ex game! More predictive future stuff. Now they obviously got things
wrong on a 2015 oil crash, but for a 2011 game, this
actually wasn't that bad a guess. In 2010, the US Joint Forces were warning of the possibility of a massive
oil shortage starting 2015. Now what ended up happening was
fracking started to take off and opened up a bunch more oil
that was previous inaccessible, so we've had a production boom since then and the price of oil is low at
the time of this video. The thing is, though, this is temporary and our conventional oil sources have
been flat for about a decade now. So, we've already gone through
most of the good stuff and are JUST beginning to scrape
the barrel now to keep up. So why does any of this matter? Well, once the amount of oil we need
is higher than what we can produce, the entire economy starts falling apart,
and it mostly just keeps going to hell. I've been following oil for some time now
because all of civilization depends on it. There's a lot of talk about
alternative energy, but 92% of our transportation
still comes from oil. So if a new power plant comes online, great! That still doesn't get food into
the grocery store unless there's an electric
infrastructure to support that, and we're decades behind where
we need to be with that. The short version is, we can't support the number of people
we have on Earth without cheap oil. We have essentially a slow
apocalypse heading towards us. What unconventional sources like fracking
have done is put that off a few years. Not a whole lot either. I'll be amazed if we're not seeing
serious problems from this within a decade that could take a lifetime to recover from. After all, the military thought
it was going to be 2015; I'm curious what they think now. But back to the point of this, I'm very
impressed Human Revolution put this in here and it was a good guess,
even if it was wrong. Same goes for the look of the
cars. Good guess, probably wrong. Let's talk about the music. It's not hard. While it's a little better and
has a little more variety, almost everything I said in the
Invisible War episode applies here, too. [ambient music] [ambient vocalizing] Except now we're adding a dash of
"TRON: Legacy" soundtrack to everything. Not too much, we don't want
anything to really stand out, but now we have more "Piw pow pow
piw piw piw pow pow piw pow..." And once again we have no conversions to
this game since we don't have any mod tools, but mobile game "Deus Ex: The Fall"
was released around the same time also. I haven't played and every single mention
I've seen of this game says it's terrible. And I don't have any reason to doubt
that opinion. It's still yellow. So what do we make of this game? Well I feel like all the decisions
made in every Deus Ex game portray their own narrative. In Deus Ex, it's "We would like you to
make decisions and think about things." In Invisible War, it was "We
think you're kind of stupid." In Human Revolution, it's "We're
fans of Deus Ex, "but we'd rather be
making a different game." Everything points to this--
the anime overtones, the unbelievable character behavior,
the story fixation on augmentations, the disregard for setting continuity, and
the utterly flamboyant costume designs. It's not that the developers don't
understand that they're making a prequel to a game that was grounded in
reality. It's that they don't care. And honestly, I think the realism
elements were holding them back. It's obvious to me that at least
some of the developers don't actually want to be making
a Deus Ex game. They want to be making something at
least like a "Metal Gear Solid" game and maybe something even more out there
like "Ghost in the Shell" or even "Akira". And, really, I think they should do it. I mean, I like futuristic
airships, giant techno-cities and super-stylized architecture, but
they don't belong in a Deus Ex prequel. There's clearly rampant talent and
creativity on the development team but they don't know how to do reality, so
why bother? I think they should go nuts. Maybe start off the game a little mundane, but by the end, have an Akira
biological madness apocalypse. Maybe there's an entire underground network of thousands of screaming
women-computers beneath the city. Maybe this is all part of summoning
a giant tentacle monster god. But the game business being what it is, they're probably going to be tied
to Deus Ex for some kind to come and have to keep restraining
themselves in an awkward symphony between attempting realism and
trying to escape it. Let's talk endings. Now I thought there was plenty of room
for improvement on the original's endings because they were so short and
barely showed anything. Well, Human Revolution somehow
managed undercut them and has the worst endings out of
all three games. All that happens is you get a
voiceover by Jensen questioning if he did the right thing and a bunch of stock news footage
with a yellow filter added. This is pathetic. If I had that digitized effect, I could
make these endings in a couple hours, and you can see how sophisticated
my editing skills are. Look, game devs. Here's what you do. If you need an ending but you're
running out of time or budget and can't afford a cinematic, you grab your artists, who usually have less
work towards the end of production anyway, and ask them whip up some
concept stills for you. Then you give us a slideshow showing what
you WANTED to happen and add voices to that. Maybe add some real cheap animations and
scrolling effects while you're at it. "Panchaea is destroyed! Oh no!" Glub glub glub... There. I just gave you a better
ending than this game has. And this is ending the Deus Ex videos for
me, so where's Deus Ex going from here? Now of course, the reality is
"Mankind Divided" has been released, and will probably lead to
another sequel also. I haven't played it yet but my
prediction is it'll be more of the same. I've read the plot is doubling
down on augmentations and making parallels to current trending
events, which is a total mistake. Deus Ex needs to look to the
FUTURE, not the present. So I think the sequel still
won't get it as far as the story, will continue to have lavish art design, and probably still have fun mechanics. So like this--an enjoyable game but
not really carrying the Deus Ex banner. So that's our current ending, but here
are the endings I'd like to see instead. 1. Have Eidos Montreal kill Deus Ex and make some bad ass Ghost in the
Shell or Akira-inspired game instead. I think everyone will be happier for it. 2. Figure out a way for a side
story game to work involving a techno-zombie apocalypse,
because this sounds awesome. Alternately, make a stealth-brawler
game involving tons of takedowns and beating the crap out of everyone. These are both winners for me. 3. Have another studio make the
true successor to Deus Ex. Try to make a game that will
predict the future as best we can. See, there's a lot of things
we can't predict, but there are some things we can totally
predict. We just don't know when. You would almost want at least
two writers for this. One to make a fun and interesting story and one to do a ton of research from
various experts in different fields to figure out what this world would
look like and predict where we're going. So we would look at past data,
predictive models and trends, to try our best to figure out
what will be happening in 50 years with the economy, energy, technology,
our environment, governments and so on. Then really take our best educated
guess as to what's on the horizon. Then package that world into a normal fun
game and you have a Deus Ex successor. The bottom line is, life right
now is totally not sustainable and it's going to change one way or another, so it would be great to get more of
a glimpse of what that looks like. Awards! First award-- King Midas art design. Despite having fun mechanics, this alone
makes me not want to replay the game. You can't tint the pain away. Identity crisis. This game wants
to be something else. Now this isn't completely the
developer's fault. Invisible War kind of screwed
them by going complete sci-fi so they couldn't make a realistic sequel. And prequels usually aren't the best because unless you figure out a way to
go in a completely different direction, you already know how it's going to end up. Deus Ex is about world changing events, and
you can only change so much in a prequel. This game wants to be Metal Ghost in
the Akira of Yellow Bladerunner Edition and I think they should just ditch
Deus Ex and go for that instead. And finally-- Further mutations required. Invisible War was a mutation from
Deus Ex, and this is a different one. It's fun, but as far as I'm
concerned, Deus Ex is dead. ["Yeah, RIP."] There's not enough room to make it
into something as awesome anymore. The timeline is just too locked down now. It needs to be reborn in another
IP or else completely rebooted. The tale of Adam Jensen
is inherently limited. And that is the end of the Deus Ex episodes. Man! "Spiderbot" and three Deus
Exes. That's enough reality for me. Stay tuned for the next episode
for something lighter. With colors. And a good ending! BLAGH! [static] [industrial music] Hm. Oh, I almost forgot. Remember. Shop smart, shop S-Mart.
I actually really liked how everyone seemed to know Adam at the company. It made it sort of feel like home and made me actually care about it. It is a bit strange how EVERYONE seems to know him personally, but I just assumed that was a typical game scaling issue. So, in "reality" the company is far bigger and not everyone is on a first name basis with you, but the people Adam happens to run across are all people he at least knows in passing.
The whole situation really helped sell the world in a way, as it made me care about the company I belonged to more than I probably should, which suits the universe's corporatist, borderline anarcho-capitalist society, where who you work for matters more than what country you belong to.
I never really questioned the commentary on augmentation either. If anything I found it a bit too obvious. There's plenty of examples in the game, especially in China, where we see how important augs are to get by.
They help you think faster which helps you do your white-collar job more efficiently, they make you stronger, which helps you do your blue-collar job more efficiently, but only rich people can afford them and you become reliant on a single pharmaceutical company for the rest of your life just so your body won't reject them. Those are some PRETTY BIG social issues right there.๏ปฟ
All in all though, I love Ross and I loved this video. He makes good stuff.
I disagree with his rant about the yellow tint. It was definitely an artistic move that some people will embrace and others won't but for me I thought it gave the game a cool aesthetic. Obviously he wasn't a fan but that's his opinion, not an objective fact.
His argument that if other games had done it we'd be mad so this one shouldn't get a pass is pretty flimsy too. The Matrix was a massive success that influenced many films but the pervasive green tint didn't start popping up in every other movie. Not to mention does that mean every non-standard art decision should be criticized? If I play a cel-shaded game should I be mad because I'd hate it if every single game was cel-shaded?
Other than that I enjoyed the video but that rant should have been limited to "This game is very yellow and you can't get rid of it. I don't like it".
A great video as usual but this one felt sightly nitpicky. For example I disagree about Ross saying that only rich people will get augmented since augs will be very expensive. Getting augs is a way of getting better jobs in HR's world. Ross refutes that such premise is unrealistic, however if we suppose such situation it is plausible that poor people will be getting some loans for expensive augs, expecting to pay back when they land good jobs. Students are getting loans for college tuitions with the same reason these days, afterall. Both could become serious social problems if they cannot get jobs, and Mankind Divided now shows that augmented people will not be getting good paying jobs after the panchea incident.
I wish he would have discussed the gameplay more. He didn't really discuss how the augmentations differed, how the hacking felt or was used, the use of different items, or the differences between the stealth and brute-force methods.
I've always thought the Deus Ex games were heavily stealth based and yet it seemed like his play footage hardly involved stealth at all. It seemed like he spent more time on that one random eBook than gameplay.
Another, more humorous Human Revolution video
I disagree with most of his criticism, but the most egregious was the claim that Sarif telling you to hurry up when the game has put you in an environment full of stuff to explore is bad design. This bit is one of the most important in the game. He's right, as a player, you want to explore. In most games, you'll get this annoying info-link telling you to hurry up or something bad will happen, but nothing will happen. This is bad design. Mankind Divided actually makes this offense. Human Revolution, however, subverts this trend. As a player, you've been conditioned to ignore this info-link and do whatever you want. In Human Revolution, the hostages will die. This bit is instrumental in getting you to respect the story, and in order for it to work, you have to want to explore Sarif Industries. When the narrative tells you something is important, you better listen. After all, last time the hostages died because you thought the game was just pulling your leg. Whether or not the game follows through with that promise over the rest of the game is debatable, but the first mission is perfect for setting up a strong narrative.
Omg it's the Freeman's Mind and Civil Protection guy!!
Check out Civil Protection, it's hilarious.
Lmao only guy who got his body destroyed and replaced entirely by augs in the company and this guy is surprised everyone knows him.
It bothers me how much he rants on the yellow filter. It's a matter of opinion. I actually really liked the black and yellow color scheme in HR. It was a unique styling that gave the game character. Of course not every game should have such a drastic filter, but it's nice to see the occasional game like this stylize their look so heavily. I have the same opinion about the green in fallout 3.