Deus Ex: Human Revolution Initial Impressions

[tolknaz]

I don't know if we're talking about the same thing. In any case, the AI is decent enough in both games, and I don't agree that it's far better in HR than in the original DX if you judge them using the standards of their respective years.

What standards of their respective years? The ai in games in general is NOT better than 10 years ago.

 

[elkston]

I'm really enjoying it so far. I"ve reached the 2nd "hub" city (after Detroit). I'm playing a hacker/stealth/low violence sort of character this time.

I had some trouble with the "boss" before you get the mission to reach the 2nd hub. I didn't really plan my character to be a head-on run-and-gun guy. But I read around the web and found out about some things he is vulnerable to and was able to win that fight.

Without a doubt, this is better than Invisible War —- and this is just being 11 hours into it. I didn't think IW was terrible, just very lacking compared to the original. This time they are nailing it. I really get the DX feel BIG TIME. I love that feeling of looking out on the city and wondering what places I can infiltrate, what secrets there are to find, what is in the sewers, etc. Good stuff.

In general, I REALLY think they got the stealth stuff perfect. Cover, moving bodies out of way, enemies REACTING to bodies, take downs, the stun gun. Anyone that likes stealth gameplay NEEDS this game.

 

[Moriendor]

What standards of their respective years? The ai in games in general is NOT better than 10 years ago.

Exactly. Look at e.g. Gothic 1 or something even older like Thief, games with arguably (one of) the best AI implementations in a game evah. Not even PB themselves have ever managed to live up to their own standards ever again. It's all been downhill since then.
Contrary to graphics, AI is a pretty timeless affair and purely based on the skills and effort that a programmer puts into it.

 

[fadedc]

It's not really fair to compare a game from 2011 to something from 2000. With 11 years between them, I would expect the AI to be significantly better.

Yeah as some people have said, AI hasn't really advanced much in 11 years. Probably the game I've played with the most realisitc guard AI was thief, and that come out before the original Deus Ex. In fact I remember the Deux Ex AI being especially disapointing at the time because it was impossible not to compare the two. My favorite was when I would snipe one person in a group of guards who were standing around talking and they would spend like 30 seconds looking for me before completely lowering their guard and going back to talking.

And like a previous poster said, sometimes you don't make the AI as smart as it could be on purpose. Real guards and patrols are in radio contact so if something happens to them an immediate alarm can be raised. That would certainly make for realistic AI. It would also make it impossible to take out guards one by one from stealth and encourage more of a shoot em up approach, and I don't think they wanted that.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I guess that's partly because games - and the public's demands ! - have always been so much graphic-centered.

This is similar to the small exhibition called "Art Of Games" or so, which consisted oc concept paintings and covers from various games, on display at the Games Com.

There weren't things like stories on display there. Only visual art.

I was thinking about art paintings in museums - there aren't museums for stories, and libraries don't have the same reputation as art museums - yet storytelling and painting is both considered art and craftwork (depending on what you focus on).

Same goes for in-game elements : What you can see, is easily caught by critics and the public s well … What you don't see isn't.

Therefore the money is heavily put intocritics' point-bringing visuals, and not so much into the AI - which the modern action player usually doesn't care much for anyway.

 

[figment]

A bit off-topic, but does anyone know where the save games are stored? I can't seem to find them anywhere. (Windows 7)

Not sure that anyone replied to you. The saves are stored as part of steam and its actually steam.exe that does the saving. Its stored under a Steam folder such as Steam\userdata\<uniqueid>\28050. Not sure if the uniqueid is your account number but think it is. There are also some files in the %AppData%\Local\drhr folder. This is used in conjunction with the cloud based persistence. My advice is to not do anything to the files. You might be able to backup the files maybe using the cloud sync. I've hit the 99 save game limit and tried to delete the previous 98 keeping only one and backup up the rest so I dont have to go through the awkward override workflow and nearly lost everything. The files are hashed and time stamped.

Ok so I made it past the second boss. I'm sure there has to be a better way of defeating her but my character build had no combat points applied at all. Also I had only stun guns and tranquilizers. This could be improved somewhat.

On the subject of AI, it is somewhat inconsistent but I do really like parts of it. For example if you open a door that guards are facing while cloaked they will comment on that and investigate. Same goes for taking stuff off counters or opening drawers and stuff. This is more than most games support.

I would like it if it did have the missing friend detection at least on the "Give me Deus Ex" difficulty level. I just play the game as though it does do that and avoid exploiting it but generally it does a decent job even then.

There was a point recently where I had to set off an explosive mine despite sneaking through the whole level undetected. That mine would then trigger full alert and set off all the guards. That was definitely the plan of the developers since it was required for the story to continue the way they wanted.

Spoiler

By the way, it is possible to save the chopper without killing anyone but its really fraking hard to time it right. I even did it with only using an EMP grenade as a weapon but admittedly used guns to finish off the big guy though not sure if its actually required.

 

[fadedc]

I don't think it's about money or demand, in fact I think a lot people still think AI is important. This is especially true in certain genres, such as strategy games which can succeed or fail purely based on their AI.

It's more of a technology thing. Graphics are much much much more straightforward then AI. Once one person figures out how to make a really cool looking tree, every game can now use that technique to create a similar tree. This is not true at all for AI, which has to be created from the ground up for every game in order be able to follow the rules of that specific game. As someone else said, it cant be solved with a pure technology solution, it's still all about the effort and skill of the programmers.

I guess that's partly because games - and the public's demands ! - have always been so much graphic-centered.

This is similar to the small exhibition called "Art Of Games" or so, which consisted oc concept paintings and covers from various games, on display at the Games Com.

There weren't things like stories on display there. Only visual art.

I was thinking about art paintings in museums - there aren't museums for stories, and libraries don't have the same reputation as art museums - yet storytelling and painting is both considered art and craftwork (depending on what you focus on).

Same goes for in-game elements : What you can see, is easily caught by critics and the public s well … What you don't see isn't.

Therefore the money is heavily put intocritics' point-bringing visuals, and not so much into the AI - which the modern action player usually doesn't care much for anyway.

 

[Tilean]

I have been playing for 15 hours.

I was initially a bit disappointed by the small levels. There are multiple paths and in comparison to other modern action games there is a lot to explore. But the actual progression through a mission is segmented into separated mini-levels, that you have to finish. There is the possibility to skip some short walks by using augmentations, but the general feeling that one is progressing through a linear succession of levels remains. In general, Deus Ex missions felt more open in their level design.

I can live without these huge open levels, however. And the first hub more than makes up for this limitation. I actually feel that this hub with its sidequests is a lot better than the ones from Deus Ex were. But I also feel that Invisible War's hubs were better than the original's hubs (if you could actually imagine them as one big area without loading times).

The second hub was a bit of a letdown. The sidequests involved a lot of back tracking between two different areas and were not that engaging. I am also beginning to expect that the pacing of the story line is too slow and that the actual story behind it all is not that good and as fleshed out as in the original game(s). The game approaches some things from a very realistic angle and I can't imagine how this is going to connect believably to the conspiracy and plots-within-plots theme, that must inevitably come.

The actual gameplay is fantastic though. In this aspect Human Revolution easily surpasses the previous titles.

After the first hub I thought this was sure to win lots of GOTY awards, after the second hub I am not so sure anymore. But it is a great game and definitely a classic for me personally.

 

[JDR13]

What standards of their respective years? The ai in games in general is NOT better than 10 years ago.

That's your opinion. I'd say it's better, but not at the level I would have expected by now.

And yes.. the AI in HR is obviously better than the original DX.. just not by a whole lot.


@figment - Thanks, but I still couldn't locate my saves. Ah well... no big deal.

 

[Lurking Grue]

And like a previous poster said, sometimes you don't make the AI as smart as it could be on purpose. Real guards and patrols are in radio contact so if something happens to them an immediate alarm can be raised.

I don't think anyone's advocating fully realistic (or should I say, painfully realistic) guard AI. At least I'm not. What I meant was a more situationally aware AI. An AI that could react to disappearing nearby (key word here, nearby, like in the same room) buddies by starting to look for him ("Hey, where did you go?"), not by outright raising an alarm immediately. Then you'd have to think ahead and be ready to take out the next guard before he finds the body or after searching awhile he doesn't find the body and becomes sure that his buddy is missing and will then radio it in (i.e. alarm raised).

Of course the game would have to be designed a bit differently with such AI in place, but it would not invalidate stealth gameplay. Quite contrary, I'd say it would enhance it. Wouldn't it be more rewarding to sneak by and knock out guards who are something else than simpletons with the most basic AI.

 

[JDR13]

I just finished an all-nighter with HR.. first time I've done that in awhile.
I'd be finished by now if I hadn't restarted twice, but I'm not complaining.

This game isn't just good… it's fucking great. Absolutely the best game of 2011 so far.

If I had to pick one game to compare it to… it would be V:TMB.

 

[Captain Buzzkill]

+1

My wife came into the office at 11:30 to get me off the computer and come to bed. I climbed into bed with her, rubbed her shoulders and helped her fall asleep.

Then I got back up and played until 2am.

 

[Thrasher]

I've only made it as far as the beginning of Highland Park. But I've been exploring every nook and cranny with new augs (I found a bonus praxis point with one of them), and hacking everything. Also a lot of retires on hacking and stealth takedowns. Finally what's most time consuming is all the back forth to sell weapons to an arms dealer. I don't like the inventory system, no picking up of more than weapon of the same type. Also the interface is slow, and missing a right-click contextual menu on each item.

But otherwise the exploration is great. In particular, the multiple paths are fun to explore. Some augs reveal more hidden stuff/paths. I found myself going back over areas to see what I couldn't reach the first time.

The conspiracies are unravelling nicely like the original, layers of them apparently, slowly revealed in LOTS of emails and pocket secretaries. Great Stuff.

I also like how you can finish quests on either side of the fence. Not sure what the ramifications are downstream, but there are significant immediate effects, like giant (and not so giant) payoffs. Nice.

I haven't experimented with shooting much. I'm thinking one more replay in FPS / cover shooting style would be a good idea.

 

[azarhal]

Also the interface is slow, and missing a right-click contextual menu on each item.

There is a left-click contextual menu. Left-click -> contextual menu, left-drag -> move object in inventory. If you go in the contextual menu, right click flip the object 90 degrees. Not intuitive at all…

Stuff really pick up toward the end of Hengsha, Highland Park is nothing… I went all when I saw who was the CEO of the most prominent news company by reading random emails in their offices. I'm also happy that I guessed stuff right about Eliza 2 years ago after seen previews of the game. Really good use of the first game background info here.

But I still hate the boss fights...

 

[Thrasher]

The left contexual menus is annoying. It slowly opens when you left click. And sometimes when you just want to drag the item. Irritating bad design. Contexual menu should be on right click, so you don't get this crappy race condition between dragging and menu pop up.

And the store interface. Ugh. Why not just tabs of lists rather than all these arrow clicks to scroll through categories, and then down through items.

It should be 2 clicks max not twenty.

Both interfaces suffer obviously from a bad case of consolitis.

 

[Ford Taurus]

I don't think anyone's advocating fully realistic (or should I say, painfully realistic) guard AI. At least I'm not. What I meant was a more situationally aware AI. An AI that could react to disappearing nearby (key word here, nearby, like in the same room) buddies by starting to look for him ("Hey, where did you go?"), not by outright raising an alarm immediately.

Enjoying the game, but the general criticism of the state of AI in games is valid I think. I have had a few moments in DEHR which reminded me of this classic scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u_IWft7rmk#t=04m00s

I can imagine programming the game AI to react more realistically, but still within the confines of a 'game' setting. For instance, in the first factory level I broke stealth and ended up in a gunfight with several guards. After defeating them with a hail of noisy machine gun fire, I ducked and opened a standard office door to… well to a large room full of oblivious guards walking around without a clue.

Why not have the AI interpret certain things like a gunfight in the next room as an event which triggers the guards to set up a defense, seek cover and be waiting in ambush? I agree it wouldn't be fun for them to just rush and overwhelm you as soon as you step into the factory. Just seems a middle ground would be possible.

Didn't the old No One Lives Forever games have a little bit of this?

 

[fadedc]

It would make the stealth game play a lot harder and more challenging and there are games that do this. But I suspect that it's a decision by HR not to do this rather then a lack of AI programming. I think the stealth gameplay is pretty fun as it is. If they made it a lot harder, many more people would resort to gunning down their enemies....which honestly isn't that hard and is a lot less fun.

What some games do though is to have most enemies not notice that their ally is missing, but to have to have a few super alert/discipled ones who do notice. This adds a nice level of extra challenge to certain areas. It's very rare for a game to have all enemies notice missing allies, again because of the fun factor. I wouldn't have minded if HR did something like that.

As a side note, at least one of the metal gear games did have "painfully realistic" guard AI, where if you took out a guard silently you hear their radio asking them to report in and soon an alarm was raised. But that was a game with infinite numbers of guards so trying to take them out one by one was not encouraged gameplay.

I don't think anyone's advocating fully realistic (or should I say, painfully realistic) guard AI. At least I'm not. What I meant was a more situationally aware AI. An AI that could react to disappearing nearby (key word here, nearby, like in the same room) buddies by starting to look for him ("Hey, where did you go?"), not by outright raising an alarm immediately. Then you'd have to think ahead and be ready to take out the next guard before he finds the body or after searching awhile he doesn't find the body and becomes sure that his buddy is missing and will then radio it in (i.e. alarm raised).

Of course the game would have to be designed a bit differently with such AI in place, but it would not invalidate stealth gameplay. Quite contrary, I'd say it would enhance it. Wouldn't it be more rewarding to sneak by and knock out guards who are something else than simpletons with the most basic AI.

 

[JDR13]

The inventory is fine. You can already carry around an an unrealistic amount of things.. it doesn't need to be bigger.

The problem is that some people feel they need to try to pick up every gun, ammo box, etc, that they find. If you play the game realistically, you shouldn't have a problem with inventory space.

 

[Thrasher]

I'm not complaining about the size, re-read my post please. Thank you.

 

[JDR13]

Did I say "Thrasher" anywhere in my post? Thank you.