Thief 2 was miles better than 1, even though 1 blew my mind back then. I’m currently watching this Let’s Play of the series for old times’ sake (and because it’s a bear to make Thief run on modern rigs), and the guy doing it raises a compelling point re: Deadly Shadows, namely that its faults are mostly attributable to Looking Glass having cold feet - they wanted to make something new and original, but evidently weren’t quite sure the public wanted to *play *something new and original.
So they must have felt compelled to add elements that were everywhere else - lots of fantasy elements, monsters, shooting sections (I barely remembered how many damn gas arrows they gave you for the Maw of Chaos. Ye gods.), tomb raiding in lost cities and so forth.
But once the feedback came “game’s great, but what’s with all the not-thieving ?!”, they quickly got their shit together and, well, gaming history was made.
SenorBeef - I agree. Much like the MMO industry, it has become such a huge investment to make and release a game, that they are taking less and less risks.
I hope for a revival of the days when ambition was high, and the fear of failing was lower. I have no idea if that is ever possible again, but I can always hope.
Looks like some DLC just came out. It appears that it takes place on the ship on the way to the final area, the plot appears to involve your augs being disabled, which I assume is an excuse for you to be able to play it without having a relevant save file nearby. The PC Gamer review they chose for Steam seems to say it actually has a GOOD boss battle at the end.
[spoiler]It sounded like Quinn was talking to Bob Page? Why would he want that facility shut down? It’s exactly the research he wants done so that he can interface with Daedalus.
Nothing after the credits, btw other than a claim that they’re “just getting started.”[/spoiler]
I’ve not read through this thread for fear of reading spoilers, so I don’t know if someone else has already asked this, but I spent 10 hours on Deus Ex yesterday just trying to:
Save Malik from going down with her helicopter
I’m playing on the highest difficulty (Give me Deus Ex) and want to finish the game without killing anyone. I’ve used my full arsenal: PEPS and stun guns, EMP and gas grenades, full invisibility upgrade. But it goes too fast. Can it be done? I watched some videos on Youtube, but they are all either at a lower difficulty setting, or in full kill-mode.
I did it on the hardest difficulty without killing anyone, and I found the tranquilizing rifle to be far too slow to save Malik. You really need to get up close and personal. Stealth and the armor augmentations help a lot, but having some pain killers or similar should do just as well.
I sprinted down the right side, and took the 4 guys at the back with takedowns and stun gun. You can then take down the bot with an EMP grenade. The problem is that the bot explosion may kill some of the ones you just knocked out, so you may need to move the bodies a bit. With the heavies and the bot dealt with quickly, you have a lot more time to get rid of the guys shooting from above.
My first playthrough (on normal going for no kills), that section took me several tries. Forget the tranq gun; it’s too slow and inaccurate. I had pretty good stealth (lvl 2 or 3) and plenty of batteries/energy bars, so I ended up going toe to toe. Stun gun when it’s loaded, takedown when it’s not. Eat after each takedown. An EMP grenade will down the mech. The PEPS gun is too slow to reload for constant use, but if you have to make a long dash, fire it up and reload while running.
Somehow, somewhere, I killed somebody in that playthrough. I don’t know where because I never used a lethal weapon or punched anybody through a wall. It must have been a stray shot at an explosive or something like that.
I’m definitely not in the “all games today are crap” crowd, but 1998-2000 were pretty awesome. This isn’t a bad time either. The Fallouts are pretty good, and Deus Ex HR seems to have some fans. (If only there were a thread about it.) The Mass Effect series is very clearly designed with consoles in mind, and it doesn’t suffer the horrible crossover effect Deus Ex 2 did. Similarly, the new Batman games are incredible. (I’m just guessing about the new one, but everything I’ve heard is that it’s at least as good as the first.) First person shooters have never been better. The best 4x strategy games coming out now (Civ V, Sins of a Solar Empire) are, IMO, better than the best from that era (Civilization II, Alpha Centauri). (I realize the 4x debate is very debatable, but it boils down to personal preference.) The only real area I find lacking is the full fledged RPG. There are plenty of action/RPG hybrids, but few modern RPGs grab me like the old ones did.
It depends – if it kills someone you already took down, then no foul. If it kills someone who’s still up and engaging you, it may mess up your nonlethal streak.
I think the criteria is whether or not you’ve already gotten exp for neutralizing the person killed.
Her being alive also nixes your first encounter with the late game enemy type as she kills them all with jet exhaust.
Said enemy type is pretty goddamn pathetic though, so it’s not like it’s a “save Malik now or have a horrendously difficult fight on your hands later” situation. Mostly it’s just flavour and, you know, keeping the sassy banter chick alive.
ETA: I’ll add that as for myself, while I’d been adhering to a strict no-kill rule up to that point (basically on the grounds that I’m a walking fucking weapon who’s massively overpowered compared to the opposition, and never really was supposed to be there anyway so it’s not like I could really claim self defense the few times they even saw me before they ate pavement…), but it all flew out the window when the fuckers started shooting Malik. Incidentally, I had a ton of grenades in stores since my pacifist run up to this point had precluded me from using them at all.
So that was fun
I saved Malik even on No-lube mode with mostly the tranq rifle. Possibly I used some take downs, and an EMP grenade for the bot. I found it impossible to pull it off with the sniper rifle. The bastards have damage resistance to bullets, but if you’re sure you’ve hit the fucker with a tranq dart, you can move on to another target, because those motherfuckers are going to drop. That’s why I find the tranq gun optimal here - hit 'em and forget 'em.
I sprinted along the right-hand side so that I was running through the second level, tranq’ing everyone I saw. The timing varies on this, and so sometimes I end up doing a take-down on somebody. I lean out and tranq anybody I can get to while waiting for the bot to drop, and when it does once I drop the EMP grenade, I can start ignoring it. I run down to the ground that start tranq’ing the heavies near the helicopter, and then finish off the snipers as I spot them. Bob’s your uncle.
