Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[Whack-a-Mole]

@MichaelEmouse

I have a Phenom II quadricore, Radeon 6850 1GB and 8GB of RAM. Will this run smoothly?

The devil is in the details. I see lots of builds that have nice numbers on paper but perform poorly.

FWIW I have the following and it runs great and looks great:

• Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz
• ASUS ROG Radeon HD 5870 Platinum MATRIX 5870 P/2DIS/2GD5 Video Card
• Mushkin Enhanced Redline 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
• ASUS Rampage III Extreme ATX Intel Motherboard

The thing here is that memory has really fast timings and the mobo is fast too and the video card has gobs of memory.

Since the game was also made to run on Xbox and (presumably) look pretty good on that I think any competent PC should be able to manage and look pretty good.

Can you play effectively from a purely first person perspective? I’m not at all a fan of third person.

The game is all first person except when you use the cover mode (i.e. hide behind a box or something). The transition is seamless and works really well. Indeed the move to third person when in cover is great. You’ll be glad for it.

Is there much replay value?

I am only on my first playthrough but every review I have seen suggests a high level of replayability. Some reviewers finished the game then compared game notes with another reviewer. They were surprised to see how different their play was and the things they missed. Even though they “missed” stuff they never knew it and their playthrough felt complete.

As I mentioned earlier there is an achievement to play the game without killing anyone (except boss fights where it is unavoidable). Presumably that is possible and I think it’d be fun to give it a go.

Once you’ve completed it, could you say how long it took you?

I have heard 20-30 hours if you work hard at going as fast as you can. If you spend time looking for side quests and exploring probably more.

[SenorBeef]

You guys are all massively overkill for this game. It’s designed to run on low end 2004 computers - even if it’s a horrible port and runs 10 times worse on the PC, you’re still several times ahead. What a weird thing to worry about these days, whether your mid to high end hardware can run a game with ancient technology. You’re more likely to run it at 200 fps than to struggle with it.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@SenorBeef

You guys are all massively overkill for this game. It’s designed to run on low end 2004 computers - even if it’s a horrible port and runs 10 times worse on the PC, you’re still several times ahead. What a weird thing to worry about these days, whether your mid to high end hardware can run a game with ancient technology. You’re more likely to run it at 200 fps than to struggle with it.

The developers went to great lengths to make the PC version of the game truly a PC version. There are lots of graphic options to tweak for the PC and every review and my own experience (having played a few hours) is it feels 100% like a game made for the PC.

If you have the horsepower I think your experience will be notably superior to a console for this game.

And remember some subtle things like soft shadows look great but for the relatively minor eye candy are hugely expensive in terms of processing power. Law of diminishing returns and all that.

A respectable PC with a respectable video card should be able to play this game and have it look pretty good with no problems. If the game is slow tweak graphic settings down a bit. As mentioned some eye candy bits are expensive processor-wise but you do not lose much turning it off (although when on it is pretty sexy).

[Headrush042]

Weird, I didn’t think tranq shots were useless at all in the first game (if you specced into it). I was specced into small arms (which the crossbow was considered), and getting a head shot with a tranq dart was an instant takedown for most enemies. Also, if you were specced into melee, using the stun baton was also an instant takedown most of the time. I found the nonlethal game to be more than a viable option until the later stages where there were more bots and mutant animals to deal with.

[Johnny_Angel]

@Headrush042

Weird, I didn’t think tranq shots were useless at all in the first game (if you specced into it). I was specced into small arms (which the crossbow was considered), and getting a head shot with a tranq dart was an instant takedown for most enemies. Also, if you were specced into melee, using the stun baton was also an instant takedown most of the time. I found the nonlethal game to be more than a viable option until the later stages where there were more bots and mutant animals to deal with.

Now that there’s an achievement at stake, I think I can resist the temptation to switch to the sniper rifle when I start running out of ammo for my non-lethal options. I’m assuming ammo scarcity will still be an issue. For the original, that meant careful observation and critical-path-finding so I don’t have to actually clear out whole areas of enemies. Or, switching to the sniper rifle.

I must admit, I do like the one-shot-kill style of play. But so few games offer you non-lethal options.

[Athena]

Anyone else experiencing sloooooow loading times from saved games? Like close to 40 secs. I’ve got a fairly robust system so I don’t think it’s hardware related.

Gets really old when you’re uncoordinated like me and are trying to jump from one roof to another and keep missing.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Athena

Anyone else experiencing sloooooow loading times from saved games? Like close to 40 secs. I’ve got a fairly robust system so I don’t think it’s hardware related.

Gets really old when you’re uncoordinated like me and are trying to jump from one roof to another and keep missing.

Load times are miserable.

I have a fast PC (including really fast hard drives) and the reload time sucks.

[Kinthalis]

Hell I have the game running from an SSD and load times are like 20 seconds long.

I don’t think they optimized the loads for PC

[MichaelEmouse]

@Kinthalis

Hell I have the game running from an SSD and load times are like 20 seconds long.

I don’t think they optimized the loads for PC

Aside from the load times, is it consolized in other ways?

[Quimby]

Resolved: I’m buying this.

I never played the first one even though I have it here somewhere (I got it free when I bought some other game but never got around to playing it). The trailer in the OP rocks and I read a blurb that the creators went out of their way to create a real PC version and not a port from consoles so I will vote with my dollars because I want more of that.

[DigitalC]

This is like being reunited with an old friend after a decade of not seeing them and finding out everything is still like before. Deus Ex, i missed you.

[Snarky_Kong]

How did I forget this game out today. Downloading now. Usually get up at 5 to go to work… hmm.

[Miller]

@Whack-a-Mole

On my first playthrough as well and enjoying it.

There is an achievement where you do not kill anyone (except boss fights) in the whole game. While I did not intend to try that on my first playthrough I was kind of looking for alternate routes.

So far I apparently suck at it. In the very first series (before you get cyborged) I could not find an alternate route to save my life. And really, it would have saved my life about a dozen times (you die fast and easy in this game which is cool but the load times, even on my fast PC, are long and it gets tiresome). Seemed I was stuck blasting my way through (I tried sneaking and either I suck at that too or you can’t).

The whole pre-credit level is gimped in a lot of ways - there’s no ammo, no inventory system, no augs (obviously), no non-lethal takedown options, and as you noticed, only one way through the level. I think it’s intended as an introduction to moving and shooting. The tutorials on stealth and finding alternate routes doesn’t even show up until you get to the first “real” level, after you’ve gotten your augments. Think of it like the tram ride from Half Life, except you get to shoot people.

I’m assuming none of the kills from that portion of the game count against the no-kill achievement.

On my system, load times are only around 10 seconds or so. Kind of a pain in the ass, given that I’m playing on the highest difficulty and attempting to ghost all the levels, which means that I’m dying and reload a lot, but I wouldn’t consider it excessive. On the other hand, I’ve got a really beefy system. Six months ago, I suspect load times would have been a crawl for me, even on medium graphical settings.

@MichaelEmouse

Aside from the load times, is it consolized in other ways?

It does that thing where your health regenerates completely if you can avoid being shot for a few seconds, which I’m not a huge fan of. It does explain it in game as being a function of your cybernetic enhancements. (Although it still does it during the introductory level, before you’ve received any of your enhancements.) It’s balanced somewhat by having to maintain your energy level to power your more impressive cybernetic implants, but I’d have preferred it if they’d gone with first aid kits to heal you, instead, like they did in the original.

Another change that kind of bugs me is how they’re handling experience points. In the first game, you had skills, which you could train up by spending experience points, and augments, which you could improve by finding special items in the game. HR combines the two: when you earn enough experience points, you get a “praxis point,” which you can spend to upgrade your augments. So, if you shoot enough dudes, all of a sudden your mechanical arms become stronger. It’s a very small nitpick, and the system is still fun to play, but it does take me out of the game just a little bit, and it feels a bit like a simplification for the mass market - like they’d felt that having to manage your augs and your skills was too much, so they just combined them.

[heavyarms553]

I got this game today for the ps3 and so far I am IMPRESSED. It is truly worthy of bearing the title Deus Ex. I will say though that I feel as though it is optimized for the PC. If I had a choice between the two, I’d prefer to play on a PC, but the ps3 version is fine too.

My only complaint is that during dialogue, people look all over the freaking place constantly. It sometimes breaks my suspension of disbelief.

[Jragon]

I’m going to start playing this soon. Unfortunately I never got past the first level of Deus Ex, it wasn’t BAD, it was just that I was trying to be a stealthy, hacky guy and I got my ass handed to me, especially since the stealth mechanics are a taaaad wonky.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

I’m intrigued by this game and might pick it up tomorrow.

[Miller]

@heavyarms553

My only complaint is that during dialogue, people look all over the freaking place constantly. It sometimes breaks my suspension of disbelief.

I think there’s some sort of pollutant in the air that causes people to wave their arms randomly while they speak.

[DigitalC]

@Miller

I’m assuming none of the kills from that portion of the game count against the no-kill achievement.

They do count. You can sneak past them.

[Snarky_Kong]

Am I really bad, or is the aiming horrible? Also, you can’t use the sights in the pistol when looking around corners? I can barely hit anything.

[DigitalC]

I don’t think i’ve shot at anything yet. I didn’t have any trouble shooting during the pre-augmentation part though.