The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
Played Deus Ex Human Revolution when it came out. Picked the destruction ending.
Seven or eight years later I replayed it. Without thinking I more or less immediately chose the Illumanity Ending. And then I just sat there for a few minutes realizing that I no longer trusted humanity to make the right decision. I understood that the reality is we would fuck it all up and at least The Illuminati seemed to have a plan.
There have been a lot of other ones over the years, but those felt more or less “intentional”. Whereas DX:HR is just… growing up.
Came here looking for DX:HR. Its atmosphere, story and ending made me just sit there and think.
About humanity as a race, their dark urges, those in power, the complexity of the world we live in,…
It truely was an eye opener for me
Originally did you not just save before choosing? I saved and was able to just see all of the endings. As an original Deus Ex player I really enjoyed the game and setting, but the endings felt so lazy and dumb to me.
I had the same reaction and I couldn’t believe it. Of the original, the “easiest” ending made sense, and the other two were obvious strategic encounters with very different paths of engagement.
I couldn’t bring myself to finish DXHRDC because I was certain that even after the additional strategies were added to the bossfights they wouldn’t bother with endings. Maybe I’ll go through it one day to find out.
Oh gawd the boss fights on my no-kill run… it was a nightmare. I watched a hilarious YouTube fella tear the game apart for a few hours, and all of his criticisms were legitimate. I still enjoyed my playthrough, but the boss fights were absolutely doodoo.
And on the opposite end, if you wanted to be an efficient killer, the laser targeting system weapon modification with the sniper rifle renders the scope innacurate—and apparently it was never fixed, even in DXHRDC!
This was reported on DXHR launch… that’s just nasty.
Jesus, I didn’t know about that one! A scope on a sniper rifle is PRETTY KINDA IMPORTANT to be accurate???
If you haven’t seen this and have three hours thirty three minutes and thirty three seconds, this video is incredibly well-put and entertaining. I played around launch and learned of this guy’s videos last year, and found them extremely well-done.
I was a believer. I wanted DXHR to be a worthy successor to DX, as DXIW certainly was not. I was preloaded and ready to go at launch.
No I haven’t… I know what I’ll be doing for the next four hours. Great catch.
I ENJOYED Human Revolution. It just didn’t feel like Deus Ex. I never played the latest one, which may be for the best?
Hbomberguy’s video made me realize exactly why it didn’t feel that way to me. I couldn’t put it into words myself, but his Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles-length video essay really contextualized a lot of my feelings.
Unrelated… If I could recommend another, much shorter masterpiece of his as well…
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shorter masterpiece
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Me neither, I feel the same. I remember passin up DXMD on release to give it time. 7 years should be enough, right?
All of the glaring issues are coming back vividly as I am watching this. I remember the frustration with the forced narrative. It was a decent looking game on release though, I do remember that.
I’ll be sure to watch it, thank you.
Edit: grammar
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
this video
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I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Probably? I think I still cared about “completion” back then.
But I still always pick “my” ending in any colored lights scenario.