After ~8 hours of play, two chapters are done. Now in the third chapter.
The game is the first
stealth title I have played since Splinter Cell:
Chaos Theory (baap Splinter Cell game) which I finished c.2006 -->2007. And as I have never touched the Hitman and Thief series (lack of system and inclination) this is the first Harvey Smith title I am experiencing.
The game itself does not have a most unique storyline, what is impressive is the scope of the mission(s) itself and the setting of the world. The environment once you land in it at once recognizable and bizarrely, grotesquely alien at the same time. This is further accentuated by the textures used in the game, apart from the blue-steel structures almost everything feels it is in a temporal motion; this does not exempt the fact that I would like to demand a HD-resolution texture pack for us PC gamers.
Moving onto gameplay the game as already I have mentioned has a mission structure and within this there is a framework for other sub-missions to be done with / without a pre-defined order. You are free to burgle houses as you go for the kill OR the reverse, burgle houses as you move to exfiltrate the ops area. Combat and Outsider-powers scale really well, the game treats you like a modern day Spec Ops trooper not a super-natural assassin in my opinion, yes you can go all out like an iDiot shooting, stabbing and maiming anything-body that falls into your FOV (more on this in a bit) but all that apart from building a dark outcome also make your life much harder, enemies become more vigilant and prepare to face more ingenious defence mechanisms. The stealth methodology although not very well exposited is definitely my preferred way of turning things, occasional slip-ups and sloppy blinking allow me the pleasure of a surprise kill to keep my presence undetected. Apart from this the AI is robust (under most cases) and frustratingly random; you may take an over-watch position to take out say guard Y when he approaches you from the left (after pro-longed observation of pattern) at 7'O clock and as he approaches you suddenly note that guard X ingress to a position where he can see you take down Y and Y will see me if I try to eliminate X. So tact and trail is a must.
The game has built itself around the title and you can actually punish your opponents in far worse ways than killing them, you can
DISHONOUR them and cast them out of the society in overtly cruel ways.
This is it for now. Maybe I will do a review but for now to finish the game. Ah! where, just one more thing keep the FOV above 75 I kept mine at ~70 -->65 and within 2 hours of game-time I had a throbbing temple and a feverish urge to retch.
Btw, my save games all lack a timestamp, it gets confusing when I try to continue the game. Anyone else facing this?
No such issues with my game, it is a legit copy.
Haha that's hilarious! The AI is sometimes shitty. I mean really bad! And I thought those in DXHR were bad! :lol:
Deus Ex allowed you to dupe the enemy AI by talking to them (under certain circumstances) but I do agree there were some hilarious moments with them too (same leaning around corner mechanisms); this I feel is getting old a basic cover system should have been implemented.