This is a post about a video game. Do not be afraid.
So in the post-throwdown era, I've been catching up on video games I've missed. After I brought myself forward into this century, I picked up the third in the Deus Ex series.
I expected great things. If I still had a LiveJournal, I could actually link you to long essays about how much I loved the original game: great writing, a deep sense of openness for the time, excellent environment and setting, and a real sense that I could choose a faction with whom to ally and completely shift the game's narrative. It was a great example of why I play video games - the narrative was interesting, engaging, and I felt as if I were part of a unique story.
Deus Ex Number 3 (or, the Great Turd +1) had none of these things.
Let me elaborate. DE3/TGT+1 is a trite, frivolous game of no consequence. Here are my chief complaints, ordered by subject matter.
GAMEPLAY:
If you are making a technology-centric game in 2011, you probably shouldn't use Starfox-era 'popups' in the HUD whenever someone radios you. Every time Sarif sent me an IM, I tried to do a barrel roll.
The AI is either a) severely mentally handicapped or b) precognitive. I can shoot the baddies, with impunity, from 2 feet inside a vent and they can't figure out how to fire back... or I can be in plain sight, blast away, then run into a room and shut the door behind me (OH MY GOD HE SHUT THE DOOR HE'S A WIZARD WE'RE FUCKED) without any of the 'Elite Spec Ops' bots learning how to turn a handle. On the other hand, literally the moment I peek over a crate into a room, as long as I'm in line of sight, every bot in the room has me in their sight picture. I call shenanigans.
No matter how much havoc one causes, running through rooms tossing grenades like confetti and blasting away like Scarface, it takes less than two minutes of hiding for the guards to return to calm. It's like they were all trained by the United States Air Force. "Haven't seen him in a couple of mikes, boss... coffee break! Let's read US Weekly!"
The conversation trees are literally pointless. There are no lasting consequences for playing Jenson as a nice, cold, or harsh guy over the course of the game... which means each conversation is a mini-game where I'm trained to press the right button to get the tidbit of info I need (which is probably sitting on a desk two rooms over anyway).
In the entire game, I found hundreds of ventilation shafts that led me exactly where I needed to go (because at CIA HQ, vents often provide the most direct means of travel from the maintenance closet to the Room of Infinitely Sensitive Information)... and I only found two (2, dos, etc) false leads. For the duration of the game, my problem solving skills were reduced to FIND THE VENT TAKE THE VENT GET THE XP JUMP OUT OF THE VENT LEVEL COMPLETE.
The level design is boring on almost every level. Coming out of the sewers to the Chinese skyline was pretty neat.
It makes no sense to put things where they are and not other places. Why are there sniper rifle rounds in a TV station closet? Why do I need TO EAT A CANDY BAR TO POWER MY MILITARY-GRADE CHEST EXPLOSIVES and I can't buy one from a vending machine? WHY ARE THERE VENDING MACHINES IN EVERY BUILDING?
The story is linear. Make no mistake, this is a game-writing crime that offends me more than anything else. I'll put up with all manner of shenanigans if the story is good, and it feels like I can affect it in a meaningful way, but other than side quests, the main narrative travels from Point A to Point Bullshit.
By the time I'd sunk 2 hours into the game, I'd become a sociopath. Linear story line? No consequences for my moral choices throughout the game? Ammunition hiding out in trash cans? I literally executed every major character I was able to, just to prove it didn't matter. I felt a mild remorse when I ran out of 10mm ammo.
DESIGN:
Apparently, some time in the next 30 or 40 years, EVERYTHING IN THE FUTURE BECOMES SQUARE. Maybe Apple effectively copyrights everything rounded. Maybe the level designers loved Square Enix so much it's a joke. But shit gets old, quick. Ever seen a round trash can? Well, rejoice, because no one at the Montreal studio has.
I am typically a stealth-based player in games like this... and, typically, skill trees play to my play style. By the end of the game I had nearly every skill maxed, and I used... um... three of them. Not for lack of trying. But seriously? There's no incentive to try different things, so the ENTIRE HOOK OF YOUR GAME DESIGN IS BROKEN. Time to reboot, jackass.
Everything cool that happens in the game is done in a cinematic. All the neat stuff that you saw in the trailers? Cinematics. Your job to make that cinematic happen is to run up to something and hold a button, then sit back and watch the carnage. Oh, and ANY meaningful interaction with a plot-dependent character happens in cinematic. Spend 45 minutes sneaking your robot-ass through a level like a ninja? Yep, you're going to walk straight through the door like Clint Eastwood the moment you get within ten feet of a plot point. Except you don't shoot like Clint. You shoot like Napoleon Dynamite.
AND FINALLY:
This game is racist. Deeply, deeply racist. Remember what Asian people and Black people sounded like in movies from the 60s? Yep, that's what they sound like in DE3/TGT+1. BUT! BUT! I learned a very valuable lesson from the random street people in this game:
If there are two black men wearing hoodies standing in a corner ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, they will sell me guns and explosives.
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