Deus Ex: Human Revolution gets presented @ PAX ’10
The more videos of upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution I watch, the more hyped I get. It’s hard not to: sequel of one of legendary games with an amazing art direction (which, as you might notice, is important for me just like any other game element) is getting tastier and tastier, and seems to bear Deus Ex’s legacy quite gracefully. Penny Arcade Conference or PAX was an occasion for Eidos (under Square Enix’s wings) to show off some key gameplay elements, and there quite a lot to show.
I have to admit that I have not finished the first Deus Ex yet – I am still playing it through on PS2 (that is not the debate which version is better – I know that PC one is), and haven’t even got off New York yet, but it’s a great game with many interesting ideas. Dozens of NPCs to talk with, loads of paths to get to your objective, RPG elements, augumentations (combat skills) or quite an interesting story is a mix that still makes gamers replay it over and over again, even though it’s 10 years old. Only stealth elements feel like, as I saw someone describing it neatly a “guesswork”. Nevertheless, it cannot be helped, I just can’t wait for the sequel. Deus Ex Human Revolution looks and seems to play great, and manages to keep the spirit of original, somehow.
The game is presented by Mary DeMarle, the script writer of the upcoming Deus Ex. A nice lady with positive attitide and quite a sense of humour has worked on games like Myst (since 3rd installment), Homeworld 2 or recent Splinter Cell: Conviction, which are rather proud entries in any portfolio. The presentation starts off with showing part of Shanghai in 2027 which looks drastically different from what it looks like nowadays, mainly because it’s 2-tiered, as DeMarle comments: “a city built on top of a city”. We can see rather lively streets and DeMarle promises you can talk to every NPC in the game unless it’s obviously an enemy (Becaue we all know what the enemies are for – shooting ‘em down). Game looks amazing in both terms of art direction and design as well as technical aspect that gamers nowadays are so pumped about.
I really liked the action part of the presentation, in which the protagonist infiltrates an enemy base. Stealth seems improved, but you can’t really tell unless you played. We can see some interesting and effective augumentations, such as some pretty cool fireworks that get rid of surrounding enemies. Auguments seem to be numerous in game but we have to, again, wait for the game until it’s released. We can already see the blend of shooter and stelath game working great already, but I’m kind of concerned of lack of RPG elements. You couldn’t really see disabling things with multitool or opening doors with lockpick, so it’s hard to tell whether the player distribute skill points or not. It may look completely different in the full game. Beside, there was no characteristic frame around highlighted objects, which looks like the designers ditched whole RPGey aspect to the game, and they DeMarle did not really mention magical shortcut to the subject. Overall the hud was minimal, so maybe it was disabled for the presentation’s sake. Personally, I’m really concerned about those RPG elements, I am a RPG fan after all. On the other hand RPG part of the game was indeed marginal… Time will tell.
So far, so good. Game looks great and seems to carry some of the original ideas over, so at least we can be sure it’s not an another brainless shooter. According to the DeMarle multitude of paths are there, non-linear conversations are there, stealth and augs as well. I am a bit worried about aforementioned RPG elements, and characteristic to this genre length of the game – games get shorter and shorter nowadays, but I really hope DeusEx will be a at least 20+ hour long game. Since it should be highly replayable (I hope), it would make for a pretty long game indeed. Mind says, that without Warren Spector, the original game designer and genius behind such highly acclaimed gems such as the Thief, System Shock and upcoming Epic Mickey (who doubts it’s going to be a killer app for Wii?), a sequel to Deus Ex has no right to exist. On the contrary, the heart screams of love: Deus Ex: Human Revolution has the potential to be a game of the decade, a landmark of this generation… but isn’t the heart an easy organ to be fooled?
You can see the last part here.
P.S. If you like the content here, please comment! I’m also going to move tomorrow so there may be no new stuff coming, but please stay tuned!
Wave Race: Bluestorm manages to trash you after 10 years
I was looking through the news when I came across a game that I have very warm memories of, yet long forgotten. Wave Race: Blue Storm was one of my first games for Nintendo Gamecube (and a launch title for it), which happened to be my first game console I ever had.
A NEOgaf user, RaoulDuke found out an interesting cheat in which you may change voice of the crew member that usually narrates and comments on your actions – new one sounds like he has a pretty bad day – no matter what you do, he will always find a way to make you feel down. “Oooh, a turbo!” replies the comenteer mockingly as you fill up your boost meter. And when you finish the race (as you can see on the video) he comments: “You don’t have inferiority complex: You’re just inferior.”
“You’ve chosen poorly.”
“That turbo’s wasted on you.”
“If you don’t win this race, I’m not gonna love you anymore.”
“Your wins are like diamonds: very rare.”
If it was discovered around the time Wave Race was released, not only it would become one of the most brilliant gaming memes, but I think it would also make GameCube as a leading platform, that’s how good it is. Even if it would… well, “Romantic Gamecube dead and gone/ It’s with Yokoi in the grave” Paraphrasing W.B. Yeats’ ”September 1913″.
This is also a perfect chance to actually reminisce about this early 128 bit gem, of course. Wave Race: Blue Storm was a Game Cube launch title along with Luigi’s Mansion and Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 – all of them were great, but lack of more choice (especially in Europe) seemed to prove from the very beginning, that GameCube will not get much support (Capcom’s 5, anyone?), unfortunately. WR looked stunning, and even watching the video today, after nearly 10 years you can see it does look quite decent, the water effects in particular. I remember having fun with the menus, where water was splashing with each selection. As you can see, MacOS’ widget effect is sooo 2001. In-game water was amazingly crafted, with all those corals and even animals swimming underwater – all with nice physics, transparency and weather system. Weather changed throughout the laps and caused the levels to change as well – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Storms were looking incredible and such differences added to variety, since there weren’t many courses, although they were semi-open-ended.
The game was also rather difficult, and I never managed to unlock the last track in the begineer career because it was just too hard (although I played it once using a cheat, and I would never be able to finish it first) – controlling water-crafts was no easy feat and the controls felt somewhat unresponsive. Besides, AI was not very keen on giving up their positions, not even mentioning obligatory buoys slaloming. It was a chalenging game, but still, a loads of fun to play. Now that I think of it, it really reminds me of SSX series, but on water-crafts. Both were essentialy racing, but also featured nice stunt modes.
Gawd, all this reminiscing made me wanting to pick up this game again. Hell, it makes me fill my Gamecube collection up again. So many good memories with it! If you have Wii or GameCube, check it out, it’s one of the best racing games on the system. And you can check this awesome cheat as well! … sheesh, it’s a shame games nowadays are not like that…
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