LogFAQs > #953855193

I sent Adam Jensen to China and spent a few hours clearing out (what I think is) most of that section of the game. I didn't exhaustively search the city hub (to use the game's term) for side-quests, but I found one where you rescue a missing girl and then kill a man for a prostitute, which paid pretty well, one at a bar where you're supposed to convince a woman to keep paying tribute to a gang that paid for augmentations for her, but which I "solved" by knocking the girl out with a stun gun, stealing her augs, and giving them back to the quest-giver, who wasn't very pleased with me, and one sidequest for the woman who chauffeurs Jensen around in a helicopter where you investigate the murder of her girlfriend, because she used to live in China. I haven't quite concluded that one yet. I found all the evidence at the killer's apartment and when I play next I'll go and confront him.

In between all that, I made some progress in the main story. The reason for Jensen's little tourist trip is that the hacker we've been dealing with so far is hiding out in China, so your first big task is to track down his apartment which is being guarded by the local (private) police, in corrupt service to someone who wants him dead. In stark contrast to my first couple missions, I managed to get the ghost exp bonus on this one for never being spotted. That was in part due to the help of the invisibility power-up, which I've maxed by now. It starts out as effective as it will ever be, but the subsequent upgrades increase how long you can use it for, from 3 seconds per energy bar to 7. As of now this means I can sometimes stay invisible for up to 21 seconds in a row, which is pretty OP. That requires liberal use of consumable items though, because your energy only regenerates up to 1 bar on its own.

You don't find the hacker himself in his apartment, since he ran for it as the police were coming in, so you have to track him down at this very depressing-looking group housing where everyone's private space is about the size of a bed. There might be multiple ways to do that, but the method I went with involved smooth-talking the owner of a local bar, who helped him relocate. Once you do find the guy, an brigade of soldiers on the payroll of a rival medical corporation to Jensen's one comes and tries to kill you both. You have the option to give the hacker guy one of your weapons to help him get away. I gave him my machine pistol since I hadn't been upgrading it. Truthfully, none of my weapons have been seeing much use lately, and I can probably afford to sell off some ammo. I'm just saving them for the mandatory boss fights.

Since this game has a bit of a noir tone, I keep expecting the sidequests to be more twisty and I think that would be nice. I'm kind of hoping some time later I'll find out that the prostitute I helped has become some kind of terrifying criminal overlord with the rival I took out removed, and I found myself kind of wishing that the quest about the pilot's girlfriend would resolve with the twist that she was the killer. Now wouldn't that be interesting, Jensen having to choose between bringing the real criminal to justice and making sure he had a ride home at the end of the day. I think I'm enjoying the stealth a little more now that I have the best power-ups and I'm actually being diligent about quickloading every single time I get spotted. I guess my Jensen's story is one of redemption where he got so many people killed in the first mission that he's resolved to spare as many lives as possible from now on.

The AI in this game is kind of funny. At one point I accidentally upset the neutral police by firing off my assault rifle to see how the silencer upgrade I would put on it worked, and I escaped by hiding in a closet with the door closed. Closing doors seems like a good way to confuse them in general. They can tell when you're running past them while invisible by the noise, but they aren't very good at following the sound, so when you're caught it seems easy to get away just by cloaking and making a run for it, which also makes me think I don't need to invest in the silent running power up. It seemed like they knew I was in there, but couldn't open the door, so they just stood in front of it until they left alert status, and then I could just walk out and they ignored me. Neutral characters like this can also turn aggressive if they see you hacking something, but it takes a while, so if you finish the hacking and just walk away they will forget all about it.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 19/129
Currently Playing: Deus Ex: Human Revolution