LogFAQs > #954110930

Most AAA games have some mechanics that feel like busywork, these days, because they're always striving to be so expansive. For Deus Ex, the hacking minigame can get that way. I thought it was totally mindless at first but realized it did use some strategy as I came to understand it better, and then got back around to disliking it by the end of the game just because I spent so much time doing it - sometimes you'll hack three doors or computers in a row without doing anything else. Likewise, the game gives you very limited inventory space, and although that's clearly a conscious aspect of the design, I'm not sure how well it combines with a stealth game, because you wind up carrying around a lot of guns and ammo that you don't end up using since you're sneaking past the threats, so they then clog up your inventory which in turn defeats the purpose of fully exploring the areas and looting.

The level-up system and the player-choice in the story are both disappointing. Of course this game should be compared to New Vegas before it should be compared to Disney movies, and although some of the core mechanics are more refined NV this ain't. There are almost no quests where you can choose different characters to side with or change outcomes, and therefore you can't really role-play with Adam beyond your choice of ending, and (to steal a line from Zero Punctuation) it's really not an action-rpg but rather an action game with RPG elements. That's to say that the level-up system doesn't really constrain what your character can do - he can do just about everything right off the bat - but provides little bonuses to make the game easier. There are a couple exceptions, since you have to upgrade your hacking and the abilities to carry heavy objects and ignore fall damage both open up some options, but on the whole it just seems both shallow and poorly balanced, with some perks being either so situational or so underwhelming that I was out of things I wanted before the end, just like I eventually got tired of the hacking and the inventory management and decided not to bother. The two things I did quite like were the persuasion checks against NPCs, where you do actually have to pick multiple precise options to convince the other person and how the game would artfully remove things like quest markers to create an investigative feeling in some of the better sidequests.

I went over a month without being able to motivate myself to play this game. It's not entirely the game's fault, some of that was external circumstances, but it summarizes my opinion well enough. This was to my review of 2011 what Red Dead Redemption was to 2010.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 20/129
Currently Playing: Dark Souls