Human Revolution was wonderful, but Mankind Divided had such bizarre pacing… I was ~15 hours into Prague, waiting for the transition to the next locale like in all of the other Deus Ex games, and then the story ended… sigh
That is because the publisher Square Enix forced the developer Eidos Montreal to split Mankind Divided into two games, and then they canceled the second game. Thankfully the IP and developer has been bought by a holding group that actually knows about gaming, Embracer Group.
Human Revolution had one of the best gaming preludes. You had no augmentations, and then you get rocked. The opening credits while you're in surgery, chefs kiss. Obligatory "I never asked for this"
Though this site is under appreciated and less than up to date now they produced a fantastic interview with the director and opening sequence director. The additional images and videos make it really shine.
I thought the mankind divided opening was pretty good as well. The terrorist attack really surprised me, and for a few seconds I felt like I was there.
Deus ex is by far my favourite universe, it's such a shame it isn't better developed.
I barely made it past the first 20 minutes before giving up for MD. Somehow the experience was wildly different from the HR despite the mechanics being mostly the same.
One thing I think was a big contributing factor to my enjoyment of the first game was the soundtrack. The first time you enter the Sarif Industries building and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAljZX-9HMI starts playing - chills.
I did the same thing - I was very confused at first. Once you orient yourself though in that initial city and get a bit into it then it becomes very very good. I think I may have been playing years after with all the bugs fixed and the DLC's added and whatnot but I thought they killed it with that game. Still hoping we get another!
I also stop at the tutorial on my first try, then later I tried again, and now I like it more than Human Revolution, it's better in all aspects, except maybe the story for ending abruptly.
Michael McCann is a genius and deserves way more credit for Deus Ex than he is given, but he was responsible for at least half of the Mankind Divided soundtrack too.
Some of the DLC for Mankind Divided is excellent, though. You should check it out if you haven't.
The worst thing about MD is the stability and bugginess. I recently replayed both, and HR is still (and more-or-less always has been) pretty damn solid.
MD, meanwhile, had intermittent jankiness in the UI including getting itself into states that required a restart to fix, wild swings in framerate, and crashed probably a half-dozen times in my playthrough (which wouldn't be a bad stat for a game in, like, 1999, but is now). I think HR crashed maybe once, but I may be mis-remembering and it was in fact zero times, and that was a much longer play-through.
[EDIT] Oh, one nice touch in MD was how they improved balance on hacking. No more ending the game with 500 pieces of hacking software because it was so easy. No more feeling compelled to hack everything even if you already had a code for it, for the XP. New UI's terrible and (on PC, at least) buggy, though :-(
I played MD recently again, including all the DLCs. It was not unstable or buggy at all. I played under Linux, but am not 100% certain anymore that I played the Linux version and not the Windows version via Proton. In any case, maybe something to test next time you play it.
There is only one DLC I'd call excellent though: A Criminal Past. The others sadly are not great. Desperate Measures might be included now, but is just missing content from the main story, suffering by it being not integrated properly and it saw clearly less design work. System Rift saw even less, it's made cheaply - but not not fun and at least a story of its own. And then there is A Criminal Past, better than some parts of the main game, the only one I'd absolutely recommend.
It does not end in Prague. You leave and come back to Prague a couple of times, each time it’s more locked down and hostile. Finale is weirdly in a convention center in London.
Not sure if this will sway you but the entirety of the MD version of Prague is fictional. Překážka doesn’t exist, the main train station doesn’t look like that, Golem City isn’t a thing, there are no oppressive riot police stalking the streets :-)
The things that put me off Prague aren’t in the game, and likely wouldn’t irritate a tourist
cercatrova|3 years ago
selfhoster11|3 years ago
post_break|3 years ago
Opening credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIqJaT3cvf8
DylanFuery|3 years ago
https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/deus-ex-human-revolution...
paulmd|3 years ago
I'm afraid it's been... nine years!
*midge ure plays*
(that's right, you think that's the real bowie you're listening to!?)
cloutchaser|3 years ago
Deus ex is by far my favourite universe, it's such a shame it isn't better developed.
orthoxerox|3 years ago
Rodeoclash|3 years ago
One thing I think was a big contributing factor to my enjoyment of the first game was the soundtrack. The first time you enter the Sarif Industries building and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAljZX-9HMI starts playing - chills.
Melatonic|3 years ago
henriquecm8|3 years ago
ethbr0|3 years ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjkBE3d3Uw&t=17m35s
From memory, that was also the first mirror in the game, and so the first time you saw... yourself (JC).
ak217|3 years ago
omnibrain|3 years ago
yamtaddle|3 years ago
The worst thing about MD is the stability and bugginess. I recently replayed both, and HR is still (and more-or-less always has been) pretty damn solid.
MD, meanwhile, had intermittent jankiness in the UI including getting itself into states that required a restart to fix, wild swings in framerate, and crashed probably a half-dozen times in my playthrough (which wouldn't be a bad stat for a game in, like, 1999, but is now). I think HR crashed maybe once, but I may be mis-remembering and it was in fact zero times, and that was a much longer play-through.
[EDIT] Oh, one nice touch in MD was how they improved balance on hacking. No more ending the game with 500 pieces of hacking software because it was so easy. No more feeling compelled to hack everything even if you already had a code for it, for the XP. New UI's terrible and (on PC, at least) buggy, though :-(
onli|3 years ago
There is only one DLC I'd call excellent though: A Criminal Past. The others sadly are not great. Desperate Measures might be included now, but is just missing content from the main story, suffering by it being not integrated properly and it saw clearly less design work. System Rift saw even less, it's made cheaply - but not not fun and at least a story of its own. And then there is A Criminal Past, better than some parts of the main game, the only one I'd absolutely recommend.
iammjm|3 years ago
paulryanrogers|3 years ago
Melatonic|3 years ago
smcl|3 years ago
kevingadd|3 years ago
terafo|3 years ago
guardiangod|3 years ago
smcl|3 years ago
The things that put me off Prague aren’t in the game, and likely wouldn’t irritate a tourist
ellisv|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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