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Comment by elteto | Hacker News Reader

I've never been an avid gamer, more of a casual one, but I am so glad I played Deus Ex: Human Revolutions all the way through. It didn't feel like a game, more like experiencing an interactive sci-fi book. The story, the settings, the _music_, absolutely fantastic. I still sometimes listen to the soundtrack when doing work (it is available in Spotify).

I would encourage sci-fi fans to give it a try, you can pick it up for cheap nowadays and you won't need top hw to play it (although it won't hurt either).

Edit:

Then entire soundtrack is also on YT [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyG6YMLEWus

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If you liked Deux Ex, I highly recommend checking out Prey (the 2017 one) and Dishonored. They share the same game design philosophy, the so called "immersive sim".

and when you are trough with these, the original deus ex is still an awesome game.

The main thing that got very old between the game release and nowadays is that conspiracy theory were a joke in 2000, but twenty years later they are taken very seriously by way too many people, including the current US president.

Also, this kind of game is often called "immersive sim", it has seen a mini resurgence in the last years.

Breath of the wild fits in that genre as well, so does MGS5 or Rimworld. They are all very different from Deus Ex, so it really depends on what you liked in that game.

Yeah, the original Deus Ex is still one of my all time favorites. It's a bit harder to go back to now, but it's still fun, especially if you use a few mods to modernize things. (I prefer the GMDX overhaul mod.)

It's amazing how much that game accurately predicted.

The original Deus Ex is still an approachable and fun game from a gameplay perspective, because so many of its gameplay choices became mainstream.

And the story? Timelier every year.

I'm not someone who has a problem with older games - I've gone back and had a blast with System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate, Mechwarriors 2/3/4, Thief, Planescape Torment, etc. relatively recently.

But Deus Ex is one of the few classics that I just can't get to click. It just feels too clunky and ugly, with a lot of the mechanics coming across as ...not to my preferences let's say. Even after I've completed the whole campaign two times over I still just don't "get it". As for the plot getting timelier, to be honest it still just came across as conspiracy gibberish to my ear. I dunno, maybe I'm just not smart enough for it.

> to be honest it still just came across as conspiracy gibberish to my ear

Warren Spector said that his initial idea for the game was "what if every conspiracy theory was true?", so that's pretty intentional. So as long as you buy into that conceit, there's a lot of amazingly clever writing in the game.

My favorite conversation in the game is probably the one with the AI Morpheus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b-bijO3uEw

My favourite is the sub-plot about the two coffee chains. No spoilers!

What particularly irks you about the gameplay?

Prey is good, but it draws much more inspiration from the System Shock 2/Bioshock style of game than from the Deus Ex series. Having finished both it and DX:HR, I wouldn't consider them all that similar.

Among other significant differences, Prey carries on the Shock tradition of having the player generally (if not always) on the back foot in combat, forced by resource constraints to approach even the most trivial engagement with care and wherever possible find alternatives to combat, while DX:HR continues that series' very different tradition of rewarding an even moderately prepared player with the ability to treat fighting as first recourse rather than final option.

That said, and while there's a lot about Prey I didn't so much care for, the microgravity segments are worth the price of admission all by themselves. I've never seen another FPS even attempt such an ambitious style of play as a core mechanic, much less succeed so well at it.

I have played Dishonored quite a bit too! Just never to completion :) I think Dishonored has some of the best gameplay mechanics ever and it is also really immersive. Prey I've never played, but I'll check it out. Ty!

Definitely check out Dishonored 2, as well, I think it's even better than the first one! There are many more options for non lethal playthroughs and there are two optional characters. I've played it from start to finish about 8 times, and never get tired of it.

Prey is fantastic too, and is from the same developer (Arkane Studios). It has quite a bit in common with System Shock, which was one of the earliest immersive sims.

I've been watching some Dishonored 2 and Prey gameplay videos based on the recommendation and they look great! Will definitely try them.

I'll pile on the Dishonored love thread: the mechanics and level design are world class, well worth your time in themselves. But the amazing parts are the stories and storytelling. You get to see both sides of every argument, and if you care to go through it again making different choices you'll experience the same stories but with a meaningfully different connotations.

That's not even getting into how the extensions/stand alone DLCs complement the main storylines.

TL;dr: If you've got 30-40h go crawling around Dishonored's universe a couple times. (Go Arkane studios!)

I loved the first dishonered. I found the story quite boring in the second one.

I remember when they called that genre the 'open world RPG'.

Immersive sims and open world RPGs are not the same thing at all. Immersive sims date all the way back to Ultima Underworld in 1992. They share some similar things to open world RPGs, but are distinct things.

Warren Spector dates back to Ultima, but the term has only been advertised since 2017.

Crysis 1 fits all the criteria of an 'immersive sim', believable world, consistent game rules, pick your own way through, apparently isn't an immersive sim. STALKER despite it's similarities to Crysis apparently is an immersive sim.

The king of open world RPGs, Elder scrolls is an immersive sim (apparently), Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Despite that being heavily scripted and containing mostly linear dungeons. Fallout 3 is an open world RPG on the list too.

Watch Dogs 'should' be on that list, why it isn't doesn't make any sense. I could argue Morrowind or GTA V should be on there, depending on where you draw the line on scripting. The term is a bunch of marketing fluff that isn't connected to sense.

The term immersive sim has existed for decades now. Here's an article from 2000 talking about it: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131523/postmortem_ion...

It is a fairly loose concept though, of course. Plenty of games have "immersive sim" aspects. Even games like Breath of the Wild or the latest Hitman games. But there are open world RPGs that don't match the immersive sim philosophy, and immersive sims that don't have an open world.

That article is of Deus Ex and is written by Warren Spector, pretty much the only guy pushing it until 2017.

Seconding all of this; Human Revolution is an amazing game that will stick with you for a very long time -- even more so if you have a disability that human augmentation (one of the main themes of the game) could reverse.

I play this again every few years and am always discovering more. The sequel, Mankind Divided, is better technically but goes full-on into the dystopian scenario of the first Deus Ex, whereas HR was (at the time) something of a reboot and you could play it with the goal of preventing that future. (There are multiple endings, and one or two lead to DX1's future and at least one of the others is more optimistic and does not; the directors chose dystopia for the sequel.)

If you liked Michael McCann's soundtrack for HR, definitely check out his work for X-Com and Splinter Cell: Double Agent; more of the same excellence.

The original Deus Ex is all that, too, only with tech from 1999. Highly recommended.

If you're into the narrative, I can't recommend Mankind Divided enough. Its premise is hokey, but its world building is second-to-none.

One area where it fell apart from me was in the area of "choices that have consequences". You have lots of branching dialogue, but it rarely feels like any of your deviations have a meaningful impact on the story.

To that end, it pales in comparison to the earlier Alpha Protocol, which was ALOT clumsier in many ways, but absolutely nailed the consequences angle.

Example: Both games begin with an encounter with an armed adversary (whether it's a terrorist in both, I don't remember). Both games allow you to kill this gentleman, or spare him. Both games suggest that there will be consequences to doing this, i.e. that there might be more to this person than merely an armed thug.

In Alpha Protocol, if spared, the person can become a recurring contact, and aid you on later missions.

In Deus Ex, if spared, you bump into this person in an alley several hours later, and he gives you a couple thousand dollars. You never speak to him again.

Changes that affect the story deeply are difficult to do, and often only appreciable with multiple play-throughs. Alpha Protocol wasn't good enough on the gameplay side for that to feel worth doing, and this often also comes at the cost of story quality.

That said, you undersell the consequence aspect in DXHR. Things I remember that had consequences - after your CEO tells you to get to his chopper for the hostage mission, the hostages would be killed if you delayed more than ten minutes, which had a range of impacts on characters' approval of you. Getting to the dialog at the end of the mission could result in death of captor and hostage, death of captor and live hostage, both surviving, death of hostage and live captor - all of which had some effects beyond what you describe, as I'm pretty sure there was a side quest line that depended on the hostage being alive. Malik (the pilot) can be saved after the crash in Hengsha, which changes some scenes slightly later. The endings available change a fair bit depending on who you talk to and what you convince them on in the last chapters. Going to the LIMB clinic for the upgrade could change the difficulty of one of the boss fights and some scenes significantly. I'm pretty sure most of the police station mission can be skipped if you can convince one of your old co-workers to help you. And these are just the things I remember, almost ten years later.

That's actually why I prefer the Deus Ex series. I'm partly going in to see a story told to me. I'm going to play the game once and I want that one time to feel very interesting and not get that feeling of missing out on things because of choices.

If only Alpha Protocol was a bit more polished, it is such underrated gem of a game.

But its dialogue system is absolutely great, and it really feels that your every action has consequences(both positive and negative).

If you're more interested in the story than the gameplay then "Detroit: Become Human" is probably for you.

I wasn't able to get very far in that one. Everytime I finished a chapter I felt like I missed out on cooler storylines by making the wrong choices.

More subjectively, I have a hard time enjoying AI uprising games where it's explained that the robots explicitly can't feel emotion and yet they inevitably do anyway.

I much prefer the variant where it's clear that they _appear_ to have emotion, but whether or not it's an elaborate trick isn't clear. Ex Machina and Westworld season 1 come to mind.

Explicitly explained 'robots can't feel emotion' tropes actively creep me out.

It feels like moral abdication.

Here's a thing that walks and quacks like a duck, but don't worry about it being a duck, because we tell you not to.

But maybe that's just me being militantly contrarian.

Star Wars occasionally creeps me out too, with its 'these species are okay to murder, these species are not' relativism.

The creepiness is actually appealing to me but to each their own. I disagree that it's some type of moral abdication wish fulfillment if that's what you meant. Morals are inherently emotional on some level though so without emotions of course you're going to get some amoral robots.

But I'm honestly not talking about Star Wars droids who are regarded as just intelligent enough to be useful but still expendable.

I'm talking about AI which are so much more intelligent than humans being placed in human suits and outwitting humans by convincing them they feel something they do not.

That's not to say that they don't actually have emotions. They might, as is the case in Westworld. But the emotions they show humans are entirely "perfect acting" used to achieve a goal.

In Ex Machina that goal winds up being surprisingly mundane, which I really loved.

Ex Machina is one of my least favorite films of all time. The ending was an incredibly simplistic way to resolve the questions they brought up.

Geez, your least favorite? Even conceding that the ending was unsatisfying that truly boggles my mind. Not that I think it's the best movie ever, but surely it gets credit for being knowledgeable about the subject and having great mood and atmosphere.

To each their own though.

The closest I can describe is that it felt like I watched Blade Runner (director's cut), enjoyed and was invested, and then at the very end Deckard said "I'm a robot" and killed Rachael.

I've debated this at length with people, because I know it's a popular film, but felt the same way after re-watching it.

It pierces my suspension of disbelief that AI can be created that simultaneously (a) simulates complex behavior & (b) completely lacks self-reflection.

Either give Caleb a character flaw (thus justifying his implicit murder by Ava) or have her successfully escape, reflect in the helicopter, turn around, and end the movie with her conflicted after re-landing at the house.

Otherwise, I don't see how the ending doesn't reveal the entire plot as a Shyamalan-esque mechanical Turk (ha! or inverse, as the metaphor would be). A filmmaker got us to believe a lie by omitting any contrary evidence? How difficult!

Oddly enough sometimes this makes games more enjoyable. The dissonance adds on another layer of storytelling, even if it's not intended by the authors. A fun persona to assume is Covert Sympathizer (combine this with a "pacifist" run). Or play as a morally bankrupt character - walk a mile in the enemy's shoes, and try to understand your character's motivations and backstory. It's fun. For all their faults, some Bethesda (fallout) and BioWare (first 2 mass effects for sure, haven't played 3) titles are great for this.

Of course, this tends to only work if the game's story is actually compelling and the gameplay flexible enough. An overactive imagination helps too :)

Game sat in my Steam library untouched from the time of it's release until a few months ago. I'm so glad I decided on a whim to play through it. Incredible game.

Couldn't agree more. Was so sad when they suggested the studio was focusing on other efforts.

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