Deus Ex Human Revolution EP7: Adventures in Social Engineering

By Shamus Posted Friday Jan 20, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 207 comments

I apologize in advance for how this devolves into a mess. We probably would have called a do-over on this episode if not for the fact that we needed to wrap up the session because I needed to get going.

Fun fact: I had no idea that the game re-rolled conversations until this week. I thought the solution to a conversation would be the same for all playthroughs.


Link (YouTube)

I count four ways into the alley behind the police station:

  1. The lightning alley, which requires the lightning-proof aug. (EMP shielding, I think?)
  2. The chain-link fence, which requires the Mario Jump aug to get over, because it’s impossible for Jenson to climb a chain-link fence. I consider this to be an egregious oversight. You can also use the super-strength mod to stack up dumpsters and crates, although the stacking physics are, like most videogames, horrible fiddly.
  3. Sewer. Sigh. The sewers are filled with armed foes and traps because hey, videogame.
  4. Speech-check (or murder) your way into the police station, and then exit through the side door.

It’s pretty screwy, but the thing that bugs me is that there are quest-relevant people back in that alley. How did they get there?

 


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207 thoughts on “Deus Ex Human Revolution EP7: Adventures in Social Engineering

  1. Aelyn says:

    They were in the alley when the rogue power cable fell in the water in the alley, duh. Now all they want is a way out. Well, after you get done running their errands and stuff.

  2. Ringwraith says:

    You can get through the electrified corridor by using two crates to slowly edge yourself through, and there’s even two indestructible boxes nearby to facilitate this.

    1. Nyctef says:

      If I remember right, those two crates don’t require the fridge aug, so you can stack them up with the top one at a slight offset and clamber over the fence that way. It is pretty fiddly, though.

      1. ydant says:

        Those two crates work perfectly to get over the fence. On the other side are three crates – two to stack up to get back over the fence again, and one to use to climb up the ladder.

        It did take me a while to realize I could get over the fence with just two crates, but once I figured that out, it was simple. I spent a lot of time trying around the electricity – looking for a switch and trying to walk crates across. I couldn’t manage that without being killed.

    2. Factoid says:

      I assumed this was the correct solution. I knew there would be another way in, but it never occurred to me to look for an aug that would make me immune to the electricity. I just worked my way through by picking up and moving the boxes.

      1. psivamp says:

        This was the easiest and most direct way. I realized that I could get the Mario jump to get over the fence, or the strength aug to get over the fence.

      2. Jeff says:

        I did the same, it’s worth Exploration XP and there’s candy in there anyway.

    3. Paul Spooner says:

      Right… except Josh threw one to the far end of the electrified corridor… like a moron. (sorry Josh… but, yeah.)

      1. Dys says:

        Heh, when I was playing through the first time I did exactly that. I confused the drop key and the throw key, and hurled one of the crates way out of reach. So in the end I had to go find a barrel from the other end of the level and carry it all the way over there.

        What needs to be repeated ad nauseam is that this is one of the first games in a very long time to be flexible enough to allow those kinds of solutions.

      2. Josh says:

        You know what’s worse? I did that the first time I played the game and realized I’d screwed up. And then when we got here during the show I was telling myself, “Okay, Josh, now just don’t toss it all the way down the corridor.”

        And then I did.

        Sometimes I troll even myself.

    4. Daemian Lucifer says:

      You can also boost your health,get one box as a jumping start,then run over and barely reach the switch to turn the electricity off.

      1. RCN says:

        Did that my first playthrough. Was still really short on augs at this point (investing in Hacking… it paid off). I was happy to discover it was actually possible. Other games might just kill you off or block you in some other way if you try something like that (“Electrified ground, you can’t move on it. No, no, you can’t jump over either. Who said you can jump over it? It is like three feet across, you can only barely reach three times this distance.”)

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Well,if you want to obtain zounds of praxis early on,there is an exploit you can use:

          Boost your hacking to 3 during the first mission,then go into your office,quck save,hack your computer,and immediately quick load.This should give you 500xp,and you can repeat it as long as you have patience to do it.

          Dont know if this was patched out later though,since Ive used it only on my first playthrough.

          1. Gamer says:

            I did this my second playthrough when I didn’t really want to have to earn all my augmentations back. It was fun starting the game with all the important augments so that I could get all the fun ones earlier.

  3. Gamer says:

    Welcome back to your old ways, Josh. Chaotic-Stupid FTW!

    And no worries, Shamus. Rutscarn’s puns make me pheromone.

  4. AbruptDemise says:

    Not even when she isn’t on the show is Mumbles safe.

    Then again, that’s the perfect time to take a shot at Batman, when you’ve gotten out of her sights.

    1. Paul Spooner says:

      I was really hoping someone would make an “a man dressed like a bat” reference, but it’s possible these episodes were recorded before that?

      1. Zagzag says:

        I was thinking that as well. I presume that the cast do actually follow xkcd. I don’t remember anyone mentioning it, but maybe they have done.

        1. Fists says:

          Shamus has mentioned xkcd in some posts

      2. Sumanai says:

        Have to link to a comic I just ran into (been re-reading the archive).

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Be careful when shooting at batman though,because he is known for killing people who are shooting at him.

      1. Rasha says:

        This must be driving mumbles absolutely batty…

      2. j0rdm31s73r says:

        I thought Batman didn’t kill his enemies.

        1. Jarenth says:

          That’s just what he wants you to think.

          1. Sumanai says:

            Personally I blame “fans” like Mumbles who only look at the movies (except the one with Adam West) or that one comic by Frank Miller and then go around saying that Batman doesn’t shoot people. Look, the Batman in the movies and the Frank Miller stuff is the soft version, he’s considerably darker in the rest of the comics.

  5. Infinitron says:

    The correct responses in a “conversation battle” aren’t randomized. If you pay attention, you’ll see that each stage of the conversation has several versions, each slightly different from the other. Each of these versions has a different correct response. What version you’ll get at each stage is randomized (although I think the random selection has certain constraints based on what you said in the previous stage).

    How to respond to each version of each stage is described, somewhat vaguely, by the CASIE aug’s little personality analysis text window.
    It is possible to get the correct response in all the stages of a conversation.

    1. Cookie Of Nine says:

      There is a loading screen tip that says something on the order of:
      Listen to people in a conversation, and tell them something they want to hear.

      The “correct” answer in a conversation is generally decided by the last thing they said, and they’ll respond to what you said, and throw you a random stance which affects your next choice. What I think the developers wanted was a system where the correct answer path is never the same, but that by listening, and knowing a few rules, you can “win” the minigame that your playing.

      The CASIE Aug (social enhancer) is there to help you by giving you extra information (like the Intel in Alpha Protocol), as well as occasionally allowing you to cheat at this minigame (like the social/speech skills and perks in Bethesda games).

      The pheremones option is there to remove the “randomness” if you so choose, since I believe each person has a fixed personality type, and thus the choice is always the same.

      Also, for the HAAS conversation, I know that the mini-game’s rules often make him get angry at you if you constantly use the same option. For example: constantly choosing absolve (and thus telling him its not his fault) often gets him to say after a few steps that “It’s not my fault, it’s yours”, agreeing with him doesn’t change his mind, and makes him angrier until you fail the conversation.

      After I realized how the system worked, I was quite impressed with the amount of effort that must have gone into making this “mini” game.

      1. Eärlindor says:

        You said it better than I ever could.

        DX:HR’s “boss” conversations are one of my favorite parts of this game.

      2. Dys says:

        Also the speech aug allows resolutions to certain missions which would not otherwise be possible.

      3. Jeff says:

        It’s also possible that pheromones will result in negative consequences further down the road.

        1. SolkaTruesilver says:

          Oh damn, didn’t that hit me in the guts hard when I realised it.

          I didn’t mean it, Wayne. I am so sorry. Maybe I can give you a good job at Sarif to make it up?

      4. Thomas says:

        Yeah, Shamus didn’t realise but he was talking about different points of the situation and different ways you got there. You can;t just press absolve until you’re right or crush until you’re right, and if you’ve absolve and then crush it’s a different result from crushing crushing.

        I’m going to have experiment with it but I’ve never seen any sign of a random element in a conversation, even that one. If you read the profile it said, difuse the situation if he;s angry, absolve when he’s letting the past get to him and crush when he tries to dodge the past (i think, didn’t read the last bit :D)

        I@m glad, I was worried it would be random, and now it turns out to be even better

        1. Trix2000 says:

          It’s a little more complicated than that I think, and I believe there are multiple good ways to respond, even on each individual choice.

          This conversation got me because the emotions and his personality were really believable to me. The CASIE aug told it exactly like it is – he is an excitable man who really wants absolution for something he wants to deny doing. The situation is not cut-and-dry, and there are arguments for making him take or forget the blame…and both ways are powerful and WORK.

          I couldn’t really get myself to do the ‘crush’ path though – as much as he DID shoot the guy, it didn’t sound like he truly had wanted to. The regret he has for it is painfully obvious. So in the end, it seemed better to have him blame the situation rather than himself, since (apologies in advance) he didn’t ask for it. Whether that’s the best thing to do for him…who knows, but the resolution to the whole deal made me feel better.

  6. Vextra says:

    I spent ages getting Dumpsters from everywhere in Detroit to allow me to cross the electrical water tunnel to get to the Police Station. I then found on the other side that there was an easier way in via the Sewers. I facepalmed, and then went and did this convo with the Sargeant anyway. Max XP, but kinda stupid in hindsight. D’oh.

    Also, the Police Station has, hidden in its armoury, the super-duper long-range stungun(P.E.P.S), which will take out multiple people in a line. Once you have that, you need never make a lethal takedown in any situation ever again.

    1. psivamp says:

      I was never impressed with the PEPS. It never actually knocked anyone out when I used it, just bumped them around and let everyone know I was there.

      1. Gamer says:

        I used it in that one boss fight in Montreal. It gave me enough time to switch to the pistol and fire a few shots, then knock the boss down again. Other than that, Stun Gun all the way (except I used a pistol in boss fights).

      2. guy says:

        It seems like it has knock people around as a basic shot and a K.O. charged shot. Still incredibly fiddly, though.

        1. Infinitron says:

          There are no charged shots; it’s about how close the target is to you. If they’re too far away, they get knocked off (their feet) but not knocked out.

          1. Zaxares says:

            Yep, that’s how it works. Unfortunately, the fact that you need to get close with it to knock people out (plus the fact that it’s LOUD) means that it’s not very conducive to a stealth/non-lethal playthrough. I only found it useful on the very last mission where none of your enemies have guns and so you can just wait for them to charge you and then squeeze the trigger at the last second.

      3. It becomes ridiculous during the ending though – you just kite as many people together at once then one shot takes out the entire hoarde. I cleared out the entire level using that and double takedowns (which are frankly the most awesome way to go, even if they use a lot of battery power).

        1. Rosseloh says:

          Ha! I wouldn’t mind seeing that; maybe I’ll have to do it on this most recent playthrough.

          By that point in my first run I had all the augs I wanted, and was just itching to get to the next real fight. Once I was sure you didn’t have to incapacitate the entire crowd to move on, I just started dodging them all. A mistimed jump led to an interesting situation where I was dancing on their heads like a mustachioed plumber. I don’t remember if the AI had any compensation for that.

    2. Dys says:

      So far as I could tell, the PEPS is friggin useless. It doesn’t do anything other than piss people off, and I can do that with any of the weapons which actually do damage.

  7. s951 says:

    The first time I saw the electrified tunnel, I immediately turned round and saw … two crates. My mind, conditioned by years of crate-stacking, immediately made the connection. I would put the crates one in front of the other, move onto the crate in front, turn round, pick up the crate behind me and put it down in front of me. Repeat until you reach the power switch.

    For some reason, I thought this was the solution the devs had intended.

    EDIT: Well, looks like everyone else thought of that too.

  8. Jaedar says:

    You can also climb into the airvents from the backalley, although you need to bring a crate to reach the ladder. This spawns you really far away from the objective( third floor).

    1. Shamus says:

      This was how I did it. I actually liked clean ing the place out, hacking the stuff and putting all the cops to sleep.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        I did that too,despite the fact that Ive walked in the front door,because XP!

        1. Gamer says:

          Yep. I hacked all the terminals and doors I could while remaining undetected. XP is XP. Plus, I loved hacking into people’s e-mails.

      2. ydant says:

        The best part about that way is you also take care of the quest the mom gives you, since you pass by every computer you need on the way down (especially if you take the vents).

      3. RCN says:

        I find it weird that you literally couldn’t think of another way of going about this mission (or at least how little credit you gave the developers for assuming they didn’t offer you any other way of going through this mission).

        For the record, you have to rotate your options when talking to someone.

        1. Shamus says:

          I say I did X, and you respond with, “I can’t believe you couldn’t think of anything besides X. I can’t believe that you gave the developers so little credit in giving you options other than X.”

          Are you saying I played the game wrong? What? What does your comment even mean?

          I don’t know why I didn’t try the front door, but it’s not like I’m obligated to familiarize myself with every possible route through a game before picking one. Geeze, maybe I took a break between the part of the game where Sarif told me to go to the police station and the point where I went there. I’ve got a life outside of games and sometimes I miss details. Maybe I snuck in because that sounded like fun.

          Geeze. And people accuse ME of nitpicking.

          1. RCN says:

            I’m not saying anything like that. Too sensitive much?

            I just think going through the front door was the most obvious path. If they just asked me to turn around and leave, so be it, but I gave the developers some credit. I’m just saying I find it weird you played 2 and a half times (the third time probably already past this) and did the same thing all 3 instead of going different routes (or at least it is what I assume you did).

            I’m not condemning. Just wondering, mostly. Putting everyone to sleep seems fun too. Sorry if my written tone sounded so accusingly.

            1. Peter H. Coffin says:

              It’s just gotten kind of … faddish for “gamers” to say stuff like “I find it weird that you literally couldn't think of another way of going about this mission” when someone relates a tale of how they went about a mission. Like some other way is the One True Right And Only Way to accomplish the task. It happens on small scales for individual puzzles, and on large scales for attitudes that include “Oh, don’t you have any end-game toons to run?” It smacks of “YOUR PLAYING IT RONG”, when maybe someone just wants to spend a couple of happy hours in the woods bashing boars with sticks.

      4. Sumanai says:

        I really like imagining that the following happened some time in the past:

        Heather: Shamus, I heard an old friend of yours is working at the electronics store. Care to go there for a VHS player and ask for a discount?

        Shamus: Sure.

        And then Shamus goes to sneak in to the store, pick up the item, go to and hack in a discount at the desk before paying for it and sneaking back out. Knocking everyone out on the way.

        1. Sumanai says:

          Of note: I find this exceptionally funny, because this is the sort of stuff I do in games constantly. I get a mission like:
          “In order to get to Moon Castle you have to first go to Sand Mountain and acquire the White Sash that will enable you to pass through the dangerous Moon Beam Walls within the Moon Castle.”
          And my mind goes “To The Moon Castle!”

          Then I fruitlessly try to pass through a curious white-grey wall that hurts me for a long time before going “Wait, there was some mention about a Sand mountain? Maybe I should go there for a change of pace.”

          Then I get the White Sash and wonder what’s a “Moon Beam Wall” and what does it look like. At this point I have forgotten the existence of Moon Castle. I end up wondering aimlessly for several hours around the game world before randomly running into the castle again, wondering what stopped me from exploring before.
          “Oh, right”, I’ll go. “There were those walls. But I still haven’t come up with a way past them.” And then leave.

          Later I’ll wonder what is the purpose of the White Sash that I carry around. Then I put the game down because I don’t know where to go and forget to touch it for about a year. By which time I’ve forgotten how to play it and have to start from the beginning.

      5. Loonyyy says:

        I enjoyed knocking out most of the cops, and then placing them all in an incredibly comprimising position in the air vent. I’m pretty sure none could escape.

        Also, I have a very bad habit of “NO WITNESSES”. If anyone sees, or could have seen, me commit a crime, then they usually die. And end up in a dumpster.

  9. Lightningstrike14 says:

    I was hoping you’d go in Cuftburt style. It is is very possible, trust me.

  10. Mathias says:

    So, what we can now add to the list of people Josh has attempted to roflstomp:

    EVERY COP IN DETROIT CITY!

  11. Jokerman says:

    I got past the spilled lightning with two dumpsters, standing on one and moving the other to jump on – it took a while and was fiddily but its nice to use some physics.

    I threw a small box to far and nearly got stuck in the middle, using the bigger ones was easier to me.

  12. Daemian Lucifer says:

    This haas to be one of the punniest episodes you guys did.

    1. Gamer says:

      My tolerance of these puns has Wayne’d.

      1. Audacity says:

        Don’t you mean, “Haas Wayne’d?” Sorry, couldn’t resist.

  13. Daemian Lucifer says:

    So was I the only one who saw the boxes at that electrified tunnel but went “Fuck it,Ill just run for it”?I did succeed,but barely.

    Also,how did Josh get xp for shooting that guy?Oh,and you didnt finish the quest.Why did you leave a quest unfinished?

  14. Zukhramm says:

    Guys, do you see that there’s three options there? You don’t have to keep trying absolve or crush.

    1. PSJ says:

      Yeah, by the end I was wondering if they were trolling or blinded by low-res streams. My bet is on the second.

    2. Well Absolve is the one that usually works and Crush is the one Josh wanted (I actually went all crush on my first playthrough if I remember correctly) so nobody really considers Plead.

      1. GiantRaven says:

        Why would anyone consider Plead? Jenson is far too badass to stoop to that level!

        1. Ringwraith says:

          As it works, and neither party is completely in the right here either, as it’s all fairly murky. Not to mention what Jensen is actually asking here, as Haas makes it fairly clear he could easily lose his job over it, and after being dumped from SWAT and saddled with the front desk his job is all he’s got left, as he also apparently doesn’t get on so well at home anymore either…

        2. Dys says:

          The point of the conversations is to say what they want to hear, not what you really think. Jensen is not too badass to lie.

          1. Thomas says:

            Plead stops the anger

  15. What I thought while watching:

    – I wonder if I’m the only who noticed that pocket stat that Josh missed whilst in the middle of capping asses.

    – Hipster Rustkarn read Batman before it was popular.

    – I prolly would have been all over DE2 regardless of quality if the main guy’s name was Chuck Dude.

    – Save scumming via terrorist style suicide is still save scumming. You aint fooling anyone.

    – We’ll be right back…AFTER THESE MESSAGES FROM OUR SPONSOR.

    – PREPARE TO REWIND!

    – Josh, Ruts’ puns are groan inducing sure, but nothing prompts a headdesk more than when you make the dumbest conversation choices possible, even when you’re not trying to.

    – No no no, go past this! In fact never replay that part again!

    – No Ruts, in the playback the defense will clearly show that the game does indeed alter the responses. But it’s okay, cause it’s still all Josh’s fault.

    1. Ateius says:

      “- Save scumming via terrorist style suicide is still save scumming. You aint fooling anyone.”

      Yeah, that was really blatant, and sort of unfun to watch. Seeing them reload the game because they legitimately got killed (like in ME2, a lot) is one thing, but deliberately committing suicide-by-cop to savescum past a conversation is another.

      This is a game with multiple paths, guys. Show it off! Live with your screwups and use one of the many other ways to progress. In this case, even with all of Josh’s efforts to break the other methods into the station, you still could have gone through the sewers, or carried random junk from all over the city (since he put one of the convenient crates at the far end of some spilled electricity) to climb over the chainlink fence (and no, you don’t need the strength aug, there’s plenty of smaller items to use).

      That aside, I love the series. You’re all hilarious and the analyses of game design are amazing.

      1. Shamus says:

        “This is a game with multiple paths, guys. Show it off! Live with your screwups and use one of the many other ways to progress. In this case, even with all of Josh's efforts to break the other methods into the station, you still could have gone through the sewers, or carried random junk from all over the city (since he put one of the convenient crates at the far end of some spilled electricity) to climb over the chainlink fence (and no, you don't need the strength aug, there's plenty of smaller items to use).”

        As I clearly said in the episode notes, we just didn’t have time. Gathering up random objects (that we didn’t know where to find) and engaging in a bunch of fiddly physics-stacking would have taken longer than what we did here. Same for the sewers. Did we know the way through? Did we have the hacking resources to get through that way? It would have been even worse if we’d blown another twenty minutes trying something else and have that fail. Moreover, Josh was pretty sure he could nail the conversation on the second try.

        As I said, this would have been a do-over, but we needed to wrap things up for the week.

        1. Ateius says:

          Your notes seem to refer to re-recording the entire episode, but fair enough. Real life takes precedence over making videos for the internet!

          1. Gamer says:

            Are you insinuating that the cast has more importantly things to do than create videos for people who will complain no matter what they produce and who they will probably never meet in real life!? Preposterous.

            Just kidding. In all seriousness, I found this episode highly amusing. Looking forward to the next one.

        2. Daemian Lucifer says:

          I dont get the time argument completely.I mean,I get it when you do something tedious and boring,and then just speed it up afterwards to make it easier to watch,but this is the beginning of the game,you still couldve dicked around in the sewers,and still have plenty of interesting things to say.There would be no need to speed it up later,it would still be an enjoyable few episodes.I get why you decide to cut once you get in the police station,but I dont think it was necessary in this situation.Cutting half way through the sewers would still be acceptable.

          1. Shamus says:

            Okay, here is the thing:

            I was tired. I was up hours past my bedtime. I wanted the damn episode over with, and we all wanted to plow through this so that we didn’t have this thing hanging over our heads two weeks later. I even apologized for crying out loud.

            Okay? Are we done here everyone? I hope so, because the next person who second-guesses our decisions gets their comment deleted. This is getting really irritating.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              No,no,I get that completely.Im not criticizing your decision,nor am I trying to get you angry.I was just wondering what was the difference between spending the last 5 minutes of the episode in talking with haas again and going to search for the sewer entrance,thats all.

              But hey,it was your decision,not mine.I dont mind either way.

              1. Shamus says:

                I apologize for the testy reply. Reading this later, I see I was taking something that had been needling me for a while and getting mad about it, when no offense was intended.

                1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                  No worries,its understandable.

                  1. tjtheman5 says:

                    This, this is how people should argue on the internet.

        3. Eldiran says:

          For the record, I really enjoyed the brute force method here. It did a great job of showing off the game’s conversation mechanics. Besides, if I wanted to watch someone playing a game ‘correctly’, I wouldn’t be watching Josh play it :p

          1. Thomas says:

            I’m glad they did a conversation, the conversation are by far and away the most exceptional thing about Deus Ex and you get more story through them than anything. Even if certain people missed certain mechanics :D

            Apart from anything else, I’d forbidden myself from save scumming conversations, and I was interested to see how it works.

  16. 4th Dimension says:

    The alleyway is connected to the rest of the world through:
    -police station (2)
    * through a locked door that requires hacking
    * through a vent
    – sewers, and they are not that populated with enemies. They are boring, but there is only like two punks, and electric water can be turned off
    – that chain link fence that can be surmounted by stacking boxes on the dumpster
    – corridor of electricity

    Apart from ways already mentioned to get into police station, there is that locked door that leads from sewers, tough it requires security 5 hacking, or auto hacker.

    1. Zaxares says:

      I believe Letitia also knows the keycode to get in via the sewers, but you need to pay her 2000 credits to get the code.

      1. SougoXIII says:

        Or free if you knock her out and loot your money back afterward.

      2. RTBones says:

        Actually, you dont have to pay her the credits – just feed her beer. If I recall correctly, it takes about 5 or 6.

        1. Zaxares says:

          4, to be precise. ;) But no, that DOESN’T get you the keycode for the police sewer door. It gets you access to one of the storage sheds lying around Detroit (and it contains a bunch of expensive weapons and some weapon mods, so it’s well worth the 4 beers).

  17. Tse says:

    The electric alley is passable by stacking metal crates on the electrified floor (really logical, dev team), as well as just using painkillers/booze and bunny-hopping. (works even on give me Deus Ex difficulty)

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Metal?I always thought they were plastic.

    2. Sumanai says:

      I don’t mind that the crates are metal, since the physics on electrified floors is in itself so wrong. Although, now that I think about it, surely Jensen is wearing rubber soled boots. If the electricity travels through him when he steps on electricity, surely it should travel through the crates as well, real-life physics be damned.

  18. guy says:

    That conversation was literally the only one I failed during my first run.

    The thing that bugged me about that whole conversation is that I genuinely have no idea if Haas was justified or not. Not in the “It’s morally ambiguous” sense, but in the “So what kind of augs did this guy have, anyway? Were they just cyberarms or was he half flesh and half gun?” sense.

    1. Raygereio says:

      Situations can (and will) get murky like that during gunfights. Over here in the Netherlands every time a police officer even so much as draws his weapon (not even shoots the damn thing) people will start breathing down his neck demeanding to know if that action was justified. Truth is, with the awesome power of hindsight it’s often not justified.

      But what if you were in a situation like that? Sure, it may be just a kid. But what if those augmented arms of his gave him super-strength? Jenson’s arms are capable of some crazy doodoo. Even a watered down version of those can wreck you up in close quarters.
      Suddenly it’s not just a kid. It’s a kid with a potentially lethal weapon. A real life example would be a kid running towards you with what you think is a knife. Would you be willing to take a risk like that in a hostile sitation? Worse, you have a superior ordering you to fire. Would you be willing to risk disobeying orders on top of that?

      Actually, the thing that bugged me was why this poor guy here apparently took the blame for the incident. We don’t know the details of just what exactly happened. But by his own account he got the order to fire after Jenson refused that same order. If I was Wayne, I wouldn’t be this upset with Jenson. I’d be more pissed at the brass who apperently let me take the blame instead of whoever issued that order.

      1. guy says:

        I assume they had the luxury of enough time to consider their actions, since the order to kill him came from higher up. But I really don’t know if they had reasonable cause to figure he was a serious physical danger.

      2. He’s a SWAT officer, couldn’t he have just kneecapped the kid? Wouldn’t that be a sufficiently debilitating warning shot? I mean, this is video game land where every bullet is lethal, but you’d expect that to be what he went with.

        Speaking of which, we have locational damage for headshots, why do video games never let you kneecap people? I keep wanting to do that but it’s never possible. It seems like it’d add a lot of depth to combat – weaker enemies are completely incapacitated, stronger enemies might have the presence of mind to keep shooting for a while, they just can’t move. You can still get their stuff, you just tell them to give it to you at gunpoint.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Disabling a suspect by gunfire doesnt work if they dont want to surrender.Didnt you watch spoonys swat 4 lets play?

        2. Raygereio says:

          “He's a SWAT officer, couldn't he have just kneecapped the kid?”
          If we were to use real-world-logic: no.
          When you have the luxury of time, then you could take aim at a suspect’s arm, or something. But even then only if you have a very good change of hitting a small target like that.
          In a combatsituation where you do not have that luxury, you aim for the biggest target you have – the chest.

          1. Jake says:

            I could be wrong, but I think people who are trained to use guns (SWAT guys, police, soldiers) are instructed that they should always shoot to kill – if they don’t want to kill, using a gun is the wrong option. Also, I’m pretty sure that cops always have review boards to determine whether a fired shot was justified, and I’ve heard that drawing your gun without firing it can get you chewed out (because you should only take it out if you’re going to use it).

            Just my 2 cents, since I’m not a cop and the ones whom I know are more acquaintances than friends.

            1. Loonyyy says:

              Yeah, one of the first rules of gun safety is: Don’t point a gun at something you don’t want to shoot. Police officers in particular don’t want to be breaking common safety rules.

          2. swenson says:

            Yeah, this seems like what I’ve heard as well. It may seem cruel in hindsight, but when you’re in a potentially dangerous situation, you don’t bother with trick shooting. You shoot at the biggest area of mass, because odds are you’re going to miss their leg or arm. Even if you’re trying to kill someone, you still shouldn’t even bother shooting their head (which really does have a much higher chance of killing someone sooner than shooting through the chest). You always go for the bigger target.

            That being said, this really is an ambiguous situation. Which is the point, after all, and I appreciate the game for doing this. It doesn’t make something supposedly morally ambiguous and then make you decide in some utilitarian fashion whether the good outweighs the bad. It simply doesn’t bring it up in those terms at all. It’s ambiguous because nobody knows exactly what happens, least of all the player. Maybe it was right, maybe it was wrong. Maybe it was unjustifiable, maybe it was completely justifiable, regardless of whether it was “right” or “wrong” in the end. Because that’s how life is. You never know what all the consequences of your actions are.

          3. I was under the impression, if they had time to get the order, then Jensen had time to refuse, and Haas had time to take matters into his own hands then the kid wasn’t exactly charging at them as they spoke.

            1. Thomas says:

              The way I see it, the order came through as the kid was doing something dangerous or potentially dangerous, to shoot and shoot now, Jensen didn’t shoot and Wayne panicked in the seconds the Jensen wasn’t shooting and took the shot himself. In all honesty probably because he was scared for his own skin, heightened by the order. I suspect the kid wasn’t really dangerous but looked dangerous, like the guy who jumped the barrier on the Underground.

              I don’t think Wayne has the courage to shoot anyone cold. He strikes me as not a bad person, but to afraid to be a good one

        3. swenson says:

          Mass Effect 2 actually does have some “situational shooting” or whatever you want to call it. It’s really only noticeable with the smaller mechs, though, where you can shoot off their arms or legs. Amusingly enough, they don’t stop. They’ll just walk right up to you and stand next to you, even with both arms blown off.

        4. Bubble181 says:

          Both Soldier of Fortune and Soldier of Fortune 2 allowed this; crippling people by shooting off their arms and such.

          Both were otherwise completely forgettable FPS, though.

          1. Sumanai says:

            Wait, didn’t they bleed to death in those games?

            Anyway, when you hit one of the basic enemies with a thrown knife in Outlaw, an old western first person shooter, they collapse in a way that implies hitting their knee. I understand they count as “non-lethal”, so if you do it in one special mode of play and take any bosses down with it you can see them in the jail.

        5. Sumanai says:

          Because there are pretty strong blood veins in legs so it would end up being lethal good deal of the time anyway. If we’re using real-life physics, that is.

          1. Sumanai says:

            By “strong” I meant “a lot of blood goes through”.

          2. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Its not that easy to hit one artery with a small bullet.Sure,it does go through the whole thigh,but youd probably end up just hitting the muscle and induce pain.

            1. Sumanai says:

              I misspoke with “good deal of the time”, as my original point was that it wasn’t certain that it would be less than lethal to shoot at a leg. It should still be likely enough to cause severe bleeding often enough that it’s not worth the risk to aim for the legs, since other people will likely be in danger if you miss.

            2. Loonyyy says:

              That’s interesting. I was under the impression from a blog post I read once that the “Shoulder shooting” that people sometimes refer to is very dangerous, as shooting the shoulder, or elbow, or just generally any part of the arms, due to their size, runs a high risk of severing the bracial artery. Of course, arms are very different to legs.

  19. tengokujin says:

    You can push the dumpsters without a strength augment!
    Also, you need to respond to what he’s actually saying and how he’s saying it.
    I’ve heard of people who got crush, crush, absolve to work. If you get the persuasion level high enough, I think it might completely skip the extra chances.

  20. Joush says:

    The only plot NPC in the alley? A cop. You know, one that could walk right though the police station, collecting coffee and a donuts on the way. It’s likely O’Mally doesn’t even know that the other ways into the alley are potently lethal, but even if he did he is supposed to be meeting an elite hitman. Getting to the location of the meet might be part of the interview for the job.

    The homeless in the alleyway were likely trapped, and will have to go out though the sewers, getting shaken down by the gang members on the way, or out though the police station, getting arrested on the way.

    It is pretty weird that Adam Jensen can’t climb a chainlink fence that a sporty 9 year old could manage.

  21. noahpocalypse says:

    Hm. Sounds to me like you guys could one with one less HOSSt. Eh? Eh?

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Are you doing the typing error shtick from the previous thread?Because I dont see another wayne for that pun to work.

      1. Adam says:

        Stop abusing our Haaspitality, man. Running jokes can only go so far before people start getting Haastile.

        1. Gamer says:

          Yeah. All these puns can be such a Haastle.

          1. Milos says:

            Haas it crossed your mind that you should stop with the stupid puns?

            1. Even says:

              It really does make the blood boil in my waynes. You guys make David Haasselhoff look good.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                So someone finally haasled the hoff?I just hope it doesnt become a hobbit.Oh,wait,wrong site.Never mind.

                1. Gamer says:

                  Okay, guys. This Haas been fun, but my patience for these puns has Wayne’d.

  22. Lawton says:

    The lightning alley can be beaten with more than a single mod (not just EMP). The durability (moar life mod) and the jumping mod allow you to cross it, and you can stack items to cross it.
    You do not need super strength to stack enough items to get over the chainlink fence either, its just time consuming to collect them otherwise. That alley is accessible without any mods at all.

    1. Rosseloh says:

      I almost wish they had programmed the cops to say something when you walk past with ANOTHER empty crate (I took the ones from the electrical hallway to the fence and stacked them on a dumpster.

      A “Should we do something?” would have made that fairly mundane game situation quite memorable. Or even an “Evening, Officers!” from Jensen.

  23. Tse says:

    I hacked all PCs in the police station without letting the cops notice me. I even made a huge cardbouard fort around 1 of the computers in order to do it.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Hehe,yeah,making a fort around desks so you can hack away was fun.

  24. Destrustor says:

    I had taken the jump aug waaaaay before that, and explored the city( almost entirely) as soon as I got set loose on the streets. when the mission came up asking to go in that alley I just thought “oh, that alley? there is something of note in there? Cool, I’ll go check it out right away, no problem.”
    It didn’t even occur to me at the time that this alley was such a b***h to get to if you weren’t lucky enough to have blundered your way in with the right augs.

  25. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Oh yeah,one more thing,about the chin ups:Remember that jensen had most of his body replaced by aguments.We dont know how heavy those things are,but he probably is heavier than regular people.Doing a chin up may be impossible for him.

    1. Destrustor says:

      Yeah, but unless he weighs around 700 pounds, I’d think his super-punching-through-solid-concrete-and-juggling-fridges robot arms should allow him to do things like that.

      1. Gamer says:

        Yeah. There’s no way he weighs more than a vending machine.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Ah,but Josh didnt get the strength aug yet.

    2. Irridium says:

      That explains why whenever you jump without the jump aug you fall like a damn rock. Though, that’d be the case in any situation when you fall, but it feels like you’re very “heavy” in this game.

    3. 4th Dimension says:

      Well considering the fact that I think his legs aren’t argumented that much, I doubit he’s much heavier, or he would have trouble standing. Not to mention what that extra weight would do to his spine.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        How do you know his legs arent augmented much?They have been completely replaced as well,so we have no clue how stronger they are.We just know that he moves,more or less,like a regular human,but not whether it takes more effort to do so.

        Same for his spine.It was worked on,but the reflex aug doesnt have to be the only thing inserted into it.

        After all,jensen is more machine than man now.

  26. PSJ says:

    For every conversation, you just respond to what they say. The dialogue is really well written with emotional subtleties. I got through all of them the first time and I never had the conversation aug.

    1. Raygereio says:

      Yup, it’s easy. But you need to actually pay attention to the dialogue, the facial animation and use some measure of common sense.

      The first two are hard to do with two yahoo’s yapping in your ear. As for the latter… well, it’s Josh, I guess.

      1. Thomas says:

        I found the last guy really hard to do. I didn’t reload when I failed, but I kept trying to reason him to see what he’d done and its only later I can see that someone like him wouldn’t except reason from everyone else. Taggart and the guy with a revolver took a reload for me :(

        At least they let you get away with some mistakes

  27. GiantRaven says:

    If it just me that finds the huge amount of quest markers hugely annoying. I can’t fathom why anyone would want to play with those turned on. I think it might be bearable with just one…but five?! Complete madness.

    1. Cookie Of Nine says:

      You can, in the menu disable any quest’s markers. I do though like that each quest and marker is given a number to tell them appart, as well as that main quests and subquests are different colors.

      That being said, I like Skyrim’s choice of having the on-screen markers (but not the compass/map ones) fade with distance so that only close objectives add noise to the screen. This gets really bad in DX:HR since the markers are so big on-screen.

      1. GiantRaven says:

        Oh I know that. I just find it somewhat distracting whilst watching Spoiler Warning.

    2. Destrustor says:

      For me it’d actually be an incentive to go and complete them.

    3. Tse says:

      I like it better on Give me Deus Ex difficulty: quest markers only on the radar.

  28. Zaxares says:

    Everybody is armed!: You mean the population of the Unites States AREN’T all toting guns everywhere?? O.o (*EDI voice* That was a joke.)

    Also, did anybody else notice that there are absolutely NO female enemy grunts in the game? With only two exceptions (and they’re both bosses), every single enemy that Adam faces is male. Even back in that alleyway, when the punks go hostile and start shooting, it’s only the GUYS that do it. The women just run or cover on the ground.

    4:37: Are you kidding me, Shamus?? If I had the parachute aug, I’d NEVER take the stairs/elevator down a building EVER AGAIN! XD It’ll be always like, “OK, guys, I’m heading home. See you tomorrow!” and jump out the 32nd floor window.

    15:45: Ummm, Josh? You know you could have just reloaded the PREVIOUS auto-save, right?

    16:10: COOL! I never knew if you shot the cars, the car alarms would go off! :D

    20:15: RRRAAAGGHH! I’M SO MAD, I’ll JUST GRENADE MYSELF AT POINT-BLANK RANGE! That’s the ticket! XD

    And yeah, I’m surprised you never knew that the conversation battles were randomised, Shamus! The first part of the dialogue is always the same, and so one of the options to START the conversation is always the right one (and one is always the wrong choice), but from then on, the game randomly picks one out of three possible paths EACH time you select an option, which each require a different choice to move forward correctly. Thus, the same solution that works in one save game may not work if you reload that same save game and try it again. You need to pay attention to what the guy is saying and deduce the correct answer based on the info the CASIE aug gives you. (Or, you could test your conversationalist and mediator skills and try to guess the right course of action purely from instinct, which is also fun. :))

    For the record, the best starting option for Wayne Haas is actually PLEAD (which has a tendency to allow you to follow up with Absolve for the next correct choice), but I always feel like I’m demeaning myself by pleading with him. :P

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “4:37: Are you kidding me, Shamus?? If I had the parachute aug, I'd NEVER take the stairs/elevator down a building EVER AGAIN! XD It'll be always like, “OK, guys, I'm heading home. See you tomorrow!” and jump out the 32nd floor window.”

      That reminded me of kenny at the end of coon trilogy.And I would totally abuse the augs as well.

      “15:45: Ummm, Josh? You know you could have just reloaded the PREVIOUS auto-save, right?”

      Thats the one he loaded.He screwed up and left the station after screwing up the dialogue,and the game saved both when the dialogue ended and when he left the station.

    2. Irridium says:

      Same here. If I could fall at any height and be fine, I would NEVER go down stars or elevators ever again.

      In fact, that’s basically what I did in-game. I’d always jump off at a high height whenever possible. Because why not.

      1. Thomas says:

        Jumping off everything was fun, because it was so over the top it ruined everything you were saying. ‘Be careful with Jensen, he’s getting used to his new body’ Jensen jumps off third floor balcony in a blur of gold and calmly walks out the door

        Jensen chilling in a nightclub and so keen he just jumps of the balcony parachuting right down to the dance floor.

        Jensen learning the dark side of augmentations and getting over the depression he’s facing by jumping all over Hengsha.

        Jumping off the top of the brothel, landing right in front of the exclusive club and walking straight in, in front of a line of people feels so badass… and if you can get some parachuting into a stealth playthrough… nothing better than jumping off the balcony whilst the snipers back is turned, on to a truck and sneaking through the door :D

    3. tengokujin says:

      Cars also explode with sufficient bullets in them. :p

  29. Cookie Of Nine says:

    Shamus is complaining that a completely optional area (behind the police station), where sidequests have objectives (the cop & the storeroom), has at least 4 methods of entry?

    The one required NPC is (as mentioned above) a cop who meets you secretly, and the storeroom (I think it was the police evidence locker) is a place meant to be accessed only by law enforcement personnel.

    I think some of the dialogue suggests that the “lightning” spilled on the floor is a recent development, so the hobos could have been trapped there. Also it could be argued that the corrupt officer, looking to do illegal activity, purposefully caused the electric hazard to prevent random passers by from being witnesses.

    The chin-up argument has a little merit, but you could argue that Jensen, recently recovering from near death, may not be confident enough to move his now much heavier but stronger body over a not-*waist high* fence without drawing attention to himself. Unless you talk your way in, you are not supposed to be in the Police Station, so causing a huge racket when you sneak in is not a good thing. This also shows how they rationalized the XP system in the game: You have all the Augs built in, but until you get enough experience (to turn a given one on), it’s expected that you will cause more problems than you will solve using them.

    If you look closely, almost every Augmentation you can choose (as well as not picking any) can get you both into that alley, and the police station, which was probably the most important thing to the developers. And it gratifies the players that chose some of the more esoteric (to an FPS) augs like the electrical resistance, and the strength/jump augs. The only people who think they may have wasted a praxis point would be those who purchased the Metal Gear Solid/Splinter Cell Augs.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      He wasnt complaining that there are plenty of options for you to get in,but about why there are other people there.Granted,that one quest guy is a cop,so he probably could just go through the station.

      1. Cookie Of Nine says:

        I was originally trying to sarcastically bring light to the fact that Shamus “Vitriol Machine” Young once said this about plot driven doors:

        http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=945

        And has now made a semi-big deal (in the show notes) about a situation where there are nearly half a dozen ways through, and almost any play style / aug selection provides some visible benefit.

        Sure, I guess it’s required of his persona on the show to act this way, I just was trying to point out that it definitely seemed more “complaining for complaining’s sake”.

        I yet again seem to have rambled on, and have put three comments with more text than the original article.

        1. Shamus says:

          So, as long as there’s more than one door, they don’t need to make sense and we shouldn’t examine the world presented to us? the NPC’s were THERE.

          This is a situation where an augmented guy has trouble getting there, and when we do get to that area we find normal people hanging out, not upset about being stranded. Did that crooked guy in the suit really climb the fence? Or go through the sewers?

          Obviously not. It’s a simple gameplay contrivance, and I pointed it out. If that’s “vitriol” then there’s no room to discuss the medium at all and we may as well abandon any sort of analysis.

          I don’t know how much more I can sugar-coat it. It doesn’t mean the game is horrible. It means this setup was a bit silly and arbitrary, which was noteworthy.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            If by crooked guy in a suit you mean o’malley,he is a cop,he came through the police station.

            1. Shamus says:

              Is there an actual back door to the station? If so, I missed it. That really does help. I was thinking that the only access was the VENT, which is why this bugged me so bad:

              1) Lightning tunnel
              2) Fence
              3) Police vent
              4) Sewer

              Trying to imagine that guy in a suit jumping fences or vent-crawling.

              But if the police station has a door back there, then that can explain not just the cop, but, we could sort of use it to hand-wave the other NPC’s around.

              It’s still a goofy bit of a level, but at least there’s a friggin’ door.

              1. RCN says:

                Yeah, I always give people the benefit of the doubt instead of just outright accusing them. I’d go more the “huh… they came in through the police station door” than “Shamus is just being too nitpicky, trying to find a fight”.

                Geez, just because he played the game 2 and a half times it does’t mean he’s completely omniscient about the game. Though I’ll still keep him accountable for not trying entering the police station through THE FRONT DOOR. (kidding)

              2. Gamer says:

                Yep. There’s a back door in the alleyway. It’s another valid way of sneaking into the police station. I used it to bypass the electric fence on my first playthrough when doing the investigation (I’d already speeched Wayne). I didn’t ever use the sewers.

                I’d consider it a positive that you played the game 2 and a half times and still don’t know all the possible methods of sneaking in.

                1. Shamus says:

                  “I'd consider it a positive that you played the game 2 and a half times and still don't know all the possible methods of sneaking in.”

                  Agreed.

                  Where does the door lead, inside? I thought I’d been through the entire station, and I can’t think of any other exits. What level was it on?

                  1. Jokerman says:

                    The only one i can see is on the second floor, up the stairs that you need a box to reach, you pass it to get the vent its locked though – I suppose its possible he used it…bit of a drop.

                    Ive not played his quest for a while, but if i remember correctly he is an undercover cop – him going through the police station would be weird if i am right. Since he is working in the same area you would think he would want to stay away from the local police station…not walk right through it collecting donuts and coffee on the way before scaling down a ladder and falling down a 3-4 feet drop.

                    It tends to draw attention….

                    1. Shamus says:

                      Okay, then I retract my retraction. This alley is silly again.

                  2. Gamer says:

                    It’s on the second floor at the end of the hallway. It links to a fire-escape you can use for quick access in and out of the station. It’s almost adjacent to the garage with all of Megan’s evidence in it. I only know this because I HAVE to explore EVERYTHING when I enter an area for the first time in every game ever. It’s like a mild and oddly specific form of OCD.

                    Didn’t stop me from completely missing the undercover cop side-quest my first playthrough. I looked but couldn’t find the quest giver.

                    1. Jokerman says:

                      You dont get the quest from him – he only shows up after you trigger it by talking to another undercover cop dressed as a prostitute called Jenny. Pritchard tells you about her wanting to contact you

                      “As much as i am glad to see you back Jensen, I am not your personal dating service”

                    2. Gamer says:

                      That’s what I meant. I never found Jenny on my first playthrough. I didn’t think that she would look like another random prostitute. (Go figure, I’m surprised be people dressing the way they probably would dress.)

                      I found her on accident my second time, when I started talking to people. (I had just heard about the “Ah, sheeeeeyyyyttt!” lady.)

                    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

                      An undercover cop that actually has a cover that makes her hard to spot?What nonsense s that.Get out of my games realism.

                    4. RCN says:

                      I found her talking to random hookers in the street. Because I’m a perv. Naw, I just like talking to strangers in game, no matter how badly they loop lines.

                  3. Ringwraith says:

                    I can’t remember if there’s simply a boarded-up door on the ground floor in the alley, but there is a back door into the police station through the same sewer which opens out in the alley.
                    Also that chain-link fence does look (to me at least) that it’s a gate which is locked.

  30. Lawton says:

    When you get the option “He was just a kid, Haas”, crush is quite interesting I actually crushed him every time and got through. He actually acknowledged that in the end, he took the shot and it was his fault; he then thanks you for making him admit it.

    1. Josh says:

      That was the one I was trying to go for, because I liked that admission and what it meant for his character far more than telling him “Wayne, it’s not your fault.”

      1. RCN says:

        You have to prepare him accordingly for the crush to work.

  31. swenson says:

    Cuftbert LIIIIVES!

  32. Noble Bear says:

    I kept yelling ABSOLVE! ABSOLVE! at the screen in various volumes and levels of coherency.

    1. Eärlindor says:

      LOL! Same here.

      There were times where I was crying out: “Absolve! Absolve here! No, no–agh–okay, now crush him here–NO DON’T ABSOLVE HIM, CRUSH HIM! Now you have to absolve him again–NO DON’T CRUSH! Daggummit Josh!” (Etc.)

      1. RCN says:

        Yep. In either case, I respect him for forgoing the “just absolve” route. It is boring and keeps him from having to face what he’d done. Though it is too bad Shamus and Rutskarn were just blabbing on too much to realize that. They REALLY should’ve done a do-over here (or at least have Josh prepare better for the conversations so he can show us the most interesting conversational paths).

        1. Shamus says:

          “Though it is too bad Shamus and Rutskarn were just blabbing on too much to realize that. ”

          You mean, doing OUR JOB?

          Look, if your back-seat-driver hands are getting itchy, you’re always free to boot up the game yourself. It has never been our goal to do some kind of optimal, canonical play-through.

          “They REALLY should've done a do-over here ”

          Damn it, I even APOLOGIZED at the top of the post.

          1. RCN says:

            Ack, I’m really sounding badly here.

            It is just I really like that conversation, one of the best in the game, and you focused more on Josh screwing his conversational path than the conversation itself. You know, because I thought it was a conversation worth of discussing?

            The conversations in this game are really good, I’d just wish you’d focus more on them. I don’t want an optimal play through, I just want interesting conversations.

  33. Packie says:

    I loved the police station, so many methods of entry. I actually felt sorry for Haas but I still crushed him and he couldn’t let me through the main entrance. So I the took sewers, sneaked up behind the police station and then went through a vent on the roof. Best option if you can’t convince Haas.

    1. RCN says:

      You just need to crush him the right way.

  34. Vect says:

    It does sorta make sense that you would need to appeal to his guilt and such. You’re not trying to tell him to “Suck it up” and go home and be a family man. You’re just trying to get him to let you in the police station. If it works, then go ahead.

  35. Uscias says:

    Wow… Josh’s conversational technigues are really painful to watch.

  36. Aanok says:

    I dunno about you guys, but I had a certain feeling that Josh and delicate conversations weren’t exactly going to be BFFs :D

  37. rasmusernst says:

    Odd. This was never an issue for me. As far as I remember I could never even talk to that guy Wayne. He just told me to go away. I think I just went through the sewers and snuck into the morgue through a door in a back alley. I did try that box-trick in the electricity corridor and Mario jumping, for about a minute or two, but it felt like I was trying to glitch the game.

    1. RCN says:

      Yep. That’s modern FPS design having a very, very bad influence on you and making you think doing anything other than following a narrow corridor to the next cut-scene is an exploit.

      FIGHT IT, MAN!

  38. Duhad says:

    OK sorry if this is redundant, but was any one else just shouting at the screen that if they just walked behind the guy at the door into the main station and crouched he will NO ONE will see you walk right threw the door because he never looks that far back?

  39. Deadpool says:

    I like how Josh gets the persuasion upgrade first then proceeds to not use it during the conversation he fails twice at..

    Btw, releasing the pheromones allows you to threaten him, since his personality is an omega and he responds to threats… Which is what Josh wanted…

    1. Gamer says:

      In Josh’s defense, would you want to use pheromones on your former partner? That is the definition of creepy.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        I wonder how many jensen/haas fanfictions are there,and if all of them involve pheromones.

        1. Gamer says:

          My hope: None
          My expectations: Much more than none.

  40. RTBones says:

    On the police station – if you lose one of the crates like Josh did, you can still climb the fence. There is an alley across the street somewhere that should have a barrel in it. Use the one crate, barrel on top of the crate, and youre over the fence.

    Not that grenading your way in isnt a fine way to go. :) I did laugh as Josh went through the conversation, wondering whether he just didnt remember how to go through, or if the entire cast was trolling us. Either way, didnt matter – its still fun to watch.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Like plenty of people have said,you cant really remember how the conversations should go,because they can change from playthrough to playthrough.Its a nice touch,and makes them feel more natural.Even though you probably wont notice that(at least not consciously)on multiple playthroughs,unless you reload and do a conversation again.

  41. RCN says:

    Ok, I think I must justify myself after those faux pas.

    The thing is, I really, REALLY like that conversation. It marks the exact spot I noticed “you know… I like this game”. Up that point I wasn’t really sure if Deus Ex: Trumman Reproduction was really up to snuff to its claims. I still hadn’t got to the good algs (just getting Hacking till this part, rushing to level 5). Sure, I was still to hit face-front with the “real” bosses, but I could forgive them because of this. The one you have with Zeke means nothing. I found Zeke to be a dumb terrorist and not at all justified, so I didn’t really see any moral ambiguity there. I just talked to him because I thought it was more sensible to talk him down than shoot him dead.

    But this was it. This was the point I really had to concede the game was really, really good. That conversation is brilliant and if you do it right the way Jensen deals with it is also nothing short of fantastic.

    So I was looking forward to this episode. I was just thinking: “I wonder what Shamus has to say about this conversation. I hope something insightful.”

    … Yeah… needless to say I was’t just disappointed it was just glossed over, but actually devastated. You know, one doesn’t go apeshit answering to half the the comments of a Spoiler Warning update because he just wants to troll Shamus. At least I don’t.

    So.. sorry. It just grieved me so that you missed this awesome bit of writing in order to sneak through the vents.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      To be fair,they did praise the conversations in the game a lot before even reaching this part.And it is always funny to see them praise an aspect of a game,and then go and either completely skip it,or just do it in a funny way.

    2. Keeshhound says:

      The interesting part (to me at least) of the C.A.S.I.E. implant’s effects in this conversation is that the psychological profile isn’t just for show. After reading it I felt like I had a much better understanding of Haas’ character and it made the resulting persuasion much easier.

      “Has a tendency to exaggerate and escalate a situation. Needs to be brought back down when doing so.”
      -Ok, he’s starting to go off on me, better smack him back down before it escalates
      “Feels deep remorse. Is looking for absolution for something.”
      -Use absolve when he’s properly castigated
      “Subject to sudden fits of rage. Situation should be defused with care.”
      -I assume this means if he gets too angry you should go with plead. (never actually had to deal with this situation)

    3. Shamus says:

      I owe you an apology as well.

      The general “Josh should do this or that” has been really bugging me for a while now. This is an overall trend, and it began before we even began the series. Rather than adress this, I just got pissy with a couple of the most recent comments. Yeah. There were much better ways I could have handled this.

      1. RCN says:

        Generally, I really approve of Josh’s ideas. In my book, trying to glitch the game means you’re doing something right. Heck, he manages to glitch Half-Life 2.

        But here, he was trying hard to get that conversation to the direction he wanted, so he could show it off. But it seemed like both you and Rutskarn didn’t notice why he was insisting so much on it and the whole save-scumming fiasco didn’t help.

        The end result… just was a mess. And right at the spot I was anticipating the most, so it was even more dissonant to me. And it was mostly really bad timing and not really the fault of anyone involved (Josh could prepare better for those, but I don’t really expect this much more work for him). You didn’t even KNOW it was there, which is a very unfortunate waste in my opinion.

        Oh well. What is done is done, now I can only hope this goes better in the future, there are still good conversations ahead and some really interesting e-mail exchanges (I hope you don’t skip at least discussing the most noteworthy).

        EDIT: Also, it says tons about a game that there are different voice-overs for different PATHS of conversation. This is not your regular “he’ll react this way if you say that and then this other way to the next thing you say, completely forgetting what you said earlier.”

        1. Gruhunchously says:

          I feel that the conversations in this game are extremely well done and every time I go through them I am even more impressed by their versatility. They flow very well no matter what variation they are using. I really hope that more games adopt this system, as opposed to, say, Mass Effect’s paragon/renegade instant-win-if-you-have-enough-points dialogue trees.

          1. RCN says:

            Well, there’s also a reason why this game has very, very few dialogs like this. So they could really work on each of them to this degree of awesome.

            Mass Effect… I can easily see their voice-acting budget skyrocket tenfold.

            But yeah, they could try to implement this into the plot-central conversations.

            1. Gruhunchously says:

              I know that it would be really difficult to include these kinds of conversations with any degree of regularity. And even if it wasn’t, they would probably lose some of their appeal and quality if they were overused. But it would still be nice to see them implemented in other games, maybe during rare plot or character critical moments.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                I agree.Some of the key dialogues that already are quite good in mass effect(like the ones with saren and wrex),would be vastly improved if they were made like this.And you wouldnt really need that much work for those,maybe an extra hour for each,since(like Ive said)they already are good.

        2. X2Eliah says:

          he was trying hard to get that conversation to the direction he wanted, so he could show it off. But it seemed like both you and Rutskarn didn't notice why he was insisting so much on it

          Yeah, that was the issue I noticed with this (and a few other) episode as well… Shamus, you have a fair point that commenters too often say “Josh should do this and this”, but some of that comes from the fact that you & Ruts almost always don’t pay any attention to what he is doing or saying, in some ways sabotaging any points he’s trying to make.

          To use an expression you used, currently you and Ruts are “backseat drivers”… Is there a way to amend the formula, somehow, so that you are “sitting on the same couch”, instead of a “backseat”? Just.. more cooperation between you three, and not “Josh up front playing something while Shamus and Rutskarn talk/joke about something else”.

          Though frankly, I don’t think there’s any point in pointing this out… I bet this has been said and ignored in far better ways by better people in earlier episodes/seasons already with no result.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            To be fair to them,watching that stream for a prolonged period of time can be very painful.Especially when there are letters on the screen.And while listening to dialogues would be nice,these are quite long,so it wouldnt be a preferable option.Granted,they are very good dialogues,with very good voice acting,but playing through them is still better than watching someone playing through them.

            1. Even says:

              It comes down again to what I’ve said before. It MIGHT help if they did some pre-planning on what they should aim to cover in each session and make somesort of long term plan in order to avoid unnecessary chaos like this. I can understand if it doesn’t sound that appealing, especially to Josh, and that it could risk stealing some of the magic from the show, but I believe you could make things a lot easier for all involved if you had even an idea where you’d like to be beforehand.

            2. RCN says:

              I think what would really help is if they gave Josh some kind of “pay attention to what I’m doing now, I have something important to show” power. Like cutting the feed from the others. I mean, usually, he does succeed in calling the others out, but in a case like this… they were completely driven away from the conversation before the first try was through.

              Hmmm… though I believe it’d help more if they researched a bit more on how the conversational paths work in Human Revolution, since it was obvious no-one had much clue going in. It isn’t just a rigid “always pick this option”, but it is not random either. While it might work (allow you to continue the plot), to get to the really juicy parts you have to balance them out. It is quite an elegant system for a dialog-tree.

          2. Shamus says:

            “Is there a way to amend the formula, somehow, so that you are “sitting on the same couch”, instead of a “backseat”? ”

            It can’t be done. The on-screen text is usually unreadable for us. We’re watching the show on a ten second delay, which sometimes jumps to 20 seconds if Livestream is in a mood.

            1. Destrustor says:

              Everyone just move in to the same house. Spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of inconvenient man-hours and lose all your jobs!
              DO IT FOR OUR AMUSEMENT!
              WE DEMAND IT!!!

              OBEY!!

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                Hey,thats a great idea!Shamus should definitely adopt the other three.You can never have enough kids,right?

                1. Deadpool says:

                  Now I have this idea of these four living in the same house, trolling each other… Real World Dork!

                  <__>

                  I’d watch it…

                  1. Gamer says:

                    Sadly, I think I’d watch that too. I couldn’t be any worse than what they already flood the airways with.

  42. Kian says:

    The way they handled the conversation makes me think of someone that plays ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ but never chooses paper because paper sucks. Then he complains that rock is unbeatable, but when they only choose rock they still lose.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Anecdotal evidence suggests that in the game of rock-paper-scissors,players familiar with each other tie 75-80% of the time due to the limited number of outcomes.I suggest rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock.”

      1. tjtheman5 says:

        That seems logical.

  43. Alec W says:

    There are actually a few other ways in you guys could have used after you screwed up the obvious.

    I managed to sneak in the front door. It’s hard but you can do it – you just need to hack Haas’ room clean when he isn’t looking and that nets you a code, which doesn’t trigger hostility if you just enter it cleanly and move off before the doorman gets too curious, but then you gotta stay stealth the whole way through.

    Alternatively, you can get in through the basement door on the right side, as there is another alley there, with nothing else in it. This requires high hacking as I recall, or a passcode from a side quest.

    Finally, you can just murder *everyone* in the entire station. If you leave *no* witnesses and disable *all* cameras, the game informs you later that ‘no one knows who committed the mass murder in Detroit” and you get off with it!

  44. Sharnuo says:

    “Oh, you have a hot dog… *Unholsters firearm* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

    That’s why we all love Josh.

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