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On yet another exciting episode of Spoiler Warning: Chris forgets that Walther’s forgot, I talk about Jensen’s character some more, Rutskarn ruins everything, and Shamus forgets to post this episode!
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C’mon, Shamus, your house being on fire is no excuse not to post Spoiler Warning. ;-)
I’m sorry what was that about test tube babies? I was busy watching the experiment to create a human-locker hybrid species.
Adam Jensen – Solving problems while creating them. The ultimate in efficiency!
Okay, so let’s run through the timeline, ’cause I’m a bit rusty:
Adam Jensen is genetically manipulated in a lab (probably during in vitro fertilization). Michelle Walthers hides him and gives him away, since otherwise Adam would remember her raising him.
Adam grows up to be a cop for the city of Detroit. Somewhere along the way he meets Megan Reed and they date. It doesn’t work out.
Later, Megan Reed is working for David Sarif. Sarif wants private security; instead of hiring a PMC, he brings in Adam at the behest of Megan.
When does Megan figure out that Adam is “special?” It seems like it would have to have been before he came to Sarif Industries, since it’s hinted at during the game that she had ulterior motives for having him hired. I’m just not certain when, and who, figured out that Adam wouldn’t reject augmentation before that detective started looking into Adam’s past.
I’m going to be extremely pedantic and say, Megan realized this when the writers realized Adam Jensen wasn’t special enough to be involved in the main story, and could easily be replaced by any other grunt.
i can only assume, she was getting a wide sample of DNA to run tests for implants, that or she got a tip off/ new something about white helix, though she doesnt seem to know anything about page, so im going to say the former
Before they broke up.In fact,its strongly implied that that is why they broke up:She felt bad for using him like that,and she couldnt stand lying to him every day,so she decided to take the cowards way out and break up.But,she still felt obligated to do something for him,hence why she recommended him to sarif.
Feeling guilty seems unlikely considering what she does later…
Why?People arent just simple one emotion automatons.They can do various contradicting stuff.
It would be easier for her to do what she did if she didn’t have to personally confront Adam and lie to him on a daily basis. When he wasn’t around, she could distance herself from him personally.
She wouldnt.Working with someone isnt the same as being in a relationship with them.
It doesnt make sense when you look at it from a rational perspective,that is true.But emotions are not rational.Guilt specially.
Also, that is one hardy ass-door.
Really though, what would a week of Spoiler Warning be if everything went right? Shamus had to forget to post this! That or he’s hoping to give you the satisfaction of griefing him on his own website so you’d get the Icarus Aug and stop griefing him on the stream.
It’ll never work.
As for the episode itself, I never felt that Jenson’s past was meant to be the big reveal. Nor really did I find Megan to be a big reveal either. The story was never really about Jenson really. I honestly don’t think this game had any huge reveals beyond the conspiracy stuff, and even that was obvious if you’ve played Deus Ex 1 and sort of knew that these conspiracies existed. I actually like that about the game too, this isn’t a game that is trying to build up to some huge twist like Bioware or M. Night Shyamalan might.
The game has a lot of mini-reveals, but nothing on the level that has become the norm for this type of game genre. Even allowing that though, two small but understandably difficult changes would have likely made this flow better. The first would have been with the Detective. Letting us have an option that says, “I know, Sarif showed me the files you sent him.” if you convinced Sarif to do so earlier. The next would have been when the actual non-optional version of the reveal happens with a similar response. It’d also be a perfect time to have Jenson let out with his take on it. Like when he told Taggart about the mirror, it’d feel like a valve that frames all the times he was quiet about it before as bottling it up in order to continue doing his work.
Also, yeah, Deus Ex: HR is filled with those things the developers seem happy to let you miss. This Convo for Rutskarn and Chris, Wayne’s Convo for Shamus, Icarus for Josh, and myriad more sprinkled throughout. I’ve really found myself growing more impressed with this game watching this season and reading comments of people who just completely missed out on parts I took for granted.
I think the whole “second reveal” with
Meganwould have been much better if they just had some alternate lines of dialogue. Like what they did withZhao and the biochip.I feel the same as Fawkes. The big difference is that these reveals aren’t being guessed because that’s what the plot demands (Like it would have been if Sarif was evil) they’re being guessed because the game actually does tells you they’ve happened.
I’m not quite so sure it’s deliberate, I just think they ended up doing things so well and so built up that it may have covered up what was a lesser flaw.
It’s like a bad writer sat down and said, okay we need an interesting story, we’ll have these twists. And then a good writer took that and wrote everything so well that they stopped being twists and just a natural consequence of the story
Josh:
At 3:50 I don’t know if you were jumping down to the top of that tank, the lower roof, or that fence you hopped on just before the ground, but you managed to successfully miss all of them. That’s why you died.
At 12:00 you wanted to know how many alarms you set off. I’m pretty sure it was all of them.
Oh man you guys need to do ME3.
This game is too good and enjoyable.
ME3 will allow you to unleash your hate.
You’re not filling me with confindence here.
I don’t WANT ME3 to suck.
But I think it will.
I guess I’ll just have to wait to see what Shamus has to say about it.
To be fair, they fixed many of the gameplay problems in two. Also, the story makes much more sense.
“The story makes much more sense” is sadly not equal to, “The story makes sense”. :(
The story makes much more sense?
You talking about ME3?
Have you finished it?
Man I don’t even know…
The story starts with a deus ex machina. It’s not that good.
Is it a pointless deus ex machina like in ME2?
I can’t wait!
I absolutely loved how Pritchard said “Yeah, yeah,” after Jensen thanked him. It really spoke to how the two characters respect each other, despite their constant bickering.
Yeah, but I love even more the nonchalant way he does it. So that Pritchard can still sound like a prick, but a prick with a heart of gold…
I really like Pritchard. He is my favorite character in the game and, interestingly, he is the character that you interact with the most throughout the game. He is always giving you cyber-support and intel through your head-radio, as well as the odd bickering and calling up on the shit you ask him and do.
The only part I felt odd was that, if you let Malik (what an odd name) die, he barely reacts. I guess they’re going for shock, but it felt more like mild surprise…
This is my second favorite conversation involving revolver based suicide of all time. My first is the Benjamin Keane Russian roulette game in Killer7.
Gods yes, that scene had me and my friend who was playing grinning from ear to ear the entire time.
This is easily my favorite persuasion sequence in the game.
Suicide is a topic that hits very close to home for me, and considering how the games industry usually handles controversial topics, I’d never expect a game of this size and scale to depict a man contemplating suicide in such a meaningful, well-thought-out manner.
My only criticism would be that he didn’t seem quite as upset as someone about to commit suicide would be. He’d probably be very unstable. Hands trembling, crying, lip biting, hesitation, etc. The guy seemed just a bit too level-headed. I suppose I can understand why, though. Putting that in would take a lot of work and would probably make most players really uneasy or even offended.
Second person in as many days that Josh has talked out of committing suicide. I really thought he’d more of a Rimmer at that:
All I’ll say: It’s possible to be seconds away from (attempting) suicide and look perfectly calm. Especially if you’ve made peace with what you’re about to (try to) do.
Especially for someone like sandoval.He had to keep his emotions hidden from everyone for a long time.So even the rage we see from him is already showing what state he is in.
Yes, but Sandoval obviously hasn’t made peace with it yet, since you can effectively talk him out of it.
Right back in basically the first mission while you’re in the warehouse/FEMA base, just before the first bossfight, there’s the note about a botched surgery, the man not blaming himself, he did a good job, etc. which the crew said they’d never worked out what it was for or about. I’m pretty sure it’s about the same thing as this conversation. (sorry if it was mentioned in the comments for that episode, I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to check)
This is one of my favorite conversations in the game from a mechanical perspective, as it seems like you have to change up your approaches in order to succeed, you can’t just lean on the same one like you could with Taggart or
Darrow. But I also liked talking Sandoval down from a character perspective, the man wasn’t part of the conspiracy or out for personal gain, his good intentions were just used.Also, for maximum asshole points you can convince him to live for his family’s sake as you leave his brother lying in a pool of his own blood upstairs. I didn’t, but you could.
I had a laugh towards the end of the conversation because the first time through using “Tough Love”. He told me to go screw myself and that he would live just to spite me.
But I agree, this was one of my favorite conversations.
WARNING SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR THE BEST GAME STORY OF ALL TIME PLANESCAPE TORMENT, IF YOU EVER PLAN ON PLAYING THE BEST GAME OF ALL TIME, DON’T READ FURTHER.
You use KotOR as your reference for a slow surprising reveal. Why do you do that? Planescape: Torment would have been the better choice. It did what has come to be known as the KotOR style reveal the best out of any video game, pretty much ever.
KotOR’s build up was practically nill, meant to mirror the build up of the “NO, I AM YOUR FATHER.” moment from Star Wars. Which comes near completely out of left field with only minor build up. It(and the whole game really) reeks of cheap copy catery of moments in the original series of films, but what in the Star Wars EU isn’t cheap copy catery(BANE and Thrawn, that’s what.)
Planescape: Torment’s, in comparison, is the slow winding reveal that anything and everything you have interacted with is completely connected with you. And the ones that aren’t are the new threads being added to the pattern. It also did the, “HEY, YOU WERE A SUPREMELY POWERFUL DICK BEFORE YOU LOST YOUR MEMORIES,” far and beyond better than KotOR did. And is a closer mirror to how they fucked up with this reveal. They attempted the slow wind up, but failed because they revealed too much info to the player too rapidly and early on.
I tend to agree, that Kotor’s “reveal” was poorly planned, implemented, and foreshadowed; to the point I’d argue it was not intended when the game began development, and was only added later. The idea that the PC is the bad guy causes all sorts of headscratching plotholes throughout the rest of the game if you actually think about it.
These episodes feel … weird this week: I’ve never heard Rutskarn swear so much before.
It’s just a phase he’s going through.
Yeah.You know how it is with kids when they reach 13.
Its all Mumbles fault.
The weird thing is that he swears more when I’m not around.
Come to think of it, maybe you are the only person he is genuinely scared/afraid of? So when he doesn’t have you watching his every misstep, he’s letting go a bit.
That’s fucking adorable.
No, it’s just that when she’s around, he tries to be a polite guy to woo her.
I’d like to think his attempts are literally him saying “Woo, woo,” and waving his fingers in her direction.
Politely, though. So in a top hat.
Wow,Josh,that was a very good jensen.I had to back up a few seconds because at first i thought he said it.
Why didn’t Zeke use frag mines?
Maybe they wanted a trap specifically for augs. It’s got bait that only an aug would want and mines that would only affect an aug. Make the person’s augments become their downfall.
Hm. You guys aren’t exactly right – I skipped the previous conversation constantly (the one with Taggart, on account of not knowing there even was one), and I always got to talk with Isaias here..
Maybe you don’t get to talk to him if you kill zeke at the start of the game, in the hostage mission? And if you let zeke go / live, Isaias won’t be insta-hostile to you.
Well, if you take Sarif’s suggestion and upload the evidence incriminating Isaias onto Taggart’s computer, you get the conversation, but if you don’t do that…I think it’s a bug that happens sometimes. It’s never happened to me, but I’ve heard of it. Or maybe there’s some factor that I don’t know about.
Aha, yeah, that uploading-thingie might be the key in that case – I always uploaded the evidence, so… that’s how the video got out to the news, and that’s why taggart was forced to make a statement incriminating Isaias.
Makes sense, and actually, wow, very clever on the dev’s part.
An interesting thought, but in my current play-through I blasted Zeke, sweet-talked Taggert, and then helped Sandoval.
Sounds like this has a complex trigger.
I like this game more and more.
I had the insta-attack on my second runthrough of the game even though I “won” the convo with Taggart. It wasn’t a full win since I wasn’t aware of the randomization at the time and just wanted to skip it through and so I botched it a start, but still managed to convince Taggart to meet me backstage. I couldn’t really upload the stuff to his PC since he stays in the room indefinitely and is invincible.
I skipped Taggart, didn’t upload the dirt and I saved Zeke at the beginning but I think I killed him in his ambush.
And I got the conversation with Sandoval.
I have no clue how this works and what the triggers are.
I now predict that Josh will have every augment EXCEPT the parachute at the end of the game. He will also have sufficient praxis to activate it, and will do so no more than three seconds before pushing the button to roll cutscene.
I want it on record that I have called it.
Yep. It will definitely be this season’s incinerator.
It’s gone too far now, if he caved in and used it, it wouldn’t even be cool and it would just make the whole aug really disappointing. Unless he does it by that one point in Pangea designed to use it but doesn’t comment on it at all.
Yeah, this conversation was a good one. It’s weird though, I think I missed Taggart’s speech on both of my playthroughs (didn’t even realize it was possible), but I think Isias Attacked me once and I had this conversation the other time, so there may be other factors.
Do you remember whether you uploaded the incriminating data onto Taggart’s computer when Sarif asked you to? As Gruhunchously said, that might be the trigger point for insta-attack-or-not.
My lethal playthrough was basically just use whatever I could carry right up until I got the exploding revolver. Then the game got awesome.
I really like that gun. It even kills robots in about 2 hits.
The Isaias Sandoval conversation is bugged. Sometimes you won’t get it even if you’re supposed to.
http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Isaias_Sandoval
Scroll down.
Another thing:
If you talk to Sandoval again after the conversation, he reveals some information about the game’s three bosses, which is a rarity in this game.
1) The original Deus Ex was ambiguous and self-contradictory about the origin of the Dentons. It’s really never clearly stated whether JC and Paul are natural, whether JC was grown in a tube and only Paul was natural, or whether they were both artificial. There was a “Deus Ex Bible” that tried to clear things up but even that had strange contradictions with the games.
2) It’s not clear that Adam Jensen’s purpose was to be able to use augmentations with no rejection. Actually, mechanical augmentation science was only in its infancy when Adam was created in the 1990’s. He may have been created for some other purpose, which coincidentally endowed him with that unique property.
http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/deus-ex-gameplay-director-apologizes-for-boss-fights/
I find this somewhat relevant.
*regards the room*
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, with the usual apologies….
I am the very model of augmented mercenary Man
Whose bifurcated cybernetic ways enable any plan
From malphesant coprorate avarice to noble altruistic glee
A demented mix of mayhem-making murderous psychology
Anachronisitic flesh to mesh the brain with the bionic hand
I am the very model of augmented mercenary Man
*silently raises glass, slides whiskey bottle down the bar*
*applause*
In my head, I always have trouble syncing the words and the tune. I really want someone to actually sing this.
I guess the problem is that if someone else invents aug-free rejection before Versalife, then they could just make Versalife irrelevant. This way VL could have even more of a grip by carefully adjusting things so that they’re very very selective who they give it to
I have an alternative, but not necessarily opposing reason for the augmentation-rejection cure:
Bob Page, looking to become essentially the “god in the machine”, would not want to be dependent on a drug to live.
“I never asked for this homework.” oh man that cracked me up.
I liked how you purchased all the armor upgrades just to troll Zeke. Priceless. I guess he didn’t do anything because he opened the door and didn’t see anything. You were supposed to be incapacitated in the middle of the room and the AI only opens the door, but triggers as usual by having visual contact. Since you went stealth and went to the corner, he saw an empty room and just stood there in his room.
Even though the armor upgrades are kinda useless. You go from lasting half a second of concentrated fire to 3/4 of a second. Huge noticeable difference, right?
And you know, it speaks loads of how much respect you have for Deus Ex: Pagan Contribution when even Josh can’t bring himself to troll the conversations (maybe troll the gameplay and AI, but not the conversations).