Deus Ex: MD - A Transhuman Future

[Aubrielle]

A Rock, Paper, Shotgun editorial waxes philosophical about the transhuman world Adam Jensen lives in, and what it Deus Ex: Mankind Divided says about our own humanity.

Shower scenes seldom Make You Think, unless it’s about what exactly you’re getting for that Premium Netflix subscription, but if anything sticks out for me about the impressive yet oddly unexciting Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site], it’s the sight of Adam Jensen washing his hair. Eidos Montreal’s latest presentation begins in Jensen’s new Prague apartment – a casually affluent man-den where you can phone other characters, watch newscasts that track your decisions through the story, answer emails, tinker with crafting resources, and generally get acquainted with the sleek, cadaverous sort-of-human in your charge.



As in Human Revolution, this adds a welcome domestic dimension to a protagonist otherwise defined by his ability to hide from people, sweet-talk them or blow them to pieces. We see Jensen wake, activate his own heads-up display with a groggy command, swing his gleaming kneecaps out of bed and pad across a dim expanse of consumables, standby lights and the Renaissance oil paintings so beloved of Eidos Montreal’s artists. We see him trot into the bathroom and turn on the tap, and for the first time since I laid eyes on Mankind Divided back in early 2015, it feels like all that talk about the precarity of identity in a cybernetic world is coming to a head.

...

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided looks to tick every box its predecessor did, and the streamlining of the relationship between infiltration, exploration and battle is nicely judged thus far, but it’s rather telling that the thing I recall most vividly from my hour or two with the game is that thoughtful spell in the shower. Deus Ex offers up a lavish fiction – the art direction, as ever, brilliantly expresses social tensions in how it melds or bashes together a range of period influences. But it has yet to really capture my attention and rock my preconceptions, whether in terms of how I sneak and shoot, or as regards the overlap between its fraught, messy world and ours.

More information.

 

[azarhal]

The blazé gaming journalist articles who wants sequels to be something totally different from their predecessors are always weird to read.

And it's not an editorial, it's a preview hidden under philosophical verbiage that spend half its word count talking about the latest gameplay trailer shower scene. And going by what I read, I suspect the guy didn't have an hands-on and just wrote that after watching the 17 minutes gameplay trailer.

It's the second such article I read about DX:MD. I saw one yesterday on Eurogamer were the writer complained about being able to use vending machine has portable covers (with the right aug of course). I stopped reading it right there…

 

[joxer]

Unlike azarhal, I have another problem with these articles.
All they do is trying to explore and judge mechanics in a FULL product.
Every single one of them ignores completely the, I'll call it, bad stuff. Did DX fans ask, in that transhuman future, for MMO(like) features? Did DX fans ask for phonegames? Do those same fans have to pay for those although they don't want them? Oh yes they do. Why do you think the full game's price is almost $100?

The best recent example of this "ignorance on purpose" is numerous editorials, reviews and previews is MGS5. This, according to PCGamer, game of the year has unprecedented feature inside it - pay2cheat microtransaction.
And you didn't see an editorial about it anywhere, no sir, no mam.

I just wish there was a game news site out there that doesn't go with the flow, that doesn't disguise free riders as journalists.

 

[Irian]

Why do you think the full game's price is almost $100?

Where do you get that price from? The current price is less than 35$ when you buy a CD key...

 

[azarhal]

Where do you get that price from? The current price is less than 35$ when you buy a CD key…

$89.99 USD for the game + season pass, that's probably where joxer is taking that $100 from.

 

[joxer]

Exactly. The price is $90. Wasn't sure if I saw 89.99 or 99.99 that's why I've posted "almost $100".

Less than $35 is something that's not a game. It's just some part of the game.
A body torso probably. Head, arms and legs are not in there. It'd be okay if we could see those "bonus parts" on the release day. But they'll be keeping them on mortuary ice for months.