| Wonderful, but;...July 24 2004 at 11:40 PM | UnConeD |
| First of all, this mod is amazing. I do have a bunch of comments, but please don't think I didn't enjoy playing. In fact, I finished RedSun 2020 in one go ;).
Comments:
- The darkness in the mall and tokyo station add atmosphere, but also confusion and annoyance when you get lost. Deus Ex' crappy flashlist can be blamed (especially in Tokyo Station), but still I think you should've added some more lights. A bunch of small lights around signs can give you that 'radiosity' feeling. The fact that enemies have perfect night vision in these levels is quite annoying. The lack of meaningful signage in these areas adds to the confusion: there are no platform numbers in the station? if you'd had hung up 2-3 "plaform # ->" signs here and there, I'm sure I would've realized earlier where I could go looking for it.
A couple of other locations also could use a little light. Often they are dark corners which are no problem if you know which way the hallway goes, but which require you to turn on your flashlight if you come there for the first time. One example which I remember was the top of the stairway leading to the Benihana restaurant (speaking of which, what's with the maze of buildings at Benihana??). The TMG buildings right after the Parking Garage bombing are also quite dark.
- I think I missed a part of the story. During the Project Adam mission, as I messed around in the lab where the TSPE pods were (which I hadn't discovered yet), I suddenly triggered a conversation, shot some guards and then got a message about the pods and nukes. Eh? Then I get whisked away into some miniature world in a glass box. What was going on there? I still don't know what the pods, TSPE, the nukes and the miniature world have to do with anything.
- The final conversation is a real party pooper, especially after the Tokyo Station level. The derelict station is wonderfully designed (although there are too many thugs to my liking *g*) and aside from getting lost it was a very strong last level. Then you conclude it with a silly conversation and a fight which starts without much warning and ends after 5 seconds (if you have any sort of explosive ready). The hero gets the girl and rides off. It's like, after all these years of crafting the mod, you just decided to tack on a silly ending because you didn't have time for a proper one.
- After all that trouble of getting out of Ootemachi-ku, it's kind of disappointing to end up there again. Especially cos there's nothing to do the second time and all you can do is go to the TMG base (which is IMO one of the worst sections of the game... the offices at the end are brilliantly designed, but boring to play).
- If you're going to use lots of Kanji signs as a selling point for your mod, the least you could do is make sure you're not mirroring any :) (although, the original Deus Ex also made this mistake quite a lot in the Hong Kong levels).
- I opened the Banzai-Jump elevator by hacking a pc. After jumping (and having to try again because of being thrown in to the void), I played on and found the "congratulatins, you've found an easter egg" message.
- In the Shinjuku station, I assume the gun sounds are supposed to be the Yakuza vs Riot cops fighting outside. This would've been better if you had muffled them for this bit. A simple lowpass + soft reverb on those samples would make the arrival at Shinjuku even more haunting. It was one of my favourite areas even if you were just passing through.
Still, this mod has been the most fun I've had in Deus Ex for a long time. When I arrived in Shinjuku and saw the satelite image I was just baffled at the size of that city district. It makes the original's 'Paris - Champs Elysees' pale in comparison. |
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