If it is the roof with the Heliport, the hotel is just there.

Oh you are kidding! Haha - well, back to a saved game I go....

Thanks -
Andy

Thank God for saved games

So is everyone enjoying this? My copy just arrived in the mail, and I've set myself up on a Steam account. The reviews I've read were mostly positive, butr the original DE is in my top five games of all time, so - big shoes to fill.

I agree with you, hagatha, about the original DE being in my top five games. I don't know if this really compares in a way because it is technically so different, but so far I can say that DE:HR doesn't disappoint in the scale of the world, the great acting, the huge amount of choice in how you play the game as Peter Jensen and how you augment him. I am only about a quarter of the way through the game and am already looking forward to a replay, so that tells you something.

I will look forward to hearing your reaction to the game as you get into it!

Andy

Andy sounds like you are having fun.

Hagatha, let us know what you think

Thanks, Andy. I'm about three quarters of the way through Bioshock and when that's done I'll be loading up DEHR. I'm crossing fingers and toes; the second DE was such a let down - not a bad game, per se, but really not up to the quality of the original, which I must have played 20 times without getting bored.

Edit - okay, fot those of you playing - how on earth do I do a non-lethal lknock-out attack from behind? I was able to do this in the intro, but now if I sneak up behind someone, both options I get result in stabbing. I don't play that kind of game. I thought you could knock someone out with your hands. Am I wrong?

Worked it out. I think I even understand the hacking at this point.

Good game - disapointing first level (way too much light) but Detroit brings back those first few hours of playing in New York City at night.

Hi hagatha,

Yeah, more than once I killed someone without intending to. Glad you got the hang of that. And I found hacking to be a pretty big challenge, and even now I don't fully understand it, but I've augmented hacking up to level 3, so I can usually get into the systems I run into now. If you are playing primarily stealth, you might want to do that. I have also added a cloak ability but it lasts only a very short time, so I haven't found it useful yet. I'm sure it will at some point though.

How are you doing finding your way around? Can you read the maps? That is about the only thing in the game I have found so far that I don't care for. Right now I am lost in a Chinese city trying to find a building, and that seems to be a chronic condition (lol).

Andy

Andy, with the maps you need to go up and down until you find the marker, put the cursor on it and go to your level to compare. There are some buildings you can only access through the roof top of the apartment building jumping from the right spot and in some cases sprinting.

Andy, I'm still wandering around Detroit with no real idea where I'm going or what I'm doing. I find the absence of markers a bit disturbing, knowing there were will come a time when I really need that black market dealer I ran into a way back. For now I am content to wander and take in the sights, which, I think, come pretty close to the way the original felt (right down to the basketball; I took one shot and the ball flew off to parts unknown).

Still, sequels are always so problematic for me. I always think I just want more of the same with better graphics, but the truth is I really just want more of the same, including the old graphics. In fact what I really want is to unwind time to just before I started playing the original Thief/Deus Ex/Whatever for the very first time. Must be a sign of impending old battiness.

So, Andy, what skill trees are you working on? I'm going for the ones I'm accustomed to, like Hacking and Silent Running or whatever it was called. I miss my baton/blackjack, though. Never did like the electric prod much.

hagatha, dealers are not easy to find. There are two in Detroit, one is in one of the apartments located behind the gas station, by the basketball court in Detroit. The other one is in a sort of garage near the Limb Clinic, coming from the north on your right before reaching the clinic.

mcc, thanks for the tip about markers. I guess I need to stay more on point. One of my problems is that I stray from the mission and get to exploring an area, and before you know it, I'm in another district and completely lost. So of course I go to the map to try to get back to where I was, but I can't recognize any of the buildings to even get a direction. So unless I return to the main mission, or a side quest, I am wandering around for a bit. That said, I am getting more and more used to the map system. Yesterday I found my way out of an elevator shaft coming down from the penthouse in Hengsha, and that was pretty fun.

Hagatha, I know what you mean. Two of my favorite all time games are still DE1 and Anachronox, and of course the graphics can't compare to today's games and the controls are much simpler. But those were some terrific games.

As for tree skills, I am working on improving my stealthiness (silent running and cloaking systems) and just improved my heavy lifting aug. Next time I play, I will probably try a combination of stealth/combat for a change. I have used my tranq rifle a few times, and that was cool, and I am carrying a few grenades around as well as a mine, and waiting for a chance to use them just for the heck of it. One thing about this game - it has huge replayability! I've got about 38 hours into the game and am only about a quarter of the way through it. Whew!

Andy

Andy, I'm glad to hear that the game is a long one. Nothing like getting totally immersed in a game and then realizing you're already at the end after 20 hours.

I'm really liking Detroit, lost or not. I've decided I'll be sticking to mostly stealth-related skills, though in the original I also developed my (silenced) rifle skills to the max.

Well, I just made it off the shuttle to the Tai Young Medical building and rescued a man trapped in a room full of gas, so I got the gas rebreather aug, and that got me a quick way to the next part of the building. I am mainly concentrating on building my stealth related augs, so earlier I acquired an arm aug so I could punch through walls, and that let me get around a couple of guards who were hyper-alert (too much coffee?). That was fun!

With this game I sit down and say I will only play for an hour, which is normally about all the time I have, and next thing you know, it is an hour and a half or two hours later! Sigh - guess that's the sign of a good game.

Andy

Yep, this is a good game. I can see myself starting a new playthrough almost immediately.

I'm just at the first boss fight, and am experimenting with various ways of defeating him. I had sneaked/knocked out everyone up to the Detention Centre, but finally broke down and hacked a turret. It was necessary; I'd already set of an alarm by using an EMP grenade on the big Bot, and so the jig, as it were, was up. Next playthrough I'll attempt to ghost/knockout only, which I've done a couple of times in the original game.

I was getting really annoyed with the hacking game, but once I discovered the two key things, it's become a lot of fun and a source of much experience and loot. Good thing - the game almost forces you to be a hacker.

hagatha, I have found the tutorials that are available when you start the game to be really helpful, and there is one on hacking, which turns out to be kind of a mini-game, with different rewards you can earn. And it's great if you can find nuke or stop software during your various explorations, cause those things really help in difficult hacking situations.

I've just had to backtrack to an earlier saved game cause I discovered I didn't have a necessary augment (easy fall or whatever it's called) for the Tai Young Medical building. So I'm back trying to finish a couple of side quests in the Hengsha region to earn at least one more, hopefully two, praxis points.

Good luck on killing Barrett. I just kept trying everything in my arsenal, and I think it was just the shotgun that took him out in the end. I was actually surprised when that happened!! Lots of fun.

Andy

I'm not enjoying the Barrett fight. He takes me out in about five seconds. I have tried using the shotgun straight to the head when he grabs me, but once he's grabbed me, I am for some reason unable to change weapons, so when the shotgun shells run out I'm done. Same with the stun gun; I can use it on him at close range, but basically once he's grabbed me I can't reload it or change weapons. And only a few shots from him take me out. I'm not good enough at using cover to have it work in my favour, either.

I know a lot's been said about sticking these huge fights into a stealth game, and I agree with those comments to some extent, but the original game also had some unavoidable fights, which people seem to have forgotten. Eventually I'll work it out, like I worked out the Gunther battle in the original game. You couldn't avoid that fight, either. But I must say, my happy peaceful day isn't so happy or peaceful right now.

If I remember correctly, the way I finally took him out was by moving around constantly while taking a shot at him when I could. Be patient, and I think that will work. Don't let him grab you - stay away from him, run to the other end of the room or something, take a shot and then run again. Keep that up and it shouldn't take too many of your shells.

Andy

If you have the stun gun, you can take out Barret with that. I think I may have thrown one grenade at him, but it was the stun gun that saved me. I didn't let him recover from the effects before zapping him with another dart.

Andy, Toger thanks for the help. Hagatha, did you get it?

I did get that bad boy, eventually.

I actually found a spot in the room where he couldn't get me. Of course I couldn't get him from there, either, but at least I could run out, throw something at him or take a shot, and then run back to rest. My aim isn't good enough to run and shoot, though next time through I might try that approach. Anyway, eventually his health was low enough that I just let him grab me and I blasted him with the shotgun in between his punches (with some judicious healing in between).

The stun gun didn't help me much. It doesn't shoot fast enough. Can the stun gun be upgraded?

This is a really good game, much more in tune with the original, I think. A bit too heavy on the hacking, but at least hacking nets goodies and experience, so It's worthwhile.

I can't remember if I've upgraded the stun gun or not. I know I've applied a faster reload to either that or the tranq rifle.

The stun effects lasted long enough that I was able to continue to fire off another dart before he could recover, even with the slowness of the loading. It did take almost every dart I had on me before he went down.

Congrats, hagatha. Wish I had found that spot in the room! But now you can rest a bit cause you won't have another boss fight for quite some time.

Andy

Hmm. Maybe I should reload the Barrett fight just to see if I can use the stun gun, after all. I always found that he grabbed me too fast while I was trying to stun him, and after that it was game over (I am finding my controls a bit sluggish). But just using the stun gun would be so much easier than my method. Now that I've beaten the fight it might be fun to practise another, less cowardly method.

I am enjoying the next section a lot, with the alternate routes and rooftop climbing. I miss the annoying plink-plonk Hong Kong music from the original game, though.

If you do try the stun method, as soon as he's stunned, fire another dart. Keep doing that until he goes down. It pretty much keeps him planted in place and he can't move.