As noted elsewhere, I've been tired
lately. I haven't been able to accomplish much and that's made it so
I have an increasing amount of things I need to accomplish, which
means that I haven't really been able to justify, to myself, setting
aside time for something like playing a bit of Deus Ex.
Most of what I've written has been the
sort of thing I can quickly bang out in response to something I read
or thought or whatnot. Except for the "quickly" part, but it feels
like it will be quick regardless. Also, I've had a sort of
permaheadache that's made it somewhat hard to think.
On top of that, I'm not sure what I
want to do with this next section. I think that I want to give the
bit after it, your final test, its own post. But then that doesn't
leave a lot here.
One would think that I could write
quite a bit on the subject of Anna but I'm not sure that's true. We
meet four mechs in Deus Ex. One, Sam Carter, seems to be a mech for
medical reasons (parts of his body were replaced because they had
been lost.) The three remaining ones represent a sort of moral
spectrum. On the one end we have Jordan Shea who seems to be a
decent human being, and who is retired. You don't get to see her
methods or style, you're left guessing on a paucity of evidence
stemming from the fact that she got out of the business. Which may
say more about her than seeing her in action would, but it's
essentially extrapolation based on negative information.
Gunther occupies a sort of middle spot.
His methods are lethal, perhaps even draconian, and he's managed to
rack up a higher body count than even Anna, but that's not coming from
a position of sadism or bloodlust, it's largely coming from a
position of corrupted good intentions. Gunther views the world with
a black and white morality and functions as one might expect an
action movie star to function. There are good guys, there are bad
guys, and the solution is for the good guys to shoot the bad guys.
We never really get an opportunity to
see what he does when there are also innocents involved, but I have a
feeling that that category exists for him.
That gives one a lot to say about
Gunther, even if there were nothing else (and there is a fair degree
of other stuff) there would still be stuff to say about him just
because his character (as in ethos, not as in the fact he is a
fictional character) is at odds with his actions. There is
dissonance there even if he never grasps that fact.
Anna is out beyond Gunther. She's
simply not a nice person. While Gunther has more kills Anna is the
one we see counting hers up. While Gunther's violence seems to be in
the service of a cause, for Anna the violence seems to be her cause.
If you get the job done without killing a lot of people she'll
conclude that your styles are incompatible. She'll be the one
telling you kill someone who already surrendered, and point out after
he's dead that the lack of witnesses means it can be covered up
however you see fit. She'll be the one tells you that teaching (bad)
people a lethal lesson is more important than rescuing hostages.
She's the one who revels in violence.
And so there's not a lot there. She's
evil. What more can you say?
Depending on how much non-game material
you're willing to accept there might actually be something to say.
There is some talk that Anna has ties to Israel but I think the
original source to that has been lost (I believe it was an online
thing) and while I'm told the strategy guide has some background on
it I know that the strategy guide has information that is so very
wrong it makes me wonder both who wrote it and what substances they
were under the influence of when they did so. (Why the thing you
have to pay for has information of a lower quality than the stuff
that the company released for free on the internet is somewhat lost
on me.)
So Anna might be involved with Israel.
And if you take the continuity bible at face value, and given that it
doesn't have any glaring errors and is contemporaneous with the game
I see no reason not to, then Israel was destroyed 30 years before the
game takes place. Put those two things together and you have the
potential for an interesting story in which Anna's present state is
in part due to a once complex and not-evil character becoming
game-Anna via a troubled and difficult life spent in exile after her
homeland was destroyed.
But that's barely above random
guessing. We don't have Anna's story. All that we really get of it
in the game is where it ends. And where it ends isn't a terribly
interesting place. She's evil. Whatever complexity and humanity she
might have had has been burned away in the untold story that came
before.
So, that's Anna, and she's going to
guide you though the stealth portion of this training and there's not
much.
Before I get to what actually happens,
I do want to point something out: I love this game. The only
comment the last post got was one saying I was being too hard on it,
I think that's probably because it's hard not to snark at a training
mission. Don't forget to left click is hard to take seriously. At
the same time, there has been stuff to talk about here and I think
it's worth looking at, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it.
A big part of the reason I'm doing
this, and definitely part of the reason that I'm writing this post
right now when I have so many other more pressing things going on in
my life, is that I wanted to reconnect with something I liked. Deus
Ex and .hack//Sign are both things that I've had strong lasting
emotional connections to and more than that the connections are
overwhelmingly positive. That's not something I can say about a lot
of things.
I very much love this game, and part of
the reason that I'm not shy about picking apart this or that mistake,
oversight, or imperfection is that I think the game can take it. It
has flaws, it could have been better, but it stands up to whatever
level of scrutiny you want to level at it.
Ok, onto the actual training
mission.
The stealth section is something that I
can see working as a real life test, at least in theory if not in the
exact way that it's presented. The reason for this is simple: it
actually makes sense. Since the goal is stealth there is no need to
throw around explosives, or blow up robots, or fire weapons while
your skills are magically altered.
It's a test of your ability to sneak,
so all you need to do is to sneak. Similarly all that you need to do
to run the test is get a couple of guards on patrol who will fail you if
they see you. Get through the test without being seen and you pass.
It actually makes a certain amount of sense, I think.
Now you will learn to move
quietly and conceal yourself, so that you will be able to avoid a
confrontation altogether.
For
the record, hearing that from Anna, of all people, is strange. Don't
get me wrong, she has a cloak which seems like a very stealth
oriented augmentation, but she's also Anna. I can see her, maybe,
using stealth as a means to kill someone who was heavily guarded, but
honestly I'd expect her to just kill the guards.
The test is simple. Get to the
far north door without being spotted by the guards below. If one of
them sees you, he will sound an alarm and lock the door.
Like
I said, that actually makes sense to me in a way that the other parts
of training really don't.
That
said, the fact that the guard will sound an alarm if he sees you
through the pretest observation window really doesn't. I've never had
that happen to me until a few minutes ago. Anyway, before one starts
the test one can find an item and a datacube. The item is tech
goggles. The datacube mentions tech goggles.
UNATCO STEALTH GUIDELINES
Overview
Stealth is a vital component of
all UNATCO operations; when implemented correctly, stealth missions
result in the lowest possible ratio of agent and civilian casualties
to hostile losses.
Situational awareness is key, and
agents should not only be familiar with the tactical opportunities
offered by their immediate environment, but how those opportunities
can be exploited to their advantage with the appropriate equipment.
Tech goggles allow agents to operate in low-light environments such
as offices or labs where illumination might otherwise attract
attention. With binoculars, an agent can survey an opponent's
disposition and determine the best way to evade or eliminate their
defenses. A rifle or crossbow equipped with scope and silencing
modifications can be used to interdict targets from a considerable
distance, significantly compromising hostile resistance.
Other features of the environment
can also be used by an agent to enhance their ability to operate
covertly or to create useful distractions: disabling security
cameras, subverting autoguns, and reprogramming bots are all viable
tactics employed by experienced agents in the field.
So, yay. The first time I returned to the training mission and
noticed the tech goggles I was hoping that that meant there was a
hitherto unknown way to turn of the lights in this section and use
the darkness to your advantage. No such luck.
Also, the “illumination might otherwise attract attention” may
well be a reference to the fact that your built in flashlight was
originally supposed to attract attention. In the final product it does not.
I was going to move on from there, but let me say that “interdict
targets [...] significantly compromising hostile
resistance,” is a very euphemistic way to say, “kill.”
Though the crossbow does allow for one to triumph via the use of
sedatives.
Going out into the wider test will get you some advice:
Remember: don't let the guards
see you. Use the crates for cover and crouch when you move.
The guards can be distracted.
Pick up and throw an object near them, and they will go investigate
the noise. Bottles, plants, flasks -- many things will work.
Always remember the four basic
tactics to avoid detection: crouch behind concealment, stay behind
enemies, move slowly to avoid making noise, and use shadows to
conceal yourself. Be alert to every possibility.
Those
are labeled Stealth Advice 1, 3, and 4, respectively.
The
things you'll have the best luck throwing are flasks as the level has
no bottles and the plants are of the larger don't-throw-as-far
variety.
Somehow
I don't think an out of place plant in real life would fail to arouse
suspicion. “What was that noise? Oh. It's nothing. Just a
potted plant.” That said, if you're attempting to get behind the
guard so you can knock them out, or so that you can sneak passed and
be out of that zipcode by the time they realize that they've been
distracted by a plant, it makes perfect sense.
I'm
not enough of a gamer to have opinions on shadow based stealth vs.
cover systems and whatnot, but I know that quite a few people thought
that shadow based stealth was key to the Deus Ex experience.
Now
then, were you wondering what Stealth Advice 2 was? Well, first you
have to fuck up:
You blew it. The alarm just
closed the north door. Return to the control room to the south and
press the button in the overlook window to restart the test.
Now
hang your head in shame and return to the control room in the south.
Then push the button. As you exit the control room you'll get
stealth advice 2:
This time, don't let the guards
see you. Stay crouched, stay behind the crates, and stay behind the
guards.
Thanks,
Anna. I thought I was supposed to stand in front the guards jumping
up and down and waving my arms.
Something
worth noting is that there's another item in the map you can use.
It's called thermoptic camo and it's fairly neat. Put it on,
activate it, and until it wears out you're invisible.
Integrating woven fiber-optics
and an advanced computing system, thermoptic camo can render an agent
invisible to both humans and bots by dynamically refracting light and
radar waves; however, the high power drain makes it impractical for
more than short-term use, after which the circuitry is fused and it
becomes useless.
So
I recommend using that, just because you can. Or, you could just
grab it as you sneak passed and save it for the final.
Anyway,
once you leave Anna will say this:
Very good. I hope you remember
this lesson, Agent. They have assigned us to be partners, and I will
not stop to hold your hand and repeat myself when we are facing a
real enemy.
When
I first played, and failed the stealth course the first time and had
to reset, I thought that the way she said “repeat myself” which
sounded pissed off, meant that this was in response to the fact that
I'd made her repeat herself. It's not. This is the only possible
thing she can say.
It
still works, but I liked it better when I thought it was responsive.
If you get that when you haven't made a mistake, and you do, then it
makes it clear that Anna is just saying that to be a jerk. Which...
fits her character, but I'd rather there be some other, less hostile,
thing for her to say if you did perfectly.
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I don't know if you notice comments on older posts, but if you do...
ReplyDeleteHalp. I think I'm missing some finer points of this sort of gaming. Moving around while crouched seems to take three arms and I've only got two. Press the button to crouch, the arrow key to move forward... and use the mouse to look around. Or is there some other way to accomplish this? Or am I not actually supposed to be crouching the whole time?
Also, how, if one is crawling around on the floor, is one supposed to keep track of the guards? Is there somewhere one can watch them from and figure out their routine?
I'm a bit discouraged that I can't figure out how to get past this. But then, I've always admittedly sucked at games.
I don't know if you notice comments on older posts, but if you do...
DeleteI notice all comments.
In answer to your questions.
I've just reinstalled Deus Ex and was fairly surprised to find that there wasn't a crouch mode. So my first thought is out the window. That said, there are other things to say.
Generally speaking if you crouch behind a crate the guard will walk right passed you, putting you behind them, when you're behind them they can't see you. You can, quite seriously, walk right behind them without them noticing. Running is louder than walking, so you might not want to do that, but here's something I just did that's pretty quick:
I waited in the stairs until the near guard walked bay twice (that is he was walking back toward the door I want to get through) I was planning on following him to the camo, and grabbing that when he continued further forward, but when he stopped to look in the direction of the camo I got an idea. I ran passed him (behind him) he heard me but didn't see me and so was just on alert instead of running to set the alarm, and I made it through the door.
Now waiting in the stairs was itself a little tricky because I needed enough of a view to see the guard but not enough for him to see me. So I just had a sliver of a view.
Now casually walking behind the guard most of the way is probably not what you're expected to do, but staying behind them pretty much is. So, for example, if you hide crouched behind a crate, wait until the guard walks by, and then just move to the other side of the crate so that they won't see you when they turn around, you'll be safe until the walk by again, at which point you can move to the next crate. You know they can't see you because you can see them and they're looking the other way.
Repeat until you're passed the guards and you can leave.
It's annoying and time consuming and I hate that part of training too. The way to do things described above, for example, was not from my first try. I got caught a lot.
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But then, I've always admittedly sucked at games.
I actively encourage cheating. If you have the latest patch, which I don't at the moment, you press t, backspace until it doesn't say “say” anymore, and type “set human bcheatsenabled true” and if that seems like a lot be aware that for years people didn't consider that JCDentonMale was a subclass of human and so had to write “set JCDentonMale bCheatsEnabled true” that enables cheats, then repeat the press t and delete say thing and type “binvisible true” and you can walk right through.
Just remember to set bInvisible back to false once you're passed the part that forces you into a single play style.
Oh, also, the window that overlooks the area might give you some idea of how the guards patrol.
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Also of note is that most of the time you'll be in places that have shadows. Now it can be a bit tricky, for me at least, to figure out when that applies because your vision is augmented* so you can see better in shadows than those you'll be up against, for the most part (perhaps for the entire part, I haven't checked) so just because you could see someone in a given shadow doesn't mean that others could see you if you were hiding in it. There are also air vents and multiple approach routes and so forth meaning that stealth isn't usually as annoying as trying to get through this section of training.
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*Which is why JC can wear sunglasses at night. As for why he does, well his eyes are sort of glowing blue, so covering them up is sort of useful.
Thank you! :)
DeleteI expect to spend a lot of time flailing (and failing) early on, but I think the game will be fun anyway.