Everyone thinks the Deus Ex remaster looks awful and they're right: 'They really turned those 1999 graphics into 2003 graphics'
Everyone thinks the Deus Ex remaster looks awful and they're right: 'They really turned those 1999 graphics into 2003 graphics'
I’m honestly quite tired of remasters. Why can’t we see some new original games?
The original Deus Ex is this bizarre mixture of jank, camp, and sheer brilliance. So much of what made the game amazing was unintentional and contingent with the era. A remaster is never going to be able to recapture that lightning in a bottle. It’s always going to be soulless.
TBH I am happy they're remastering some older games. I missed out on a lot of stuff because I was doing other things when a lot of highly regarded games came out (sold my PS1 to buy crack). So I've recently got a steam deck and played bioshock - really enjoyed it - and system shock is in my queue. I'm not sure I'd have been so keen to try them if they'd had the original graphics, that shit looks so dated now. But yeah, maybe they're taking the remaster thing a bit too far.
The Enhanced Edition for System Shock makes it perfectly suitable for anyone used to FPS controls, the "remaster" changes so much that it is hardly the same game.
The original Deus Ex is perfectly playable today as long as you follow a guide to get it patched up and configured for a modern system. Plus it runs at a rock steady frame rate on any PC today, whereas it didn’t at the time of release (it was very laggy, buggy, and crashed a lot).
The game is definitely meant for mouse and keyboard though. You need some very high precision aiming and a steady hand to cope with the scope wobble (unless you train to master level).
yo my dad sold my ps1 to buy crack, so same basically.
There's never been such an abundance of games and consoles as there is now. There are more games than anyone could ever play, both new and old. Releasing another poorly made remaster doesn't mean no ones making new original games. I don't think there hasn't been a year I didn't play an original, engaging and creative new video game. It's literally the golden age of gaming.
I really liked Human Revolution.
Never finished Mankind Divided though
Never finished Mankind Divided though
Neither did Eidos-Montréal, apparently.
Mankind Divided was the best Deus Ex since the original tbh. Such a shame that we'll never get a sequel.
I played some of Human Revolution but I didn’t like the grind-factor (nor did I like the weird forced boss fights).
The original Deus Ex was so beautiful for the way you gained exploration and progress experience for finding secrets and accomplishing goals. Replacing that with a more “RPG-like” system that rewards hacking every single computer and doing non-lethal takedowns on every single enemy totally ruined it for me.
I'm not sure it's going to be soulless, but the problem is that the main premise is the government of highly competent psychopaths manufactures an emergency to gain total power, while the population withers. A cautionary tale, if you will.
The thing is that in reality, the government of highly incompetent psychopaths is gaining total power absolutely unopposed, while half the population applauds.
That would make the remake sound positively cozy.
The original game has plenty of characters who are true believers in the government lie: the UNATCO soldiers, the mech agents, and even multiple civilians who either work for or support the government.
The main resistance force, the NSF (Northwest Sessionist Forces), is pretty controversial among the public. People seem to be split between viewing them as terrorists or heroes. Not unlike the way people view antifa in real life!
When the game came out it was very accurate. The vast majority of people distrusted the state, but now they have the algorithms.
Capitalism. Remasters are easy money. Originals are risky investments. It's always about the money.
Also the original Deus Ex is not easy for non-techie games to just pick up and play. Unless you own old hardware (collector nerds) or you can negotiate the jank on modern hardware (techie nerds) then many old titles are just not accessible.
I think a game like Deus Ex that people still talk about as a classic deserve remasters.
And who knows, maybe Deus Ex has to look like shit in order to be itself? It’s not supposed to be a remake; a remaster just means 1) works on modern hardware, with modern controllers/OSes and 2) most if not all game mechanics, plot lines, level designs, etc feel and play as they originally did, with the exception that there might be some bug fixes or QoL changes to prevent things that are universally agreed upon as being bad/unnecessary.
What I’m getting at is - is it Deus Ex if it doesn’t look janky and weird?
Making something new means taking a risk. Maybe it won't sell well. So it's more beneficial to profits to re-make something that has already proven its worth.
That's how modern AAA devs operate. That's why every AAA game in a franchise feels pretty much the same. And that's why indie and AA games are far superior.
"AAA" gaming began as a reference to the "AAA" creditworthiness rating, meaning (essentially) "certain to repay the loan" // "certain to earn more than the development costs" (contrarespectively). AAA gaming has always been about the safe bet, the easy money, and the tailored to mass market design.
High budget games can only have so much ROI, so there's kind of implicitly a limit on how much risk is tolerable for investors/publishers. Meanwhile, a game that costs a few million (or even less) could be the next big success, and rake in a massive sum - enough to justify its own budget in addition to many failed attempts to craft a star.
Even more risky is indie gaming, where the cost of development is provided by crazy people that want to produce "fun", and gain money as some kind of (important) side effect. That's where you get the wild "no one (in the know) would expect this to work" ideas, and most of them do fail, just as expected. The ones that are good enough to make it are by nature surprisingly good - indeed, this surprise is why publishers won't go after the same concept under most conditions.
It goes from early PS2 graphics to mid PS2 graphics
Wrapped plastic - not fantastic.
Everything's got that wet toy sheen. Wow, so realistic. Much specular.
everybody knows shiny = real.
That game was never about the visuals anyway.
You don't play OG deus ex for the graphics or... Combat tbh, but this seems like a half ass coat of paint instead of anything of real substance. You can already play Deus ex on modern hardware so I don't know what you're really getting here.
idk all the og graphics look pretty dog ass as someone who didnt play the original, just from the reference they used it looks significantly better. more depth, texture, resolution, shadows, reflections, and contrast. i dont really see it being too "shiny" it just looks like there is now light lmao.
seriously though that original character looks awful and kinda terrifying. what games can you not play on modern hardware though? what more would you want from it?
We already have mods like GMDX (moddb/GOG). Also you need better specs to run it than Mankind Divided. It's going to suck.
better specs to run it than Mankind Divided
Guess I'll stay content with the old one.
i mean that mod does change the game completely though lol, and the graphics are just not the same. i also feel like 90% of the target audience can run 4 instances of mankind divided at once. it ran on the PS4 and XB1, which came out 12 years ago. the remaster is literally getting released on the switch.
most of the complaints ive read have been unfounded remarks about them just using ai to retexture everything, or recommending mods that are in no way equal to the remaster. what would make it better though, in your opinion?
"Support for multi-monitor and ultra-wide displays, auto saves, achievements, cloud saves, and more quality-of-life features are confirmed to be included." sounds pretty nice to me, and reading over their goals it appears to be a very legitimate remaster.
less jank, better looking (obviously a hot take of mine, reading peoples bitter comments) and the opportunity for millions of people to experience the game for the first time without taking time to learn how to mod the game just to get a subpar experience.
I wouldn't say no to oblivion remaster treatment. Completely new models and environments in a new engine, while running the old game logic.
Right now it really does look like they remastered it to in 2007 and are releasing it now.
I think its more sad they're doing a remaster and not putting more effort into it.
Honestly I rather have Nightdive studios remake it
I demand a reremake
holy shit that looks bad.
If you have deus ex through steam, you can also get revision through steam and revision looks pretty good in my opinion.
All my fears came true when I saw it wasn't Nightdive doing it. Nightdive wouldn't have changed shit mechanically, they would have just incorporated GMDX/Revision textures.
Shiny.
I know the headline references it, but it's amazing how much it looks like Invisible War.
I recently replayed IW and the overall looks just seem so much more... coherent? I guess? It's hard to describe but in comparison the Remaster looks like it's assets from different games merged into one.
I wonder if they're still dealing with engine limitations? Not excusing them, because the feedback is actually on point if you see the screenshots/trailer. But I'm wondering if there's a poly count limit or something.
They're clearly bolting on the graphical improvements on top of this antiquated engine, rather than rewriting it. I wonder if they need to "trick" the engine (like with RTX Remix, where the game isn't "aware" of the changes).
These are the recommended system requirements. Not sure what they are doing behind the scenes but they are absolutely ridiculous for a game of this scope.
It's even dumber: look at the minimum requirements, too. The insane difference between the minimum and recommended tell me that it's the original engine with a ton of shit bolted on top.
That's the only reason they'd recommend a 2080 or above -- just sheer brute force. I hope I'm wrong, but I smell an unoptimized rerelease. Someone mentioned this studio remastered a Star Wars game (I forget which) and apparently it didn't go well.
We needed Nightdive studios for this.
Windows 11
Get the fuck right out of here with that shit
Is it running on UE5 or what?
except its also releasing on switch lmao. maybe that version is gonna be way worse, or MAYBE the recommendations are overestimated to not get peoples hopes up. who knows, seriously, i wouldnt be so cynical yet though.
I don't think so. They're quite cheap when it comes to knocking these out, and didn't have a higher poly model to go off like they did with Tomb Raider or Soul Reaver.
I'm still salty over how many tweaks they could have made to improve that and didn't bother.
I bet there's modpacks out there that make the game look 100 times better than this remaster.
One of them is even linked in the article lol
That's really a shame. Deus Ex deserves a full ground up remake.
I said when they put the trailer out that it didn't look any better than the Revision mod and I got shit for it.
Aspyr doing their usual...
Useless like most of remasters
you are speaking like that is fact rather than opinion. what would make it "useful" for you though? i understand not caring for remasters personally but that is a pretty insane blanket statement to me.
the original is 25 fucking years old now, this brings the game to an entire new generation, new consoles, etc. and provides those with nostalgia to relive what they remember. if you think the OG deus ex looks good in the slightest you are way too deep in nostalgia. no depth, no shadows, and barely any contrast though 🔥
i mean no one has even tried it yet, how in the hell can you say its bad already?
Somethingsomethingsomething UNATCO? 😶
HACKED.
This really needs an Elder Scrolls Oblivion-style remake. Use the original engine for everything except graphics, and remake only the graphics part (and the contact surface between the visual and original engines).
At what point are companies going to chase free advertising like this? Seems like an easy way to farm good will by pulling a sonic and putting out bad/early art, then replacing with final assets later?
The management of the Deus Ex franchise has been bungled and set up for failure so many times. But this is definitely the most egregious one yet.
Its getting controller support so im excited for it
This might not be too bad if they improved the controls. Deus ex is such a good game outside of the N64 era PC controls.
Yeah, but 2003 graphics are an improvement on 1999 graphics.
That may be true but it's really not worth the effort if it comes with the loss of the original aesthetics and art direction IMO.
There should be exactly the toggle that the article asks for given this criticism. I don't know how likely it is, because it seems like whatever engine they fed this game into just handles lighting very differently. Deus Ex is a great game, but I'm personally of the opinion that it's quite ugly, and just about anything you do to the graphics are an improvement. The mod that the article compares it to doesn't look better, just slightly different. In either case, the reason that both look better than the original, and why we pulled out the year 2003, is that the technology in cutting edge graphics didn't really change until mid-to-late 2004, and the advancements in between were basically just more polygons and better textures, which is all you can reasonably expect in a remaster. More than that is a lot more work and gets you into remake territory.
Then we should be paying for this like it’s a 2003 game. Two bucks.
Hey, that's fair. If you already have the old version of the game, this one's going to have limited appeal for you, most likely. As is the case with most remasters.
The excuse doesn't work well when "retro 3D" games are actively being made by indie devs today.
As long as it's a uniform aesthetic aimed for and achieved by the devs, it can survive a long time. I'd say just as much of GTA: SA and a lot of Nintendo games.
It also goes to show that a lot of tactical/modern Xbox / 360 games never really had any stylistic imitators in the modern era, and for good reason.
What excuse? I was stating an objective fact.
Yeah, I never played the original. But it doesn't look good. This looks polished, but still retro. I'm actually interested in trying it out.
They really aren’t.
I didn't ask for this.
The original looks fine; it's gone from 'okay for 2000', through to 'dated' and back to 'retro charm' again. Plus you can turn up the resolution and fps to silly levels, which wasn't the originally intended effect but is pretty nice.
All early 3D games look so bad that the slight year-on-year improvements are nearly irrelevant now. A hideous AI texture 'upgrade' doesn't bring it to to modern standards, and distracts from the truly amazing game behind it all.
The funny thing is the original is only playable with fan patches so technically I can see demand for a remaster. They just really fumbled this in a weird way.
as in "it does not work on Win 10"?
Because I found it playable, myself. It was on Win 7, if I remember correctly.
Ok, Adam
What a shame.
My first thought. I still regularly see the original in top 10 lists to this day. Not sure who asked for this.
you just answered yourself, idk what is wrong with people lmao. why do they feel the need to complain about everything.
As a fan of Brutalmoose’s retro streams, this is an affront
I like them as well, I just wish he wouldn't include games for literal toddlers... Nobody can make that shit interesting.
where do you get the "ai" part at? i see no reference to that or evidence, maybe im blind though.