Apologies for the Gawker-like title, but it's a lot nicer than what I had in mind.
Deux Ex: The Fall will release exclusively to mobile devices. I've pasted the press release for those who want to avoid the site's ads:
SQUARE ENIX ANNOUNCES DEUS EX: THE FALL
The DEUS EX series continues on mobile and tablet devicesLondon (5th June, 2013) – Square Enix Ltd., the publisher of SQUARE ENIX® interactive entertainment products in Europe and other PAL territories, today announced DEUS EX: THE FALL™, the new instalment of the award winning DEUS EX® series, coming soon to mobile and tablet devices.
DEUS EX: THE FALL is set in 2027– a golden era for science, technology and human augmentation, but also a time of great social divide and global conspiracy. Powerful corporations have seized control from governments and command the drug supply needed by augmented humans to survive. In this chaos Ben Saxon, a former British SAS Mercenary who underwent physical augmentation, is desperate for the truth behind the drug conspiracy. Betrayed by his private military employers, the Tyrants, not only is his own life at risk, but for all augmented humans, time is running out...
Developed by Square Enix's Mobile division in Europe, in collaboration with the original DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION® team at Eidos-Montréal and N-Fusion, DEUS EX: THE FALL is a story driven action-RPG and the first DEUS EX in the series to be released on mobile and tablet devices. The game includes never before seen characters from the novel published by Random House, DEUS EX: THE ICARUS EFFECT, picking up directly where the book finishes.
"We're really excited to continue the DEUS EX series on mobile and start a new journey", said Jean-François Dugas, Executive Game Director at Eidos-Montréal. "The team has done an incredible job creating a whole new story and controls for intuitive touch screen gameplay, whilst staying true to the DEUS EX universe. Players can expect exploration, action, hacking, stealth, social enhancers, player choice and consequence- the full DEUS EX experience."
"Smart devices are central to Square Enix's platform strategy and we approach it with the same attention as our boxed and digital releases. DEUS EX: THE FALL is going to be testament to our commitment in delivering high quality entertainment on mobile and tablet devices," said Antony Douglas, General Manager of Square Enix Mobile.
Priced at $6.99/£4.99/5.99€, the first instalment of the mobile series will be available this summer.
DEUS EX: THE FALL will be playable at the Square Enix booth at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in the South Hall #1647.
This really didn't surprise me that much, but I was a bit amused that SE decided to move to mobile at the worst possible time. I'd given up on the franchise after the ending given to Deus Ex:HR and that absurd arcade boss battle.
Here's why:
- Deus Ex: The Fall is an action title requiring fairly quick reactions from the player.
- "Smart" devices are not smart at all; I'm stuck using a stylus most of the time and the input lag is attrocious.
- The game will release in installations over a period of time. Hell no. I'm not signing onto a subscription plan.
- Eidos is dumbing the game down to better accommodate touch screen input systems. So it's a casual Deus Ex sequel...fun. I'm not pissing on casual games, but to take a franchise and break it to fit the casual market is simply too much.
I really hope Square Enix finds their Waterloo next year and we get another THQ scenario wherein IPs get distributed to worthy publishers.
It's been particularly amusing watching Square Enix crash and burn over the last few years.
And yeah, "smart device" continues to be a hilarious misnomer (more like "gimp device").
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It still boggles my mind how Squaresoft and Enix, two companies who were downright awesome in the nineties and perhaps even early 2000s, suddenly leaped aboard this downward spiral after merging.
I'm not sure what the problem is. I can definetely seea Deus Ex game that can work for the phone. If they make it less of an action shooter and more stealth based, they could make something like what République is trying to do, and it would definetely fit in with the rest of the series.
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I still can't get over how the original Deus Ex, with its boxy, antiquated graphics, is still a better game than the more recent Deus Ex: Human Revolution. =P
I think the last SE game that I really enjoyed was FFIX (though I enjoyed Chrono Cross which was released a year earlier MUCH more). Tablet games have never been my thing, and the Missing Link DLC for DE:HR was a big disappointment, so I'm not sad I'll miss this release.
I'm not sure when the business model shifted, but Orthos is spot on - the two companies were pillars of awesome back in the 16 + 32 bit generations and they've been in sharp decline over the last decade.
It's a shame. I can't imagine how more games like Chrono Cross would be a bad thing.
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It's a shame. I can't imagine how more games like Chrono Cross would be a bad thing.
I remember the buzz back in 2000-2001 when SE copyrighted the name "Chrono Break". I'm still irked to this day that nothing came of it, and the copyright was even eventually dropped.
CC and its predecessor Chrono Trigger are to this day among my top-ten Square games ever, and CT is definitely in my top-ten (or even top-five) games ever period. CC is certainly in the top twenty if not top ten.
Not sure why your touting Chrono Cross as some good game. That game was s$!%.
Because we enjoyed it a lot? (Not as much as CT mind, in my case, but still it as fun.) Why else?
Not sure why your touting Chrono Cross as some good game. That game was s~$+.
Because it was an excellent game. Excellent battle system, excellent music, beautiful, lots of places to explore...
Ah, and I hadn't reached my quota of entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage today.
Only on the Paizo forums (well, and the rest of the internet) will you find people who call the release of a game with a Metacritic score of 90 the "worst possible time" for a franchise.
As if releasing a mobile title is going to kill the franchise.
It's like some of you don't even remember Deus Ex 2.
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Yes, because metacritic reviewers who score games are in no way payed off by game companies to promote their material.
Just look at this
Seriously, most of the games differ so wildly in metacritic vs. user score that i have stopped looking at metacritic scores when looking up games. Most of the games they say suck, people love. Most of the games that they say are awesome people hate with a vengeance.
Yes, because metacritic reviewers who score games are in no way payed off by game companies to promote their material.
Evidence or retract. This is laughably false, and you should be ashamed for repeating something so asinine as though it were true. You're just a video game conspiracy theorist.
Just look at this
You mean professional reviewers tend to give reasonable scores for games while internet nerds with hilariously inflamed opinions flood an online user review site with literally over 1,000 reviews with a score of 0?
Astonishing.
This isn't the case of reviewers being corporate shills (hahaha). This is just a perfect illustration of how awful the gaming community is, and why review sites like Metacritic should not provide them with an outlet to make their voice heard. Gamers, as a group, do not deserve to have a voice. They are not responsible, they are not level-headed, and they are not mature enough to justify being heard.
Seriously, most of the games differ so wildly in metacritic vs. user score that i have stopped looking at metacritic scores when looking up games.
"Most homeopathy advocates and actual doctors differ so wildly in their opinions of modern medicine that I have stopped listening to medical professionals when dealing with a medical emergency."
Given the choice between professionals and idiot amateurs, you've chosen to listen to the idiots. The worst part is that you're probably proud of this. You probably think it means you're smart.
Is it possible for me to be bummed that Deus Ex is moving to tablets and not be entitled?
As long as you understand that it's not "moving" to tablets, just getting a title on them. Assuming they keep investing in the franchise, it will get more PC and console releases.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Krensky.
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A fun screencap. As of right now, the negative votes are over 12k. Have a look.
This thread makes me want to cry :-(. If I were a meaner moderator, I'd lock the thread and delete it and pretend this weren't all true.
Any word on the rumored DE movie that was in the works?
I looked up Metacritic scores for the Deus Ex franchise (limited to PC offerings):
Deus Ex: Critic - 90; User - 9.4
Deus Ex: Invisible War: Critic - 80; User - 6.2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Critic - 90; User - 8.3
Based on the critic's scores, they still viewed the second game generally favorably - while there was a much more mixed set of user reviews.
I love how an assortment of text can be seen as "foam flecked ranting" and a genuine complaint about the direction of a franchise can be labeled "entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage".
Because this doesn't represent a "direction" for the franchise. They're not switching to a mobile-only franchise. They're releasing a single mobile platform game, and that's awesome because it would be pretty great to have more core gaming titles available for mobile platforms.
It's entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage because the reason these people are engaging in the foam-flecked ranting is that they want a PC title and not a tablet title, despite the fact that they just got one a year and a half ago. Being "genuine" doesn't change the fact that it's overly-entitled; a six year-old might genuinely want another ice cream cone, but it doesn't make him any less of a brat for throwing a temper tantrum over being told he can't have two in one day.
This shows part of an issue with metacritic
The top game of 2007 (based solely on critic score) was Out of the Park Baseball 2007 - but this was based on only five critic reviews. The user ratings have then been perverted with people taking offence at a baseball simulation sitting on the 2nd spot of all time - downrating the user score.
So both the critic score and the user score can be swayed due to various factors.
I love how an assortment of text can be seen as "foam flecked ranting" and a genuine complaint about the direction of a franchise can be labeled "entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage".Because this doesn't represent a "direction" for the franchise. They're not switching to a mobile-only franchise. They're releasing a single mobile platform game, and that's awesome because it would be pretty great to have more core gaming titles available for mobile platforms.
It's entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage because the reason these people are engaging in the foam-flecked ranting is that they want a PC title and not a tablet title, despite the fact that they just got one a year and a half ago.
More resources will be devoted if this deviation sells comparatively better than a standard PC/console release. Then we can expect a delay in the next proper release--if they choose to make one. Let's say they do: they won't want to miss out on additional mobile-platform cash, so they opt to use the same "streamlined" approach for the PC/console platform. And that is a new direction.
This shows part of an issue with metacritic
The top game of 2007 (based solely on critic score) was Out of the Park Baseball 2007 - but this was based on only five critic reviews. The user ratings have then been perverted with people taking offence at a baseball simulation sitting on the 2nd spot of all time - downrating the user score.
So both the critic score and the user score can be swayed due to various factors.
With that in mind, two of the five were GameSpy and PC Gamer, neither of which were small-time. Its 97 was probably well-deserved (or close to it). There are, without question, many times more problems with user review aggregates than with professional review aggregates.
More resources will be devoted if this deviation sells comparatively better than a standard PC/console release. Then we can expect a delay in the next proper release--if they choose to make one. Let's say they do: they won't want to miss out on additional mobile-platform cash, so they opt to use the same "streamlined" approach for the PC/console platform. And that is a new direction.I love how an assortment of text can be seen as "foam flecked ranting" and a genuine complaint about the direction of a franchise can be labeled "entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage".Because this doesn't represent a "direction" for the franchise. They're not switching to a mobile-only franchise. They're releasing a single mobile platform game, and that's awesome because it would be pretty great to have more core gaming titles available for mobile platforms.
It's entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage because the reason these people are engaging in the foam-flecked ranting is that they want a PC title and not a tablet title, despite the fact that they just got one a year and a half ago.
If they are able to be more successful in the mobile market than the PC/console market, why shouldn't they move in that direction?
If they are able to be more successful in the mobile market than the PC/console market, why shouldn't they move in that direction?More resources will be devoted if this deviation sells comparatively better than a standard PC/console release. Then we can expect a delay in the next proper release--if they choose to make one. Let's say they do: they won't want to miss out on additional mobile-platform cash, so they opt to use the same "streamlined" approach for the PC/console platform. And that is a new direction.I love how an assortment of text can be seen as "foam flecked ranting" and a genuine complaint about the direction of a franchise can be labeled "entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage".Because this doesn't represent a "direction" for the franchise. They're not switching to a mobile-only franchise. They're releasing a single mobile platform game, and that's awesome because it would be pretty great to have more core gaming titles available for mobile platforms.
It's entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage because the reason these people are engaging in the foam-flecked ranting is that they want a PC title and not a tablet title, despite the fact that they just got one a year and a half ago.
Because the traditional Deus Ex gameplay will suffer. That very gameplay is the reason for its success. This isn't about gamers trying to "fight progress", but rather the potential butchering of a franchise.
What I don't particularly like about metacritic scores is the attribution of a numeric of 100 to a letter score of A or a 5 star score - which I think tends to inflate the number for a metacritic review.
If you compare universally acclaimed games, the user scores tend to be about 10 to 15% lower - which I think is partially due to that numerical distortion.
I'd still hold that both sides of the review coin have merit, and both can give distorted views of what to expect in a game (be it content or general 'good' ness).
If they are able to be more successful in the mobile market than the PC/console market, why shouldn't they move in that direction?
Putting on my corporate hat - yes, as a business they should exploit that. Go where the money is and mobile definitely has potential to reach more consumers, etc, etc.
Putting on my gamer hat - I'd be saddened by that, though to me it's not about the games that they do make... but more the games that they won't be making because their focus is elsewhere.
Yes, making one mobile game doesn't mean they won't make deeper more strategic games in the future... but it does mean that they are committing resources to making a mobile game rather than console / PC.
Given that Square Enix seems to be laying off people recently rather than hiring... I don't see it as 'nerd rage' to express a concern as to what the future holds.
Krensky - you're right, that was a mis-shapen statement on my part.
The press release looks interesting, but tablet touch controls are what predominately have me worried. Tablet games are more limited than a full PC or console release would have been - that's what I was meant to be meaning.
Deus Ex: The Fall will be available soon for iPad 2, iPhone 4S and iPod Touch 5 and above for the price of $6.99 - from the press release.
So the game will need to be playable on a 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display. I'd state with resonable confidence that touch based controls will be the primary means of control rather than aftermarket controllers (the Deus Ex: The Fall website states as much).
They also suggest in different wordings that it won't be watered down - and will be a full 'Deus Ex' experience... which seems to indicate that they'll be trying to make a similar experience to Human Revolution.
Maybe they'll blow my mind completely and I'll finally need to buy an upgraded iPad... but my simian brain is struggling to fathom how touch based controls will be an intuitive and easy to use as a mouse and keyboard combo without significantly compromising the gameplay speed or fluency.
That said - bring on E3 when the masses will get a hands-on and there'll be some more information floating about.
If you compare universally acclaimed games, the user scores tend to be about 10 to 15% lower - which I think is partially due to that numerical distortion.
I think it's probably due to the fact that most major releases have nearly 100 user reviews throwing scores of 2, 1, or 0 at them. Many have hundreds. No professional reviewer in their right mind would give Bioshock a 2/10, but dozens of internet nerds did.
I'd still hold that both sides of the review coin have merit, and both can give distorted views of what to expect in a game (be it content or general 'good' ness).
User reviews have precious little merit, and the distortion in user reviews is many times worse than in professional reviews.
User review score aggregates are a terrible way to determine whether you will enjoy a particular game. Absolutely awful. What they actually are useful for is determining how controversial the game is in the internet gamer community. That's all.
Scott - I appreciate that it is your opinion that user reviews have no merit. But it isn't one that I share.
Bioshock Metacritic - 414 positive, 60 mixed and 84 negative.
84 out of 558 makes it basically 15% that gave a negative review.
Of the critics - 44 reviews total, of which 14 were credited with a full 100% score. That makes it 32% of total reviews - of which roughly a third said 10/10, a third had A grades and a third had dead links from metacritic. Average that out it makes... roughly 15% that had an A grade bumped directly to 100.
All I'm saying is that we're both right.
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Ah, and I hadn't reached my quota of entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage today.
And there's the day's first "If you disagree with something, you're an entitled, whining, elitist nerd rager". You even beat Scott to the punch. Well done, sir!
Ah, and I hadn't reached my quota of entitled, whining, elitist nerd rage today.And there's the day's first "If you disagree with something, you're an entitled, whining, elitist nerd rager". You even beat Scott to the punch. Well done, sir!
Come on. You're not being labeled "entitled" merely for disagreeing with something. It's what you disagree with, and why you disagree with it that makes you a target for that label.
Scott - I appreciate that it is your opinion that user reviews have no merit. But it isn't one that I share.
Bioshock Metacritic - 414 positive, 60 mixed and 84 negative.
84 out of 558 makes it basically 15% that gave a negative review.
Perfect example.
Of 414 user reviews, 84 were negative.
Of 44 professional reviews, 0 were negative.
What is more likely, here? That Bioshock is merely an okay game and that professional reviewers all conspired together to unanimously praise it while user reviewers found the real truth? Or that Bioshock is a legitimately excellent game (which reviewers all noticed, because they're not idiots), and that the internet is full of people who will crap all over a game because they didn't like one of its minigames?
Of the critics - 44 reviews total, of which 14 were credited with a full 100% score. That makes it 32% of total reviews - of which roughly a third said 10/10, a third had A grades and a third had dead links from metacritic. Average that out it makes... roughly 15% that had an A grade bumped directly to 100.
All I'm saying is that we're both right.
No, what you're saying is that 15% of user reviewers took a dump on the game, and that 15% of professional reviewers gave it their equivalent of a perfect score, and that these ought to cancel each other out for some reason (because giving a universally acclaimed video game a perfect score is somehow illegitimate or something?). That is not true. It presupposes that the opinion of a random person is worth that of a professional reviewer (it isn't), and that reactionary opinions are worth the same as well-considered opinions (they aren't).
And if your point is that getting bumped from an 'A' to a 100% is too favorable to a game, the fact that some fraction of 15% of reviews received a 5% score bump (from 95% to 100%) does not mathematically cancel out 15% of user reviewers giving it a rating of "total butt".
I will happily acknowledge that professional review aggregates are imperfect. But they're very close, and they don't need to be perfect to be useful for their intended purpose (which is to help you decide whether or not to purchase the game). User review aggregates, on the other hand, are so fundamentally flawed as to be useless for deciding whether or not to buy a game, and can potentially be harmful to that decision-making process if they are given anywhere near equal weight to professional reviews.
User review aggregates are terrible. Professional review aggregates are useful.
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Come on. You're not being labeled "entitled" merely for disagreeing with something. It's what you disagree with, and why you disagree with it that makes you a target for that label.
Predictable behaviour is predictable. If "you" were less rage-filled in your disagreement of people that disagree with stuff, "oh here comes Scott" would be much less of a thing around here. :p
I get that it's "cool" to yell at people for being unhappy at something, and sometimes it's even justified. But most of the times it's just a little sad.
Either way, I think complaining about people complaining about people complaining is waaay too meta for this early in the morning. :)
Personally, I don't think this is a good direction to take the franchise, if that is indeed what they are doing. I haven't been following this news. It wouldn't be the first time a gaming franchise spawned a spin-off browser game or phone game or whatever, so if that's what this is, I don't think it's a big deal. If this is SquareEnix going "Deus Ex will for ever and ever be exclusive for the smartphone market!" then I rather enjoyed DX3 and can accept that it's the last game in the franchise. I've spend a lot of years with DX2 as the last game of the series. ;)
No skin off my nose.
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Scott - I think I know what I'm trying to say... the question is whether the medium of the internet is letting that get through without distortion, and whether you're actually trying honestly to hear it. You seem intent to try and tear my argument apart... when I'm not actually arguing with you on much at all.
All I'm saying is that user reviews are not useless (neither the aggregates nor the individual comments) - and when taken with the appropriate grain of salt can be just as useful as the 'Professional' reviews are.
Embrace the grey here - the world isn't all black and white.
But at the end of the day - just a tad off topic. As I said upthread, cautious and concerned - but awaiting E3 to shed a bit more light on exactly how the game in question will play.
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Of 44 professional reviews, 0 were negative.
Personally, if I wasn't such a positive ray of sunshine I'd find that a little suspicious. Professional reviewers are so uniform that not even a single one of them didn't find Bioshock to their fancy? What are the odds? (I mean, if the internet is any indication, even if the game was picture perfect someone would invariably hate it just to be contraire.)
I'm certainly not cloned from professional reviewer DNA, so my opinion may not be valid, but I didn't particular enjoy (the original) Bioshock. The story and atmosphere was great, but I found the actual game mechanics clunky and un-fun. I'd be a little suspicious of anyone claiming that Bioshock was the best shooter ever made. Let alone if every professional reviewer reached the same conclusion.
Also, didn't we have the user reviews are useless/great discussion already? I'll wager that if we dug up that thread, everyone would be saying the exact same thing they are saying now.
If anyone is bothering to pay attention, it's well known that as SE has moved to their mobile platform strategy, their fortunes have fallen (including change-outs of senior management).
Again - widely reported, including places like IGN. SE has had recent problems, and this recent mobile move is cause for concern.
And yeah - showing up and spouting off such nonsense as "elitist", "entitled", "whining", etc just makes you an a*$~&+#. Stop.
It's like some of you don't even remember Deus Ex 2.
It got a metacritic score of 80. What are you talking about? (And if people think a little harder about the above statement, there's something terribly amusing going on here...)
More resources will be devoted if this deviation sells comparatively better than a standard PC/console release. Then we can expect a delay in the next proper release--if they choose to make one. Let's say they do: they won't want to miss out on additional mobile-platform cash, so they opt to use the same "streamlined" approach for the PC/console platform. And that is a new direction.Then don't buy it. In the meanwhile stop whining like a petulant child. Expressing hope that Square will go under so 'proper publishers' can pick over its bones is offensive and ignorant.
Square's only made three serious mistakes this generation. Project Slipheed's mission design, FFIXIV, and the pacing in the beginning, not the whole game mind you, but the beginning of FFXIII. Well, and the continual ignoring of Front Mission.
Every single complaint you raised is either premature or ridiculous.
Then don't buy it. This is exactly why I created the thread, because I won't be buying it. Because they [Square Enix/Eidos] have shifted their target demographic away from a large portion of Deus Ex fans. They plan to move a successful title to a mobile non-gaming platform (maybe only as a test, initially) and that is why this news is fairly disturbing. If they were creating some sort of Deus Ex-meets-Xcom EU hybrid, I'd actually be tempted to buy it. As it stands, mobile devices simply aren't ready for action titles, because of their inherent limitations; if I've got to buy adapters and accessories, what was the advantage in moving to mobile?
How are any of these concerns ridiculous?
As for being premature, well why not? If we wait and endure publisher hype and marketing before forming an opinion, when will we have an opportunity to express our dislike? When the prepurchases are already sold? When the company feels justified in their migration to mobile, despite financial indications otherwise? Sorry, but I just can't see how early opinions are a bad thing.
Has anyone tried the Mass Effect Infiltrator mobile game?
It's actually more interesting to see why they're making this game. As has been well-reported, Eidos Montreal has had enormous problems making THIEF 4, including apparently two complete resets of the development process and a lot of publisher interference (the fact that the current iteration of the game 'looks very DISHONORED-ish' probably reflects that). The game is years late and still not due until 2014.
This title is probably a way for Eidos Montreal to make some money out of their existing DEUS EX assets (the game looks very similar in animation and art style to HUMAN REVOLUTION) without a vast amount of investment, and help keep things ticking over until THIEF 4 comes out and they can get to work on the next DEUS EX full title (and DE:HR was successful enough to warrant one). There is zero indication that this move means they are abandoning the consoles or PC as a platform for the DEUS EX franchise.
I still can't get over how the original Deus Ex, with its boxy, antiquated graphics, is still a better game than the more recent Deus Ex: Human Revolution. =P
I can. DEUS EX is a brilliant, even astonishing game, but it's not exactly an easily approachable one. To make HR, they had to make the game more appealing to the masses. Some streamlining, more predictable storytelling and perhaps dumbing down was necessary to achieve that. However, I think they achieved it in the best possible way. The core of the DEUS EX experience is still very much present and the theme of choice and what decisions you make is still prominent. You can see this in how players approach the decision of letting your aircraft pilot friend die or running back to save her, and how you do it.
HR's biggest failures were the boss fights, which really take that choice away from you: optimise a character for stealth or tech and you WILL struggle badly in those fights, the new WiiU version apparently completely redesigns the bosses so you can also defeat them through stealth or hacking and these changes may be ported to other versions. The three-choice ending was also quite silly, mainly because only one choice led to the world seen in DEUS EX. Whilst DEUS EX has always had those multiple endings, I actually would have preferred just the one ending as you can get away with that in a prequel to an already-established game.
HUMAN REVOLUTION is still for me a very, very good game. It's not quite as conceptually bold and impressive as the original DEUS EX, but it was developed under some limitations that made that impossible. Considering those limitations, the game was and remains excellent. I've been meaning to do a replay, but am holding out in case they do port the new version of the game back to existing players.