Deus Ex Human Revolution EP16:Public Service

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Feb 8, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 90 comments


Link (YouTube)

Chris mentioned the Biocells from Deus Ex. (Original Flavor) One thing that always bothered me about those, was that it was never clear what JC Denton was doing with the Biocells. Was he eating these batteries? Rubbing them on his skin? Was he opening them and drinking the blue energy juice inside? Did he have a battery receptacle hidden somewhere in his body?

Also, note that Josh discovered two more glitches in this episode. The first is where the hooker and her boss failed to have their scripted argument that set up her quest. The second one is where the police mysteriously attacked Jensen when all he did was murder the subway dancer and his entourage with superheated high-velocity ball bearings. Must have been a bug.

How does the Typhoon work? Does all of the shrapnel fly out of Jensen’s body? From where? His pores? How does he keep it from reducing his clothes to washcloth-sized tatters? If it comes out of this torso, doesn’t he have to worry about it hitting his non-torso parts? Wouldn’t it be insanely dangerous to have that flying out of your body with a wall or ceiling nearby?

How often would you need a weapon like the Typoon, anyway? How often will you find yourself surrounded by foes, with no civilians or allies nearby, with a clear line of sight to the foes, yet the foes haven’t already shot your ass dead? That seems like a very, very situational weapon. You’d probably be better off saving the body space used by the Typhoon and installing a pastry oven instead. Or maybe a pencil sharpener. No, hang on. How about a candy bar dispenser?

 


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90 thoughts on “Deus Ex Human Revolution EP16:Public Service

  1. River says:

    I found good use for the Typhoon for that one job in China, the one where your supposed to talk to the guy while surrounded by his buddies i went straight to the action and used the typhoon. I did NOT want to be the guy who had to clean THAT mess up.

  2. Nyctef says:

    If I remember right, the Typhoon shoots out of those holes in Adam’s trenchcoat. They’re stylish *and* functional! :)

    Edit: you can see them pretty clearly at 19:00

    Also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmg237m9YpQ&feature=channel_video_title

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      What?Thats awesome!I didnt know you can do that.

    2. Kyte says:

      http://eidosmontreal.tumblr.com/post/16175096092/so-does-adams-coat-auto-regenerate-after-using-the

      There’s the answer, straight from the devs. They’re also pretty obvious in both Jensen’s coat and body armor in the background pic.

      1. Zukhramm says:

        What if his coat is just slightly off, not aligning the holes with the typhoon. Do the bombs get stuck in his coat and kill him?

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            How would they work?

  3. Mormegil says:

    The holes in his trenchcoat are apparently attached by magnets to the barrel ends of the typhoon so he never shreds his clothes.

    The problems with just firing the typhoon are hinted at with the emails in Tai Yong Medical where they are trying to develop their own version based on the plans stolen by the hacker.

    As far as how practical the weapon is? Ummmm…. I got nothing. It’s a suicide vest that leaves the user alive. Can’t be used in a team, can’t be used near civilians, depletes energy, doesn’t seem to be massively more deadly than the revolver with explosive rounds.

    1. Even says:

      I’d imagine somesort of spec ops could get a lot of out of it either as a weapon of terror or as a panic button. In conjunction with other augs, like the stealth aug, you could really mess things up for people. Out in a battlefield, the psychological effect alone would be devastating. You’d have to be constantly paranoid about walking stealth bombers.

    2. Kyte says:

      Invisibility, Silent Running (if you feel like it), Typhoon right in the middle of the group.

      That is all.

    3. Hal says:

      You know, I always wondered about that. Secret project for the military, not yet ready to roll out to the world. Adam has one of the few prototypes.

      So why is there ammo for this thing everywhere? And how do the Tyrants have them?

    4. 4th Dimension says:

      They even lampshade it couple of times when they say that Thyphoon is sucha hot potato because they are making for US military something that’s a suicide bomber’s dream. That’s one of main reasons you need to pick it up before SWAT storms in, so that public doesn’t find out about it.
      But than why do all LIMB clinics stockpile Thyphoon ammo?

      1. Gruhunchously says:

        Well, in Detroit at least, the Typhoon Ammo is probably only available to Jensen because of Sarif’s special investment. The same probably goes for the one in Heng Sha as well.

        1. 4th Dimension says:

          Detroit is okay, but Hengshaw and not to mention Artic LIMB clinic bother me. That implies ALL of them stock ammunition in case Jensen comes by.

  4. Irridium says:

    The Typhoon is suprisingly effective against bosses. Fully upgraded, like two or three hits and it takes them out. So I guess it’s the anti-boss weapon.

    Also the last-level weapon, because… well you’ll get to it all.

  5. Some_Jackass says:

    The typhoon is a weaponized version of his pheromones…he convinces you to die

    1. Unbeliever says:

      I saw that movie. The one with the trees, and the “suicide plague”… And now I can’t remember the name. Grrrr.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Happening.Its awesome.And it also had a bunch of sequels,called grass battles.

        1. Audacity says:

          The Happening IS awesome. Where else can I watch Marky Mark negotiate for his life with an artificial potted plant? I think it’s proof of karma; he had to act in that movie as penitence for all those godaweful music videos he made.

  6. Dasick says:

    I keep expecting you guys to talk about the game design philosophy, what worked and what was lacking, like Shamus and Chris do in their respective corners of the ‘Net.

    Cuftbertism is contagious, isn’t it?

    1. Chris says:

      It’s *really* hard to do clever commentary live! Everything I do on my site is is heavily scripted, and I know Shamus pours a lot of effort into his articles. This week I actually wrote down a bunch of things to talk about as we go, but either the gameplay/where we are in the story doesn’t call for some of them or I end up going off on a wild tangent in the middle of everyone else talking about something that just happened and I look like an ass trying to change the subject.

      I’m also a bit hesitant to start going over some of the things everyone’s talked about before. The Metal Gear Solid influences, the pseudo-broken hacking minigame, the bad boss fights, the surprisingly effective first person-to-third person transitions… they’re all there and worth dissecting, but they’ve been dissected elsewhere before – and probably better, since a proper article will usually beat out real-time ramblings.

      Plus the approach we’ve taken to playing the game is sometimes like trying to discuss/dissect the inner workings of poker when one player keeps going, “All in!” every hand. The game ostensibly lets you kill cops/bug out quests/sequence break/typhoon in the street, but that doesn’t mean it reflects a standard playthrough!

      Finally, the game’s got a pretty strong narrative focus. I’ll redouble my efforts to contextualize what’s going on on screen from a gameplay perspective, but we’ve honestly already explored most of what the game has to offer (mechanically, anyways). Short of a few augmentations and guns we’ve seen the breadth of how the game works – sneaking, hacking, talking, etc. So while I’ll work to discuss more gameplay mechanics and how they do/don’t work, I think ultimately the focus is still going to remain on the narrative – if only because that’s what will continue to unfold as we play.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Congratulations,you finally got the gold comments,now you are officially part of the team.

        Anyway,just because someone else has said it,doesnt mean you shouldnt repeat it.Besides,it could always lead to an interesting discussion afterwards,whether in the show,or here in the comments.

        1. Destrustor says:

          Why did Mumbles never get the gold comment background?

          1. Deadfast says:

            She did. By her own words she was just too lazy to log in.

      2. Irridium says:

        I’d like to echo Daemian’s comment. Just because someone has already said it, doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t say it. Even if it’s the same thing.

        Especially here, where it could lead to another interesting discussion. Or more likely, some awful puns.

        But still, some things bare repeating. Both good and bad.

        1. Wandring says:

          Ultimately, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and (like most things) improv requires practice. The big thing to keep in mind is that nobody is expecting a well written and rehearsed argument, shoot from the hip.

          Irridium is right: rehashing old (yet valid) view points, and firing off quick-quips can give way to some poignant (and new) arguments!

      3. Dasick says:

        I’d like to add to what Daemian was saying… just because everybody else has said that already, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it.

        Especially considering that very few people do this sort of live Let’s-Play/commentary sessions, and seeing it happening on screen has potential to go deeper. A proper article is more of a summary, it’s distant from the game play; you guys really have a very unique medium for game discussion.

        As for the ‘all in’ player, well, why not discuss why Cuftbertian problem solving is still viable in this kind of game, and if there is anything the developers can do to discourage this sort of mega trolling*. We know how hard it is to break the player mind-set, like, say, hoarding impulses, but is there anything that can be done to make the game both deep and enjoyable?

        *(
        Step 1: Hire Josh as QA lead
        Step2: Harvest the tears of the programmers and game designers
        Step 3: ???
        Step 4: Profit
        )

        And as for the narrative, I think the “cinematic quality narrative” is a horrible trend in games that divorces gameplay from storytelling(partially because games and cinema are two very different types of media). I’m personally wary of things like
        speech-check boss-fights, since for those sections the gameplay boils down to “choose-your-own-adventure book” level, and it often reliant on speech skills. I prefer to put my points into skills that require me to find a way to apply them, rather than having to rely on designers to provide ways for me to use those skills. Here’s a question, now that the mechanics are established and the story is is progressing – do the game mechanics and game play elements tie into the current piece of narrative?

        1. Thomas says:

          Gah you’ve defeated me. I hope no developer I like ever takes on you advice but I’m hopeless to articulate why. Speech conversations are amazing :(

          1. Dasick says:

            What advice would that be? I haven’t really suggested anything be done with speech checks in video games, I’m just pointing out there is a problem. Don’t get me wrong, if I think some game mechanic is lacking I, in no way, shape or form, endorse the treatment by consolization (also known as “ball amputation”. Does to a game exactly what it does to majority of pets).

            The potential to solve problems through talking is a great one, full of depth and character building, and not enough games are incorporating diplomacy as part of the core mechanics.

            But speech, most of the time, isn’t up to par with other game play elements in terms of how heavily it’s integrated into the game (Hello original Fallout final boss!), how free you are to apply it in any situation (I can shoot anything I see, even a tree. There might not be a response, but I still can. In no game that I know of, aside from multilayer games with chat functionality, can I randomly start talking at trees.) and how creative you can get with it.

            The speech check was fine back in the era of turn-based RPGs, but game play has evolved like a zerg high on FEV since those days, and speech checks and dialogue trees just looks horribly mutated compared to the other parts of the game. Some games have tried to improve it, but ultimately failed at it, while other devs decided it would be fine and dandy to just dress it up in interactive movies and mixing it in with horrible mechanics (looking at you Mass Effect).

            I like diplomatic solutions in games, it makes me want to start over as a smooth talking prince charming every time I see a missed opportunity to solve things through dialogue, since it’s a non-violent solution, and it usually leads to pretty amazing things. But there is a problem with the way speech mechanics work today, and it needs more attention, and less gnad-chopping (looking at you, Skyrim.)

            And now I must go and wrestle a bear, because writing this post made me taste pink. Bleh.

      4. JPH says:

        Speaking as someone who has done his own live streaming sessions of games, I can vouch for Chris on that point — delivering good commentary live is exceedingly difficult.

        Honestly, I don’t know how you guys do it.

        1. Sumanai says:

          I’ve tried to show and comment on a game a couple of times to friends who have come over and it keeps surprising me how difficult it is. I’ve also tried to comment about what is going on while someone else plays and that’s difficult too. A bit easier, but not by much. But I didn’t really try in-depth commentary, because I feel that works better without distractions. (As if I could pull those off anyway.)

          Which is why my general preference for Spoiler Warning is random commentary and puns in the show itself. And in-depth dissection in a post.

      5. Eärlindor says:

        And I’m echoing what Daemian et al is echoing on this particular thread.

        The way I see it, the more people there are talking about certain problems (in this case DX:HR’s stuffs), the more it gets noticed by the outside, so to speak. It’s kind of like voting, in a way.

  7. uberfail says:

    I think Josh demonstrated exactly the situation it was designed for.

  8. Gamer says:

    When I first saw Hengsha, I wasn’t nearly as impressed as you guys were. My first thought was “Oh, look. It’s Midgar from Final Fantasy 7.” It didn’t really make much sense then, it still doesn’t now.

    I agree with Shamus’s and Chris’s opinions regarding that side-quest and neruopozyne. I would also argue that most of the quests in Hengsha have strong arguments against augmentations. Forced augmentation by gangsters and by a ruthlessly competitive work environment leading to problems and augmented soldiers under mind control. Although Malik vaguely CSI/LA Noire style quest is my favorite.

    Lastly, thank you for killing the dancer. Now, the world is a better place.

    1. Naota says:

      That about sums up my first impression of Hengsha, except in this case it was “Oh, look. It’s Midgar from Final Fantasy 7. And that’s awesome.

      With that said, I missed out on most of the cyberpunk goings-on of the late 80’s/early 90’s completely, so their tropes never really had time to wear out their welcome for me before the genre’s popularity dropped off sharply. I still quite like the idea of a city like Hensha so far as sci-fi premises go, though Human Revolution sort of dropped the ball on showing the contrast between the two city layers by only sending you to an isolated lab at the top rather than a proper exploration hub. A corporate lab is no more a reflection of the society outside than a subway washroom is for the hygiene of the rest of the city.

    2. Thomas says:

      I’m pretty sure if you do some talking neuropozyne features really heavily in that sidequest. They augment them and then use the neuropozyne addiction to control them.

      But whilst neuropozyne does come up quite a lot, the reason it doesn’t feel like a central issue is because it basically isn’t. Science will solve this problem, it’s only a temporary setback for transhumanism and so it’s only a tangent to the point.

      I think most of Detroit anti-aug ism was found in the gangs and the general poverty of the area, but I agree Hengsha does WAY more.

      Also, the one advantage the upper building has instead of just building higher, is that building higher makes each place had to reach. You have to travel further (higher) to get home. Whereas Hengsha has a standard city commute and going to the upper level is the equivalent of going to a different district in a city, or to a nearby city. But yeah sci-fi coolness. :D Nothing shows the stratification of classes so subtly as a great big roof literally blocking out all the sun light of those literally below it

      1. Gamer says:

        You know, I completely forgot about the neuropozyne as a means of control. Opps.

        I think the class division was also a central them behind the tiered city in Final Fantasy 7. It does make the divide between the rich and poor much more clear, but from a shear logical point-of-view it seems like the same effect could be done by using tall building and having rich people look down from there lofty heights without making the city seem somewhat implausible.

        1. Thomas says:

          Never mention the P word in cyberpunk/sci-fi!

          The problem with tall buildings is you either have loads of small buildings for poor people elsewhere and have … a normal city. Or you mix them and have a stupid city. Or you have the poor people at the bottom and the rich people at the top and the poor people are better off because the rich have to sit in a lift for half an hour.

          To be really poor you need basements/cellars/sewers but sewers aren’t very sci fi. So you turn your whole city into a cellar :D

          Also FFVII had such a classist divide going on, I believe they just collapsed one of the tiers to completely destroy a segment of the city below and didn’t even care about it :D

          1. Naota says:

            They did indeed, and to this day I’m convinced that the whole underlying plot of FFVII is actually a take on the Testament of Solomon. There’s the part where the Pillar of the Red Sea (The Sector 7 Pillar) is lifted up by one recently bound demon (Sephiroth) to free another which was trapped beneath it from a bygone time (Jenova), the fall of the pillar which is said to signify the end of the world (Meteor), and of course…

            And the demon answered: “I, O King Solomon, am called Abezithibod. I am a descendant of the archangel. Once as I sat in the first heaven, of which the name is Ameleouth — I then am a fierce spirit and winged, and with a single wing, plotting against every spirit under heaven.”

            Nothing like obscure JRPG plots to make one suspect demonology.

            1. Gamer says:

              That wouldn’t surprise me since Sephiroth’s name is in itself another reference to mythology

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot

    3. el_b says:

      Damn you beat me to it. As soon as hengshaw appeared I immediately thought of final fantasy seven, it didn’t help that you just fought a guy called Barrett with a minigun in his arm. I read that his name was just a coincidence but I’m not sure if I can believe that.

  9. guy says:

    So THAT’S what the Typhoon looks like when you’re using it.

  10. Rosseloh says:

    I’m pretty sure there’s a line in the opening “walkthrough”, when they show the General the Typhoon, where they actually explain in pseudo-science-speak what they are doing to prevent self-annihilation when you use it. I don’t remember if it’s believable or not. Probably not. But still, they do acknowledge it in-universe.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      They were talking about recoil compensation there,if I remember correctly,but nothing about the clothes.

  11. Hitch says:

    Hmmm… let’s think about this. We have a group of people who spend all of their time hanging out in a subway watching that fool dance. How much money should we expect them to have?

    If they could afford to do anything else, don’t you think they would?

  12. neon_goggles says:

    when i first saw Hengsha i thought Sternbild is very grimm today. The new heroes must be having a hard time lately. they should get Kotetsu to whip them into shape.

    1. Destrustor says:

      Nice. Your gravatar is an image by Keith Thompson. Awesome.

  13. silver Harloe says:

    Maybe she went undercover as a prostitute because that was her idea of every day work-wear, and so her boss put her on that job.

    1. Jarenth says:

      Maybe she’s actually a prostitute who went undercover as a cop.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Maybe the “undercover cop” is just something she keeps up because it’s her selling point? You know, a variant on the whole “sexy cop” fetish.

  14. Naota says:

    I can think of a very immediate use for a shotgun next to a toilet: you’ve just sat down with a terrible case of the runs when a goddamn Tyrannosaurus Rex tears off the roof and leaves only the flimsy top of the stall between you and its gaping maw. A maw you disappear into before the shit-bricks can leave your lower intestines and enter their proper receptacle.

    Never let this happen to you. Have a shotgun on hand wherever you relieve yourself; particularly on an island populated by genetically engineered dinosaurs!

    1. Even says:

      Could be also that he was just paranoid about a boa snake swimming up from the toilet while he’s taking a dump. It could also be pretty handy in case of a sudden zombie apocalypse. You never know man.. maybe the guy just wanted to be prepared.

  15. Daemian Lucifer says:

    This is why you should have a gun next to your toilet.But I guess someone as young as Rutskarn wouldnt know about that movie.

    Typhoon would be a great weapon for terrorist and spies.

    You get no xp for killing civilians and cops Josh.But killing that dancer was its own reward.

    1. Rutskarn says:

      But that’s Butch’s toilet. Why would he want to arm the gangster who broke into his house and was stupid enough to leave his SMG on the counter?

      1. Thomas says:

        Visitor who talks too much? ‘Excuse me Madam, I just need to go and …freshen up a bit…’

  16. CalDazar says:

    The Typhoon lets a single otherwise unarmed person destroy a full-sized mech. It’s the area of effect version of arm blades, situational but devastating.

  17. Entropy says:

    Actually, Neuropozyne is very relevant to that quest at the end. They use it to keep them dependent on the gangsters, so they can’t leave.

  18. Psuedocrat says:

    Ahh, Hengsha. This place always disappointed me, mostly because you never get to meet Chairman Cheng-Ji Yang when you visit the hive.

    1. Jarenth says:

      My name might not be commander Shepard, but this is still my favourite comment on the Citadel.

  19. Josh H says:

    The Typhoon looks like a dance move to me. A dance move so incredible, in fact, that it sends out a highly concentrated wave of funk that knocks out all of those in close proximity to it.

    It has an exaggerated effect on those with no style, as seen when it was used on that dancer and all those around him.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Thats because he has boneitis.

    1. Fang says:

      YES, that is exactly what the Typhoon is.

    2. Destrustor says:

      The typhoon was composed by Kevin MacLeod.

  20. Naota says:

    I’m not sure if the tiered city design is actually a cyberpunk idea, but I always suspected it was a call-back to the famous silent film Metropolis.

    You have the upper city full of thinkers and planners who live in luxury and never toil, yet are responsible for the technological success of their society, and the gritty under-city where countless insignificant workers spend every day operating the machines which keep the whole city in order through manual labour devoid of intellect – a schism between the “brain” and “hands” of a functioning society, as the film puts it.

    If nothing else, upper and lower Hengsha embody this theme very effectively, with the slums and low-wage workers toiling away under terrible living conditions in the under-city to elevate the colleges and laboratories above which make the advancements that allow the entire place to stay a thriving (if very unjust) metropolis and a major world power.

    1. Sydney says:

      I first encountered the concept in Free Radical, come to think of it.

    2. Groboclown says:

      This. The Metropolis idea has been rehashed in so, so many Sci-Fi movies and games and books and Anime and refrigerator manuals and comics. This is just another variation on it.

    3. Peter H. Coffin says:

      Eloi and Morlocks, c. 1895.

      1. Naota says:

        True, but that’s a much more abstracted version of the idea, plus the faction with all the power is living below ground yet is the less sophisticated and intellectual of the two.

        Metropolis was, as far as I know, the first piece of entertainment to depict a two-layered, class-divided city where one level is literally built above the rest, yet both halves of the populace sustain the whole by different means.

  21. First half of this ep and all I could think of was this.

  22. Zaxares says:

    1:06: The worst part of it is that Jensen got screwed over by O’Malley. :P He offers you an “admirable sum” if you let him go, but it turns out to be a mere 3000 credits. Really? THAT’S your best offer? You were going to pay me 2000 credits for that hitman job! I was expecting something more along the lines of thirty THOUSAND credits.

    3:22: Yeah, LIMB does sell candy bars. Kind of. They sell these massive, HUGE jars that take up craploads of space in your inventory and have a really poor energy:space ratio. Also, the idea of Jensen just picking up one of these protein tubs and pouring the whole lot into his gaping maw in less than a second like Garfield just cracks me up.

    7:30: Hey, remember earlier you were wondering about the wine being worth like $2? Well, it was for sale in the gun store(!) for 15 credits. XD

    20:14: Actually, Mei Suen DOES mention the Neuropozyne angle. She says that’s how a lot of crime bosses trap their prostitutes into working for them. They force them to get augmented, and now the girls have to stay with them because even if they escape, they’ll still need Neuropozyne to survive, and it’s so expensive that they can’t purchase it legally.

    The Typhoon: I’ve always imagined Jensen kind of popping open a compartment in his torso or back and then placing a case of Typhoon ammo inside. When he uses it, several vents in his torso and back open and eject the explosive charges as he spins around. It probably takes a lot of practice to get it just right so the charges detonate in a 360 degree arc. I have no explanation for the indestructible jacket though. That was DEFINITELY an oversight. :P

    Incidentally, one of the e-mails in the factory at the start of the game involves a worker saying to another that the Typhoon is basically a suicide bomber’s wet dream, and that there would be hell to pay if the media ever got hold of the knowledge that Sarif Industries was making it for the Department of Defense.

    On a random note: I was alternately pleased and disappointed with the quality of the voice acting of the Chinese people in Hengsha. As a Chinese myself, I could easily pick out which lines were voiced by a native speaker and which ones weren’t. Most of the random Chinese citizens in the street were voiced by native speakers, but to my disappointment, most of the major Chinese NPCs you talk to aren’t. Instead, they’re clearly non-native speakers trying to speak in a Chinese accent, which comes across as being forced and fake.

    1. Hal says:

      If you ever played (Original Recipe) Deus Ex, you’d understand just how much better the chinese voice acting is in the Extra Crispy edition.

      “Ah . . . Mistah JC Denton, in the fresh.”

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      That always bothered me in video games:When you have a good enough budget to hire a bunch of voice actors,why pay massive dollars to well known guys that arent native speakers,when at the same time you are paying peanuts to unknowns that are native speakers,and are therefore comming out sounding way better?It particularly annoyed me in gta 4.

    3. Thomas says:

      ‘That was DEFINITELY an oversight. :P’

      Read the first few comments of the thread :D There was so little oversight they even worked out how the holes lined up. I remember that if you check out really carefully what Jensen dresses like in and out of missions, its ridiculous how well thought out it is. And yet it’s subtle enough that until I stopped I was never even really aware that he wears different things when he;s working, compared to when he;s got downtime.

  23. Theminimanx says:

    See, I told you there was daylight in this game.

  24. Hal says:

    You know, if you’re wondering about the biocells JC Denton used, you probably shouldn’t ask how the repair bots charged his energy, either.

  25. Tse says:

    Carbon nanotubes could make a city like that possible. And yes, there is a plan for a space elevator.
    P.S. Also, Jensen doesn’t turn his clothes to shreds with the typhoon, because the clothes have ports on his arms and torso that stick to the ports he has in his arms and torso.

  26. AxiomaticBadger says:

    One thing you need to remember about Jocks helicopter is that is was a stealth vehicle, whereas the Beeoob is Corporate Bling.

    Regarding the story, I always felt that the difference in the arguments between the areas was deliberate.
    In detroit we’re gently introduced to the concept, with a little controversy but nothing really explicit.
    In hangshaw we see just how dark it can get.

    It’s also telling that Taggert doesn’t use this sort of occurance with his arguments.
    Economic or social arguments against augmentation make more sense, but they can be argued against. It’s the society and environment in hengshaw that are the real problem, not the augs.
    By taking an ideological standpoint, Taggert has pretty much secured himself from attack. Any argument with him will disolve into…
    A-“Cogs aren’t human”
    B-“Yes they are”
    A-“No they aren’t”
    B-“Yes”
    A-“No
    B-“Bigot”
    A-“Abomination.”

    1. Dasick says:

      B-“Bigot”
      A-“Abomination.”

      I feel A and B should be reversed.

      A is short for “Abomination”
      B is short for “Bigot”

    2. Shamus says:

      That’s a really good point. If he latched onto any of the other, better reasons against augs, he could be proven wrong. By taking this route he can continue to oppose the technology no matter how things work out.

      1. Thomas says:

        Which suits his purposes fine

  27. RTBones says:

    The aircraft-cum-helicopter-wot-flies-round-the-world bothered me. Its fuel has to be synthesized from something that uses Unobtanium as its fuel stock. Fisher-Tropsch lives!

    Here’s the thing: this could have been easily addressed with dialog. There could have been a quick discussion about a long flight and setting up tanker (air-to-air refueling) support. If you add a minor transition cut scene ala Raiders of the Lost Ark, where you show a moving line on a map that denotes aircraft movement, and dots where it stops or tanks, I would have been OK with that.

    Mind, there is a real-life aircraft that is SOME-what similar:
    The V-22 Osprey. Thing is – with a max range of ~1000 miles, Detroit to China isn’t going to happen unless there’s an awful lot of plate tectonics going on.

    Further, for the record, this has also been attempted with jets.
    If you live near Munich, Germany, you can go to the Deutsches Museum and see the EWR VJ 101. Further, there was program in the 1950s by Bell Aircraft to possibly build the D-188A. This was cancelled in 1961.

    I’m not even going to go into the control surface – engine nacelle interaction as they cross the water.

    1. silver Harloe says:

      Jock’s Helicopter, incidentally, flies from NY to China in hours. What kind of range should a black helicopter have?

      1. RTBones says:

        China to NY…yeah, its a video game.

        But as to a real-world example of range a black helicopter might have, just look at the UH-60 Blackhawk. Multiple variants (some that you would consider “black”). Range ~1000 miles, a little further if you are just ferrying the helicopter.

  28. Taellosse says:

    I dunno, it sounds like the Typhoon is a made-to-order weapon for a terrorist or special-forces-assassin type of person. It essentially turns someone into a re-usable suicide bomber, assuming they can escape the scene after they’ve set it off.

    That said, it really doesn’t seem like the ideal thing for a security officer of a private corporation.

    And yeah, I have no idea how it would work mechanically. You can excuse a certain amount of the nonsense for gameplay streamlining–maybe in reality it would shred your clothes, but that’s inconvenient for a video game. And it really shouldn’t be re-usable at all. You should have to, at minimum, get a new load of shrapnel and explosives installed after each use.

    It does kind of look like they sort of drop out of the undersides of his arms, THEN explode. It isn’t clear why those explosions don’t hurt Jensen at all, though.

  29. Marlowe says:

    Rutskarn has obviously never had to fight off a shit house rat.

    Eidos/Square Enix ought to have placed a few of those GTA police bribes on the streets of Detroit just for the benefit of Josh along with some rampages.

    The Chinese brothel reminded me of the one featured in Hitman: Contracts. It had a similar option to rescue the prostitute from the criminal operators. (I say the Prostitute because the entire brothel in Contracts had one madam managing exactly one prostitute guarded by two gangsters – the kind of population density one saw in Invisible War – like the Seattle underground Greasel Pit Bar which has around 3 punters watching a Greasel fight – how the wide boy taking street bets could support himself or the owners of the Greasels could make a living off the fight crowd seemed unclear).

  30. RCN says:

    I don’t know why, but I always pictured the Typhoon to be kind of a self-destruct instrument or terrorist tool.

    You’ve been downed by the enemy. They close in for the kill/loot and BANG!

    Then again, it seems like a complicated solution to a simple problem. Just have some grenades on you. Like in every action movie ever.

    And when Josh started using the Typhoon on the dancer I momentarily thought: “What? Jensen has a special takedown with the Dancer? That’s awesome… oh, wait, it is just the Typhoon…”

    I also really like how Deus Ex: Shanghai Seclusion handles the way they show you the consequences of transhumanism. In the first world, it just seems like high philosophical concepts, but in the dirty low class of the emergent countries, it is grimy, grim business. Though they really should’ve fleshed the Neuropazyne concept more.

  31. Galad says:

    …I’ve no idea what that typhoon thing is, or when it was mentioned..It WAS mentioned at some point in those streams right? I should stop thinking of this SW season as pleasantly distracting background noise..but I haven’t played the game myself =(

  32. Johan says:

    Yes yes yes I HATED the Typhoon

    I found myself facing two big bots with a few upgrade points to spare, so I said “hey, maybe the Typhoon will be like a rocket launcher”

    I STILL wish it was like a rocket launcher, I would love it if his arm did the cartoon thing and just turned into a gun from which rockets were shot.

  33. psivamp says:

    The whole Upper/Lower thing does call back to William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy a bit — there’s some kind of super-structure above the city that some of the yakuza run.

    Also, transhuman prostitutes are in that series. Molly (?), whatever, the only woman with a real role in Neuromancer worked as an AI controlled prostitute cutting people up with her razor fingernails in order to pay them off (and also her mirrored sunglasses embedded in her face) so she could be a bad-ass bodyguard. Some performance artist recreates it on stage.

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