Deus Ex Human Revolution EP38:
Naked Muscle Man

By Shamus Posted Friday Mar 16, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 125 comments


Link (YouTube)

The fight with Namir…

Why is Zao here, hanging out in the naked skinless muscle man room? How did she know you were coming? (Remembering that it’s possible you ghosted everything before now.) Since she knew you were coming, why is she here in the open, waiting for you? Shouldn’t she be worried that you would just shoot her?

Why is Namir here, naked? Really, think about this:

Namir knows you are coming. His plan is to:

  1. Strip naked.
  2. Put his weapon on the ground several paces away.
  3. Begin posing in a bunch of impractical positions.
  4. Wait until you are close, and then conspicuously grab you, lift you, and taunt you, ignoring the threat posed by your arm-blades, Typoon, and all your guns.
  5. Throw you across the room, THEN pick up a gun and try to fight you.

This is the stupidest ambush in the world, and the only reason it works is because the cutscene forces you to fall for it.

What did Namir do with his penis? Did he forget to bring it with him when he left for work this morning?

Why does Jensen walk out in the open – AGAIN! – and strike up a conversation? Even if he’s immune to her little hacking gizmo, why does he let her use it instead of performing an outpatient head-ectomy with his armblade?

Why does the naked skinless muscle man room exist? It serves no visible function or purpose. It can’t be useful as a showcase, since it’s at the very BACK of a secret base. It’s an impractical way of keeping aug-bodies in any case. And why are they on pedestals filled with guns and bullets? Also, the aug-bodies shown aren’t consistent with with augs we see elsewhere in the game. (Compare to Jensen’s robot-arms or Tong’s Crysis-style mesh arms.) And it sort of makes you wonder – if they’re going to go to all the trouble of making parts that look like humans, why don’t they take the last step and throw some skin over that stuff? Because a skinned human looks creepy as hell.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Everything, everything here is just wrong and frustrating. You can justify some of this stuff (Like: Sometimes people build private showcase rooms for esoteric collections!) but not all of it, and it’s just too many red flags at once. You could get away with some of these contrivances, if not for all the others. But this many stacked contrivances is really too much to be ignored in a single sequence, and so the whole thing disintegrates into a big bowl of derp.

And on top of that, the gameplay here is awful. It’s either punishingly hard. (When using the game mechanics on which the rest of the game is built.) Or it’s stupid easy. (TYFOON LOLOL!)

 


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125 thoughts on “Deus Ex Human Revolution EP38:
Naked Muscle Man

  1. Infinitron says:

    I think that entire area was just meant to be a mindfuck, including the meeting with Megan in the surreal white room afterwards.
    The horrifying truth at the heart of the conspiracy – Megan’s seeming betrayal – so terrible to Adam that the laws of reality themselves seem to bend from the horror of it.

    In short, it’s a temporary case of style over substance, for art’s sake.

    1. Dragomok says:

      That sounds a lot like this Matrix‘s trilogy plot interpretation. Or that theory about Mass Effe*cough-cough-hack-cough*
      Ah, right, no spoilers in the comments.

  2. Matt says:

    I made the stupid mistake of getting the neuro “upgrade” or whatever beforehand, and also I didn’t carry any lethal weapons. I had the Typhoon specifically for bosses, but was then unable to use it. The result was about half an hour of reloading and cursing.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I picked the upgrade even though I knew it was a trap because free xp,and because it was so easy up until then,that I wanted some challenge.Sadly,the same tactics I used against previous two bosses(emp grenade+rocket)worked just as easy here,only with a bit wonky screen.

    2. Graham says:

      Apparently there is one incredibly easy way to beat Namir, even if you have no lethal weapons or Typhoon. I did this, because I was sick of boss fights by this point.

      Basically, he’s immune to takedowns, and counters you if you try…

      …unless he’s not on the ground.

      Run behind a wall, wait for him to jump over the wall, and spam the takedown button. It’s rather ammusing seeing Namir get taken out by a single punch to the jaw.

      1. Nevermind says:

        I’m gonna replay the whole game just to see this!

        1. Destrustor says:

          If you don’t want to wait, there are videos on youtube.
          It’s just as funny to watch as it is to do.

  3. Infinitron says:

    Actually, the ingame texts specify that Megan’s research and the mind-control biochip somehow are scientifically and technologically related.
    I did think that was a weak link in the narrative, though.

    As for the scientists’ motivation, remember that Megan is egging them on, since she knows about Hugh Darrow’s intention to betray the Illuminati and is voluntarily helping him with the biochip plan.

  4. Gruhunchously says:

    I don’t know, I always thought that the “we never get back the things we love” line was referring to his penis.
    I mean, it seems to fit, right?

    1. Tzeneth says:

      THIS is what was going through my head during that scene as the Spoiler crew were talking.

      1. cerapa says:

        Same here.

        1. Irridium says:

          Likewise.

    2. Sumanai says:

      I was going to say that. I was also going to be a bit more subtle, but what the heck. Blunt is fine too.

      1. Gruhunchously says:

        Ahem, I thought he was referring to that conspicuously absent part of his anatomy. That’s a bit more subtle.

        1. Syal says:

          …brains?

          1. Destrustor says:

            Skin?

    3. MatthewH says:

      I’m too direct in my thinking -I don’t see the evidence that Namir is diddling Megan (I think “you’ve lost her” is as likely to refer to Darrow as to Namir). But assuming Namir and Megan hooked up, my first question was to stare at the hole between his legs and ask “How?”

      Not that I really want an answer. I’m familiar with rule 34.

      1. Mormegil says:

        It’s more about how Megan responds when you walk in behind her after the fight (which will be in the next episode I’m sure).

        Which also means that she has no idea that a fight that possibly included plasma bursts, rocket fire, multiple typhoon blasts, grenades, etc (all being wielded by her past and current lovers) has occurred 20 metres away.

        Did Namir pop out saying he just had a little errand to run and would be back soon (Megan is obviously anticipating his return)? Does Megan just write off weapons fire as being the inevitable consequence of Namir running down to the shops to get milk and a newspaper?

  5. Daemian Lucifer says:

    That room has one very simple explanation:Zhao is there alone,with all these naked robomen.She is enjoying a nice robotic gang bang,and you interrupted her,you evil cock-blocker.

    As for namirs penis,it is detachable.

    1. ClearWater says:

      I was going to say that and link to the same song!

      Also, I think his penis is a gun. It’s the ColtMember aug.

  6. Infinitron says:

    Notice that Namir can move while you use the Typhoon. Presumably he has the same sort of “Quick Reflexes” augmentation that Jensen has.

    Can the other two bosses also move while you use the Typhoon?

    1. Gamer says:

      I think everything still moves when you use the Typhoon. Jensen just has cutscene immunity.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        It moves more slowly though.But this guy is fast.

  7. Thomas says:

    Your being harsh about the scientists. The emails there explain loads and loads about the character motivations. Of the 5, 1 was outright hostile, 1 was hostile but a bit cleverer, 1 had stockholm, 1 was a coward and the final one was Megan.

    The emails round here are just full of motivation for the scientists and they go into the purposes and mechanics of the situation a lot.

    On another note put here because I want people to see it the tvtropes Witch Watch page could do with some love. Specifically more tropes (and remember to add them on the work page and the trope page) a rewrite of my awful awful summary and a picture if anyones got one

    1. Licaon_Kter says:

      Do edit the trope to NOT link to “The Witcher”. :P

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Is there a trope for trolling the author?

      2. Thomas says:

        Oops, where is/was that?

        1. Thomas says:

          Also whoever 10d6 is is a genius, lovely summary and all that blue text

  8. arron says:

    The Namir fight room can be easily compromised. You can carry a turret from upstairs which you drop before the cutscene. Namir takes repeated hits from the turret and then can’t cloak, making him a sitting target for any other weapons you shoot at him in a crossfire.

    Even without a turret friend it’s not difficult. The corners are the safe zones. Namir can’t leap over a wall without you seeing him first, so it’s hide/cover around the other corner wall and just fill him full of holes with aimed/unaimed shots whilst he’s recovering from the first lot of gunshot you put into him as he landed. If he lobs a grenade, then retreat to the opposite corner away from it, rinse and repeat. If you’re armed with anything slightly dangerous, the fight will be over in about a minute, faster if you’ve got a turret to distract him. As long as he’s being hit, he’s an easy opponent.

    1. Gamer says:

      You can also punch his butt.

  9. Dennis says:

    I haven’t read it, but I was wold that the Deus Ex: Icarus Effect book actually explores the boss characters (I think they’re a part of “Tyrant” squad or something).

    1. Uscias says:

      The book has a lot of characterization which the game seems to refer to. But that makes the lack of characterization within the game even more obvious =/

  10. Licaon_Kter says:

    This was the hardest boss by far (non-lethal I was), but I did reload a bit more at the end boss actually, just because I did not understand what I had to do.

    Also, when talking about the boss battles do start your text with “Yet another outsourced boss fight: blahwrongblahblahstupidlahblah” ;)

  11. Daemian Lucifer says:

    By the way,where are gpls located?Because if they are in the brain,and Jensen made it so that they vibrate,these three people should have splitting headaches,if they are lucky.

    1. Gamer says:

      I first thought it was the brain, but now I’m not sure. It could literally anywhere (even everywhere, if one of the commenter theories are right) in the body.

    2. HiEv says:

      Actually, there are no sensory input neurons in the brain itself, so you could poke around in there all you like, and you wouldn’t feel it (though you might have some strange thoughts). Headaches are not based in the brain itself, but in just about any other part of the head.

    3. Jarenth says:

      Sevchenko's one was in his arm, remember? I'm just assuming they're placed in already augmented limbs, to reduce the invasive surgery needed.

      1. Does Megan (or several of the others I guess) even have augmented limbs? I know Sevchenko has the combat chassis for some reason but I didn’t think any of the others did.

      2. Daemian Lucifer says:

        I dont really remember the scene,but isnt it implied that his body is close as well,so that the gpl isnt necessarily in the arm.

  12. Gamer says:

    Josh, drop the combat rifle ammo, the shotgun ammo, etc. because you will never use it. Instead, pick up the Plasma Rifle that you will never use and some ammo.

    Also, you can loot Namir’s corpse for 1000 credits. At this point you don’t need it, but MONEY!

    1. Trix2000 says:

      Technically you can spend the money a little later for more Praxis though.

      1. Gamer says:

        I think he already has enough credits to buy 2 Praxis Kits.

        Besides, he has 7 unspent Praxis already.

    2. Peter H. Coffin says:

      uhm… where does he keep his wallet?

  13. Daemian Lucifer says:

    By the way,when you think about these bosses a bit,even the outsorced thing is no excuse for how lame they are,because all three can be defeated using the same tactics.If you find something that works well against any of them,it will work on other two just as well.And thats just weak.I think that the guys who did them were actually kidnapped by eidos,and so they half assed their job.So this level is actually based on real events.

    1. krellen says:

      Maybe it’s time video games evolved beyond the “Boss Battle”.

      1. Raygereio says:

        Why? Just because some developers are bad at making satisfying boss fights?
        Unlike such concept like QTEs, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having boss fights.

        1. Gamer says:

          Well, when you play games like Alpha Protocol, Assassin’s Creed, Deus Ex, etc., the boss fights don’t really fit in the game world.

          I don’t think it has anything to do with having bosses. I think that the boss fight just needs to evolve to be more than just a mook that does much more damage and has tons of hit points.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Yes they do.That part with a bunch of mooks outside zhaos office,thats a nice boss fight.The boss fight in missing link is also nice.Heck,even the end one in panchea isnt that bad.

            Boss fight doesnt have to be one guy with armour and bunch hitpoints,it can be a lot of different things.A guy with a sniper rifle in a bunker,for example,that you can take out with a single bullet if you can reach him,but that can also take you out if you try to aim for too long,or linger in the open.A skilled swordman,that you cant hit with conventional means,but have to use your gun,but he doesnt let you get far enough to shoot,even though a single bullet will be enough to take him out.A shitload of mooks that you can fight or evade.All of those can be boss fights.

            1. Gamer says:

              I agree with this. We don’t need “boss fights” as in super-powered mooks but “boss fights” as in interesting and difficult challenges that test the player’s skill in new and interesting ways.

              The problem with these boss fights is that while they can be difficult (depending on your build, level of preparation, and foreknowledge), not a single one of the three are interesting. But certain levels like the one you describe are.

        2. Sumanai says:

          I read krellen’s comment as “games need to evolve past the obsession with having boss fights”. They really don’t fit everywhere, yet they get stuffed there anyway.

        3. Shamus says:

          I agree with krellen that boss fights are often stilted, gimmicky, lore-killing exercises. In my view, games need to stop thinking of “a boss fight is when you fight one super-powerful person”. With predictable attack patterns. And looping combat taunts.

          I think we still need “boss encounters” in the sense of having highs and lows to the tension and challenge, and it’s even better if these can line up with emotional moments for the protagonists.

          Once again I must point to Half-Life 2, where I think this is done well. Waiting for the cart with Father Grigori is a “boss” moment, yet the game doesn’t feel the need to hit you with a 12ft zombie with a cheap lunge attack, ten million hit points, and a weak spot on its back. It takes existing elements and combines them to create a high-point in the challenge level. (Limited space to move around. lots of enemies, changing attack vectors.

          EDIT: On reflection, I see that krellen never said that boss fights are often stilted, gimmicky, lore-killing exercises. I think I was projecting. Apologies.

          1. Sydney says:

            As I understand it, the reasoning runs like this:

            We don’t want the player to be the strongest character in the game. So occasionally, one individual – preferably another human – should be the player’s equal. But just taking the PC’s powers and putting an AI behind them is hard to balance properly, especially in an open game (obviously, arcade fighting games can do it), so we take dumb AI and give it a super-powerful body.

            This…could…have been done well in Human Revolution. If there were other ways around the bosses. Talk. Stealth. Combat. I would’ve loved to see it done well; there’s nothing I enjoy more than a fair duel in a video game. But…yeah.

            1. Gamer says:

              It’s funny that you say that, because in one the papers I wrote (on my blog, click my name to get a link), I was angry with Human Revolution for that very reason.

            2. FalseProphet says:

              The thing is, we already saw the places DX:HR did do this well. The conversation bosses. Defending Malik after the crash. Waiting for the funicular. Even after the first time you meet Zhao and then you have to sneak/shoot your way out of the room past 12 guards–the most the game has probably thrown at you at once up to that point.

              Each of those probably meets Shamus’ criteria for a “boss encounter”, but tie into the story much better. i.e., The Illuminati have vast, secret resources with deep ties in global military and intelligence agencies, and can afford to throw dozens of guys at you, but you can deal with them with the skills you’ve used the whole game. Instead of hiring three human tanks that you need to develop completely new tactics for.

            3. Jonathan says:

              My name’s Frank Horrigan…and your ride is over, mutie. Time to Die.

              It has been done.

            4. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Theres nothing wrong in making one of the enemies stronger then you.But giving them just a bunch of hitpoints isnt the only way to do this.Make them super fast,for example.So you can kill them with 3 bullets,but good luck with aiming.Or make them very resistant to bullets,but one grenade,and its bye bye.Or,like Ive said above,give them a sniper,stick them in a bunker,and give them great aim,but once you manage to enter the bunker,its over for them.

              1. Destrustor says:

                Yeah, that’s something I hate about most bosses: when they’re people (as in, not a huge otherworldy monster), they too often still have the hitpoints of an abominable otherworldly monster, and it never makes any damn sense. Even when the game lets you specialize yourself into a rock-hard glacier of a man who can eat a nuke and shrug it off like it’s nothing, that little twelve-year old girl throwing pebbles in your face will still take at least three times more punishment than you before being only temporarily knocked out. And then she joins your party and is back to being literally killed by a gentle slap.
                It utterly destroys immersion; you have spent your whole life turning yourself into a musclebound steel whale yet anyone can just declare themselves your enemy to instantly gain toughness comparable to a fortified city.
                Sometimes they give a half-assed explanation for why the dudes are suddenly so strong (magic, most of the time), but even then I still wonder why the heck my own character doesn’t even try to use the same techniques. If you want to make your boss tougher, “moar hp” just doesn’t help. It only serves to make the player feel weaker/stupider despite whatever else the game claims about his/her character.
                Next time the world needs to be saved, call my rival. He won’t be killed by the first mook he meets.

                1. Adam says:

                  A good example of a solution to this is the battle with Visas Marr in KotOR II. She isolates you on your ship (using some plot-BS power to keep your allies from interfering. She isn’t any more powerful than she is as a party member after you defeat her, she just eliminates the main balancing factor most of the game’s bosses have: your allies.

          2. arron says:

            What if Boss Fights were inevitable, but you could choose the time/environment for the fight? That would help even out the play style of the player. If you’re a stealth character, then fight in a forest or a maze. If you’re sneaky and tech orientated, booby trap/prepare the battle area to get the enemy to kill themselves when they turn up. If you’re a tank, then fight out in the open where your heavy guns have range advantage. If you’re clever and non-combative, use delaying tactics and moving constantly around the game level environment to find the kill phrase before confronting the antagonist.

            I know it sounds a bit Sun Tzu “The Art of War”, but it then plays to all disciplines and uses strategy and tactical ability to your advantage. It doesn’t feel like a moronic set piece that you’re thrown headlong into and then have to jump hoops to get out of.

            1. Allan says:

              I don’t really know much about programming (apart from some mucking around with QBASIC and VBasic), but I assume it’d be really hard to code for that? Whereas the ’12ft tall zombie’ type boss is pretty much just a modification of the usual parameters for a regular enemy, in essence?

              That’s my guess, quite possibly wrong

              1. Deadfast says:

                From programming perspective this is nothing more complex than a few if statements. The real problem is that it is rather hard to justify the need to create 5 distinct levels to the management, when a regular player will only see 1 on his playthrough.

                Metal Gear Solid 3 for instance has a boss character (The End) whose boss fight consists of a sniper battle spanning across 3 levels. But if you don’t feel like taking part in that you can just shoot him in the head prior to the first introductory cut scene. You can also save during the boss fight and come back to the game a few days later. You’ll find that he’s died of old age. But I suppose that’s Konami for you.

          3. Grudgeal says:

            You’re in over your head.

            Sorry, couldn’t resist. Human Revolutions and Alpha Protocol are really good examples of how boss fights shouldn’t work. As, and I realize I’m beating another dead horse here, is the final boss of Mass Effect 2. The whole thing makes no sense story-wise apart from serving as some sort of arbitrary bullet sponge for you to shoot at as a way of finishing the game. It’s not even a very challenging fight, just an incredibly annoying one.

            Then again, the RPG genre in particular has always been plagued by the mentality that you need to be tested ever so often by some random enemy to check if you’ve level grinded enough to reach that point. jRPGs in particular are really bad about this, with completely arbitrary giant boss monsters popping out of the woodwork for no real reason ever so often. I guess the tendency of adding RPG elements added to every genre known to man apparently isn’t just restricted to XP and leveling.

            1. Chauzuvoy says:

              I think part of the issue is that your standard RPG, especially when it has a stat-heavy combat system, has rather limited ways of increasing challenge. When the vast majority of combat boils down to “smack enemy with biggest available sword until dead,” there’s not much they can do to make it more challenging. They can throw in more enemies, or they can make each enemy take more sword-smacks to the face. Sure, they can hide the fact that that’s what they’re doing a bit, either by giving the enemy a hilarious healing factor or Damage resistance instead of more straight health, or by having the horde spawn in as you’re fighting, rather than all at once beforehand, but they’re still stuck between either a swarm or a boss.

              Of course, more modern games, with less stat-based and more skill-based combat, can afford a lot more different ways to create that challenging encounter (level design being the biggest one that gets explored the least). Encounter design in these games needs to start looking to non-RPGs for tricks though. You’re deemphasizing the stat-based mechanics that your typical bossfight is made of. You’d might as well look at ways to design encounters that don’t rely on it.

              1. Grudgeal says:

                That is a very good point, and also ties nicely into what’s being discussed further up. Making each ‘boss’ encounter about more than just ‘make sure the player is strong enough’ and more about providing the player with a new challenge in the form of level design or enemy design.

              2. Thanatos of Crows says:

                As a person who loves to play way underleveled I really have to disagree. There are of course games that reguire leveling and such be able to survive but when people have to grind for a boss in a standard (J?)RPG I feel like calling them idiots. Most of these fights can actually be cleared by simply pressing the attach button over and over without any tricks with equipment or levels.

            2. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Funny but from what Ive seen,the ending of me3 seems to be a good way around this.But it still isnt enough for me to do anything other than watch it.

              1. Ringwraith says:

                It’s all the better for having no boss fight at the end (although there is a brutally difficult ‘boss section’ a bit earlier), it’s just it all goes downhill after that point of where you’d almost expect a boss fight.

          4. Dave B says:

            Left 4 Dead is another interesting example. On the one hand, the Tank is pretty much a classic boss monster, with its huge health bar and 2 powerful attacks that it spams constantly. On the other hand, I don’t really think the game uses the Tank as a boss fight. That distinction goes to the panic events. While sometimes poorly justified (somehow, calling for help on the radio attracts every infected in a 10 mile radius), the hordes give the players a tough fight. Even better, it’s a tough fight against the same enemies they have been fighting all along.

          5. krellen says:

            I actually don’t want any game element to ever be eliminated from games, and I do mourn all the game styles that don’t exist any more because so few people agree with me on that point (though the Indie Renaissance is actually reversing a lot of that).

            However, I would like to see more games that don’t have Boss Battles at all. There’s a trend these days that all games need Boss Battles (and HL2 has those still – the gunship on Highway 17, the strider at the end of Episode 1, or my least favourite part of the entire series, the strider attack at the end of Episode 2) and I don’t believe that they’re actually an addition to most games.

            I don’t think of “waiting for the cart” as a “Boss Battle”, however, so I think that would still be okay.

            1. Dave B says:

              I see boss battles as an attempt to apply traditional story pacing to games. Conventional wisdom says that a story’s tension should slowly rise and periodically peak, then drop a little, then start rising again. In a book this is fairly simple, though not always easy. Most game designers have tried to match the climax in the story with an increase in the game’s difficulty. Thus, the boss fight.

              It is sad to see old game elements disappear, but not all game elements belong in all kinds of games. What seems reasonable for a JRPG from 15 years ago is very out-of-place in a modern FPS.

              Modern games can do that story/gameplay tension without pitting you against a 12-foot tall mook with a gigantic health bar, and more of them should explore different ways to do that.

              In the end, a lot of it comes down to personal opinion. The gunship battle in HL2 screamed “Boss Fight” to me, but the strider battle in Episode 2 seemed like a big step away from that. (Strangely, I actually enjoyed that fight. But then, no one has ever accused me of being sane.)

              1. krellen says:

                “not all game elements belong in all games” is exactly the point I’m trying to make. Some games shouldn’t have Boss Battles, and those that shouldn’t are not all “casual” games.

          6. Blake says:

            I agree, I think bosses (especially last bosses) should still ultimately be as strong as any regular human, killable by anyone given the right opportunity.

            Fable 2 did this well.

      2. Andy_Panthro says:

        I pretty much detest boss fights, so I was very glad I could typhoon my way through DX:HR’s bosses.

        I’m not sure why so many games persist with them really, they only fit with certain types of games (no doubt Diablo 3 will have good bosses for example).

    2. Raygereio says:

      The more you think about it, the more the whole outsourced-bossfights-thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

      I mean, if there honestly is a freelance devstudio out there who do nothing but make bossfights, they did a pretty crummy job here. When I first played DX:HR, I figured they hired an intern to quickly churn out some bossfights. There’s just nothing impressive about it; not in terms of writing, nor in terms of gameplay.

      I wonder, has it been made public why the outsourcing happened?

      1. Rax says:

        No idea where exactly a good “reply to this”-point was in this conversation so I used the last one.

        I just wanted to point out that I really like boss-encounters which aren’t of the “12-foot tall zombie”-variety.
        One of the most memorable levels in my gaming-history was probably a Call of Duty 1 level in which you’re tasked to secure a bridge (“Pegasus day” is the mission the defense is in, if someone wants to look it up).
        After securing said bridge you have to hold it against an enemy counter attack. One could argue if this actually is a “boss fight”, but in my opinion it qualifies. And it’s just so perfectly paced, at least for me the friendly reinforcements always turned up at a point where I was just about to be completely overwhelmed, almost out of ammunition and in no position to get to the lone Artillery gun that’s out in the open to get rid of tanks constantly shelling my location.
        Combine that with the slow build up of “heroic” music in the last moments of this battle and you get a deeply satisfying and even emotional moment, which is something no “standard” boss fight I can think of ever accomplished.

        1. Infinitron says:

          That’s based on a real-life WW2 battle, of course.

      2. MintSkittle says:

        http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113995-Eidos-Cops-to-Weak-Deus-Ex-Boss-Fights\

        Quote the article:

        “The problem was not the supplier, it was what we did with them,” Anfossi told Edge. “The boss fights were too much for the team to do internally in the time we had. We totally underestimated the effort to do that correctly. We had to work with an external supplier with that, but the design and everything is from the team at Eidos Montreal.”

        1. Raygereio says:

          Whu?! Look at what we got here, the only thing about those bossfights that required a large investment of time and resources were the intromovies.

          Just how desperate were they for time?

          1. Cacodeamon says:

            Very. They had to cut out something like three different city hubs in order to ship it on time, not to mention the various other features. For example, the missing link dlc was originally a part of the core game, which was cut due to time constraints. It’s also the reason why there isn’t a shop between the TYM section and the Montreal Eliza segment, since in the original plans, Montreal was supposed to be a city hub of it’s own. So, yeah, I can see why they decided to outscource the bosses instead of doing it themselves.

            That doesn’t excuse them for being as bad as they were, of course.

  14. Lovecrafter says:

    I never played this game, but to me it looks like Namir’s naked muscle man look is actually an aug “suit” of sorts that’s affixed onto his body. Sort of like a very literal muscle suit. This would also solve the question of his private parts. In fact, I think the black, spherical piece on his crotch area looks kind of like a protective cup.

    1. Thomas says:

      Although, why does he own a muscle suit?

      1. Lovecrafter says:

        Maybe he has some kind of fetish. Would explain the posing bodies in his room. Although it must make for awkward socializing at parties.

    2. Destrustor says:

      I always got the impression that he had augmented his body to the point where his head was all that was left of his actual body. OK maybe he kept most of his thoracic and abdominal organs, but I saw it less like “a musclesuit over his body” than “this is his actual body”. Also, you can see this suit in the early cutscene where megan throws a vat of acid at him and his clothes partially disolve to show it.
      Almost like it’s a pattern: Barret got rid of his arms, fedorova got rid of her legs, Namir upped the ante and got rid of everything.

      1. Amazon_warrior says:

        This was what I wondered too (or the external muscle suit, which would suggest that he’s some sort of atrophied weakling underneath it…) My problem with that (and the other bosses) is this Neuropazine dependency thing we’re all told is such a big deal. Surely anyone with that many augs and without Jensen’s freak genes is going to be chugging vats of the stuff? And have potentially serious side-effects as a result? No? Wtf, game. Nice work undermining your own lore.

        And again, I find myself wishing that these three had had any characterisation at all in the game. :( As it is, Namir’s last line is utterly without weight or meaning. I found myself wanting Jensen to pick him up, shake him and scream “Who the hell ARE you?!” into his face. Throughout the game I felt like the devs were reading from the full script, but had only given me the severely abridged version. *They* knew who these people were, so no need to explain it, right? :/

    3. tengokujin says:

      http://eidosmontreal.tumblr.com/post/13255306027/has-namirs-torso-been-replaced-by-an-augmented
      For those leery of clicking links:

      Has Namir’s torso been replaced by an augmented counterpart, or is he wearing a suit over it?

      Frank says:

      “The fake muscle you see on him are a set of custom-made arms, legs and dermal plating.

      Underneath the plating, Namir's torso is still flesh and blood, like Adam's.”Âť

    4. drlemaster says:

      Same here, looks like armor to me. As to why you’d want your armor to look like that…

      Hey, can you make my armor look like bare, skinless muscles, so I can hide in the naked muscleman room?

      Dude, you have a cloaking augment.

      I know, but it would be so cool if anyone ever sneaks in here.

      Fine, whatever. Just be careful if you do get into a fight in there. You now you can’t counter worth crap when you’re jumping over walls.

  15. LunaticFringe says:

    Between the ‘naked body’ room and the Antarctica mission is just a style over substance sequence. First you have random naked body room, pure white research room with Megan inside, and the bloody ORBITAL LAUNCH SYSTEM that throws you into space that was clearly playing off the Icarus imagery in the trailer but doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s like the developer went with a ‘this will be awesome but make no goddamn sense’ design philosophy instead of their more thought out process through the rest of the game.

    1. arron says:

      I definitely thought that the shark-jumping moment did occur at about the point you did the last boss fight. After then, it all didn’t hold together anywhere near as well as the first few levels.

      And the ending would have been better as a New Vegas style faction mission thing through the game – which allowed you to play out a position to arrive at a chosen ending. But it turned out to be a button-pushing exercise to work out which TV channel to watch for the end cut-scene..

      1. Indy says:

        I know I would be the kind of person to Rick Roll the world. I’m a little scared of that.

    2. Infinitron says:

      Don’t forget the random crash test dummy in Megan’s room. And the gramophone.

  16. silentlambda says:

    Namir is obviously just a big Solid Snake fan, hence the octocamo. But I do wonder what the developer’s train of thought was when designing it.
    “Alright, he’ll blend in with the environment to confuse the player… so I’ll fill the room with skinless dudes, of course!”

    1. Thomas says:

      To be fair, if this had been really MGS’ and he’d used that ability in the fight it would have been much better. Stalking round those creepy as corridors not sure which flesh statue is going to leap out and attack you? That would have been good stuff

  17. uberfail says:

    Josh’s awesomeness is at least partly due to him playing on easy mode

  18. Marlowe says:

    The kidnapping employees motif derives from the cyberpunk stories of William Gibson such as New Rose Hotel (in the collection Burning Chrome), Neuromancer & Count Zero. Zaibatsu exert such close supervision over their top researchers that these persons have virtually no freedom or private life & rival corporations have to extract these people by devious means should they choose to defect from their current employer. It comes out of the Cold War really – top scientists in both the Soviet Union & the West working on classified military projects often endured this kind of monitoring regime – e.g. Oppenheimer whom U.S. G-men tailed to private meetings with his ex-girlfriends and who intercepted all of his phone calls and letters. Both sides in the Cold War would often try to encourage the other sides’ top scientific researchers & other officials to defect and had to arrange elaborate ways of removing these persons. Gibson has said in interview that the work of espionage novelists such as Len Deighton had a strong influence over his own writing. These days, absent Cold War tensions, it doesn’t make as much sense.

  19. Sydney says:

    You can also get rid of Namir with one takedown. He can’t do his counterattack as long as you catch him while he’s in the air.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v1X5F0d58I

  20. JPH says:

    Okay, so here’s my theory.

    Eidos wanted an Eye Candy scene, but to avoid being called sexist, they’d make eye candy for women except for men.

    Problem: all the designers were men.

    “What turns women on?”

    “Um… Muscles? They like dudes with muscles?”

    “Yeah!”

    “You know, since we’re dealing with robots and weird augmentation type stuff, I bet we could cut out the middleman (skin) and just show a bunch of naked muscle men!”

    And the rest was history. Horrible, horrible history that will probably be redacted from the history books.

    1. LunaticFringe says:

      http://www.davincilife.com/images/vitruvianman.jpg

      My theory is a little different, I think they were trying to pull off a reference to Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and his ‘ideal proportions’ that failed horribly.

    2. Keredis says:

      The Horrible History books are actually pretty good. Informative and enjoyable. And appropriately gruesome.

  21. hardband says:

    Personally I always viewed the room as a “modern art room” designed to amuse Zao. An art piece really. Although it doesn’t stop the boss battle set-up from being silly.

  22. Rax says:

    Isn’t it obvious? The naked, skinned body room was there by pure coincidence, the time you got there just happened to be the time Body Worlds was in town.

    Also this bossfight is incredibly easy with the explosive mission pack, even if you get the upgrade and subsequently hacked. The grenade launcher staggers him for a second, enough time to fire another shot.

    1. Spammy says:

      I actually sort of liked the design of this room for the Body Worlds factor. It seems like a fun use of augmentation technology, making your Body Wolds exhibits move on their own. Of course, I don’t know why they’re here, in the basement (?) of this Area 51 like facility, but it’s nice. Sort of seems like a thing that should have been in the Tai Young Medical building.

  23. Even says:

    “Typoon”

    If it wasn’t accidental, you’re really putting Rutskarn to shame.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Best typo ever!

      1. Dante says:

        Now we have to figure out what that means, in an Urban Dictionary sense….

  24. itches says:

    ‘Why is Namir here, naked?’

    You know, when I first played it, I assumed that it was just what Namir did in his down time. I found it super creepy that he was so much part of their system that he went on display when he wasn’t working.

    It’s only now that I consider that this wasn’t the intention.

  25. MatthewH says:

    On Paige pitching the kidnapping -I’d love to be a fly on the wall too, but at least to him, I think the logic went like this.

    1.) I need to slow down Sarif.
    2.) I need to design these chips
    3.) I need Megan Reed to be alienated and alone so I can recruit her.

    4.) I can convince Darrow that Megan is cool, and he will totally want to get her away from Sarif.

    5.) Zhao and Taggart will do what Darrow says, because Darrow is like that.

    6.) Therefore, kidnapping solves three birds with one stone, and I can blame Darrow when it inevitably goes wrong -then I sweep in to scoop up Megan.

    1. Speaking of which, if Darrow was behind the kidnapping, why wouldn’t he wait until after Megan presents her research, setting in motion a program to remove neuropozyne dependency from augs? He thinks augs will be used to control people, so why not allow something that will remove much of their ability to control? No neuropozyne, no addictions, the only way to control people would be directly through their augs, the way he did. So then, why not put money into designing a system to prevent augs from being controlled? Like, a replace the control program in the biochip with a firewall or something.

      1. Thomas says:

        Because Darrow is bitter and insane

  26. Spammy says:

    I thought that the scientists were kidnapped to silence them about Megan’s research. In the opening cutscene where Bob Page is chatting over MSN with his buddy, his buddy says that their hand has been forced by Sarif going public with the research. I thought that making the mind control chips was just something they stuck the scientists on because they had all these new experts lying around.

    Also, did I miss a terminal or something? When I played through this game I wouldn’t really have guessed that Megan and Namir had hooked up in any way. Sure there was his line about how men like them never get back what they’ve lost, but that’s about it.

    More than anything these scenes made me wish that they had done more to develop Adam and Megan’s relationships. Maybe during flashback segments while Jensen is flying around with Malik or something. And set her up better as an image Jensen is holding on to as a reminder of before he was augmented. Finding Megan, in Jensen’s mind, is basically finding proof that he’s still human. Some people comment about Jensen like he has this fantasy, but there’s no real sign from Jensen that he is.

    1. evileeyore says:

      “Also, did I miss a terminal or something? When I played through this game I wouldn't really have guessed that Megan and Namir had hooked up in any way. Sure there was his line about how men like them never get back what they've lost, but that's about it.”

      When Megan is confronted there was a line or two you could ask her about Namir.

    2. Infinitron says:

      For the record, from what I understand, in the tie-in novel, Namir is a married man and deeply loyal to his family.

  27. RCN says:

    I liked the kidnapped scientists (regardless of how much sense it makes to kidnap scientists). Sevchenko in special really left me an impression. He got kidnapped and instantly got his coworkers on his plan to escape or at least sabotage their kidnappers.

    As for this boss… I think I’ve said it before, but I just used the laser-rifle impossible accuracy from cover on his face and then tossed a gas grenade.

    I really found this boss to be cryptic. He is the most developed of all 3 (as in, he actually has SOME precious little development, mostly implied though), but I just kept asking “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?” I felt I had skipped something. The other bosses just babbled about and did nothing, but Namir… he made me believe I glossed over some important e-mails or insta-skipped an important cut-scene. WHY does he acts like he relates to Adam somehow when there’s nothing in the game that tells you how this is possible.

    Oh, and I took his plasma rifle. No real reason other than I had been lugging a cooling upgrade since the begging of the game waiting for the plasma rifle to show up (because I’m a big sucker for plasma weaponry… for no real reason, really).

  28. Packie says:

    This is the point in the game where I believe that Eidos Montreal ran out of time and rushed the production. The final act just doesn’t even come close to the awesomeness that came before it. Everything just felt rushed and the ending, while I didn’t hate it as much as other people did, it was unfortunate the way they wrapped up everything with no sense of closure.

    But still, for a first effort from a new studio. Good job guys. I’m definitely keeping an eye on their next project and Thief 4.

  29. Destrustor says:

    Another question I have about why zhao is here: where the hell did she go after the fight started? It’s like Namir’s first punch makes her vanish and translocate straight to panchaea.
    There are two doors out of this room, so she either walked past Megan without telling her what was going on on her way to the helipad, or went back the way you came and just hung out until Jensen was gone so she could catch a ride after him.
    Whuuh?

  30. McNutcase says:

    At least Cutscene Stupidity isn’t exclusive to the player character in Deus Ex: Hunan Beefcake. That’s… well, it’s a step. Whether it’s in the right direction or not, I’m not sure; I’d prefer to see Cutscene Stupidity gone, but I’ll settle for equal-opportunity derp.

  31. Venalitor says:

    well… they could have put in a silencer for the revolver with explosive rounds.

  32. Irridium says:

    So, who else thinks that this was one of the moments that Warren Spector himself screamed at?

    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-16-warren-spector-on-deus-ex-human-revolution-i-screamed-at-the-television-as-i-played

  33. Amazon_warrior says:

    “What did Namir do with his penis? Did he forget to bring it with him when he left for work this morning?”

    His penis is augmented.

    (No one beat me to that? Seriously? Heh.)

  34. Anorak says:

    The most hilarious way of dealing with Namir:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kwP2XnzhV8

    1. JPH says:

      That is literally the best thing I have ever seen.

  35. MelTorefas says:

    [Wrong park. Er, post.]

  36. Johan says:

    This part with the augs I didn’t really understand

    So the big conspiracy basically controls the augmentation scene, and through this total control they can make it so that augmentations are susceptible in some way so that at around this point in the game everyone’s augments start fritzing out

    Also because they control everything, they can roll out a “bugfix” which is actually something that will allow them to turn off your augs

    Uh… why did they have step 1? If they control augmentation, then there’s no reason to have that step, skip directly to installing a tiny piece of software that lets them turn you off. If they really controlled it then this shouldn’t even have been a choice, just boom, she hits a button and your augs go off. Making it so that you have to have gotten the bug fix yourself makes it feel like they wasted a lot of their own time and effort.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      They couldnt control the augs from the beginning,they basically hacked them,and made them glitch out,because that is probably the most they could do.The bug fix was actually a bunch of tainted augs that can be controlled by them.

      1. Johan says:

        That still doesn’t make sense, if you can make augs glitch and not work, well hey you win. After Jenson goes “sorry, I didn’t get the upgrade,” she should have just pulled out ANOTHER controller that turns on whatever signal they were using to glitch out the augs. The Jenson again has to fight without his augs.

        Basically, from step 1 they have a way to keep you from using your augs, so there is absolutely no need for further steps, and no reason why this fight should be any different whether or not you got the tainted upgrade

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