Fail Forward : Deus Ex - Human Revolution

A new video series from probably my favourite gaming site (http://rockpapershotgun.com) on what made Human Revolution great, but also how it fails in interesting ways.

An excellent discussion on the dichotomy of a player who is narratively oppressed, but mechanically more powerful then every other entity in the world.
00Scud00says...

Interesting talk, but I think he puts way too much stock in the idea that going in guns (or rats) blazing is always the more satisfying approach. Back in the old days of Thief many people prided themselves on ghosting through levels and leaving as little evidence of their passing as possible.
I tend to stealth my way through most games were stealth is a viable option and I have never felt cheated because I didn't use some of the more action oriented systems. In Deus Ex I don't think I ever bothered with that social enhancer augment.

Adam Jensen's "I didn't ask for this" attitude actually seems pretty reasonable to me, what little of his life we saw before his accident seemed pretty happy and he didn't seem like the type to sit around thinking "If only I had a cool cyborg body". This seems more like the player is projecting their own insecurities.

And I could easily see a future where prosthetic limbs were more than just for rich people. Technology advances and becomes cheaper, cellphones used to be carried by rich assholes on Wallstreet, now every asshole has one. And not every prosthetic is going to turn you into Superman either, all a cybernetic leg needs to do is allow you to walk and run like a person with a normal leg, leaping tall buildings with a single bound is not a required feature. So most of those repressed cyber citizens are probably not sporting mil-spec hardware.

ChaosEnginesays...

Agreed on most points. This one is pretty variable though.

For the next decade or two, prosthetics will continue to be sub-optimal replacements for human limbs and only used in cases of extreme trauma. I think these will continue to be the preserve of the rich (they pretty much already are in terms of 1st vs 3rd world).

Eventually, we will get to a point where prosthetics are actually better than the equivalent human limb. That's several decades away IMO (accurate control is doable, but getting to the point of have a prosthetic that relay sensory information is a Really Hard Problem).

At that point, I think we'll very quickly see adoption of prosthetics become mainstream, but it will still be geared towards the relatively wealthy (see present day adoption of smartphones).

But once you get to that point, even the most basic model prosthetic will outperform a human limb. I believe it's almost certain that these kinds of limbs will be "smart", i.e. instead of accepting simple commands from the brain of "contract tricep", "grip fingers", etc, you'll see an arm that draw a perfect circle. And they'll be stronger than a human arm almost by default (not picking up cars strong, support structures aren't there for that, but certainly stronger than an olympic athlete)

So either way, I still don't think we'll see a "prosthetic underclass".

00Scud00said:

And I could easily see a future where prosthetic limbs were more than just for rich people. Technology advances and becomes cheaper, cellphones used to be carried by rich assholes on Wallstreet, now every asshole has one. And not every prosthetic is going to turn you into Superman either, all a cybernetic leg needs to do is allow you to walk and run like a person with a normal leg, leaping tall buildings with a single bound is not a required feature. So most of those repressed cyber citizens are probably not sporting mil-spec hardware.

00Scud00says...

I still don't think the scenario they present is that far fetched, people today regularly get operations that they personally could not possibly afford, but insurance covers it. Vets returning from wherever we're fighting then getting hooked up, most vets are probably not rich by any definition. Then get a few rich backers like David Sarif and scientific advocates like Hugh Darrow and you can frame it as a quality of life issue, or even a productivity issue.
You're right about the super limbs not being too practical or likely, I would also add illegal to that list, no beat cop wants to face off against Robocop. But I wonder if even slightly stronger limbs might pose problems of their own? Say you have one of your legs replaced with a cybernetic limb, if that one is stronger than your other meat leg, I wonder if you might not end up favoring that one and that screws up you normal gait, generating a whole bunch of new problems.
The kid in the video we see getting abused seems to only have a cyber leg, I'm not sure how much good a single leg is going to be in a fight, or flight for that matter especially if you are hugely outnumbered. Adam is a different story of course, he was clearly built for combat and infiltration.
The cynic in me would readily agree with the scenario where the wealthy wind up with everything but that sounds almost too perfect and cliche. So I think there's room for other possible futures.

ChaosEnginesaid:

<SNIP>

So either way, I still don't think we'll see a "prosthetic underclass".

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