Can somebody explain how sealed deck works in this game? I played a sealed deck game last night before getting too tired to stay awake, but I don't think the game gave a clear idea of how it worked. Are the cards in the boosters totally random, or are they the same for everybody? What is it you're unlocking when you unlock extra booster slots? Do you always build decks from the same pool of cards, or do you re-open boosters?
I know how sealed deck works in real-life MTG play, but it seems like you can save the decks for later use in this game, which confuses me.
I assume your sound system doesn't do 5.1LPCM, which the PS3 version supports and would be superior to the lossy digital multichannel formats?
I've 1000'd/platinumed/whatever'd the game on all 3 platforms and I'd say you're probably better off with the PS3 version, as far as the two console versions go, particularly pertaining to sound quality. The sound mixing and audio quality on the 360 is noticeably worse than on PC/PS3. I remember several instances where ambient speech on the 360 was impossible to understand due to poor mixing (and maybe lower sample rates as well). I also feel that the emotional impact of the music and audio design was hurt a bit by lower quality audio on 360 compared to PC/PS3.
I also think the PS3 version has a slight edge in terms of responsiveness and visuals, at the cost of some noticeable tearing in a few spots. The internal rendering resolution is supposed to be higher on 360 (1152x720 vs 1152x640), but it's impossible to notice with the postprocess AA solution that the game uses. I found that the peculiarities of the 360 hardware gamma setup ended up crushing a lot of the dark tones in the game, which was much more detrimental to the visuals than a lower internal rendering resolution.
I'm pretty casual. When I do play, weekdays after 8pm PST, or any time on the weekends. I'm kind of a night owl, so it's not uncommon for me to be playing at 2am.
I'm only a few hours into the game, so I'm by no means an expert. The reviews I've read have mentioned that the combat can be frustrating at times, in part due to how hard it is to execute a combo in a crowd of enemies; I thought I'd share something I'd figured out about the game mechanics that makes executing combos much easier.
Perhaps once I finish the game, I'll have more to say. Do people actually use the guides here? I've never even clicked on that tab...
During combat with crowds of enemies, it's much easier to string together combos if you just let go of the left analog stick and focus on getting the timing right on X/Y/A. Nilin seems to have an idea of "current target" that stays locked (even between dodges) until you move her towards a different enemy. I'm playing on a PC with a 360 controller, but I assume that there's a KB/M equivalent.
My other tip would be to constantly remix your combos; some enemy types are way easier to take out using the S-Pressens (especially some of the bosses), so focusing on cooldown reduction helps a lot. Other times, raw damage or regen may be what you want.
@jukezypoo: Yeah, the voice acting is definitely uneven, apart from Nilin. I think Lisa Foiles said that the French audio track is better, but I can't understand French when it's spoken that fast and the English subtitles are *tiny* at 2560x1440.
@humanity: The game isn't super demanding on hardware. I'm playing at 2560x1440 with vsync on and it's basically locked at 60fps at ~50% GPU utilization on a GTX 680. I've got all the eye candy turned to max, except for super-sampling, which drops me to an inconsistent ~45fps when it's on.
One more thing: I really like the combat music. It isn't the same music every time, but something about the way it comes in and the way it "glitches" during combat feels pretty good.
I really like the world building and the primary premise, though the narrative itself seems like it's going to be pretty straight-forward. I'm a little disappointed that this isn't the video game version of The Quantum Thief, but I guess that's asking a lot. The environments feel like a more believable version of what Deus Ex: Human Revolution was striving for; even the same-y corridor spaces have a lived-in look to them.
Gameplay-wise, the key to combat is deliberate combo execution. It reminds me a little of the combat in the recent Batman games, but it feels faster paced (the timing constraints seem to be tighter) and less balletic. You get a warning when enemies are about to attack, but there is no counter system; your only option is to dodge or interrupt their attack with an attack of your own. If you dodge an attack mid-combo, you can still resume the combo afterwards, as long as you time it correctly and continue attacking the same enemy. There are only 3 combos (3, 5, 6 moves) [Edit: derp. I just unlocked an 8-move combo. I guess there could be more], but you can customize each move past the opening move in the combo so that it can serve one of 4 functions:
deal more damage
regenerate health
reduce the cooldown on your "S-Pressen" (super) moves
duplicate and greatly magnify the effect of the previous move in the combo
In addition, you have the aforementioned "S-Pressen" super moves and some ranged powers that have certain kinds of utility in and out of combat. Part of the fun of combat so far has been to figure out the "combat puzzle" of how to redefine the combos in response to the enemies I'm facing.
Graphically, the game looks pretty good, particularly the lighting. There are a few spots where they shove some low-res console textures in your face (particularly in the intro sequence), but for the most part, stuff looks great. I like the AR visual cues (it's a nice change of pace from painting everything climbable bright white or yellow) and the typography/visual design is quite nice.
I feel like BI's difficulty depends too heavily on your loadout. You can be crippled by finding the wrong random pieces of gear. Conversely, finding a good combination can make 1999 Mode seem like a breeze. Electric, Blood to Salt, Last Man Standing, and Vampire's Embrace combined with upgraded Charge made me essentially invincible through the latter third of the game.
While I enjoyed feeling like I found a way to break the game, I sort of wish there was a greater challenge available to seek out.
I definitely agree about this. I think some of the weakest gear in the game is the stuff that gives skyline-specific boosts; it's so situational. It's a real bummer when you get this gear early in the game, since it's basically useless for large swaths of the early game. I think it would have been better if there was a skyhook-specific gear slot or each piece of gear also had a secondary skyline-specific boost alongside the primary boost.
I think part of the fun of the gameplay of BI is seeing what pieces of gear you get and then trying to play accordingly. I've played the game twice on PC and I just started 1999 Mode on 360 (I may go for the triple crown of 100% completion on all 3 platforms... because I'm crazy). I'm hoping that this time through, I'll find the right gear to do a Possession/ghostly allies build, just to see how it works out.
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