Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

[Zero Credibility]

Also finished it now, and yeah, I'll too rank it slightly below DF: DC. Not quite sure why, but the story and the setting / hub just weren't as good.

 

[34scell]

What makes it worse is that cyberdoc specifically mentions there's only 6 essence points in the dialogue (which is it's own kind of derp, but nevermind).

I think he says it's more of a guideline than a rule.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I must say I haven't found any of the retarded IsZeroBel stuff yet, plus she nades the shit out of everything. It's nice to have a decker that's not completely useless in meatspace, like Dietrich from DF.

 

[CptMace]

They were damn heavy-handed with the writing. Can't fuckin stand any single more of these shallow npcs and their little stories on how they ended up selling guns in Heoi. Who gives a fuck about that ?
I guess the actually interesting stuff kicks in after the first hours of purge but damn, it's tedious to get past this shit. Feels like a cheap way to buff the length of the game.

 

[Lhynn]

They were damn heavy-handed with the writing. Can't fuckin stand any single more of these shallow npcs and their little stories on how they ended up selling guns in Heoi. Who gives a fuck about that ?
I guess the actually interesting stuff kicks in after the first hours of purge but damn, it's tedious to get past this shit. Feels like a cheap way to buff the length of the game.

So dont talk to them.

 

[Jaedar]

I wrote some spoilered stuff about the end boss a few pages ago.. I'd say that while there are ways I think the DF end boss was better, I think the HK end boss is a lot less related to world-shattering metaplot forces doing world-shattering metaplot things.

Well, the final boss here was pretty crap. Although it is one of the few enemies that can actually attack more than once per turn. The one in DF was really cool since it had the best encounter type of the shadowrun games: When you have to deck and meatspace at the same time.

HK only has two of those, and neither is very good.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Finished after 22 hours and I liked it a lot. Especially changes to matrix, while it still need some polishing its far better than previous games. Loved new cyberweave stuff, especially the weapons. Spells are somewhat still lacking and you'll end up supporting your fellow runners mostly.
Team was better than DF, I especially ilked Racter and Gaichu. Though Gaichu's mission could use much more polish.

Got only 1 serious bug, even though I fixed Law problem peacefuly

Spoiler

Bao "replaced" him with a puppet and whined about how I couldnt handle Law. And after talking to new vendor once I wasn't able to buy anything because he/she/it haven't got any dialog options anymore. Tried relaoding but nothing changed... As a decker that hurt me a bit.

Played on hard but it was easy most of the time thanks to brain dead AI... Most of the time enemies were wasting their APs, taking the worst routes in poison clouds, leaving good cover. They also kept on targetting my "granade kickers" which trivalized latest runs.

 

[CptMace]

You know the writing is good when people advise you to avoid it. So when can I expect the dialogs to be about the plot again ? I don't want to miss the storyline, the first hour hooked me pretty well despite the following ones.

 

[imweasel]

There must be enough text in the game for at least three novels. A simple question is sometimes answered by what feels like a 1000 word essay. I am already skipping most of it so that my eyes don't start to bleed.

I still like the game a lot, but man, some of the the writing is seriously bloated and extremely obtuse.

 

[Lhynn]

You know the writing is good when people advise you to avoid it. So when can I expect the dialogs to be about the plot again ? I don't want to miss the storyline, the first hour hooked me pretty well despite the following ones.

If you dont like the characters, dont talk to the characters, how stupid can you get? If you go around doing shit you dont care about just to exhaust content of course you are going to find you dont like it.
I personally like Is0bel because i know someone just like her, the same type of personality. Add to that the fact that she really doesnt want to talk to you and your entire argument comes down to you complaining for you metagaming to exhaust content you dont care about, which sounds stupid as fuck.

 

[Grokalibre]

Seriously, "Gaichu". Must be the infamous pokemon who shat on the bible and wallow in rectal pleasure.
Gaichu....

 

[CptMace]

If you dont like the characters, dont talk to the characters, how stupid can you get? If you go around doing shit you dont care about just to exhaust content of course you are going to find you dont like it.
I personally like Is0bel because i know someone just like her, the same type of personality. Add to that the fact that she really doesnt want to talk to you and your entire argument comes down to you complaining for you metagaming to exhaust content you dont care about, which sounds stupid as fuck.

How the fuck do I know if i like a character without talking to them. When I talked to Racter the first time, he seemed genuinely interesting, how the fuck could I have known he would bomb me with bullshit euro-wars I don't give two fucks about ? I don't even remember how he went to talk about that frankly.
Yet you missed my point, I don't read the fucking bullcrap i'm given by half the npcs in the hub, I just want to know how I'm supposed to see the difference between actual shit going on and mere infodump. It's kinda hard to see through that shit.

But again yeah, I'll apply this method. Just quit pretending the game is wider and thicker than SRR then, because once you cut off the unnecessary stuff, it's just as short.

 

[Darth Roxor]

If you dont like the characters, dont talk to the characters, how stupid can you get? If you go around doing shit you dont care about just to exhaust content of course you are going to find you dont like it.
I personally like Is0bel because i know someone just like her, the same type of personality. Add to that the fact that she really doesnt want to talk to you and your entire argument comes down to you complaining for you metagaming to exhaust content you dont care about, which sounds stupid as fuck.

 

[Alfons]

Hello all, lurker surfacing to post that laser weapon someone asked a few pages ago.

It's actually a laser sniper rifle with damage comparable to the top tier sniper rifle, except it doesn't have a smartlink, and has armor piercing effect of 2 (higher than normal sniper rifles).
It also appears to have a chance to set targets on fire (i.e, a weak damage over time effect),
and its easy to get around the limitations of the 3 round mag by using the auto-loader cyber arm.
Probably a little OP at the time you can get it.
It also sounds fun (pew-pew!)

Compared to the 20 DMG (smartlink) sniper rifle it has half the CAP, requires 3 STR, has a chance to put 5 DMG a turn DOT, and has about 1% less accuracy. If you don't mind using the autoloader arm and investing 5 karma in strength you get to use an end game sniper for free.

To anyone who finished the game.

Spoiler

How many missions are there after you capture the plastic faced man?

 

[Roguey]

I also had the impression that a lot of new/inexperienced people were involved this time around (at least in the design and writing teams).

SRR designers: Trevor King-Yost, Kevin Maloney, Mike Mulvihill

Dragonfall:
Design Lead Trevor King-Yost
Designers Kevin Maloney, Simon Cameron
Writer Andrew McIntosh

Hong Kong:
Trevor King-Yost - Design Lead
Andrew McIntosh - Lead Writer
Mitch Gitelman - Writer
Kevin Maloney - Designer / Matrix Lead
Tyler Carpenter - Writer / Designer
Connor Monahan - Designer
Elan Stimmel - Writer

So nope, same team with a few minor additions.

 

[Durandal]

It's nice that HBS finally saw that the Matrix is just a reskin of meatspace combat and decided to change it, although I can't say the changes are for the best. For some reason meatspace allows you to actually be stealthy in TB mode, while you can't even trigger TB mode in the Matrix aside from being detected. Which would be very useful considering the watchers move around like disco lights and the controls aren't exactly the most responsive ones. It worked in Invisible Inc, wouldn't see how it wouldn't work in HK. The mini-game for breaking into whatchacallem feels more like something you'd see in an IQ test. I'd prefer something along the lines of DX:HR hacking here, it wouldn't break the flow of the game, and it'd be an improvement over Simon Says IMO. Just give me some kind of puzzle so it doesn't feel so samey.
Stealth in HK just feels like an afterthought. I can make my toon run past a bunch of guards without being detected, but when I make Is0bel run that same route, for some reason I alert all nearby guards. It doesn't help the only way you can tell you've alerted the guards is by the change of music.

Does Uplink count?

I guess it does, although the base gameplay and mission structure causes the game to feel repetitive towards the end. At least the final mission was god-tier and guaranteed to make you sweat bullets

System Shock 2

I'm going to assume the 2 in your post was a typo

 

[eXalted]

Curious Things Episode 1

Spoiler

 

[Durandal]

Something just crossed my mind, why is it that the most interesting characters in the game (Racter and Gaichu) are people who should've been already dead because of diseases/mental disorders, but aren't and managed to become stronger as a result of their disabilities?

 

[Gruncheon]

YES. As a Dubliner, her dialogue was extremely painful to read. I always wonder why characters like that are ever added in in the first place. It feels kind of stupid to mention about something as minor as this, but I don't have many other complaints so far. Apart from Is0bel, maybe - I find her quite whiny.

From Dublin too man, hey! I think it's something that happens a lot with Irish characters, they run the spectrum from charming maudlin rogueish type (younger) to charming maudlin raconteur type (older and fatter, basically Brendan Behan) and very little outside of that. Or they're a (noble?) terrorist. I think it's annoying because they're not really characters, just caricatures designed to elicit a single emotion. Which, if it's as jarringly bad as it is here, is not going to happen. I really hate it, and as cool as Shadowrun is for being willing to explore different cultures and settings, it has a tendency to lapse into that immature tendency to use characters who never stray beyond being a cheeky cockney or a fearsome dragon lady or a stoic native american. It's a huge problem in pulp fiction generally. Maybe it's what makes it pulp in the first place?

I'm being harsh. It's a great game, but some of the characters (Rainbow, Kindly, Racter) are sort of regrettable national stereotypes.

 

[Lhynn]

Meh, not every character can cater to every player, nor would i want it to. Some resonate with some people more than others, regardless of the quality of the writing. If you dont give a fuck about someone and force yourself to read him for the sake of completionism, then what were you expecting?

How the fuck do I know if i like a character without talking to them. When I talked to Racter the first time, he seemed genuinely interesting, how the fuck could I have known he would bomb me with bullshit euro-wars I don't give two fucks about ? I don't even remember how he went to talk about that frankly.
Yet you missed my point, I don't read the fucking bullcrap i'm given by half the npcs in the hub, I just want to know how I'm supposed to see the difference between actual shit going on and mere infodump. It's kinda hard to see through that shit.

But again yeah, I'll apply this method. Just quit pretending the game is wider and thicker than SRR then, because once you cut off the unnecessary stuff, it's just as short.

Well, when i talked to racter he didnt bring up any of that, he just told me about his drone shit. On the other hand some people in this thread loved what you just told me you didnt give two fucks about. And this is natural, not everyone cares about the same crap.

Now if your point is that a short game shouldnt have themes a lot of people wont care for because it detracts from its already short lenght, then fair enough.

Should games now come with an option panel to allow you to turn off topics in the game so that you can customize what you are exposed to? What the fuck is the complain besides you finding some of the optional content not appealing to you personally?


Also, related to this:

I had to register in order to say how awesome your post is.
It was real pain for me to finish the Torment. Every fucking hobo in the streets tend to pour out the story of his worthless life in the bulk of three pages of printed text.
Torment is overrated as fuck.

 

[Mystary!]

Something just crossed my mind, why is it that the most interesting characters in the game (Racter and Gaichu) are people who should've been already dead because of diseases/mental disorders, but aren't and managed to become stronger as a result of their disabilities?

 

[Durandal]

Curious Things Episode 1

Spoiler

there's nothing more disgusting than elf self-inserts
'nooooo, humans are too generic, but orcs and trolls are too brute and not feminine enough, elfs are pure beautiful and mysterious just like my OC do not steal'
just like Toreadors in VtM it's just a faggotmagnet for unimaginative art students and tumblrinas who want to be a special snowflake in a special snowflake world
fucking elves, bunch of sex-crazy mary sue 100% perfect bunch of shits fuck elves FUCK
remember, you can't spell sELF-insert without ELF

 

[sstacks]

It's nice to have a decker that's not completely useless in meatspace, like Dietrich from DF.

Blitz

 

[V_K]

but some of the characters (Rainbow, Kindly, Racter) are sort of regrettable national stereotypes.

I didn't find Racter to be very stereotypical. On the contrary, they did a fairly good job with Russian stuff, no glaring mistakes for a change - a very welcome surprise. Though 'Racter' isn't anywhere near a Russian name, but I guess it's a street name so no harm in that either.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Whatevz