Deus Ex: Human Revolution News for Xbox 360

Deux Ex boss battles were outsourced

NewsPublish Date 19/09/2011 - 3:40pm GMT+1

The badly-received boss encounters weren't created by Eidos Montreal.

The boss battles in Deus Ex: Human Revolution were almost universally panned by gamers and critics alike, and it turns out that the jarring sequences weren't even developed in-house at Eidos Montreal.

A video feature reveals that G.R.I.P. Entertainment created the devilishly difficult battles.

What did you think of the boss battles?

Via GameInformer

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Darkr8zor

My first thought on reading this - "It shows".

I was really enjoying the game and then 'Wham!" - I come to a dead stop at the first boss who some genius decided should nasty up close, nasty at range and have the ability to blow you out of cover (and take multiple rockets to the head).

I admit, it may have been my own fault choosing a charm/hack/snipe build. It may not have been so bad if it had been a in-game cutscene ie.e you can see the Boss before you trigger it and prepare a welcome - the first Deus Ex comes to mind.

Alpha Protocol was worse though - in fact I have yet to complete it due to a level involving a drug-taking russian mobster and his mooks, who become imortal after snorting Class A drugs.

Don't get me started on the bloke you have to escort to saftey, who thinks it's a great plan to run into a courtyard full of mercenaries and get shot to pieces.

"Come back here idiot! I want to place booby-traps"

I'm going to lie down now.

Posted 19:20 on 19 September 2011

Yumo @ Clockpunk

Am i the only one that actually liked the boss battles?

I was playing stealth and only used the stun and tranq outside of the boss battles. But during the boss fights my stun gave me a huge advantage and there where more than enough weapons lying around to take care of them.

And it didn't really break the flow of the game for me but more like a switch up of gameplay.

Posted 18:43 on 19 September 2011

Clockpunk @ CheekyLee

That was the line of my thinking...

Shadows of the Damned's final boss was a real arse (and one of the reasons I decided I was never going to play it again, justifying the trade-in), but you do expect Eastern games to have ridiculous bosses almost as a standard feature.

Posted 17:00 on 19 September 2011

Woffls @ CheekyLee

True, but it was a problem in Mass Effect as well, and in Mass Effect 2 to a lesser extent. It was also messed up in Alpha Protocol aaanndddd some other games I can't think of.

Japanese developed games are just a whole new level of ridiculousness.

Posted 16:46 on 19 September 2011

CheekyLee @ Clockpunk

It MUST have been a Squeenix thing. Boss battles are still overly prevalent in Japanese game design, and are all but forgotten in Western titles. Now, don't get me wrong, a good Boss battle can be a thing of pure joy. But a forced one rarely is anything more than a pain in the rectum.

Posted 16:35 on 19 September 2011

Woffls

Oh god, I hate the cutscenes as well. The compression artefacts are so bloody obvious, and they're really quite off-putting. We can do all this stuff in game now, so whatever.

I bet it'll be a problem in Hitman as well. Just putting that out there.

Posted 16:34 on 19 September 2011

Clockpunk

They should have followed the option of the original Deus Ex in having a safeword that, if discovered in ways other than direct combat, would negate the need for combat altogether.

It wouldn't have mitigated the clumsy cutscene manner that frustrated many as being 'not the style I was playing Jensen', but the forced nature of the boss fights was one of the few negative points.

Makes you wonder why Eidos thought they were necessary - I'm wondering if it was more a Square-Enix pressure, as that is what my gut instinct is saying...

Posted 16:28 on 19 September 2011

Woffls

It's bad enough that they thought boss battles were necessary in the first place. Boss battles are an antiquated feature of game design and the difficulty spikes usually associated with them have no place in modern games.

Deus Ex is one game in particular that should not have boss battles, especially outsourced ones. It requires such careful balance and knowledge of how the game is constructed, because you need to do balancing for so many combinations of Jensen.

It depends a lot on the gear you've acquired and where you've put skill points, and you simply can't prepare for a boss battle because it's too late by the time you get there! The only way around it really is to read ahead and find out what you can do in advance - not good for avoiding spoilers.

Did these people not play Alpha Protocol?

Posted 15:48 on 19 September 2011