The future looks ... pretty ?

It's also quite dark, grim and uncertain too.

According to the world of the Deus Ex that is. I've written about this a while before but the latest iteration of the games in that dystopian future is out and I'm quite looking forward to seeing where the story leads.

Pretty ?

As always, click for bigger.

They're doing more and more these days in the games. There is a bit of a trick to it, the prettiest part of that picture is the city in the background. It's Dubai in the near future and our hero, Adam Jensen, has been sent in to sort out some terrorists. And I won't say any more because it'll be spoilers.

Oh - tricks ! Yep. There are two main parts to the image above. The background and the foreground. You could say that the background is an inactive part of the picture, the foreground is the active part. The player cannot go into the background or interact with it. They call things like this "skyboxes" where a complicated texture is painted on to a flat wall that is very far away. Except there's a bit more to it than that in this case because the texture moves a bit.

The foreground is where the player moves around. It's a complete 3d environment with walls, fake walls, doors, things that move, bad guys that need thumping. You'll notice that the detail on the railings isn't as good as what is out there in the background.

Still looks awesome though.

Here's what things were like in the first of this reboot, in the game from 5 years ago :

Haha, yep. Another pretty skybox in the background with a less complicated accessible environment.

It still looks pretty stunning though and the last game (Deus Ex Human Revolution) was a very pretty game in itself. I played that game to death. It didn't try to do everything but what it did do, it did extremely well.

Wait - I'm being confusing with the sequel / prequel / whatisitquel. There are 4 main games in the Deus Ex world so far, although we don't talk about one of them. We don't even register that there was one called The Fallen.

Chronologically, Deus Ex Human Revolution comes first. That's the game from 5 years ago. This one is set 2 years after that and I'm looking forward to exploring its world.

The very first one was Deus Ex from way back in 2000. How did that look ?

Hmm. A bit crude. And that was even with the improved textures pack. This one was maybe 20-30 years after Human Revolution and the one I have now.

I've stopped playing for tonight though and I've switched over to watching the Chrissa stream.

The Chrissa streams (link on the right !) are always highly enjoyable to watch and chill out to. At the moment, she's playing through Alien Isolation, a game from a couple of years ago that works on the nerves and the suspense. The expression there is one of knowing that Susan* is waiting just around the corner with a Very Pointy Tail.

*(we named the Alien Xenomorph Susan. Yep.)

It's a much darker game but also has an incredibly detailed environment to play in and hide from the alien in. I don't actually own Alien Isolation, the stealth sneaking appeals but the other mechanics definitely don't. But I did enjoy watching the Hannah and Kim playthrough and I'm enjoying watching HeyChrissa's playthrough now.

I'm veering off topic too ...

Games look better now ! But that's not really the point ...

No Man's Sky looked really pretty in a comic kind of way. But it didn't seem to be that much of a game. I've taken that one off the Wishlist now as a game I would get frustrated and bored with very quickly. I would look seriously at Alien Isolation for the hide from the alien gameplay and the ability to wander through Giger and Ridley Scott's world.

I think I'll be enjoying playing Deus Ex Mankind Divided a lot. They have a compelling world to play in there. But not tonight, I had a crash to desktop earlier which was the perfect point to put it away and have a break.

That's one thing about watching the streamers and the video people. They let you enjoy the gaming even when you're too tired to do the gaming yourself. That's me after a day's work. I'll put so much into the day's work that I don't really have the mental energy to play when I get home.

Chrissa is perhaps the best streamer I know too. Always entertaining, always chuckling along to what us in chat are bantering on about and an excellent player of the games too. It's great when you draw out the chuckles with what goes into chat too.

And I'm missing too much while posting !

Cya - and I'll hopefully find some other topics to talk about soon that aren't games !