Oh, where was I. On the street. Right. I was gonna do SIDEQUESTS HOOOOO. Let's start by climbing over this fence. Shuffle dumpsters around. Stack dumpsters awkwardly. This would not be possible if I were not MIGHTY AND HULKLIKE, y'know. Accidentally throw dumpster, clobber homeless person. *reload* Let's pretend that one didn't happen. Right, over the fence and ONWARD.
Let's see... sidequest 1: Investigate drug theft. Break into dude's apartment building. Hack his door. Steal his candy bar. Read all his ebooks. Read his email. "Meet me behind the gas station", got it.
Get jumped by a thug breaking in to try to score more drugs. Punch him out. Leave with the apartment owner's fridge. Also, break into a couple of other apartments just to be on the safe side. One of them is a government agent's room! He left the keycode to his secret stash on a PDA on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. Sloppy.
Oh dear. Motion-detecting mines all up in the stash. PROTECT ME, FRIDGE! *heave* *BLAM*
Wow I can't believe that worked. Looooooot~. ...Well, a shotgun and some crossbow bolts, and some emails. Whee.
Oh yeah, I'm supposed to talk to someone else around here somewhere. Better EXPLORE EVERYTHING. Leap from rooftop to rooftop like Batman.
Talk to Detective Chase about Meg's death. (Alleged. I'm still not convinced she's dead.) Get follow-up sidequest: Break into Police HQ. Yeah sure, it's not like I'm a PARAGON OF MORALITY here. Also I had to do that anyway.
Speaking of which, there's that drug thief! He is all "I am getting this to people who NEED it! I'm a good person! That's why I'm blackmailing my ex-partner!" and asks me to kill some rival drug dealers for him. I agree with him to get him off-guard, then punch him unconscious and take the blackmail material off his body. You can't tell me what to do. I'm Adam "Banner" Hulk The Incredible Jensen-Bruce. I eat a candy bar. Then I kill the drug dealers anyway, because ew, drug dealers, ew.
The guy who was being blackmailed over the drug thefts is super-grateful. It's cool. I steal a lot of stuff myself. Just stop getting caught. He gives me a laser sight and a wad of experience. Thumbs on, rock on. Time to break into the police station.
On the way there, Sarif contacts me all "Hey uhm I know I asked you to rob the police station but please be careful with the body count." so I'm like awwww. But yeah I probably should not shoot everyone. Still, part of the sidequest is trying to talk to a guy at the desk, so I walk on in the front door.
As it happens, the "guy at the desk" is named Haas, and he has a history with Adam. Two years ago, he and Adam were part of a team that had to take down a fifteen year old kid who was augmented into some kind of weapon. Adam wouldn't shoot. Haas did. It's been killing him ever since.
I ask him politely if I can go in, and he throws a fit. TWO YEARS and that's the first thing Adam says to him? So we stand there in the police station and slam out past grievences and grief. Adam (with me manning the dialogue options) is not apologetic about refusing to shoot, but -is- firm that Haas did what he felt he had to, and that the past should be left in the past. Everyone takes responsibility for themselves here.
In the end, Haas visibly collapses in relief and lack-of-guilt, and waves Adam in. He'll clear things. I don't have to break in after all.
Haas, as a thank you for that, I'm not even gonna strip this place to the bare walls. You find your feet. I do eyeball the police armory on my way past, but ... No, I made a promise. Let's check out the morgue, investigate stuff, and see if I can figure out what happened with Meg.
Down in the morgue, they mistake Adam for a Homeland Security guy and practically HAND him the brain-chip from the hacker who tried to yoink the Typhoon. Sarif decides that Adam should take it home and try it on his computer, which cannot POSSIBLY go wrong. Now, what about the Meg stuff... Hmm. Looks like more breaking and entering. I will TRY not to steal more than I have to. Air vents... hacking... I get enough experience to get an upgrade.
Social System, or Typhoon? ... I elect to buy the Social Enhancement System, because I am told that's one of the most fun parts of the game and unlocks "conversation boss" battles. Sorry, Typhoon. SOON. But, grrrrr. I need more JUMPING POWER and more body armor and a typhoon system and some energy boosts...
WHY AM I NOT SUPERHUMAN YET.
There's a lot of mentioning of Joe Manderly in the various bits in the police station. Hello, continuity. I can't seem to find the last password I need anywhere in the police station, so I duck off to do some other quests to level-grind Hacking up to skill 2. Sigh. PUTTING OFF THE TYPHOON EVEN LONGER.
Hack, lift boxes, stack, leap over fence... I had forgotten this part of the Deus Ex experience. If you like going places you're not supposed to, this game is GLORIOUS. Oh man, like THIS one! There's a pool of electrified water and there are CRATES nearby. GUESS WHAT YOU DO. Yes. Endless two-crate bridge. YES.
...man I don't even know why I did that. I got a wad of experience in the middle of doing it, but it just took me to the street again. Maybe it's an alternate route into/out of somewhere. I did it because I could.
Well, since I'm close to Jensen's place, I elect to go use his PC terminal to analyze this chip. He lives in the Chiron building! HEY, HAVE WE REFERENCED ENOUGH GREEK MYTHS YET? (no.)
Adam is a COMPLICATED guy. His apartment is full of clockmaking tools, handwriting practice notes, complex books on law, augmentation therapy, and various scientific fields... and naturally smashed and broken mirrors because HE'S A MONSTERRRR. Don't worry, Adam. I will help you harness your SMASHY POWERS for good instead of evil. If I feel like it.
Okay, now an undercover detective wants me to do all the police dirty work. SURE. I go pretend to be a hitman. ("Pretend"?)
By now I have so many markers on my map I have NO IDEA what I should actually be doing. Holy crap. For absolutely no reason I go down in the sewer and punch a big hole in the wall. This nets me access to a bunch of police files that got buried down here, and every police access code except the one I actually want.
Grr. Maybe if I go hack every computer at the police station I'll get the chief's access code. Eventually I get another level and put a point into Hacking 2 and now I can SOLVE THE SIDEQUEST geez. I report back to Megan's mother that there's a lot of hyper hinky bearcat-level wrongness with her daughter's death, and she is grateful.
All that work just to bust into a computer. Where's the Shadow Government when you need it?
Oh well. Back to wandering the streets of Detroit. I discover that you can bounce basketballs off people's heads and they don't care. I spend a while following a guy down the street doing this. Dehr dehr dehr. I eat a candy bar.
Oh right. I'm supposed to... *rustle at objectives* "knock out Double T", "neutralize gang resistance", and keep this TT guy alive. For undercover cop girl. Yeah I can do that. Up a fire escape, in a window. There's a LOT of gang members up here, and I have no idea who "Double T" is. Operating on the assumption that I couldn't do this unless it would get me closer to my objective, I punch through a wall and deck a guy. Hey, that was Double T! Yay, I am BEST UNDERCOVER oh hey everybody.
There is a LOT of shooting. Lots of it. Ow. But in the end, this quest was transgressed with success.
Let's see. "Find incriminating evidence"... oh! The guy I'm supposed to find incriminating evidence on is the government dude or something whose apartment I broke into earlier! Well that's lucky. I gank his email again for good measure. That'll do it. Down the hall, across the rooftops, down this ladder, up this ladder... what's in here? Nothing. Experience boost for exploring, yay!
Hm. One of my subobjectives is "Be unnoticed in DNB territory", but it looks like I'm going to have to charge through to do something else. Pensively I eat a candy bar, drink two beers and a bottle of wine, and then charge out hoping I can just trudge through without being noticed too badly. Success! Sprint on through, pick up the crossbow I'm supposed to get, instantly drop it once I've fulfilled that quest objective. Next is, uh... "Go to Derelict Row", so I charge back through again. BANZAI.
Whee, more walls, more sneaking... trying to stay unnoticed... discovering what the game engine considers ledges (ow, falling damage sucks)... Eventually I give up being sneaky and shoot everyone. I am bored with sneaky. Shooty now. Then I discover that I was on the wrong street, so I go back to the right one. Oops. Okay, I'm sneaky again.
Oh my god a rocket launcher. I CANNOT JUSTIFY CARRYING THIS. I WANT THIS SO MUCH.
Eventually I shut off a radio antenna thing? And... that's good? Okay. Well, thumbs up I guess, but I haven't found this GODDAMN HIDDEN WEAPON CACHE. Rocket launchers aren't hidden weapons caches? WHERE IS THIS? I FAQ it. I can't find it in a FAQ, but then stumble into it off a branch in the sewers.
When a street gang is roaming the streets and has taken over several buildings, I naturally assume they hide their stuff in the SEWERS. Yes, of course. I eat a box of candy bars and install springs on my legs.
Next up, the police want me to actually go in and ARREST the dude. Sigh. THIS IS WHY POLICE OFFICERS EXIST. No, no. I go ahead into the building, kick down the guy's door, hit him in the face with his neighbor's refrigerator and shoot his TV. CASE CLOSED. Then I drag his body out into the street so the police can take it, but this locks every NPC around into Terror Mode, so I reload and leave him under the fridge instead.
The police officer who gave me all these jobs is UPSET that I killed him with a facefridge. Lady, if you wanted him alive, you shouldn't have hired me.
FINAL OBJECTIVE! We are ALMOST DONE HERE. "Go see the cyber-clinic for a checkup." Okay. Here I learn that Alan "The Incredible" Bruce Mchulkenheimer can use "Praxis" kits to turn on his augmentations, which I kind of actually knew already but YAY. I buy a couple. Then I activate the Typhoon Weapons System. Then I upgrade it to the "Heavy" version, which is noted as being able to kill EVERYTHING including heavily-armored robots.
Also Adam's body isn't rejecting any of the implants which is WEIRD and MYSTERIOUS and I don't care because TYPHOON MOTHERFUCKA. I also wander in back and learn that David Sarif demanded that they cut off more of Adam's body than strictly NEEDED to save his life and kept upgrading him way past the point of survival. I should probably be upset and "oh no he is evil" at this, but... even if I didn't ask for this Typhoon system or these spring-legs or the ability to punch through brick walls... THIS IS AWESOME.
David just has some level of Science-Related Memetic Disorder. He can't see that maybe not everyone would want augmentations. Happily, I do!
Okay. That's EVERY objective in Detroit, so... next time, we leave
This entry was originally posted at http://xyzzysqrl.dreamwidth.org/326692.h