Dex: Enhanced Version
releases on TBD
Reviews View More
Grody streets, towering skyscrapers, smog-filled airways, glaring neon signs. THIS is moral decay, THIS is a world without principles, THIS is cyberpunk.
Ever since the 80s, Ridley Scott and William Gibson's dystopian vision has been seen as the defacto depiction of a cyberpunk setting, and it should come as no surprise that I relish such renditions of lowlife and high-tech. Some may claim it's overly-done, cliched, and perhaps even outdated (LED signs have replaced neon ones after all). Valid points for sure, but I can't bring myself to agree. There's always been something inside me that goes silent with awe whenever I see a gritty metropolis drenched in the effulgent glaze of corporate ads and human vice.
Dex's Harbor Prime is another great addition in a long-line of cyberpunk cityscapes, and while I haven't played the original release, any brush-ups in the Enhanced Version were evidently done for the better. Despite being 2D, Harbor Prime feels as lived in as any 3D urban sprawl: working-class people trudge about the roads, wandering mechanically like cogs in a machine; shady NPCs stroll or stand-about in the back, not bothering you so long as you don't bother them; signposts glower on high, touting small businesses to conglomerate enterprises, each seeking to earn a quick buck from anyone with the cash on hand. Multiple districts make-up Harbor Prime, depicting a technical socioeconomic range offset by the grunge- it doesn't matter if you're living in the slums or a high-rise apartment: everything is filthy.
All this raving about the visuals, and I still feel I haven't done justice to the work of art conceived by developer Dreadlocks. Dex operates in a style reminiscent of older computer games from the 64-bit era. Models are full-fledged humans adorned in an impressive variety of clothing that still feels in-vogue despite the eternally dusk capital: no matter how late it is, the nightlife roams free. And occasionally intermingling your excursions are limited cutscenes drawn in a beautiful painted aesthetic.
That old-school flair does hit the game negatively in a few ways though. Animations are a bit stilted for kinetic characters and their textiles, and downright awkward for those stuck in a stationary pose, shuffling and shrugging as though they're constantly adjusting a loose jacket. Additionally, the lack of a walk option prevents you from ambling about the semi-open world like a regular citizen. Lastly, those cutscenes I cheered on have this strange stutter to them. Granted, this could've just been my laptop, but looking up other playthroughs showed framerate drops regardless, indicating this was either a coding issue on their part or a strange stylistic decision that doesn't quite work.
But overall, Dex's graphics more than serve their purpose, situating Harbor Prime alongside other great cyberpunk settings as Blade Runner's L.A., Neuromancer's Chiba, and 2077's Night City.
So excited was I about the optical splendour, I haven't even talked about what Dex is. It's a 2D, side-scroller that takes inspiration from the RPG and beat 'em-up genres, focusing on a young woman named Dex who finds herself on the run from a corporate monstrosity called The Complex. I wish I could say Dex's other aspects are as strong as its vistas, but that isn't the case beginning with this narrative. Archetypal cyberpunk environs may be fine in my book; however, storylines don't get the same break, and that's where Dex stumbles. Think of every trope and archetype from cyberpunk works and you'll have a good chance at guessing the tale Dreadlocks wanted to spin. Harbor Prime is your typical capitalist cesspit, officially and unofficially run by a consortium of sociopathic megacorps up to no good. Your eponymous protagonist happens to be the only one who holds the key to bringing them down, and with guidance from a grizzled veteran and mysterious digital figure, she has the tools necessary to complete her destiny.
Nothing new is really done here; if you've played Deus Ex, read Neuromancer, or partook in some form of cyberpunk media, you'll recognize the tropes off the bat. This would've been fine if it weren't for the storytellers evidently not wanting to spend time exploring the characters they crafted. Dex is a strange case of a pre-conceived protagonist with customizable personality sets: it's like the writers couldn't decide whether they wanted to give players a blank slate to fill in with their choices or a full-fledged individual with her own thoughts and emotions (nor could they decide whether she's a fresh face in this Brave New World or a person capable of handling herself). Dex comes across as a scared little girl afraid of meeting new cats, entering cyberspace, and augmenting herself, yet is also quite literally able to kick ass and traverse a downtrodden municipality. Choices further expand this confusion by giving you the option to come-off as a straight-shooter, empath, smart-ass, or a mix of the above.
In games that indulge in RPG elements, narrative decisionmaking of course matters and consequently deserves a degree of visible diversity. But too many concrete storybeats, that have their own ideas in mind of what Dex is, inherently limit the scope of this facet (further not helped by your judgments in side missions not causing any impact on the main path, either by branching spiderwebs or a flexible morality meter).The writers know who they want Dex to be, and throwing in an arbitrary dialogue system was a mistake in my book (further not helped by 1. most of the choices resulting in the same pre-rendered response from your conversationist and 2. Dex's personal journal subtly chastising you for making wrong decisions).
That aside, the main narrative suffers from the additional writer's ailment of being too interested in moving forward with major notion after major notion without giving its protagonist time to stop, breathe, and soak in the neon glare. What I mean by this is not that you don't have any opportunities to branch away, explore, and do other things, but that when you do get back on track, everyone is more interested in just going forward with the next major initiative or next major exposition dump. There’s no time for everyone to breathe or relationships to form. For a cyberpunk game focused on free will, you spend an inordinate amount of time following someone's instructions blindly. I also had an issue with the ending, marked by a spoiler tag here to be read at the end at your discretion+
Side quests are handled better, mostly because they tend to give you free reign in terms of when you're compelled to do their objective from a narrative sense, as well as the presence of impactful decisions. A number of them tend to focus on some aspect of Harbor Prime's degeneracy, such as a corporation or individual in the system, and examine why they are emitting moral (and in some cases physical!) corruption.
They aren't as fleshed out as they could have been, and an amount of them are essentially fetch quests, but I found the majority enjoyable and memorable, and you'd be surprised by some of the end results that come your decisions (or lack thereof).
And just to clarify, for all my slam-banging of the main campaign, I still had fun with it. Cyberpunk is one of my favorite subgenres, and any game that competently tells a story set in it is bound to hit enough right notes, which is what Dex does.
Sound is a mixed bag, but before delving into it, I want to praise Dreadlocks for giving the options to adjust the three different aural aspects: sound effects, voices, and music. Usually smaller titles restrict you to just music and every other sound, so it was nice to see individual volume controls.
The voice acting is pretty mediocre- the main cast like Decker, Raycast, Tony, and one of the villains named Hammond are solid, but everyone else, particularly in the side missions are too hit-or-miss. They don't intonate as though they have lived and breathed in this crime-ridden world, instead sounding like stereotypical street urchins with a delivery reminiscent of an attempted mimicry of old noir movies. A number of them also have sound editing issues wherein they speak much softer than the other characters despite having the VA sound turned all the way up. And in general, everyone speaks so slow to the point where I often skipped through convos because I was reading the dialogue faster than it was being said! I do appreciate the devs for assembling an array of voice artists for all the different NPCs, but quantity sometimes takes precedence over quality.
One of the more bizarre facets of the voice acting is Dex herself- in the animated scenes she’s brought to life by actress Jessica Boone, but during EVERY OTHER part of the game, her communications are depicted purely through text. Could they not afford to hire her for the entire game or something?
SFX is severely lacking. You can turn up atmospheric noises to hear the occasional bird flutter, and footsteps (out of sync) opt to make themselves known on different surfaces on an inconsistent basis, but there's no sense of city-life. The sound does not match up with the look of Harbor Prime: there's no crunch of dirt as NPCs pace back-and-forth, no inhalation of drugs, no buzzing of electronic billboards, no churning of machinery, no honking of cars in traffic, none of that.
Combat is given a little bit more due. I admittedly didn't use the firearms much, but looking up other playthroughs indicates that effort went into making them aurally distinct from the other. And while I've heard other reviewers criticize the mano-y-mano for sounding like old-school arcade punches, I personally really enjoyed it: the noises combined with the slight shake of the screen gave off a sense of impact. That being said, even these are limited to a singular din, no matter who or what you're shooting, and every bad guy who can be silently taken down emits the same grumble.
The score though....ohhh man, have I got some praise to weave. Synth-based electronica has been the de facto basis for cyberpunk-music for a while now, and composer Karel Antonín adds his flair to this rich history. If the soundscape failed to properly convey the life of the city, the OST makes up for it, delivering a pulsating rhythm that adjusts its warble depending on the quietness or liveliness of the section that you’re in. The main theme, in particular, is the hallmark of techno-thrillers everywhere.
Finally, we come to gameplay. Earlier, I mentioned the two parent groups that Dex draws inspiration from: beat ‘em-ups and RPGs, and I wish Dreadlocks had taken more from the former than the latter. See, when you’re just going around, knocking around goons, it’s all good fun- the addition of blocks and dodge rolls, plus decent enemy variety in attack patterns turns these encounters into enjoyable scraps. Areas are technically constructed to give you multiple ways of approaching a situation (vents/tunnels that allow you get behind thugs for example), but these places are generally too small and lacking in sufficient enemies to make anything but the linear path worth doing.
To make things worse, combat is made broken by an interface competence called AR, which enables you to freeze time, hover over any enemy, and hack into them to cause temporary paralysis. For smaller enemies, this means you can easily take them out by way of immobilizing them, rolling behind, and choking them. For larger enemies with guns, it means being able to stop them while you move in close to engage in a barrage of hits, during which time they lose the willpower to just pull the trigger on their firearm. Temporarily disabling enemies also gives you an opportunity to quickly restore lost health. Staying in the AR realm (and initiating hacks) attracts viruses that can quickly knock down your AR meter (called focus); however, every time you leave, you can instantaneously reenter it, causing a reset of all viruses and allowing you to take out people one-by-one. An easy fix would obviously have been including a cooldown meter, preventing players from spamming AR. There’s also a severe lack of environmental opportunities to manipulate with AR- outside of altering the targeting system of turrets, there’s nothing else you can do to give yourself an edge in battle: overheating guns, randomly opening panels underneath guards, causing them to fight each other, and so forth were some additions I can think of that would have expanded upon the untapped potential here.
Role-playing elements come in the form of an experience system, as well as augmentations called implants that give you perks. Gaining enough experience (or purchasing a canister) lands you a point that you can invest in one of many skills that increase your proficiency, from extra combat moves to bartering.
Unfortunately, like so many games, some of these abilities are mandatory and others are pointless. Lockpicking, for example, is near-essential for getting through areas and finding hidden goodies, while you can honestly do without acquiring new weapon proficiencies since your magnum is enough to dispel 99% of enemies. If you want to ensure you get the best dialogue choices in talks with NPCs, you’d better put early skills into charisma, while extra melee movies are arbitrary at best. For most of these, it’s less about specific playstyles and more about convenience, which doesn’t really make it an enjoyable system. It’s worth pointing out also that leveling up doesn’t give you increased attack power, defense, or HP like other games have occur.
Implants kind of fall into the same boat, with some like poison/electricity immunity being necessary for side quests, and others (health regeneration) more about convenience than encouraging playstyles. There really was a missed opportunity, though part of me wonders if they deliberately dialed it back in light of the environmental designers not being able to give large playpens that enticed different avenues for success.
Hacking is the last major gameplay system you’ll take part in, and your mileage will honestly vary depending on how much you enjoy arcade-esque shooters. Entering cyberspace puts Dex in a computerized plane of existence that sees her mind represented by a blue sphere that must navigate whilst avoiding other circles: most of these shoot lasers, but others have alternate methods of attack to them. The whole minigame is akin to Space Invader or Galaga if you had more freedom of movement in those titles, hence my insistence on your enjoyment depending on your appreciation for cabinet classics of yonder. Shops sells power-ups that can be employed during your trips into cyberspace, like a screen-clearing shockwave or a deployable shield, but otherwise the gameplay is standard shmup.
Overall, Dex is a worthy entry in the cyberpunk field. Yes, I had a number of issues with it, technically, narratively, and gameplay-wise, but you’ll still get strong satisfaction from the typical corporate conspiracy yarn the writers spin. More importantly, wandering through Harbor Prime is such a rich delight, an excursion that rewards exploration with secret areas, stationary that gives historical/anecdotal details, and more. Dex also doesn’t outstay its welcome, providing 11-12 hours of content total which, at a $15.00 price range, is a steal.
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+In addition to having a pointless binary ending that rips off Deus Ex 1, the main finale is way too clean, with Dex turning in evidence of The Complex to the authorities and everyone going to jail while the news airs this to the public. Like what? In a world that was set-up on the basis of corporate hegemonic control over all sociopolioeconomic aspects of the country, you mean to tell me the federal government turned on them like a dime and prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law? It was out-of-line with what had been set-up before.
Ever since the 80s, Ridley Scott and William Gibson's dystopian vision has been seen as the defacto depiction of a cyberpunk setting, and it should come as no surprise that I relish such renditions of lowlife and high-tech. Some may claim it's overly-done, cliched, and perhaps even outdated (LED signs have replaced neon ones after all). Valid points for sure, but I can't bring myself to agree. There's always been something inside me that goes silent with awe whenever I see a gritty metropolis drenched in the effulgent glaze of corporate ads and human vice.
Dex's Harbor Prime is another great addition in a long-line of cyberpunk cityscapes, and while I haven't played the original release, any brush-ups in the Enhanced Version were evidently done for the better. Despite being 2D, Harbor Prime feels as lived in as any 3D urban sprawl: working-class people trudge about the roads, wandering mechanically like cogs in a machine; shady NPCs stroll or stand-about in the back, not bothering you so long as you don't bother them; signposts glower on high, touting small businesses to conglomerate enterprises, each seeking to earn a quick buck from anyone with the cash on hand. Multiple districts make-up Harbor Prime, depicting a technical socioeconomic range offset by the grunge- it doesn't matter if you're living in the slums or a high-rise apartment: everything is filthy.
All this raving about the visuals, and I still feel I haven't done justice to the work of art conceived by developer Dreadlocks. Dex operates in a style reminiscent of older computer games from the 64-bit era. Models are full-fledged humans adorned in an impressive variety of clothing that still feels in-vogue despite the eternally dusk capital: no matter how late it is, the nightlife roams free. And occasionally intermingling your excursions are limited cutscenes drawn in a beautiful painted aesthetic.
That old-school flair does hit the game negatively in a few ways though. Animations are a bit stilted for kinetic characters and their textiles, and downright awkward for those stuck in a stationary pose, shuffling and shrugging as though they're constantly adjusting a loose jacket. Additionally, the lack of a walk option prevents you from ambling about the semi-open world like a regular citizen. Lastly, those cutscenes I cheered on have this strange stutter to them. Granted, this could've just been my laptop, but looking up other playthroughs showed framerate drops regardless, indicating this was either a coding issue on their part or a strange stylistic decision that doesn't quite work.
But overall, Dex's graphics more than serve their purpose, situating Harbor Prime alongside other great cyberpunk settings as Blade Runner's L.A., Neuromancer's Chiba, and 2077's Night City.
So excited was I about the optical splendour, I haven't even talked about what Dex is. It's a 2D, side-scroller that takes inspiration from the RPG and beat 'em-up genres, focusing on a young woman named Dex who finds herself on the run from a corporate monstrosity called The Complex. I wish I could say Dex's other aspects are as strong as its vistas, but that isn't the case beginning with this narrative. Archetypal cyberpunk environs may be fine in my book; however, storylines don't get the same break, and that's where Dex stumbles. Think of every trope and archetype from cyberpunk works and you'll have a good chance at guessing the tale Dreadlocks wanted to spin. Harbor Prime is your typical capitalist cesspit, officially and unofficially run by a consortium of sociopathic megacorps up to no good. Your eponymous protagonist happens to be the only one who holds the key to bringing them down, and with guidance from a grizzled veteran and mysterious digital figure, she has the tools necessary to complete her destiny.
Nothing new is really done here; if you've played Deus Ex, read Neuromancer, or partook in some form of cyberpunk media, you'll recognize the tropes off the bat. This would've been fine if it weren't for the storytellers evidently not wanting to spend time exploring the characters they crafted. Dex is a strange case of a pre-conceived protagonist with customizable personality sets: it's like the writers couldn't decide whether they wanted to give players a blank slate to fill in with their choices or a full-fledged individual with her own thoughts and emotions (nor could they decide whether she's a fresh face in this Brave New World or a person capable of handling herself). Dex comes across as a scared little girl afraid of meeting new cats, entering cyberspace, and augmenting herself, yet is also quite literally able to kick ass and traverse a downtrodden municipality. Choices further expand this confusion by giving you the option to come-off as a straight-shooter, empath, smart-ass, or a mix of the above.
In games that indulge in RPG elements, narrative decisionmaking of course matters and consequently deserves a degree of visible diversity. But too many concrete storybeats, that have their own ideas in mind of what Dex is, inherently limit the scope of this facet (further not helped by your judgments in side missions not causing any impact on the main path, either by branching spiderwebs or a flexible morality meter).The writers know who they want Dex to be, and throwing in an arbitrary dialogue system was a mistake in my book (further not helped by 1. most of the choices resulting in the same pre-rendered response from your conversationist and 2. Dex's personal journal subtly chastising you for making wrong decisions).
That aside, the main narrative suffers from the additional writer's ailment of being too interested in moving forward with major notion after major notion without giving its protagonist time to stop, breathe, and soak in the neon glare. What I mean by this is not that you don't have any opportunities to branch away, explore, and do other things, but that when you do get back on track, everyone is more interested in just going forward with the next major initiative or next major exposition dump. There’s no time for everyone to breathe or relationships to form. For a cyberpunk game focused on free will, you spend an inordinate amount of time following someone's instructions blindly. I also had an issue with the ending, marked by a spoiler tag here to be read at the end at your discretion+
Side quests are handled better, mostly because they tend to give you free reign in terms of when you're compelled to do their objective from a narrative sense, as well as the presence of impactful decisions. A number of them tend to focus on some aspect of Harbor Prime's degeneracy, such as a corporation or individual in the system, and examine why they are emitting moral (and in some cases physical!) corruption.
They aren't as fleshed out as they could have been, and an amount of them are essentially fetch quests, but I found the majority enjoyable and memorable, and you'd be surprised by some of the end results that come your decisions (or lack thereof).
And just to clarify, for all my slam-banging of the main campaign, I still had fun with it. Cyberpunk is one of my favorite subgenres, and any game that competently tells a story set in it is bound to hit enough right notes, which is what Dex does.
Sound is a mixed bag, but before delving into it, I want to praise Dreadlocks for giving the options to adjust the three different aural aspects: sound effects, voices, and music. Usually smaller titles restrict you to just music and every other sound, so it was nice to see individual volume controls.
The voice acting is pretty mediocre- the main cast like Decker, Raycast, Tony, and one of the villains named Hammond are solid, but everyone else, particularly in the side missions are too hit-or-miss. They don't intonate as though they have lived and breathed in this crime-ridden world, instead sounding like stereotypical street urchins with a delivery reminiscent of an attempted mimicry of old noir movies. A number of them also have sound editing issues wherein they speak much softer than the other characters despite having the VA sound turned all the way up. And in general, everyone speaks so slow to the point where I often skipped through convos because I was reading the dialogue faster than it was being said! I do appreciate the devs for assembling an array of voice artists for all the different NPCs, but quantity sometimes takes precedence over quality.
One of the more bizarre facets of the voice acting is Dex herself- in the animated scenes she’s brought to life by actress Jessica Boone, but during EVERY OTHER part of the game, her communications are depicted purely through text. Could they not afford to hire her for the entire game or something?
SFX is severely lacking. You can turn up atmospheric noises to hear the occasional bird flutter, and footsteps (out of sync) opt to make themselves known on different surfaces on an inconsistent basis, but there's no sense of city-life. The sound does not match up with the look of Harbor Prime: there's no crunch of dirt as NPCs pace back-and-forth, no inhalation of drugs, no buzzing of electronic billboards, no churning of machinery, no honking of cars in traffic, none of that.
Combat is given a little bit more due. I admittedly didn't use the firearms much, but looking up other playthroughs indicates that effort went into making them aurally distinct from the other. And while I've heard other reviewers criticize the mano-y-mano for sounding like old-school arcade punches, I personally really enjoyed it: the noises combined with the slight shake of the screen gave off a sense of impact. That being said, even these are limited to a singular din, no matter who or what you're shooting, and every bad guy who can be silently taken down emits the same grumble.
The score though....ohhh man, have I got some praise to weave. Synth-based electronica has been the de facto basis for cyberpunk-music for a while now, and composer Karel Antonín adds his flair to this rich history. If the soundscape failed to properly convey the life of the city, the OST makes up for it, delivering a pulsating rhythm that adjusts its warble depending on the quietness or liveliness of the section that you’re in. The main theme, in particular, is the hallmark of techno-thrillers everywhere.
Finally, we come to gameplay. Earlier, I mentioned the two parent groups that Dex draws inspiration from: beat ‘em-ups and RPGs, and I wish Dreadlocks had taken more from the former than the latter. See, when you’re just going around, knocking around goons, it’s all good fun- the addition of blocks and dodge rolls, plus decent enemy variety in attack patterns turns these encounters into enjoyable scraps. Areas are technically constructed to give you multiple ways of approaching a situation (vents/tunnels that allow you get behind thugs for example), but these places are generally too small and lacking in sufficient enemies to make anything but the linear path worth doing.
To make things worse, combat is made broken by an interface competence called AR, which enables you to freeze time, hover over any enemy, and hack into them to cause temporary paralysis. For smaller enemies, this means you can easily take them out by way of immobilizing them, rolling behind, and choking them. For larger enemies with guns, it means being able to stop them while you move in close to engage in a barrage of hits, during which time they lose the willpower to just pull the trigger on their firearm. Temporarily disabling enemies also gives you an opportunity to quickly restore lost health. Staying in the AR realm (and initiating hacks) attracts viruses that can quickly knock down your AR meter (called focus); however, every time you leave, you can instantaneously reenter it, causing a reset of all viruses and allowing you to take out people one-by-one. An easy fix would obviously have been including a cooldown meter, preventing players from spamming AR. There’s also a severe lack of environmental opportunities to manipulate with AR- outside of altering the targeting system of turrets, there’s nothing else you can do to give yourself an edge in battle: overheating guns, randomly opening panels underneath guards, causing them to fight each other, and so forth were some additions I can think of that would have expanded upon the untapped potential here.
Role-playing elements come in the form of an experience system, as well as augmentations called implants that give you perks. Gaining enough experience (or purchasing a canister) lands you a point that you can invest in one of many skills that increase your proficiency, from extra combat moves to bartering.
Unfortunately, like so many games, some of these abilities are mandatory and others are pointless. Lockpicking, for example, is near-essential for getting through areas and finding hidden goodies, while you can honestly do without acquiring new weapon proficiencies since your magnum is enough to dispel 99% of enemies. If you want to ensure you get the best dialogue choices in talks with NPCs, you’d better put early skills into charisma, while extra melee movies are arbitrary at best. For most of these, it’s less about specific playstyles and more about convenience, which doesn’t really make it an enjoyable system. It’s worth pointing out also that leveling up doesn’t give you increased attack power, defense, or HP like other games have occur.
Implants kind of fall into the same boat, with some like poison/electricity immunity being necessary for side quests, and others (health regeneration) more about convenience than encouraging playstyles. There really was a missed opportunity, though part of me wonders if they deliberately dialed it back in light of the environmental designers not being able to give large playpens that enticed different avenues for success.
Hacking is the last major gameplay system you’ll take part in, and your mileage will honestly vary depending on how much you enjoy arcade-esque shooters. Entering cyberspace puts Dex in a computerized plane of existence that sees her mind represented by a blue sphere that must navigate whilst avoiding other circles: most of these shoot lasers, but others have alternate methods of attack to them. The whole minigame is akin to Space Invader or Galaga if you had more freedom of movement in those titles, hence my insistence on your enjoyment depending on your appreciation for cabinet classics of yonder. Shops sells power-ups that can be employed during your trips into cyberspace, like a screen-clearing shockwave or a deployable shield, but otherwise the gameplay is standard shmup.
Overall, Dex is a worthy entry in the cyberpunk field. Yes, I had a number of issues with it, technically, narratively, and gameplay-wise, but you’ll still get strong satisfaction from the typical corporate conspiracy yarn the writers spin. More importantly, wandering through Harbor Prime is such a rich delight, an excursion that rewards exploration with secret areas, stationary that gives historical/anecdotal details, and more. Dex also doesn’t outstay its welcome, providing 11-12 hours of content total which, at a $15.00 price range, is a steal.
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+In addition to having a pointless binary ending that rips off Deus Ex 1, the main finale is way too clean, with Dex turning in evidence of The Complex to the authorities and everyone going to jail while the news airs this to the public. Like what? In a world that was set-up on the basis of corporate hegemonic control over all sociopolioeconomic aspects of the country, you mean to tell me the federal government turned on them like a dime and prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law? It was out-of-line with what had been set-up before.