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If you follow this blog, you’ve probably seen my massive bitch about Steam in one of my previous posts. Steam’s grown on me now, and if it weren’t for Steam, I never would have discovered this brilliant game.
Valve’s marketing strategy is pretty clear. If you preorder THIS game, we’ll give you THESE items for Team Fortress 2! Deus Ex:Human Revolution (from now on called DEHR because it’s so much easier to type) was one of these games. A handful of Deus Ex items made their way into game, and led me to discovering the game. Now, I feel guilty for not actually buying the game (I’m not going into that any further), but there’s no doubting it’s a good one.
I’m new to the Deus Ex series with this game, so keep that in mind.
The game is based in the not too distant future, where humanity has begun stealing fire from the gods with human augmentation, making themselves better (and some believe losing their humanity). Set before Invisible War and the original Deus Ex, augmentations are only really available to the rich. You play as Adam Jensen, head of security for Sarif Industries. He’s ex-SWAT and wear sunglasses inside, and at night. In fact, you only see his eyes in two cut scenes in the whole game. Adam starts off the game unaugmented, but due to a story event which I won’t ruin for you ends up partially mechanical. After a group of augmented soldiers break into one of the labs, he is left with more questions than answers, and travels to many different locations throughout the game, including Detroit, Singapore, Montreal and China.
The game is a first-person shooter fused with a role-playing game. It contains sidequests, weapons and ammo carry over between missions, a leveling system (with experience points) and there are two hubs in the game, Hengsha (China) and Detroit. There’s a social side to it as well. In certain situations you have to convince people to do your will, and give you what you want. As you play through the game you unlock Praxis points, which are used to unlock augmentations. Augmentations range from greater accuracy, reduced weapon recoil, stealth, jump higher, resist poisonous gases, EMP grenades and flash grenades to fall from any height upgrades (which is a godsend) and various hacking upgrades. There’s even an option to see through walls. Weapons can be upgraded throughout the game, adding the usual damage and clip size upgrades, laser pointers and silencers, to lock-on systems and explosive rounds.
One of the game’s many trailers shows 3 different ways to play. Stealth, adaptive (hacker) and aggressive. Stealth is pretty much self-explanatory. Don’t be detected. You have to use cover, non-lethal takedowns (or silencers) to get past the guards and security systems. There’s no doubting the game encourages stealth. You get more XP for non-lethal takedowns, and not being detected in the level. Aggressive is my favourite. I try stealth, but ultimately end up failing and come out all guns blazing. Ammo is quite annoying to find in the game, and while aggressive is possible to finish the game it not the best way to play. Adaptive is a nice method as well. Hack into the security hub, turn their toys against them. It’s quite simple really.
The game is fun, that’s for sure. The combination of genres work a charm, but I have two problems with the game. The first, is boss fights. Boss fights in a FPS don’t really work, and require you to pump out most of your hard-won ammunition, regardless of your tactics. The second are the load times, but that’s been fixed in an update.
My Rating
Music: 8 (check out the main theme, Icarus on youtube. It’s brilliant)
Gameplay: 9
Creativity: 7
Graphics: 9
Other: 9
Total: 42/50
Wait, What? 