Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Set in 2027, 25 years prior to the first Deus Ex, Human Revolution acts as a prequel to the first game and its sequel Invisible War giving newcomers an easy entry into the series, but still giving veterans nice nods and the familiar gameplay they love and remember. In this game you play as Adam Jensen (or LaFleur as I sometimes called him for any of you Lost fans) the head of security for one of the most powerful human augmentation corporations in the world known as Sarif Industries. In this future altering one's body with different forms of technology, or what they call augmentations, has become very popular, at least for those who can afford it. Robotic legs to run faster or arms to become stronger are just an example of the surgeries some will go through to become more than human.

After suffering an accident early on in the game Jensen, who avoided ever getting augmentations in the past, is forced to use them to survive his injuries. His mission to discover who made the attack on him and the company becomes the focal point of the story.

Improving your current skills and upgrading to new ones is where most of the RPG elements come into play in Deus Ex. Some might feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of upgrade options that are given to you at first but I never felt as if choosing one skill over the other gave me any consequences later on in the game, though having an idea of what you would like to do wouldn’t hurt. Do you want to play more stealth like? Then upgrade your hacking and gain the invisibility skill early on. If you want to be more run and gun, upgrade your shields and weapon skills. Deus Ex really lets you be whatever kind of character you want, just use one of the many praxis points you will earn or find in the game and another upgrade is yours.

Building the type of character you want to play as is only half of the freedom you’ll have when it come to choice in Human Revolution. Plot point outcomes and obstacles are free for you choose and figure out and each choice helps lead you to one of the 25 different endings in the game. How do you want to get past this door, do you want to hack it open, talk or steal the key from someone or do you just want to get to higher ground and jump right over it? That is just a minor example of one of the situations you’ll come across and that is just the beginning.

Again when put into a combat situation its completely up to you as to how you get to your goal. And doing it in different ways gets you rewarded as well. Do you want be a ninja and sneak past everyone without being detected or would you rather take out everyone in your path leaving a trail of bodies behind you? Even though your given so many options for dealing with things, I never felt like the game was pushing me in a certain direction and everything was truly up to me.

Throughout your mission you will visit four major cities from around the world, all with a futuristic cyber punk kind of style that never becomes boring to see. From the buildings to people to the clothing styles, the world of Human Revolution features styles and visuals that you don’t see very often in other games or media in general and is a nice change of pace from the very brown filled areas of other games. Along with the great soundtrack the atmosphere never disappoints.

With all of the things Deus Ex does right, it doesn’t come without a few negatives. At the end of each of the office buildings or dungeon like areas, you will have to face off against a boss character, unfortunately they don't fit very well within the game. Eidos has since come out saying the boss fights were farmed out and developed by an external team which definitely shows. Instead of using a lot of the skills you have learned throughout the game, you’re mainly only tasked with shooting the enemy in the face until their life is depleted. It would have been nice to have more thought required to take down each boss, but they just feel like they could have been excluded from the game entirely.

Also the AI of the enemies is really subpar throughout the entire game. Sure there was a moment when they would be looking for me and actually checked under the desk where I was hiding which did actually surprise me, but usually if they don't find you within a couple minutes of seeing you they will forget you were even there. They will just return to their regular path which they have been set to follow. Even when hiding behind cover but still somewhat clearly seen by an enemy, I was practically invisible to them and was completely ignored. There are also instances where squatting down behind a wall the enemy will see you from across the room and begin to attack.

There was even a section where I had to survive for a certain amount time with enemies coming at me from both sides of the room. Just by blocking their path to me with a few objects stopped the enemies from trying to get to me at all. They would continue to shout at me but just stand in front of the barricade without even trying to get around it or knock it down.

Deus Ex Human Revolution is a breath of fresh air. The futuristic cyber-punk versions of Detroit, Montreal, Shanghai and Singapore are amazing sites to be seen and seem influenced by the world of Blade Runner. Also it is nice to have a game with a focus for more stealth gameplay with so many action shooters coming out this fall. Especially for someone like me who has never touched a Deus Ex game before, it was nice to have the easy accessibility to just jump into it, while not lacking in difficulty.