Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review: Thank Deus for me

Deus Ex Human Revolution is a prequel to the original Deus Ex from 2000. The world presented in this game is extremely attractive and reminiscent of a near future with a heavy cyberpunk and blade runner like aesthetic to its visuals. The story of the game revolves around the increasing spread of augmenting humans by implanting them with robotic upgrades. There are themes brought into this including philosophy, morality and regulation as elements of society are opposed to the increasing numbers of augments. You play as Adam Jensen, the security chief for a leading biotech company called Sarif Industries. At the start of the game Sarif Industries is sending a team of its scientists to Washington D.C. to make a ground-breaking announcement of its latest discoveries, but before this can happen Sarif HQ is attacked by an elite group of enemies. Jensen is augmented as a result of the attack and must begin to investigate the attack that occurred. It quickly becomes apparent that the conspiracy behind the attack is far deeper and more widespread than it appeared, and the story involves investigating major players in the world of Deus Ex, and leads to travelling to numerous locations and meeting plenty of shady characters along the way.   

 
  The structure of the story is strong in the way it reveals the next part of the plot, and the pacing is excellent. This is definitely not a good or evil sort of game, despite the heavy ethical weight of the augmentation argument presented in the game. While you can certainly influence the outcomes of story points and the game has multiple endings, you are still limited in the sway that you have over the games plot. The background of the world and its events tend to be presented in newspapers and hacked terminals, meaning that exploring the world provides a reward by enriching the story in a small way. The main characters are not overly interesting, but fill their roles in the plot well. The conspiracies in the game are also a bit over the top and I felt that they become a bit unjustified towards the end. Despite this its a strong story set in an interesting world that should hold your interest for its duration.  
 
 

Deus Ex Human Revolution has a captivating visual style throughout its length. The gold and black colour scheme of the game is actually quite beautiful and really adds character and atmosphere to the futuristic world of the game. The cities you visit have skylines filled with huge skyscrapers that glitter with gold against the typically dark and crimsoned sky. The areas you travel through have richly detailed environments, even in terms of the content of individual rooms. The world the game presents feels lived-in, and is remarkably convincing. Unfortunately, character models leave a lot to be desired. The faces of characters are emotionless and unrealistic looking, which is a shame considering the advances made by games like Uncharted, Mass Effect and LA Noire. Animations are stiff and awkward at times, and some textures are not great. Most of this is forgiveable in a game world this large and ambitious, but it would have been nice to have more crisp graphics in some departments. Another gripe I have with the visuals is that the cut scene graphics are compressed and look poor in comparison to the gameplay visuals.

 
 The soundtrack for the game is inspired and beautiful, capturing the feel of a "cyber-renaissance" that the developer, Eidos Montreal talked about. The music is emotive and adds a lot of power to the game in terms of its impact and residual power with the players. Voice acting is a very different story, with a mixed level of quality. Adam Jenson himself sounds extremely gravely and gruff, almost to the state of being comical at times. Other major characters are voiced with strange accents or have poor dialogue delivery. Minor and side characters are even worse, with some truly atrocious voice acting. There are women who I am almost sure are being voiced by men, and characters who have been very poorly cast voice wise. Its something of an immersion breaker in a game with such a believable and characterful world.  
 
 

The gameplay of Deus Ex is excellent because it genuinely gives the player the choice in how to play the game. Stealth is a completely viable and indeed desirable way to play this game. If you wish you can go guns blazing, or you can meld the 2 styles together. Quests have multiple approaches, meaning that players are rewarded for searching different ways to complete objectives and doing what best suits their play style.  As you play, you'll earn Praxis points, which allow you to unlock and upgrade new abilities. These points are what allows you to unlock new abilities and further upgrade them, and it is these augment choices that determine what you will be able to do in the game. For example, if you do not upgrade your hacking ability then you will not be able to access all but the most basic locked computers, limiting what you can achieve for the whole game. For this reason the upgrade system provides the most differentiation between players while simultaneously creating a dangerous trap for unwary or careless players as you can very easily lock yourself out of certain capabilities on this screen. There are a lot of tactics in the game and many of these are actually to do with your inventory. You have limited inventory space, ala Resident Evil, and must manage it accordingly. Its another level of depth that really makes this feel like a game aimed at a mature audience.
 
 
Its great to have such a robust upgrade system in the game because the actual combat is definitely not the games strongest point. The game has a first person perspective but the controls are not very responsive in the heat of combat. You can take cover, which puts the game to a third person view, but the AI reacts in some very unusual ways that should not happen in an action based game. The combat all feels a bit boring when compared to the sleuthing and area traversal of the game, and the weapon selection does not help matters. Enemies are bullet sponges and the AI does the same tricks and tactics throughout the entire game. Stealth is definitely my preferred way to approach the missions as combat really does feel like a chore at times, and Jenson is a bit too easily gunned down for my liking. The game has boss fights, but I felt that these are the one thing that takes play style choice away from the player by forcing you into a gun fight against very powerful opponents. Players may not be prepared to face a boss if they have not been upgrading combat abilities, and I think that the boss fights go against the general feel of the game and really should not have been in the game in the form that they are. 
 
 

The single player of Deus Ex Human Revolution took me about 25 hours on normal difficulty, and there is plenty of replay value in the game due to its mission structure and multiple endings. The game has solid level design, and despite some AI issues and flat combat, its perfectly fun to play and rewarding to progress through. The presentation of the game is outstanding with its strong art style. The loading screens of the game are too long and frequent, but in a game with so much choice and size its a small price to pay. There are a couple of bugs that can result in missing a side mission objective, and this is annoying. Despite its drawbacks I think Deus Ex Human Revolution is an excellent game and one of the best stealth games I have ever played. The story is not as strong as I would have liked and it is certainly not a character driven game, nor is the combat fantastic, but the atmosphere, world and mission structure really do drive the game forward. Many people have likened the game to Metal Gear Solid or Mass Effect or Alpha Protocol, and there are elements of all those here. But I think its fair to say that it has an identity all of its own, and I think that Eidos Montreal could make an incredible sequel if they can learn from their mistakes in this title.
 
 
 
 
 Pros: 

• Beautiful and striking artistic design
• Gives players the choice in how they want to approach gameplay in a really flexible manner
• Strong thematic presentation
• Actually rewards stealth 
• Upgrade system allows for very different character builds
• Long single player campaign
• Excellent sound track
• Highly re-playable
• Good level design
• Well integrated interface and menus

 
Cons: 

• Some very bad voice acting
• Character models are very stiff
• AI is tactically poor
• Story is not overly captivating and has some cliche moments
• Boss fights disrupt the flow of the game and force combat upon players
• Frequent and long load screens
• Still some lingering and annoying bugs
• Waypoint system is poor
• Compressed cutscenes look poor compared to the gameplay

 
Wtf: 

•  What is the news anchor wearing? 

 Score: 

• 7/10

While a good game with plenty to offer, it has a lot of missteps in key areas and lacks the polish and wow factor of the top modern games