Gamespot Score:8.5 (Great)
My Score:8.5
(+)Pros: - Surprisingly impressive story with tons of twists and turns, - Superb game play elements that allow you to play either like a shooter or a stealth game, - The game IS challenging, - Drawn out conversations with other characters allow you to respond with different choices and are usually very tense, - Great open world experience and visual design, - Overall an entirely bad ass game.
(-)Cons: - Ending failed to leave any lasting impression, - Long and frequent load times, like really frequent.
Gameplay time:40-50 hours
The year is 2027, and human technology has reached its peak. Things have changed, human augmentations are all the rage, and everyone has them. The story stars Adam Jenson, a capable man with the responsibility of taking charge of security in Sarif Industries, the center of the world's most advanced human augmentation technologies. He is also in a relationship with the lead scientist in charge of an upcoming project, Megan Reed. With the day of the project coming closer, Sarif Industries is suddenly attacked by a mercenary force, and botched the entire place. Megan Reed was killed, and Adam Jenson barely scratched the gates of hell, but is brought back to life by augmentations when David Sarif, the boss of Sarif Industries, decided to revive him by augmenting his body. From that day on, things changed for Adam Jenson.
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| Adam Jenson, sneaking around since 2027. |
Let me begin by stating the selling point of the game, which is easily the best thing it has to offer. You can play "Deus Ex:Human Revolution" in many ways. Either as a shooter, a stealth game, or a hybrid of the 2. Its a great split road, and once you choose the augmentations you find will suit you most, you're off on your journey. Getting defensive or offensive augmentations that let you take more shots or let you aim better will gear you for a more shooter based experience, because the game is BRUTAL. A good 4-5 pistol shots are all it takes to kill you, for Adam is STILL just a man, those defensive augmentations will really save your ass if you want to play the game like a shooter.
However, if you want to be a true bad ass like myself, the way of the stealth is also available. These augmentations allow you go invisible, make your footsteps completely quiet or let you see through walls to study your enemy movements. I recommend stealth since it is VERY fun and gameplay treads along the lines of games like "Metal Gear Solid" or "Splinter Cell". Throughout the game you will be sneaking into high security labs, gang hideouts and more. Let me make this clear, you WILL die, whether you play as a shooter or stealth. The game is BRUTAL, and yes this is a good thing. F**k games like COD that lets you walk away after eating 4 head shots to the face.
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| The game also works as a viable shooter. |
To further enhance your gameplay throughout the many levels, you can do the basic stuff like visiting shops, buy weapons, ammo or upgrades. Upgrading yourself with improved augmentations are also allowed via the use of limb clinics, where you buy praxis kits and medicine. All of this is available through a flexible open world system where you can roam the different areas in the game, whether its the streets of Detroit, or the alleyways of China. There is great visual variety here, and everything else just feels great. You can kill/knock out any chump you see on the street with basic combat, be it shooting, or the extremely satisfying execution attacks. These take up one energy bar to one shot any soldier type enemy. There are also tons of little side activities like hacking or choice prompts during conversations with NPCs to spice up your journey.
Speaking on conversing with NPCs, there are many times during story missions where you have to persuade or talk to an important story figure. In these intense conversations you have to choose and respond to these characters in different manners to gain their trust or to keep the conversation in your favor. These have great impact on the mission and outcome, plus its always fun just to redo these segments to get a different outcome. Outcomes include whether or not you can go into an important location by just entering the front door, or having to locate a vent to climb in and search for the location yourself. There are also bosses in this game, and while they aren't that poorly done, there are lots of ways to exploit the bosses to make them really easy....which isn't the best lasting impression.
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| Yes, you can hack. |
Speaking of lasting impressions, this game's ending leaves a pretty shitty one. Most game endings have great CGI voiced cut scenes that look very impressive and add a lot of depth to the final few segments of the game, but "Deus Ex:Human Revolution" doesn't have that. While the ending makes sense, its just a petty slideshow with Jenson talking and it doesn't really show the outcome of our heroes. Its disappointing to say the least. Next up is the dreadfully long and frequent load times. Remember how I said you're going to die a lot? Yeah, you have to reload the damn stage every time you load the game, and mind you the loading isn't particularly quick.
"Deus Ex:Human Revolution" is a great game. There's no going about this, this is probably one of the most original western titles I have ever played. While I myself hate a good majority of western developed titles, its games like these that make me want to dive more into western games and culture. "Deus Ex:Human Revolution" puts a huge smile on my face, and it shouldn't be ignored by any gamer that has a decent passion for something new.
Happy gaming!
