Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex - Human Revolution

Anyone who has read my articles knows that Deus Ex and I have a long history. In a world where I feel like PC games are made specifically to irritate me I am comfortable in the knowledge that there is a warm and loving copy of Deus Ex waiting for me to come in from the cold. When Human Revolution was first announced, I was apprehensive and anyone who has played Invisible War will know why (it sucked ridiculous amounts of cock.) Deus Ex provided me with something stable and deep, drawing on real world conspiracies and legends to create a fictional world that is rich an expansive in spite of the fact that the buildings on the horizon appear to be made of cardboard with its face blurred out on a cop show. For the most part, leading up to release, I kept my head buried firmly under my blanket, ignoring all press information on Human Revolution. This was partially out of fear that it would be... how do you say... fucking abysmal; but also because of a tiny 12 year old inside me eagerly hoping that perhaps I'd be surprised by an old friend holding a box of chocolates in one hand and a compelling narrative in the other.

 

Before the release of Human Revolution, I allowed myself to watch exactly one teaser trailer. Instead of weaving a semi-hilarious simile here, I'm just outright going to say I was fucking blown away. I can not remember the last time I watched a trailer for a game and felt a genuine emotion. The trailer has very little to do with the actual game, but instead provides insight into the world the game would be set in; a world inspired by the likes of Gattaca, proposing a difficult answer to the question of where our humanity lies. I'm gonna give a big hand(job) to whoever the hell directed that teaser, because that shit was awesome; perhaps the best teaser I have ever seen in my entire life.

Enough about how much time I spent licking my lips and imagining myself doing bad things to a pesonification of the hype I was feeling; you didn't come here to learn about my bodily fluids. Starting the game up was very exciting for me, I flipped through the game manual to learn controls, but really I was just looking at pretty pictures. I feel like it's almost a necessity to include an introductory tutorial in the first mission of your game these days, half of the audience doesn't want to read a manual and the other half isn't actually capable of reading so you've gotta do that shit in a practical manner. The game opens into a corporate office setting, my character appears to be inspired by a mixture of JC Denton from the original Deus Ex and Clint Eastwood. His voice has more gravel than a shitty parking lot and his beard is... well I can't fault his beard, it's pretty awesome. His jacket is nice too, sporting some odd floral patterns on the shoulders. Mr. Gravel is actually named Adam Jensen, an ex-SWAT cop turned head of security at a bio-augmentation company called Sarif Industries. For once I could appreciate the credibility of his background; JC Denton was a genetically engineered and augmented supersoldier, and while it wasn't that overused at the time, I'm absolutely sick of that shit now; ex-cop is a refreshing change I suppose, it's still kind of contrived but at least he's just a normal-ish guy. 

So Adam is having this conversation with a woman who is actually his girlfriend; this wasn't immediately apparent. In fact the only way I could tell is because when he eventually started spooning her, she didn't scream rape, so they're either together or he is one hell of an impressive cuddler. Adam apparently suffers from the same difficulty with emotive expression as JC Denton. 

You go for a quick walk as an intro to the game, an on-rails introduction to the company for the benefit of some military guy who shows up at a convenient time. After the walkabout, Adam goes up to the boss's penthouse office, and I'm gonna be honest; I'm starting to love this world. As a visual distinction of the augmentation-revolution taking place, augmenters take on a renaissance inspired dress with high collars and frilly shit everywhere. Also everything is piss yellow which is only slightly more preferable to the shit brown shooters we're currently waist deep in. The boss explains to Adam that his only immediate job is to make sure his cuddlebuddy survives a trip to Washington for some kind of press conference. Adam does us proud by failing to save her from death like 15 minutes later. The lab is attacked by some ambiguous guys and Adam himself gets pretty wrecked. At this point, the credits roll and it gives you flashes of Adam in surgery; he's being augmented (we have the technology, etc.) 

It's at this point that I should note, this is a prequel; augmentation is currently in its baby-steps and is entirely mechanical unlike the original Deus Ex where Mech-Augs were outdated and nanotechnology was the new kid on the block. A major part of the story is that the human body can begin 'rejecting' its prosthesis, causing severe chronic pain and this is held at bay by a drug which prevents rejection syndrome. Anti-Augmentation groups use this as one of their major arguments; that people are being controlled by the company with the drugs.

Flash forward six months and Adam Jensen is back at work. Apparently in the attack on Sarif Industries, he was so damaged that he's been very heavily augmented to retain full use of his body. He's practically a head on a robot, but let's be fucking honest, every single one of you would trade your body for a kickass robot body. 

Human Revolution introduces a kind of hub world system, with your missions taking place all over the hub. You're free to roam the hub as you wish, pursuing loot, side-quests, commerce or just break into shit for fun. A big issue I had with the original Deus Ex was these sprawling facilities with no fucking map to navigate by, however Human Revolution comes complete with a fairly comprehensive area map.

While the graphics in Human Revolution aren't anything new, the actual visual style is impeccable. It serves to easily distinguish the pro-aug from the anti-aug, the rich from the poor and the idealistic to the bland. The advanced technological side of the world is tinted in orange-yellow and given sharp angles, where as the less advanced side of the world is more akin to current day New York, using dark colours and derelict scenery. Another graphical praise I want to give is the weapons. I find that a lot of games these days have very plain, ugly weapons with no texture or feel to them, however Human Revolution pulls off very real, rugged looking firearms.

Whilst there is an aim-down-sight mechanic, you wont really use it much unless your weapon is scoped. Don't get me wrong, ADS is a good mechanic however I don't want to see it become the only way for a gun to be accurate. While talking about weapons, allow me to just say thank fuck they fixed the tranquiliser darts. They were the most useless fucking thing in the original Deus Ex. The idea was that you fired them silently and they knocked out your opponent without killing them, however in effect what happened was you fired them silently, in response to which your opponent would wake satan himself with the noise and complaints he would make. Hell, sometimes the prick would press the alarm button before passing out, the douche. With the new tranquilisers, they wont even notice the dart hit them until they're challenging the ground to a headbutting competition. Something to note is that with non-lethal takedowns in Human Revolution, enemies can wake up other knocked out enemies, so be sure to drag that prick into a broom closet or something. Also make the guys hold hands and shit.

 
A major flaw I noticed in Human Revolution was that using a silent takedown from behind an opponent in melee range actually drains your power cells. Why the fuck do I need to use power cells to stab a guy in the back of the neck? This can be a real pain in the ass because you'll sometimes creep up behind a guy only to find you're out of power, at which point your opponent will turn around, see you and freak the fuck out. I would like to have seen a more Mass Effect approach to abilities, in that there is a cooldown instead of an incredibly limiting energy resource.

The story in Human Revolution is a little slow to get going, you spend quite a lot of time dicking around, but that would only be a bad thing if dicking around weren't so fun. You can continue the story missions whenever you feel like it, and there are these handy HUD waypoints that tell you where to go depending on which objective you're pursuing. Be careful of having a gun out while in back alleys though, people will lose their shit and just kill you if you so much as reach inside your coat for a lighter.

Human Revolution's gameplay delivers an experience very similar to the original Deus Ex, however I'd say it's slightly stealth heavy. I don't really take issue with that, because I love to play stealthy but there's probably some people out there who love to run and gun getting kinda fucked over by the whole deal. Bypassing electronic devices and lockpicking now come under the blanket 'hacking' specialty which is actually good, it streamlines the break-and-enter style approach to gameplay, meaning that you dont have to know lockpicking, hacking and electronics to proceed.

In terms of shooty things, the new cover mechanic is surprisingly good. I mean sure, there's a slight abundance of chest high walls, but chill the fuck out; a lot of things in life are chest high. There's a blindfire mechanic, and you can pop your head out of cover for an accurate shot. Be sure to make use of cover, because you'll die surprisingly fast if you get caught under sustained fire. I feel that regenerating health is a good mechanic to have added, it's not realistic but it helps the game maintain a decent flow which is very important to a game like this.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is not as good as the original Deus Ex, however I don't think anyone expected it to be. What Human Revolution does deliver is an interesting and fun game in the same vein as the original; narrative driven and diverse. It also delivers a hoarse voiced Dirty Harry whose sunglasses are fucking attached to his skull. Human Revolution is a genuinely good game, and worth your money if you're into this genre. People who prefer other genres may find it frustrating or difficult, but those people also find things like not shitting themselves in public frustrating and difficult.

I'd say out of a quantity of 10 fucks...

8 out of 10 potential fucks given.