Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review
The short version: Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a great action/stealth game that is worth the money if you like the first Deus Ex or other action/stealth games (Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, etc).
The long version
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (DX:HR) is a great action/stealth game that has some minor design decisions/flaws that keep it from legendary status. The game play, visuals, world design and sound design are all top notch. The story and voice acting have some issues. The inclusion of boss fights is abysmal and soul crushing.
Since this will be a non-spoiler review, I'll just give you a basic rundown of what DX:HR is: you are a cybernetically altered super-agent that is trying to unravel a mediocre conspiracy after your employer is attacked. The world is a decade or so ahead of present day, where cybernetic augmentation of the human body is a common occurrence. Unfortunately though, those who choose (or are forced!) to get augmented are dependent on anti-rejection medication for the rest of their life. You, Adam Jensen, go along killing/knocking out enemies, hacking terminals, crawling through air ducts, and generally feeling really cool as you forge through the game's many quests/side-quests. The choices you make in the game, whether through dialogue or action, evolve the story dynamically and constantly. You'll learn early on that there are no trivial choices in this game, and the outcome of many missions can be affected by seemingly small decisions.
The long versionDeus Ex: Human Revolution (DX:HR) is a great action/stealth game that has some minor design decisions/flaws that keep it from legendary status. The game play, visuals, world design and sound design are all top notch. The story and voice acting have some issues. The inclusion of boss fights is abysmal and soul crushing.
Since this will be a non-spoiler review, I'll just give you a basic rundown of what DX:HR is: you are a cybernetically altered super-agent that is trying to unravel a mediocre conspiracy after your employer is attacked. The world is a decade or so ahead of present day, where cybernetic augmentation of the human body is a common occurrence. Unfortunately though, those who choose (or are forced!) to get augmented are dependent on anti-rejection medication for the rest of their life. You, Adam Jensen, go along killing/knocking out enemies, hacking terminals, crawling through air ducts, and generally feeling really cool as you forge through the game's many quests/side-quests. The choices you make in the game, whether through dialogue or action, evolve the story dynamically and constantly. You'll learn early on that there are no trivial choices in this game, and the outcome of many missions can be affected by seemingly small decisions.
World/visual design
Eidos Montreal really did gaming a service by the care and style added to the DX:HR world. The yellow "pee" filter applied to the game gives it a rich tech-noir look and really sets the stylistic tone apart from other futuristic games. The level of detail added to every segment of the world (even storage rooms and lockers) and the intelligent level flow really shows the care put into world building. In my opinion, DX:HR has the most cohesive and engaging world since Mass Effect 2. This really helps immerse you into the game, and compliments the stellar game play well.
Eidos Montreal really did gaming a service by the care and style added to the DX:HR world. The yellow "pee" filter applied to the game gives it a rich tech-noir look and really sets the stylistic tone apart from other futuristic games. The level of detail added to every segment of the world (even storage rooms and lockers) and the intelligent level flow really shows the care put into world building. In my opinion, DX:HR has the most cohesive and engaging world since Mass Effect 2. This really helps immerse you into the game, and compliments the stellar game play well.
Sound and Dialogue
Another mostly-excellent part of the game, the sound engineering is very well done. The music is excellent, atmospheric effects plentiful, surround sound usage and positional audio is good, guns sound great, but dialogue leaves a little something to be desired. Adam himself sounds like a Christian Bale Batman impression, but it's serviceable (except an awkward part in a police station where Adam transitions from generic/Midwest dialect to Jersey Shore accent - but I'm sure that was a QA issue, and not a design decision). Many of the main characters are voiced well, except your constantly whining computer hacker co-worker - intentionally cast to annoy you, I assume. As good as the main voice acting is, other minor NPCs and enemies generally just loop the exact same one-liner at regular intervals - they could have at least recorded a few variations of an NPC's "alerted" dialogue. But, it's adequate enough.
Dialogue is also pretty good. Unlike the aforementioned Mass Effect, when you choose a dialogue option Jensen *actually* says what you pick - unlike ME's Commander Shephard who says a completely different sentence than what you pick. The dialogue "plot points," as I'll call them, are a really cool way of doing dialogue. Instead of knowing exactly what is the "bad guy" or the "good guy" option, you have tones or argument styles to choose from. If you implant yourself with the CASIE modification, you get even further information (personality type, traits, etc) that help you pick options. You can even puff pheromones out of your ass to influence people to do what you want. This method generally makes you less apt to just skip through a conversation, as you really have to pay attention.
Another mostly-excellent part of the game, the sound engineering is very well done. The music is excellent, atmospheric effects plentiful, surround sound usage and positional audio is good, guns sound great, but dialogue leaves a little something to be desired. Adam himself sounds like a Christian Bale Batman impression, but it's serviceable (except an awkward part in a police station where Adam transitions from generic/Midwest dialect to Jersey Shore accent - but I'm sure that was a QA issue, and not a design decision). Many of the main characters are voiced well, except your constantly whining computer hacker co-worker - intentionally cast to annoy you, I assume. As good as the main voice acting is, other minor NPCs and enemies generally just loop the exact same one-liner at regular intervals - they could have at least recorded a few variations of an NPC's "alerted" dialogue. But, it's adequate enough.
Dialogue is also pretty good. Unlike the aforementioned Mass Effect, when you choose a dialogue option Jensen *actually* says what you pick - unlike ME's Commander Shephard who says a completely different sentence than what you pick. The dialogue "plot points," as I'll call them, are a really cool way of doing dialogue. Instead of knowing exactly what is the "bad guy" or the "good guy" option, you have tones or argument styles to choose from. If you implant yourself with the CASIE modification, you get even further information (personality type, traits, etc) that help you pick options. You can even puff pheromones out of your ass to influence people to do what you want. This method generally makes you less apt to just skip through a conversation, as you really have to pay attention.
Gameplay, the dreaded boss fights, and story
Crawl through a vent, skip across the rooftops, turn turrets against their owners, mow down everyone with a heavy laser, snipe from far away, turn invisible and shock prod someone, jump from a building an send out a blast wave on landing, throw objects to draw attention away/toward yourself - there are TONS of options for playing this game. The weapon load-out is small-ish but well done, the upgrade system for both weapons and your augments has few options but every point/upgrade spent seems worth it. The enemy AI is slightly predictable (they will run to a fallen comrade, trigger an alarm, etc) but still challenging; there were many times when exposing myself would not only scare away old ladies, but find me flanked by guards. Enemies will throw a gas grenade to cut off an exit, lay down suppressing fire, and send someone to flank you. The only downside? If you play the game "right" (as in, keeping hidden and picking off stragglers silently) you will almost never get to experience it. Then again, you can just hack a turret's Friend-or-Foe and drag it along with you for an entire map, which is also good way to conserve ammo...
But there's a problem. As fun as 95% of the game is, there are four boss fights in the game which are stupid, 1990's throwback, totally aggravating suckfests. The bosses are fought in an arena, have terrible AI (Boss 1: I shoot you, or I throw grenades at you. Boss 2: I shoot you, or I hide for a bit and then shoot you. Boss 3: I shoot you, or I hide for a bit and then throw grenades at you. Boss 4: I shoot you.), take more ordinance to kill than Godzilla, have no story or motivation behind them (they're jerks, they don't like you, so kill them before they kill you!), can kill you in less than a second, and literally throw all the rest of the game into the garbage. You also are forced to kill them, so pacifist characters are at a huge disadvantage unless you waste upgrades in armor and sacrifice inventory space for heavy weapons. What makes this worse, is that every moment up until the boss fight is near-orgasmic action/stealth gaming bliss - and then just at the climax, Eidos Montreal punches you in the gut and steals your cellphone. The first boss nearly made me uninstall the game, until I followed my friend's suggestion and got it stuck on a corner where it grenade-ed itself to death (my lone 10mm pistol was not sufficient).
Terrible. Terrible part(s) of the game.
Crawl through a vent, skip across the rooftops, turn turrets against their owners, mow down everyone with a heavy laser, snipe from far away, turn invisible and shock prod someone, jump from a building an send out a blast wave on landing, throw objects to draw attention away/toward yourself - there are TONS of options for playing this game. The weapon load-out is small-ish but well done, the upgrade system for both weapons and your augments has few options but every point/upgrade spent seems worth it. The enemy AI is slightly predictable (they will run to a fallen comrade, trigger an alarm, etc) but still challenging; there were many times when exposing myself would not only scare away old ladies, but find me flanked by guards. Enemies will throw a gas grenade to cut off an exit, lay down suppressing fire, and send someone to flank you. The only downside? If you play the game "right" (as in, keeping hidden and picking off stragglers silently) you will almost never get to experience it. Then again, you can just hack a turret's Friend-or-Foe and drag it along with you for an entire map, which is also good way to conserve ammo...
But there's a problem. As fun as 95% of the game is, there are four boss fights in the game which are stupid, 1990's throwback, totally aggravating suckfests. The bosses are fought in an arena, have terrible AI (Boss 1: I shoot you, or I throw grenades at you. Boss 2: I shoot you, or I hide for a bit and then shoot you. Boss 3: I shoot you, or I hide for a bit and then throw grenades at you. Boss 4: I shoot you.), take more ordinance to kill than Godzilla, have no story or motivation behind them (they're jerks, they don't like you, so kill them before they kill you!), can kill you in less than a second, and literally throw all the rest of the game into the garbage. You also are forced to kill them, so pacifist characters are at a huge disadvantage unless you waste upgrades in armor and sacrifice inventory space for heavy weapons. What makes this worse, is that every moment up until the boss fight is near-orgasmic action/stealth gaming bliss - and then just at the climax, Eidos Montreal punches you in the gut and steals your cellphone. The first boss nearly made me uninstall the game, until I followed my friend's suggestion and got it stuck on a corner where it grenade-ed itself to death (my lone 10mm pistol was not sufficient).
Terrible. Terrible part(s) of the game.
Story
The near-future. Modern nigh-dystopia. Humans replacing body parts with mechanical augments. Ever-widening wealth gap. Mega-corporations bent on dominating the world. Shadow organizations...bent on dominating the world! Yep, it's a Deus Ex game. There are tons of emails, personal logs, TV broadcasts and other media to really flesh out the world. Since I don't want to spoil anything, I'll gloss over the plot but assure you that there is a lot of good stuff here - some plot twists, character you care about, a world you care about. It's very satisfying...until the end. There is no real resolution at the end, since I'm assuming they're saving it for a sequel or DLC. Again, it was a terrible oversight in an otherwise fantastic game. Here's what I'm talking about, but in terms of another well-known futuristic story - the Matrix:
Neo tries to escape the Agents and get to a hardline. Just as he's about to reach his destination, he's shot and killed by Agent Smith! Trinity encourages his dead body to wake up, Morpheus loses hope and frowns...but then a miracle, Neo comes back to life! He stands up, looks at the Agents in the hallway and then!!!!!
The credits. Neo gives a voice-over of his experience in the movie. "I woke up in goo. I learned what reality was. I learned the power of my mind. I flirted with Trinity. I shot up an office building. I survived death...but now what happens to the world?" The end.
What happened to Neo? The Agents? Trinity? The human revolution? The machines? Tellllll meeeeeeeeeee!
The near-future. Modern nigh-dystopia. Humans replacing body parts with mechanical augments. Ever-widening wealth gap. Mega-corporations bent on dominating the world. Shadow organizations...bent on dominating the world! Yep, it's a Deus Ex game. There are tons of emails, personal logs, TV broadcasts and other media to really flesh out the world. Since I don't want to spoil anything, I'll gloss over the plot but assure you that there is a lot of good stuff here - some plot twists, character you care about, a world you care about. It's very satisfying...until the end. There is no real resolution at the end, since I'm assuming they're saving it for a sequel or DLC. Again, it was a terrible oversight in an otherwise fantastic game. Here's what I'm talking about, but in terms of another well-known futuristic story - the Matrix:
Neo tries to escape the Agents and get to a hardline. Just as he's about to reach his destination, he's shot and killed by Agent Smith! Trinity encourages his dead body to wake up, Morpheus loses hope and frowns...but then a miracle, Neo comes back to life! He stands up, looks at the Agents in the hallway and then!!!!!
The credits. Neo gives a voice-over of his experience in the movie. "I woke up in goo. I learned what reality was. I learned the power of my mind. I flirted with Trinity. I shot up an office building. I survived death...but now what happens to the world?" The end.
What happened to Neo? The Agents? Trinity? The human revolution? The machines? Tellllll meeeeeeeeeee!
Conclusion
When all is said and exaggerated, Deus Ex: HR is a great game. Sure, it might frustrate you at parts, and if you play through "Give me Deus Ex" (hard) mode as a pacifist without setting off alarms you will wear out your F5 keys - but the game is really, really well done. Very enjoyable (played it through twice now!) and well worth the cash. The un-resolved story and the boss fights blemish an otherwise legendary game, but they are easily forgotten about when you experience the "normal" parts of the game.
I highly recommend it, a definite buy.
When all is said and exaggerated, Deus Ex: HR is a great game. Sure, it might frustrate you at parts, and if you play through "Give me Deus Ex" (hard) mode as a pacifist without setting off alarms you will wear out your F5 keys - but the game is really, really well done. Very enjoyable (played it through twice now!) and well worth the cash. The un-resolved story and the boss fights blemish an otherwise legendary game, but they are easily forgotten about when you experience the "normal" parts of the game.
I highly recommend it, a definite buy.
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