Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Rocks"

This review is based on a Give Me Deus Ex Non-Lethal Playthrough.

Deus Ex: Human Revolutions was and is a fantastic surprise for me this year in gaming. I somehow missed it despite considering the original Deus Ex to be the greatest video game ever made, and well, now that I've made up for it and gave it a run, here's my review.

Graphics: Great, style and design is awesome. The devs did a fantastic job in trying to create a cyberpunk society, you can see that they've used works of art like Blade Runner and Ghost In The Shell as inspiration for the art-style. Actual graphic powerwise, some of the texture quality is disappointing from the PC end but I guess we have consoles to blame for that. Damn you console generation, you're almost seven years old! Stop dragging us PC gamers behind! Ignoring some texture quality, everything looks awesome. Hell, I even love the piss filter, and if you don't than that could be modded out. Still not enough? Get some ENB series crap and make the game look even better. The world is in your hands.

Storyline: Fantastic storyline. I think DE's was better, but this one
was still pretty damn good. While Deus Ex was quick to unveil the fact that everything is actually shrouded in crazy secrecy, Human Revolution takes its time with it and for a very long time you actually have trouble figuring out who the hell you're actually fighting. Ultimately though, I feel like something
is missing, I feel like the devs lost sense of direction somewhere near the end of the game. The plot is resolved yes, but it gives you a feeling of a rushed ending, or just some sort of strange ideological switch. It could have been more fleshed out, more grand. And to add on to here, there's a few quests near the end that go over Adam Jensens backstory that I found really interesting, but you never truly get a finished outcome to this. You never learn the full story, just some little glimpses that let you form your own idea. Which is good AND bad. Sort of felt like they just dropped a plot point, The Room style. Regardless of that, the plot is still awesome. The fact that they managed to make a prequel this true to the original in all its glory blows my mind. And as a prequel, the game handles the morph into the original DE with suberb class. There are a few endings to choose from, and if you really sit back and think about it all of them could make sense. The original Deus Ex probably had a more overall polished plot, but Human Revolutions plot just seems MASSIVE in every regard. Really great job on the plot, kept me pulled in until the end.

Sound: The soundtrack is less memorable but still better than
DE's. Well, what does that mean? I would say "tune" wise that Human Revolution is less memorable, original tracks akin to Hong Kong or UNATCO HQ from the first game are absent (those two songs themselves can actually be hear in-game on radios), but this game makes up for that by creating powerful atmosphere and ambience with the music, so powerful infact that I got the soundtrack as soon as I could and slapped that baby with my mammoth tail. Icarus, the main theme of Human Revolution, is beautiful. If you haven't heard it, or even if you have, go listen to it right now. Again. THIS IS FANTASTIC. God Speed to you, Michael McCann. I feel like I just got hit by a smooth criminal.

Gameplay: Gameplay is fantastic. To start off, the combat is awesome. Augmentations and a wide variety of weapons can turn you into a one-man army in just a few seconds. Drop down the side of a building with the Icarus Landing System, stun a group of guards around you, run to cover as you fire your assault rifle at those across the street, and as one draws near jump out and kill him with a hand-to-hand finisher. If that aint wicked cool than you're probably a Republican.

Putting combat aside, there are many MANY different ways to get by a level, just like in Deus Ex tons and tons of content and enemies and everything can be skipped because you decided to take that vent at the start of the level which took you to catwalks where you had to get passed an electrified pathway. For me personally there were many moments where I'd reach a location and notice that while I entered through a door, there appeared to be a cracked wall, a vent and an open window, three things I never noticed and three completely different pathways into that room. The choice in how you want to approach locations moistens my loins and I give kudos to Eidos Montreal for that. Of course, missing out on certain content through shortcuts could leave you less ready for bosses and get you very little equipment, potentially screwing you over. Speaking of bosses, I was fine with them. Yes it takes away from your variety in choice and all that, but I thought they were done well regardless. They reminded me of MGS bosses. Challenging and put my combat skills to the test, and once a boss fight plays out differently based on a plot choice. Which isn't as much freedom as the original Deus Ex provides, but this is Human Revolution, not Deus Ex. It doesn't need to be the exact same game. Because I sneaked through the whole game, bosses generally really kicked my arse as I was never ready, but I still dealt with it well. If Human Revolution has something to be proud of along with its plot, it's the combat and stealth, which makes for a very well rounded title already.

Level design is a bit more troubled. It's ridiculously hard to explain why, but I'll do my best here. Although it gives you a lot of freedom in the main city hubs to explore and go to different areas and stuff, the game also gives too grand an illusion in some parts as to greater freedom. When I first arrived in Hengsha, I felt like the city was HUGE. It looked like there were floors and floors of city and tons and tons to explore. And yet it reality, while there's still a lot, there's a lot of unused space. Streets just piled with almost non-intractable stores? Why not more buildings, more stairs, more terraces, they could have created a metropolis of a city. Are consoles to blame here again? A PC exclusive title could have probably taken this already ginormous game and made it a lot bigger. Unfortunately I can only review what the game has, and what the game has is a lot and lot of content. The actual layouts of the cities and stuff are fantastic, there isn't a lot of backtracking and even when there is the games controls make up for it. The game just feels really fun, you really want to run around and jump everywhere. A little bit of lost potential in size, but honestly it's not enough to push this games rating down because the game is huge enough. Equal to the original Deus Ex, if not even bigger. I don't remember how big DE's cities were, probably not as intractable.

The last paragraph of "Gameplay" will go over the weakest link in the game: The final mission. I'm not going to spoil anything, but well, it kind of sucked. The plot twist that leads to a really big change in enemies is RIDICULOUS, once you get into the more wide open area of the mission it just got not very enjoyable for me. Annoying in fact. I missed an optional plot location because I fell into a hole. Somehow managed to not die but it took me about half an hour to figure out where the hell I was supposed to go. If you made me replay that part right now I wouldn't remember, it was just stupid. It's similar to the final mission in DE, but in a way DE actually gave you "ending" explanations (that's the plot thing I missed) in a more linear way, by the time you could reach the end you FOR SURE knew all the options. With Human Revolution you can actually miss them. Which is okay I guess (FREEDOM! LIBERTY! RON PAUL!) but in all honesty and speaking for every gamer out there, nobody wants to miss them. You end up completely clueless picking how you want things to resolve. I can't see why you would want to do that unless you're not having fun and just want to completely rush the ending, but if you're rushing through Human Revolution you're going to hate the game. You have to be a completionist for this.

Final Verdict: In conclusion, this is a game that truly deserves a lot of recognition for it's greatness. I would say that it's almost on equal status with
the original Deus Ex, it's truly that good. It does suffer problems
plotwise and I feel like it could have been much bigger than it already
was, could have had an even bigger plot and more character development
and everything. And yet, potential is wasted with many game series, just look at Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age 2, Bioware, etc. Unlike those, Human Revolution still ends up fantastic even with wasted potential, and this is something I really really respect when it comes to video games. I have to review Human Revolution for what it is and not for what it could have been, and that would be: A Suberb title, just as the Gamespot 9.0 score says. Excellent gameplay, plot, and sound, mixed with perfect presentation and lots of little twerks creates a title that I think every gamer who's not a CoD kiddie needs to play. And hell, maybe even CoD kiddies would enjoy it, the combat is that good.

As of this time, there's only one more Deus Ex game left to play.
Will I enjoy it despite it's rather more...critical fan reaction?
We shall see. When I eventually get to playing it I mean. Might need to rub my tongue with a lot of soap beforehand, take some antibiotics as well, maybe get a vaccine for crap.