I was more excited for Deus Ex: Human Revolution than I’ve been about a game for a while. It’s not because I played the original, as I wasn’t even a PC gamer until I discovered KOTOR in 2004, and even then I was only a casual player, more interested in what I wanted to play than what everyone else was playing. I don’t know if I ever will play the original, for that matter. It’s something I’ve wanted to do, but the gameplay – having to hold crouch, having to lean out of cover etc – plus some compatibility issues have always stopped me getting any further than Liberty Island.
So I was pretty keen. Here was Eidos Montreal’s chance to create not just a flagship game for their company, but a flagship action-RPG with features the classics could only dream about. Does it live up to my expectations, as well as the positive talk from both fans and reviewers?
Let’s find out in another The Good, The Bad, The Ugly review.
The Good.
Strong Opening – This intro got me pumped. It’s one of those slow, first person, on-rails kinda openings which leads into the tutorial, and it feels perfect. When the attack on Sarif Industries begins you’ll find yourself nodding in excitement and thinking “this is going to kick ass”.
Good Gameplay – for the most part. Stealth works well once you get used to how it functions, and shooting your way through the game is certainly a viable option so long as you maintain a big arsenal to compensate for often limited ammo. The choice between the two playing styles does offer more than varying experience points, meaning there’s plenty of replayability. There are always varying paths in levels too, so in the main sections of the areas you’ll never be forced to expose yourself or kill a guard unless you want to. It works, and it works well, though you’ll likely end up travelling all the paths anyway to make sure you haven’t missed any pickups.
Makes You Feel Badass – I played a non-lethal game, and yet there were still moments that left me feeling pretty cool as I sat there, pressing buttons on me keyboard. The best was when I had to take out five guys who were spread out on a level of Hengsha directly below me. I jumped down, the impact stunning two of the guys who were close together as well as one who was knocked unconscious immediately. As they tried to recover, I tasered one of the other guys and then took down the last guy standing from behind. The two who were stunned almost made it back to their feet when I ran over and took both of them down at the same time. Awesome.
Shut up, I’m posing.
Fantastic Art Design – In the not too distant future, there is no day. I don’t know why, I suppose a trenchcoat and sunglasses installed into your face just don’t look as cool in the daylight. DX’s art design – most notably, its lighting – more than compensates for the fact that at least 75% of this game takes place in big, dark cities. It’s not very pretty, but the atmosphere is sensational.
Soundtrack – The theme track for DXHR is brilliant, and both fans of Mass Effect 2 and Mirror’s Edge will hear familiar sounds throughout. Overall, it provides a dynamic scope for the game that the visuals can’t supply. The voice acting is very good too, with Adam often reminding me of Timothy Oliphant (though it is actually Elias Toufexis). The voices actors for both Sarif (Stephen Shellen) and tech-head Pritchard (Andreas Apergis) are just as good.
Quick Saving – I shouldn’t even need to add this to the list, but the fact that I’ve played a few similar games recently with no quick save feature means that this game should be recognised for adding such an obviously necessary option.
The Bad.
Buggy – Infuriatingly so. At one point I finished part of a sidequest that gave me the option to remain unseen in enemy territory in order to gain extra experience. I did so, and then travelled to the other side of the map to do the last part of the quest. That took me about twenty minutes. Just as I returned to the street the game told me I had failed the optional part of my sidequest, then the sidequest as a whole, and then it crashed on me.
The guard is facing Adam, but unless I let go of the mouse button he won't be able to see me. That's not how people work, Eidos.
I had crashes when I tried to look at items in my inventory and lockups in the menus too. There were times where the camera kept resetting in line with Adam as I was waiting to taser someone next to a doorway, meaning I couldn’t shoot, and I got caught like that several times. There’s also a sidequest that never updates, so most people will likely give up on it unless they traverse every bit of the map again. Overall, the game does not offer a smooth experience, and as a result I walked away from it many times in sheer frustration.
The Last Third of the Game – ...What happened? The game loses all focus and purpose, in the end feeling more like Left 4 Dead than an action-RPG. Major sidequests or elements of main quests are just abandoned, meaning there’s no resolution to be had for anything. Gameplay, story, in fact everything about this game just becomes irrelevant.
The Plot goes AWOL – It never really has clear vision anyway, but the sporadic plot just surrenders by game’s end. To write a list of all the themes I thought the game was trying to relay before forgetting about them completely would make this review way too long, so suffice it to say that I have no idea what point the developer’s wanted to impart in DXHR, and that sucks.
Just an example of some of the awesome imagery that never actually makes it to the game.
The Ending is a Joke – You don’t have to leave a prequel open for a sequel, you fools! The ending of the game offers a fantastic choice based entirely on a player’s viewpoint; one that will define the entire Deus Ex world! You make your choice and...philosophising cutscene that leads into credits.
Push the button, Frank. (This video features the horrendous ending of the game. Don't watch if you don't want it spoiled.)
What? What! What happened to all the characters? What was the point of the game? This isn’t an ending; it’s more like showing up to a party to find it’s already over. I was incredibly disappointed, to the point where I have left this review unwritten for nearly a week post-game so that I could keep it objective.
The Cutscenes – The worst cutscene/in-game quality I have ever seen. The in-game engine would have offered seriously better cutscenes, because the horrendous colour banding detracts from the cool yellow/black filter that’s used to make things look much more like you expect when starting the game. Square Enix distributed the game, so why couldn’t they get Square Enix to implement the cutscenes? The game would have been much more attractive visually for it.
The Bosses – Everyone complains about the bosses, so I will too. Only one of the four bosses offers players the ability to fight using the techniques used in any play style. The others require you to pull out a gun and just shoot until the enemy is dead. It’s boring, the boss characters serve no purpose beyond being poor, unimaginative red herrings, and the last boss...I don’t even understand how that happened. Deus Ex just jumped the shark.
Don’t ask me why he’s dressed up as your fifth grade science project.
Most people know that the reason the boss battles are like this is because they were outsourced. The President of G.R.I.P Entertainment, the company that produced the fights, says he’s a real big fan of shooters. No shit.
The AI – I throw a ten gallon drum at a guy. He searches everywhere for me except the obvious choice: the path from which the drum came. I stand on the walkway above a large computer room. The guard goes and stands in a corner, looking at the wall. Enough said.
Limited Edition DLC is Ludicrous – The limited edition DLC has you rescuing Tong’s son, and it is added to the main plot unnecessarily. It’s also added in the same area as two of the sidequests, so you could finish all these missions at once within about twenty minutes. Not only is it offensive to make people pay extra for this kind of thing, but it doesn’t even need to be in the game. Funnily enough, Tong’s son makes a cameo in the game regardless of whether you have this mission pack, which has confused a lot of people due to the context of his appearance.
Experience for Some, Not for Others – For instance, you can hack a computer or enter a found password. You don’t get experience for using the password, even though the process of finding it in the first place is just as difficult as hacking. As a result, you’ll often feel forced to take certain actions at certain times.
Batteries – Most aug-based actions require batteries to operate. You start with two and can purchase more as augs, but only the first one ever recharges. I could have added this to one of the points below, but it severely hampers your options in game, especially if you run out of the electro-muesli bars that recharge batteries.
And why don’t people look at each other when they’re talking anymore? It’s just rude.
The Ugly.
Stealth is Annoying – Most reviewers make a point that the game is really designed for players to take a stealthy course. That may be true, but they don’t make it easy on stealth players. Some augs, such as taking down an opponent through a wall, don’t offer non-lethal options. Sure, it’s still good to have in order to find hidden caches, but its practicality does not extend into the main game.
Whoops, sorry. Suppose I don't know my own strength.
Furthermore, and this is the one that bothered me most, enemies are impossibly quick to go hostile. I played a game where I would stealth as close as possible to an enemy before hitting them with a taser, since I had the previously mentioned issue with the resetting camera. There were times where I’d go invisible and wait for guards to come to me before tasering. As soon as I pressed the attack button though, they would go hostile, so even though I was invisible and the taser was headed straight for their groin I wouldn’t get the bonus experience for going through the mission unseen. It’s still a fun option to take, but it has its downsides.
Twists are Pretty Obvious – I don’t know much about the Deus Ex universe, but that didn’t stop me from assuming that Adam was named symbolically. I was right. I expected an intelligent story, but I think Eidos Montreal was too interested in philosophising a lot of the time.
Characters are Bland – Adam is a classic raspy-voiced badass, Pritchard is the tech-guy who thinks brains are always better than brawn, Sarif is the shady boss who can’t see beyond his wants. The voice actors do a great job with these characters, and there are some subtle touches (the broken mirror in Adam’s apartment) that offer brilliant depth, but they never really stand out.
Proof that character's can be obscure while their impact in a game is boringly obvious.
Things Happen...Just Not Onscreen – People get their augmentations stolen, but we only really read of that in e-mails. There are riots in Hengsha, but the only difference is there are cops on the street while you go about your regular missions. It provides atmosphere and depth to the game, but a lot of these events are much more interesting than the main plot.
Useless Augmentations – There’s an augmentation that tells the player how much chance they have of successfully hacking something. The game already tells you this, so why anyone would waste time on that is beyond me. You can also have a counter that tells you how long guards will continue searching for you when on alert, but it’s not like you have a time limit to meet anyway. Overall, you’ll have more points to upgrade augs than you’ll ever want, and that’s no fun in a game centred around them.
Adam Jensen is Kratos: God of War.
This game took four years to make, and they should have taken five. It’s good, but ultimately feels barebones, and I simply can’t understand why it is getting such high scores when it so many issues and a third act that brings to ruin everything that had me thinking the game was great beforehand. The game’s producer says that he “wishes” Eidos Montreal will be able to make a sequel, which sounds to me like that even though the game is selling well and getting good reviews there’s something people don’t like about the fact that it has taken four years to make a game that should have been much more.
That said, it’s certainly worth at least a hire. My expectations were high, and while the gameplay met them for the most part the plot certainly didn’t. If story doesn’t mean much to you in a game you may end up loving Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and I wouldn’t blame you, but either way a major game has failed to live up to expectations once again.
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