My Thoughts On Deux Ex: Human Revolution

For those of you still playing the game be aware, there will be some minor spoilers in here, so don't read if you don't want to know anything. On a similar note, if you're against a fully grown man-child gushing over a video game, you might want to look away, too. With that out of the way, my thoughts on the freshly released prequel to Deus Ex.

Where to begin... I only completed the game a day ago so things are still swirling around in my head. First off, the inevitable comparison to the original game; it's not as good as Deus Ex. But I think we've all established by now, that we've placed in on such a high pedestal that nothing will ever touch no matter how good it is. The difference is, though, unlike the mediocre second game, Human Revolution gives it a fair run for its money, which is something I never thought I'd be saying about another game in the series.

Story - arguably one of the more important parts of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a prequel, thus the super augmented JC Denton's of the world don't exist yet, instead they're somewhat experimental and still improving and a pro-humanity group who are against augmentations are appearing to be your enemy. Of course, this is Deus Ex so it's not long before a massive conspiracy involving everyone from your pet dog to God himself is involved, so it's typical Deus Ex story progression. Done very well, not as good as the originals, but more than acceptable and I loved every minute of it.

Graphically I appreciated the style of the game. The graphics themselves were nothing special, but the golden tint throughout and the actual look of Detroit, Hengshai and the other locales you visit were wonderful, and I spent a great deal of time exploring them all, and there are still things I've missed, which will be rectified on my next play through, which I may have already started...

Now, gameplay, that all important and timeless wonder that Deus Ex possessed that so many other games are missing when they try to imitate it. This me be a wildly unpopular opinion, but I would be more than happy if Eidos Montreal said they were working on a new game right now, using the same engine. Now, usually I complain when a sequel/prequel/whatever gets announced too soon, but they have the perfect engine for a modern Deus Ex game here, all that is required is creating an equally good story, slapping a main characer worthy of Mr Denton on there, new locations and we have a new piece of awesome to play. I spent three hours running around on the first mission, just exploring, finding hidden things, hacking computers, throwing boxes at people and the like; it was the perfect thing. Just like the original, I could have fun doing nothing and that's what it should be about.

If I have one complaint, it's that the shooting is more typical than that of the original, where you would start the game unable to hit a head shot from 2 feet away, you had to put points into your shooting skill to improve your aim and then you turned into a killing machine over time, Adam Jensen is a natural killer from the tutorial mission thanks to the modern inclusion of iron sight aiming. An understandable admission, but one that disappointed me none-the-less.

Overall, I loved the game. I have issues, sure, there were a few times where the quest pointer took me to entirely wrong ends of a hub and I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out where to go, sometimes in a fire fight I'd accidentally pop out from cover because I wasn't holding the right mouse button down enough. These are small issues in an otherwise wonderful game though, one I never imagined would be as good as it is.

The game can punish you like the original, or if you play your cards right it can reward you in ways you wouldn't expect. There's just enough mentioned and nods to the original game to keep things good for long time fans, without it coming off as blatant fan-service. Lovely stuff. Happy for a sequel here, guys, quick as you like. Next time though, leave the bosses out, yeah?