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Reviews VideoGame / Deus Ex Human Revolution

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DeviousRecital Since: Nov, 2011
03/25/2014 14:20:14 •••

Where was the "Human Revolution" anyway?

I like stealth games. Haven't played one I'd consider bad yet, and while this one is no exception, there are quite a number of "buts" to take note of for the concerned buyer.

The story is your standard conspiracy fare that permeates most stealth games. It does its job, though I never felt like I understood the scope of the conspiracy because it was so focused around one particular aspect the conspiracy controlled (augmentations). Appropriate given the characters, but my want of more was unfulfilled, as was an option that best expressed my feelings on said aspect for one of the endings.

Gameplay was, well, gameplay. For all the talk of "multiple ways to handle a situation", most of the time, you're going to wait until the guards turn their backs and then go do a non-lethal takedown on them simply because that's what will get you the most experience and will save you ammo for your weapons. Ammo's pretty sparse in this game unless you have a fetish for the 10mm pistol like the devs did. This didn't matter to me much since I prefer stealth to mindless shooting. However, the stealth isn't perfectly designed either, even if it seems like it's how the game is meant to be played. The AI of the guards seemed to vary from mind-bendingly genius to impossibly stupid. Sometimes I could swear they could see through walls and other times they wouldn't see me even when I ran right up to them from the side, no cover or anything. Cameras, turrets and robots all had ill-defined ranges of vision as well, sometimes seeming to see you from across the length of the compound you're in, and the security hubs that controlled them were often badly placed and also absurdly frequent. My suspension of disbelief was strained when several times I broke into a security room in a building, only to have to break into another security room two rooms over on the same floor. Once, I even found a "hub" responsible for only one camera. One!

As for everything else, the overabundant yellow filters did the graphics no favors, and I would have liked for there to be a soundtrack. Would have been nice.

I'd have a bit more I'd like to say, but I'll end on this. When the game's good, each room feels like a delightful puzzle to solve, but there are many times this is not the case (Alice Garden Pods, anyone?). Give it a rent first.

FishytheAscendant Since: Jan, 2014
03/23/2014 00:00:00

Well from a plot standpoint it is slightly more complicated then that. The main focus is more on the idea of how mass produced biomechanical enhancements and privatized transhumanism would affect human society as a whole, as well pondering the idea of human progress and how far we a species have a right to push these advancements on the world at large.

I for one found a bit more to be read into the game than the base elements and I enjoyed that sort of story based game. To each their own, but I would perhaps suggest giving it a second look as you may yet like what you find.

DeviousRecital Since: Nov, 2011
03/23/2014 00:00:00

Oh I understood the themes of the game and I thought they were covered fairly well, but as far as the plot itself goes, I felt like they probably sacrificed a good bit of potential storytelling for the sake of the themes. Undoubtedly, there's more to a future society than an augmentations vs natural body debate, but when everything in the game kept ultimately going back to that, it got kind of stale considering we're talking a 40+ hour game here. But, there were glimpses of other potentially interesting setting details (the Illuminati being thrown around; Picus controlling public opinion via an AI, international politics and the breakdown of the federal state in favor of corporate state as described in the ebooks). And that's what frustrated me; I never felt like they revealed enough. There were a lot of directions I wanted to see the game pursue, or at least observe, but it didn't really commit to any of them.

Maybe what I'm looking for lies in the other Deus Ex games, which I have not played. They seem a bit more varied based on what I know.

Bobchillingworth Since: Nov, 2010
03/25/2014 00:00:00

Bear in mind that the game was fairly limited in how the plot could develop, since it's a prequel. The ends really only determine how Adam's story resolves, since the state of the world at large is a forgone conclusion. Play the original Deus Ex next- you'll find more than enough Illuminati conspiracies, manipulative AI, corporate malfeasance and social/political structure degradation.


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