Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review

The year is 2027 and augmentations are a big hit on the streets. Although some claim augmentations have saved them from many ills there are sect's which aim to remove them both legally or entirely dependent on their beliefs.

Upon loading up the game, I took on the role of Adam Jensen, a former SWAT member and current Sarif Industries chief of security. During what was meant to be a random preparation to leave for Washington DC to discuss the future of human augmentation, the Sarif Industries building came under attack from a professional group of mercenaries. Their aim was to kill all scientists and destroy all documentation regarding the augmentation process.

In the ensuing chaos, Adam aims to save the staff but is grabbed by a bigger, augmented man who does serious internal and external damage which should have left him for dead. Thankfully, Adam lives on through being fully augmented. With his love interest having died in the attack, he aims to take down the people that threw his life into chaos, using his newly-empowered body to achieve his goals.

Adam will find himself travelling to various places in Human Revolution. Starting in his hometown of Detroit, he makes his way through the clues offered to him, eventually leading him to the streets of Heng Sha and finally, Montreal. His endeavour to find answers to why Sarif Industries was attacked, why his significant other was targeted and lastly, his true feelings towards human augmentation.

The story in Human Revolution is the most important aspect to the game. While it starts off slowly, Eidos have set it up so that the game offers trickles of information about characters, businesses and the practices these people undertake on a daily basis. The ties made with the AI controlled characters in the game make the story that much harder to bear as the connection to them grows with each passing remark.

Human Revolution allows for varying playing styles. The game can be played as purely a stealth affair, an all-guns blazing first person shooter or a mixture of both. The choosing to play as a humane person or a cold-blooded killer also influences pieces of the game. The choices that are made inevitably lead to a tailored experience offered up by the game as you play through the 30-40 hours play-time.

If you choose to play as a stealthy super-sleuth, it's likely that the walls and objects will become an integral part of the way in hiding. Hiding up against an object just as an enemy walks past is both exciting and scary at the same time. The expending of energy charges leads to the problem of only a few stealth kills being possible at specific times, so timing will be key to taking down those elusive hostiles.

The all-guns blazing tactic works well too. There are many guns to behold in one's arsenal and the gun of choice will often be dictated by the situation Adam has found himself in. For large fire-fights, it may be wise to use a small-machine gun or combat rifle while long-range kills can be dealt with by using a sniper rifle. For close quarters combat, you may want to use the pistol or the stun gun to leverage yourself above the opposition.

Experience points unlock praxis kits for Adam to enhance his current augmented body parts. The augmentation upgrades work in such a way that it's possible to power up the stealth aspects of play, such as being able to see through walls or placing targets on enemies so that they become traceable. There's also upgrades that allow for better sharpshooting and aiming for those who like the shooting aspect of the game.

It's also possible to power up hacking skills as well as adding new augment functionalities like heavy lifting, damage reduction and much more. Adam is tailor-able to the gameplay experience the player expects from their style.

There are many other systems at work in this game too. RPG elements are a main crux of the game and lead to you gaining experience points for finding new areas, hacking into computers & keypads and of course knocking out or killing enemies. Let it be known that killing enemies yields less experience points than just knocking them out.

While playing Human Revolution, the discussion system is used a lot. There are many discussions with AI controlled characters which can either go extremely well or horribly wrong. Choosing the right answers can often lead you to the hints you seek; whereas others will leave you high-and-dry while you scour the seedy cities for clues to the next advancement.

Hacking also plays a bit part in the game. Hacking can be performed on computers and security keypads and involves connecting to different server nodes to circumvent access to the desired hardware. It's not always a necessity to hack devices though as the game offers many collectible e-mails, personal organisers and newspapers which could yield the information needed to access the systems.

The game drew me in instantly and for a few good reasons. I had said that the game was slow to start, which is true but once I got in... I wanted to feel what it was like to be Adam Jensen. The connections I now feel to the characters and their problems is truly inspired. I've not felt this connected to characters in any game for years and my hat off to Eidos for making such compelling characters.

The game has it's issues though. For example, the enemies often seem to have mush-for-brains and rarely react to the situations given to them. They also seem to want to hide themselves but don't understand how the wall works in relation to ducking for cover. The game also has long loading times that even installing the game to the hard drive didn't manage to truly quell.

Getting an achievement isn't all that fun either. Achievement unlocks send my XBOX 360 into a fit of wondering if it can process the request or it should just die from the ensuing onslaught of randomly generated information. Last, but not least is the jumpy framerate that is seriously immersion breaking. luckily enough, the framerate only goes nuts at specific point throughout play.

The game has impressive graphics and each city is developed well enough for it to feel like a bustling home to many of societies usual stereotypes. My biggest problem with the graphics isn't that they're not nice... it's the intense golden look that everything has in the game. It's funny to see cities, characters and objects with such overbearing jaundice.

The soundtrack is amazing. The trance and techno tracks will have you immersed in the game from start to finish and add some much-needed atmosphere to the action. The voice acting is also of extremely high quality and considering every NPC is fully voiced, it's a joy to have conversations with many of the characters there-in.

I recommend Deus Ex: Human Revolution to the masses. This game is an open-plan game that lets you mould your own play-style, your own identity and inevitably lets you take control of each situation, imprinting your own brand of justice in places with very little morals left.

If you're not sure about Human Revolution, renting may be a good choice to begin with but I'm sure there's something that each and every gamer out there will love about Deus Ex: Human Revolution.