Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Eleven years ago I played the original Deus ex for the first time.. and I can say that it was love at first sight.

I was blind to its minor failings and saw only the good, I pretty much ignored the imprecise controls and the rather naff melee system and chose to revel instead in its rich plot, fantastic blend of an fps with RPG elements and moral choices that actually affected the outcome of the story.

Simply put, I had never played any games quite like this (with the only exception being this games spiritual pre-cursor System Shock 2) and was at a loss to understand why there wasnt more games like them.

Over the years I almost forgot this love and then the sequel came along.. however this one proved not to be and almost severed our relationship and if I am honest I must admit that I barely remember much about the second game at all.. which is not a good sign as it either means it was so bad that I have mentally blocked it out OR that it was so mediocre that there was nothing worth remembering.

And then came along the third game. Needless to say I was a little bit anxious but it seems I was worrying over nothing.

Without dallying any further I will cut to the chase..

Anyone who even remotely liked the first game or System Shock 2 will *love* this game, it has everything that made the first game great and more... if this describes you then you dont really have to read any further, just go out and buy it :).

if it doesnt describe you and you still need to be sold on the purchase then read on...

Gameplay mechanics

Due to the RPG like nature of the game when you start out your character is pretty pathetic, not only do you have trouble hacking the security systems on a wet paper bag made of rice paper you are also easily outmatched by most enemies (even grunts) in a stand up fight.

However this is easily remedied as after you go up a couple of levels as you can switch from the stealth playing style to a more aggressive tank style player with the help of a careful selection of augmentation upgrades.

Needless to say I chose the path of the tank as soon as I could.. not that I am saying that there is anything wrong with the stealth mechanics of the game, its just that it isnt for me.

My personal playing style is that I always chose the most direct path to victory as I think that why should I bother to sneak round people when I can just kill them and then walk over their corpses

Queue evil laugh... Mwha hah hah!.

That leads me to the main thing I love about this game.

The makers of this game have wisely factored different playing styles into the game play mechanics and gave the player the choice, so whether you are a slowly-slowly catchy monkey kind of guy (a.k.a stealth) or a gung ho Rambo there is still something here for you.

The graphics are pretty good with more than enough virtual candy to keep your eyes roaming around at the minor details presented in front of you. Its cut-scenes captures the cinematic story telling style of Metal Gear series easily and the father of cyberpunk himself, William Gibson would be proud of the creative teams story telling efforts, my only gripe is that prior to this I had been playing L.A NOIRE and once you get used to the beautiful motion captured facial animation anything less seems like a PS2 game.

Music is superb and at times comparable to blade runner, the sound effects also do their job well and help set the scene.

The controls worked better with the PS3 controller than I would have expected (I am a diehard mouse + keyboard pc player for first person shooters).

My one main gripe is that the boss fights kind of suck but they dont detract much from the overall awesomeness of the game.

When I try to sum up Deus Ex in as small a paragraph as possible I come up with the following.

William Gibson, Blade Runner and Metal Gear Solid all rolled into one.

And thats it really.. if you have any remote liking of the three things mentioned above then I suggest you part with 30 of your earth money and then clear a couple of weekends forthwith.

Hints & tips

• Dont buy weapons, you can easily find them all throughout the game if you search hard enough and you should save all your money for weapon modifications/augmentation upgrades and ammo.
• The first things you should upgrade is your strength abilities, being able to carry more weapons, ammo and health is vital in the long run and allows you to start hoarding early.
• Stash guns and ammo that you dont use back at the office, this allows for easy access and the ability to switch to a weapon with more ammunition prior to a mission.
• Stockpile missiles, although it is tempting to use them straight away if you manage to hoard enough of them it makes the final boss fight a piece of cake.
• EMP shielding allows you to walk through electrified water with no fear of damage, this allows you to reach a place you couldnt get to otherwise, its the same case with the lung augmentations for poison gas far later in the game, obviously I couldnt tell you if the reward was worth the expenditure for these augmentations as I didnt have them at the time :).
• Upgrade the minigun ammo capacity. I walked into the final boss fight with 500 rounds of ammo for the minigun (Mad Hoarding Ninja Skillz in action)and this plus the rocket launcher made the final fight a cake walk.
• The minigun doesnt really become a force to be reckoned with until you get the augmentations that stop recoil, prior to getting these augmentations you waste a lot of ammo not hitting your targets.
• Some outcomes are not set in stone, if you do not like the outcome of some of the scenes then re-load from a save and try again.
• The Typhoon weapon system augmentation makes the game almost too easy.

Overall Score: 9 out of 10