Deus Ex: Human Revolution

So I just finished this game, clocking in around 40 hours of playtime. Wow, that's a work week... Overall it was  really good game, and I would recommend picking it up.

The controls are like any FPS, and handle quite well. It can get a bit tricky if you're trying to do something odd, like jump on top of something in a nook high up, but that's par for all FPS' controls.

The graphics are really good. They do pull you out of gameplay and into a beautifully rendered cutscenes, but it's not that often.

The gameplay is good. Most of the time they let you respond as you can in-game for quests and interactions, which is really awesome. Think Bethesda AI, but no one cares if you steal. The dialog system they use is also really neat, because you have to maneuver your way through conversations, which have multiple outcomes. Most of those outcomes are not good, so that's awesome too. You can also get an enhancement that helps persuade people, but you don't always need this to get what you want.


The hacking mini games can get tedious until you have enough upgrades. Once I got enough, it was tolerable to get through the complex hacking layouts. Hacking stealth and hacking skill are the two enhancements you need. Stealth will prevent the AI from activating, so you have a good chance of getting through undetected, and hacking level will allow you to hack higher level systems. You will still have to reload occasionally, because sometimes a 15% chance of being detected, results in being detected. =\ By the end of the game I had 77 Nuke Virus Softwares and 61 Stop! Worm Softwares collecting dust in my inventory, so they're pretty liberal with those. When the going gets tough, use them!

A noted minor annoyance of the hacking system - whenever successfully hacking a terminal you get experience. The experience notification is on the right side of the screen, preventing you from reading the email text immediately...

The sound effects and voice acting were spot-on. So I really enjoyed hearing the characters talk, and the bones cracking as I silently took down guards. On that note, the stealth enhancement is really useful for maneuvering around guards, or sneaking into a blind spot then shooting 3 guards with the stun gun. The multiple take down enhancement was also useful.




Oh, and there are boss fights. But they're not really fights, as much as lessons in humiliation for not getting the typhoon enhancement. Seriously.

1. Attempt boss fight with guns, fail
2. Attempt boss fight with guns and grenades, fail
3. Attempt boss fight again, changing tactics, fail
4. Attempt boss fight, yet again, using different weapons, and running away a lot, fail
5. Run up and use typhoon weapon a few times... win - W.T.F.
6.  
7.  

I should note that I beat one of the bosses without the typhoon, but it took a lot of head shots, a few grenades, and about 10 reloads. I bee-lined for the typhoon upgrade afterwards.

The story was really good, and I liked how the side-quests inter weaved with the main plot. You don't feel like you were off doing something that didn't even matter. So huge props to Eidos for that.


Oh, and I did a stealth play through, if that wasn't apparent. So I maybe killed 10 people throughout the entire game. I did end up lugging around tons of weapons because I often went out of my way to a vendor and sold it all for cash. Then I used the cash to purchase Praxis points at the LIMB clinic as often as stock allowed. They do have automatic inventory management, so it will pack it in there nice and tight, so you don't have to play Tetris to fit in the new gun you found.

If you haven't figured it out by now, the game is great with a few minor gripes. Pick it up already!