Review: Deus Ex Human Revolution

Darwin once said that, “Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence.” Sarif industries believes, human augmentation is meant to better society, or is it a way to control all of humanity? The world will rapidly evolve, and its up to us to decide which part of the ladder is the right one. Welcome to Deus Ex Human Revolution.

In Deus Ex you play as a Sarif Security Officer, Adam Jensen, who’s an ex-SWAT team member. He had to be nearly dead and had his girlfriend taken from him to get the upper hand on his new enemy. Six months later, he has been rebuilt, restored and now looking to find out who tried to put him down. Your investigation is a global one, its up to you to pick the right augmentations and the right gear for each mission. This means breaking down a lot of walls and interrogating a lot of thugs to seek the proper answers.

The gameplay is a mixture of games. Deus Ex becomes its own game since the choices impact the way the game unfolds. It will be up to you to decide the best way to tackle each mission. There will be suggestions on how to infiltrate each area and if you augmented your abilities properly, it will make a lot of the missions much easier. In my case I didn’t work too much on my brain power, except for reading people when I interrogated them. The other abilities that I mostly worked on were my physical enhancements to take down enemies or escape from areas. The Icarus enhancement let me drop from high areas and landing safely, also the ability to land on enemies as a take down. It can get technical when hacking terminals, but that also depends on your “aug” ability on each terminal level. There are alternate routes as well to get into places, like rooftops, sewers and vents throughout the environment. I would suggest scoping out the area or hearing the N.P.C’s (non playable characters) talk about secret passages. Another plus to the game is the save anywhere feature.

The graphics are a 50/50 with me, the environments are amazing with Detroit being in the future and the double layer of China (which feels like Square Enix giving homage to Final Fantasy 7). The problem I have is with the characters themselves, the way they act and their facial features seem to fall short.

The weapons of the game range from your standard lethal to the futuristic. The typhoon weapon is one of my favorites, it is basically a 360 degree pulse blast that will take out surrounding enemies, picture Neo (from the Matrix) taking off for flight. The game will provide you with damage upgrades with certain weapons. The downside is the equipment you use is determined by the space it takes up in your inventory. The game gives you the ability to combine other weapons such as grenades to mine plates which come in handy, but do not forget that it will affect you as well. I would like to suggest keeping a tranquilizer weapon in your inventory at all times.

Just like all other RPGs there are side quests to deal with. There was only one side quest that was annoying as all hell and that is the “Motherly Ties” one because when you complete the quest, it will glitch on you in a way that you will not progress pass the finished dialogue. The dialogue will hang, so until they do a patch I would suggest skipping that quest at all cost. If you are going to attempt any of the side quest, make sure you have the right hacking level. Also I suggest on stocking up on hacking tools for example nukes that will help you gain instant access to the nodes you are trying to take over.

In the end Deus Ex Human Revolution is a solid “BUY”. It has everything a gamer could ask for.  It has a long gameplay with great choices that can make the game change up at anytime, combat is okay (like a shooter), many different ways to turn a bad situation into a positive without the game forcing you to restart and of course a great story prequel to the series. I am very impressed with this title and the fact that it made me play different times with different outcomes or forcing me to restart my character all over to augment Jensen a different way is indeed amazing. The game is out now for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Thank you for stopping by and stay frosty!