I finally got around to writing this first impressions article after having played the game for 20 hours plus. This Genre is really difficult to write a first impressions article on since the story is such an important part of the game and the gameplay may change throughout the game.
Well, anyway, here’s my impressions of this game so far. I didn’t play the original deus ex when it game out, but from what I can tell this game has a little less freedom, and the rpg elements are a bit less complex when it comes to character development in terms of statistics. Some would probably call it dumbed down. Well let’s get on to the game itself.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in a not to distant future where human augmentation through inplants is possible, but not available to everyone. There is an ongoing struggle between the people who are pro augmentations and those who think modifying humans in this way are morally wrong. This theme is an important part of the game, and brings up the classic question of how far sciance could and should go.
The main character: Adam Jensen, is (even though, it’s not by his own will) an augmented human being. He gets his augmentations so early on that I don’t consider it a spoiler. He gets involved in a big conspiracy involving very powerful augmentations.
The game consists of several “City hubs” with a main plot and a lot of side missions. The hubs are fairly large and (at least for me) fairly easy to get lost in. It’s not a true open world game but while withink a hub, you can move around freely before moving on to the next one. The missions are fairly good and usually have several solutions and sometimes leads to other side quests.
Graphics
Overall, the graphics are really good. Their are more important things in a game like this, but it doesn’t hurt that most of the game looks really good. There are some exceptions however. Some of the scripted cutscenes and “Take downs” (more on this later) looks weird. As I’ve already stated though, this doesn’t take away much from the overall experience.
Audio
The sound effects and music of this game is great. Most of the areas in the game has music in the background that adds to the overall atmosphere and feel of an area without being repetitive. Many places also have people talking to each other. You can overhear some interesting conversations, some of which can give you hints to quests or just add to the overall feel. This gets me into voice acting. The voice acting in this game range from quite bad to really good. For some reason, I really like the voice of the main character. As in most open world games, some of the general chatter can be repetitive, but I really haven’t found as much of this here as in other games.
User interface
There isn’t much to say here. The UI does what it’s soposed to and it does it well. Inventory management is quite easy and it’s always easy to find what you’re looking for.
Gameplay
The game is played from a first person perspective for the most part, with the exception of some, for the most part unnecessary cutscenes. This brings up the concept of the Take down system mentioned above. You can incapacitate people by using a non lethal take down (basically walking up to someone and pressing a key). This will take care of enemies without having to kill them, and can be a good solution to many situations. I think you can actually play through the entire game without actually killing someone with a few exceptions. This brings me to the most annoying part of the game: Boss fights. From what I’ve heard, the boss fights in this game were outsource to a different company and the original developer wasn’t to happy with them, however they are there and I have to talk about them. The first one almost made me stop playing the game, cause I got there with weapons that made it really difficult and these fights only take away from the overall experience of the game. They are few and far between however, so, for the most part, those shouldn’t bother anyone to much. This game, however isn’t only about killing stuff. The main story and the multi layer quests is better then you’ll find in most games. This game calls itself an RPG, and RPG for most people today means statistics, leveling and character development (even though this can be debated and I don’t agree with it). You gain experience by doing all sorts of things; Talking to people, completing quests, hacking computers and taking out enemies). For the most part, you gain more experience by using non lethal solutions to problem, something that can push your gameplay in a way that I don’t like. While playing, I usually don’t care and I just take the solution I feel is the most righteous thing to do or whatever suits me best. In terms of leveling, you gain praxis points that can be used to buy augmentations. Augmentations are basically the skill system of this game. When it comes to weapons, I don’t feel that any weapon is more powerful then another in most cases. Everything has it’s advantages and disadvantages, with the exceptions of the silly boss fights. Same goes for the augmentations, even though I’ve found a few that would be really difficult for me to do without. There’s quite a few weapons to choose from, but I usually use what’s at hand, and what I can find ammo for, since your inventory space is quite limited, even with inventory enhancing augs. I’ll usually find myself switching weapons several times during a long mission depending on what my enemies are using. This will depend on your accuracy and the difficulty level you play on off course. Even though I have been talking a lot about combat and such here, I want to emphasize that the most important part of this game is the storytelling and character interaction.
Conclusion
In 2011 we saw quite a few great games, and this is no exception. If you like a game with some action, that also has a good story, this game is a must. I really don’t have much to complain about in this game, despite what I’ve said above. I highly recommend this game, and if you want quests to be more challanging, I recommend turning off the quest tracker waypoints in the options.
