My gaming setup: AMD X6 1090xt, Windows 7 Ultimate x64, GTX 480, 256GB RAID 0
Crucial M4 for the game partition, 16 GB 1866MHz DDR3.
Here's a very brief background of how much time I spent playing the original
Deus:Ex. I beat the game 5 times including once where I just killed 3 targets
total and used stealth / darts. I loved the original and it's the only game
for the PC that I've bought twice (the CD got damaged during a move). With
that in context, I groaned when I heard about this game. DE: Invisible War
was such a failure that I didn't really expect anything from this game.
Then I read the reviews on metacritic and as I don't trust most reviews anymore,
I wasn't sure what to think. I figured I'd bite the bullet and play the game and
find out. I started playing the game wanting to prove myself right and wanting to
hate the game. That wasn't hard in the first 10-15minutes. The combat system was
not what I expected (this is during the first action sequence) - the AI shot straight
and it didn't take a lot of bullets in "normal" mode to bring you down. My ego
satisfied about how I was right about this game being "meh", I figured I'd play for
a little longer and then the spirit of the original Deus Ex showed itself.
I kept playing for 5 hours and was completely hooked. I was wrong about my
assumption but I didn't care. I didn't even care for the main story-line at one point.
Oh "steal stuff from morgue?" I'll get to it. I love exploration and side-quests and
there's plenty of that. There's innovating hacking that rewards you for taking risks.
The game environment is pretty well done although not as good as the original DE. The
interface for weapons/quests/map is a well-designed one. You make choices and they have
consequences. They really do. There are also lots of references to the earlier game
and to general humor (Nigerian email scam for e.g.,).
Combat seemed a little off as if the developers intentionally want you to use assault
as a last resort. The game rewards you for finding hidden passages in general. You get
rewarded for merciful takedowns where you don't kill your enemies. You get rewarded if
no one spots you when you are on objectives where you walk into enemy dens. You are
rewarded if you trigger no alarms during an objective (or quest). Rewards are usually
XP, money, hacking tools. Maybe I need to get better with cover but this isn't Gears of War!
I didn't pay a lot of attention to the music which means it didn't annoy me. I was not
happy with the graphics in general. There are plenty of graphical glitches- some hard
to spot, some obvious but they don't really detract anything from the gameplay. The engine
seems to be outdated (probably explains the low hardware requirements) and graphics aren't
as shiny as trailers / screenshots led you to believe. The controls have a console-ish feel
to them. The fact you have to hold / tap a key to achieve different results is disappointing.
This is the PC for crying out loud - let us assign different keys if we want to.
Yes, this game requires Steam. Yes, you can quick save and quick load using F5 and F8
respectively. Saving is really fast but loading takes too long (the game is installed
on a RAID0 128GB Crucial M4 SSD set) and load times get progressively worse the longer
you keep playing the game. This is ironic and annoying because it's hard to stop playing.
Poor memory management? Please patch :(. I got about 3 hours of sleep last night.
To summarize...
Pros:
+ Excellent gameplay, improves on many (not all) game elements from the original
+ Innovative rewards for taking additional risks during gameplay
+ Open sandbox style gameplay with a good number of side quests and exploration opportunities
+ Plenty of replayability / replay value in this game
+ Decent AUG tree / advancement system (see Cons)
Cons:
- Graphics are disappointing. I wasn't expecting a Crysis but the engine looks old and the
glitches don't help
- AI suspicious / warning system feels half-baked
- The character advancement system feels inferior compared to the original Deus Ex (it's an RPG!)
- Gun combat is disappointingly weak and badly done (despite the "take cover" idea)
Other thoughts:
* Not sure why every female model in the game is busty - the way of the future? AUG implants? (harr harr)
* The futuristic cars/bicycles look silly at best but I guess cyberpunk is forgiving to a large extent
In conclusion, I was going to give this game 4 stars but with the amount of time and
enjoyment I'll get from this game, I might as well be honest with myself. This game is
nothing like the original but comes close enough. I know several years from now I'll pick
up a copy of Deus Ex to play again because that game was/is a cult classic. Human
Revolution probably won't make it to that category but is a strong contender for Game
of the Year 2011.
Update: The long loading times is now patched. The other thing I wanted to add is that the boss
fights can be really annoying to begin with. The first boss isn't walk in the park and can be very
annoying since you don't have a lot of augments and if you are like me, all your advancement is
in hacking and you carry around a tranquilizer rifle. That won't help against bosses where you
need a minimum amount of firepower. So be ready for a good amount of headache against boss-fights
at least in the first few hours... Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Like a lot of people, I was skeptical when I heard about a new Deus Ex game. The last game, Invisible War, wasn't very good, to say the least. Plus, this new game was made by an all new development team, just formed. Did they have what it took to make a great Deus Ex game? It turns out they did.
Deus Ex is about choice, and Human Revolution hits that out of the park. Do you want to sneak past your enemies with a cloaking augmentation after watching your enemies move routes through walls with the eye aug, or do you want to sneak around and pick off each enemy with tranquilizer darts, hiding each body from view like a silent predator? Do you want to augment yourself to be Cyberpunk Rambo? You can. Grab a machine gun and utilize your defense aug, making your skin hardened against bullets. Do you want to be a weird Hulkified dude who's obsessed with throwing fridges and dumpsters at your enemies? Put some points into strength augs. Want to be a hacker and use hostile security terminals, turrets, and robots against your enemy? Done. Like to talk your way out of situations? Invest in the cerebral aug that lets you better read people's expressions, helping you find each conversation's weak points.
There is so much choice in this game, and there are so many paths in each level to take, that I think Human Revolution rivals or even surpasses Deus Ex. It's that good. The levels are huge - especially the city hubs where you can talk to various NPCs and get a bunch of sidequests.
The gunplay feels nice, the stealth is good (with nice little touches like patrols that turn around and walk backwards for a few moments). The hacking minigame is actually fun and involved, unlike most minigames. It also evolves as the game progresses, becoming more difficult and varied, with more ways to hack as well.
It does have a few downsides, though. First, while it has an amazing art direction, the graphics aren't too great. Plus there's some graphical glitches and bugs. But those are pretty small complaints. The good things about this game absolutely dwarf the bad.
Everyone should buy and support this game. We need more like it. I don't want to wait another 10 years for a new great Deus Ex game.'
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