Review of the Every Other Week - Deus Ex : Human Revolution

Where do I start with this game? Right off the bat : It's focus is solely on the single player experience. They had me sold right there. In these days when a game's multi-player experience can make or break it's sales, it's refreshing to see a game go with a single player or offline focus.


So Deus Ex : HR is set in the year 2027 around the time of a struggle between the Humanity Front and companies that manufacture augmentations. Augmentations are the prosthetic limbs of tomorrow. Except way cooler. So cool in fact that people are voluntarily having their limbs chopped off to take the next step of "human evolution". Everyone at this time is tampering with the delicate balance of nature; getting everything from  their legs to their eyes taken out and replaced with better, augmented parts. This is causing problems however; because bodies start rejecting augments. So there's an extraordinarily expensive drug released called Neuropozyne that stops that. Problem is that people can't always afford it and their limbs shut off. Serif Industries aims to fix that problem at the start of the tale. 


You play as Adam Jensen. Mr. Jensen is the security team administrator for Serif Industries. At the start you're augmentation free and prepping your team to secure everyone for a safe trip to Washington DC to discuss Serif's new breakthrough : Neuropozyne free augments. Someone however doesn't like that and decides to storm your facility and smash everything to shit, kill everyone, and fuck you up to the point where you NEED to get every one of your limbs augmented. That's how the game starts off and then the opening credits roll! THAT'S THE FUCKING INTRO. Needless to say. I was ready to play the game. Here's my thoughts : 


A-Atmosphere
G-Gameplay
G-Graphics
S-Sound


A- Right from the start this game pulled me in. Everything is tinted yellow and all of the architecture is high tech. Even the clothes are futuristic looking. Fans of BladeRunner will more than likely be a fan of Deus Ex's environments. All of the tech in this game seems possible in the time frame. The sci-fi sound track also adds to it. It's very well done and well cued. The struggling augmented people also lends to the way the game feels. Many people are homeless because they cannot afford Neuropozyne and it all adds to the dark tone of the game. However, the atmosphere can be bogged down by certain characters that aren't so well animated.  -8/10

G- Let me start this section off by saying that the fun in this game does not lie in the boss battles. That said, the game play is very solid as well. At no point in this game do you not feel in control of what Adam is doing. Fans of the Metal Gear Solid series will be right at home here. You're given many options of going about your objectives, but stealth always works best. Adam isn't the strongest guy, a few shots manages to drain your health completely, which leads to you needing to go the route of stealth game play. This may disappoint some folks, and I'm not gonna lie, at first it turned me off of the game, but it's addicting. I genuinely felt scared of getting caught, trying to go a whole level without being spotted really gets the heart racing. But it does kinda shut out the whole run and gun option.


I love the HUD in this game. Everything seems to be well placed, and finding your next objective is never ever a problem.  


Your low damage threshold can be quite a problem, so the cover system is absolutely necessary. When you activate the cover system the whole perspective shifts to third person, that might sound weird, but it works and feels great. However, it might work too well. Certain times I felt like my enemies had absolutely no options except to bob up and down out of cover as well and eventually take a shot to the face.


The weapon and augmentation selection is great too. You have everything from plasma rifles, laser guns, and your basic assortment of normal weapons as well. On top of that, they're all able to be customized in one way or another. Your augment systems add tons of replay value to this game. I have only played through two different times, but each time the augment system changed the whole feel of the game entirely. Whenever you gain enough experience you unlock a praxis point, you use these to open up more options from your augmented limbs. Praxis points can be purchased as well as earned. You have everything from being able to run faster, carry more stuff, or just communicate with people more thoroughly. Different augments open up parts of the world or story. My particular favorite augment was one that let you punch through weak walls, often revealing extra credits, ammo, or praxis points. My one problem with the augment system however was that anyone who didn't see the hacking augments as being useful would be left in the dark and have certain areas or even quests in the game locked away from them. 


I love the way this game plays. It's like a mixture of the old Deus Ex games, and Metal Gear Solid. It's a great combination -8.5/10

G- There's not much to say about the graphics in Deus Ex other than that they are gorgeous. Everything is well rendered and there is plenty of unique architecture around. There's almost no rough edges in the game. Which is amazing considering how aspects of many other games look like they've been crudely cut out of a picture. One of my favorite features was the facial expressions during dialogue sequences. You can tell by the look on someone's face that your choice was good or bad. When it's bad it's not that blatantly obvious "something smells like shit in here" face either. -9/10
S- Sound is one of my favorite features in a game. I love when you can tell that a designer has taken care that their game looks as good as it sounds, and Deus Ex most certainly does. Explosions were loud enough that they'd make me jump. All of the guns sounded great too. Enemies frantically scream and shout at you and their teammates. Some of the voice acting for the characters that aren't that prevalent to the story is kinda bad though. Especially during the Hengsha segment of the game.  -9/10


Verdict : 9/10
I love this game. In my honest opinion, it's a classic. It reminds me of the ps2 era of gaming in the best possible way. It's all about the story and player choice. Which is what games SHOULD be about. BUY THIS FUCKING GAME! 


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