Deus Ex: Human Revolution

The Good
It is sad to see that Eidos jumped on the bandwagon with their flagship RPG series, and went the Bioware route. Meaning that first they kickstart an awesome, intricate, deep RPG franchise, then they proceed to ruin it to oblivion in its sequel(s) which end up being glorified First Person Shooters with mild RPG touches and very non-RPG-ish boss fights. FPS's are easier to develop and easier to market to the teen crowd, so I see the incentive. But really, what's next? Deus Ex 4: The iPhone Arcade Game? Anyway, there's still plenty to like here, so let's see:

This game is strong on atmosphere; sometimes that translates to oppressive, foreboding urban landscapes (Detroit), sometimes to exotic locales that ooze Oriental mystery and intrigue (China). Even the sterile office building interiors in this game are verisimilar and atmospheric.

Another strong point is imagination and immersion: the game dreams up a believable, fairly dystopian 2027 where we witness a widening gap between those who can afford flashy high-tech augmentations and those who cannot. The game takes its elaborate political-scientific-economic setup for granted and builds it from there, remaining very consequential and serious throughout in its depiction. No lazy shortcuts, no deal-breaking wink-wink-nudge-nudge allusions to the present day as a lesser sci-fi game would resort to. DE:HR is a mature attempt at imagining a possible, persistent 2027. In this regard, it is up there with Blade Runner's 2019 and Mass Effect's 2183.

As a consequence of the above, all the dialogs and the characters are very good, almost too good for an action RPG. Sarif is my favorite example: a charismatic, enigmatic leader and a love-hate father figure to our hero, he always has another revelation or two up his sleeve. The conversations in general are multi-layered, eloquent, emotionally mature and unpredictable. They should be good, as they are written by novelist James Swallow and veteran lead writer Mary DeMarle.

On a more technical note, this game has the best cover system I've experienced in an FPS/3PS yet. It's practical, very useful and easy to master. It's even great to look at: whenever Adam leans next to a wall in his aug-sunglasses, silenced gun in hand, and an enemy guard approaches from around the corner (as it occurs dozens of times in the game), it looks just like a shot from some cool sci-fi comics. As far as cover systems go, I hope future action games look at DE:HR and take it from there.

The Bad
This is an FPS. Granted, this is an FPS that can be optionally played as a survival stealth game. Yet it was marketed as an RPG. If it walks like a duck and quacks... you know the rest. The game actually becomes unapologetic in its FPS-ness by the second half. The focus shifts to sneaking, evading turrets and upgrading your weaponry so you finally have a chance against Jamar and Zhao, the last two bosses.

Oh yes, don't get me started on the boss fights. These are the equivalent of Eidos's ultimate testimony that they WERE thinking on FPS terms with this game.

Then there is the problem of repetitiveness in the second half, again a typical FPS trait. The Montreal stage is a seemingly endless array of boring office rooms and vent ducts. Much of the Singapore stage is, surprise, a seemingly endless array of boring office rooms and vent ducts. The following Panchaea stage, however, is quite brilliant, as if the project leader finally burst out: "Guys, we need to end this one with a bang! No more office rooms and vent ducts, use your head! This is s'posed to be a Deus Ex game!" It ended up as an odd out-of-place homage to Half Life 1 (and even to Left4Dead), but I loved it.

The Bottom Line
When taken at face value and not as the latest entry of a venerable RPG franchise, DE:HR proves to be a very playable FPS with some RPG elements, in fact it stands out as probably the best of its kind this year. It's much longer and more interesting than other 2011 FPS/3PS titles I've played. Problems arise when we realize that it's supposed to be a full-blooded prequel to Deus Ex. THE Deus Ex. The fact is, Eidos went the safest, trendiest route here and tried to appease both contemporary fan camps: the newer generation of hardcore action afficionados (who were reared on Quake 3 and Half Life 2) and the older generation of actual Deus Ex fans. As Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 have proved just before DE:HR, you can't have the best of both worlds in RPG gaming: you either go "deep, hardcore RPG" or you're lite and flawed. Deus Ex has just joined the club of flawed game franchises.

And yet Deus Ex: Human Revolution excels in one aspect: give me its memorable vision of a 2027 Shanghai any day.

The Good
+ The entire game takes place at night. This feature alone makes Deus Ex: Human Revolution ten times more immersive and moody than these games: Grand Theft Auto V, Far Cry 3, games that have a day-night cycle. Day-night cycles are stupid. Even Max Payne 3 had daytime missions, which just broke the atmosphere so bad.

• Plenty of civilians in the game world. An abundance of friendly NPCs. This is BioShock except you're not alone and it's not scary one bit. There's a lot of dialogue to listen to. This game world is much more believable than, say, Grand Theft Auto V, because you can actually talk to people.

• The third game in the series, Human Revolution remains intelligent like the original Deus Ex. You're not just running around killing people (GTA5 is basically that). You feel like a tourist in the city, wandering the city streets at night, admiring the neon lights. If the average shooter is loud rock music, then I would say that Deus Ex: Human Revolution is ambient techno, downtempo electronic, with a very relaxed and laid-back mood.

• Lots of non-lethal options to deal with an enemy. You have the Stun Gun, PEP Packs, Tranquilizer Darts, Melee Takedown and more. You'll want to avoid killing enemies. You just render them unconscious.

• So here's the nicest thing I have to say about this game: It may not feel special when you're playing through it, but months after you beat it, on one of these nights, you may find yourself casually walking down the streets, and say, "Hey, I've seen this neon light. I recognize this warehouse. I know this place. I've been here before, in a video game."

• Classic Diablo-style grid-based inventory system. This is a nod to the old school. Modern games just don't have the grid-based inventory anymore. Diablo III doesn't have it. In BioShock you don't even have a backpack. But in the good old days lots of games had the grid inventory system: System Shock 2, Commandos 2, Deus Ex, Diablo II. Now in the year 2011, Deus Ex: Human Revolution sticks to this system, which is respectable.

• What makes the Diablo-style inventory screen so compelling? The weapons! You can clearly see that some weapons are bigger than others. There are a few guns (e.g. the rocket launcher) in Human Revolution that take up half of your inventory screen. Depending on how big your TV screen is, this gun just looks huge. WOW. I could never forget that. I thought the Fuel Rod in Halo: Reach was huge. But it's no comparison to the big guns in this game.

And you don't get this stuff in any other shooter, because they don't have the Diablo-style inventory screen.

• Classic System Shock 2 font. Yeah, I'm talking about the font. It brings back so many good memories. Just like in System Shock 2, you get lots of well-written descriptions of items, guns, ammunition and stuff.

• There's a particular skill called "Icarus Landing System". This skill is alright, you'll want to upgrade it, no problem there, but the really important thing is that it's been a long time since I heard anything that sounds as cool as "Icarus Landing System" in a game. Not only that, you get to see this awesome skill name in the classic System Shock 2 font.
  
  The Bad
  - There's a stupid cutscene that plays every time you knock someone unconscious. You can't turn this cutscene off. It's annoying after two or three times, but the game forces you to watch it hundreds of times. No kidding.

• On the Xbox 360, loading times are atrocious. If you make a mistake somewhere in the level, and if you are actually playing games for fun, you'll want to forget about the mistake and move on. You do NOT want to load the last save and try it again. Because it'll take about 30 seconds just to load the save. In another shooter this is fine, but Deus Ex is known for its stealth gameplay. You want to stay undetected. If you are detected, you'll certainly want to load the last save and try it again. See the dilemma here?

• Clunky interface. The interface is definitely not easy to use, but it's a console RPG game so what do you expect.

• Unbalanced skills. Some skills are infinitely useless (who designed this?). Some skills are very tiring to use. When I say tiring, I mean that you have to press a series of buttons and keep track two or three things happening at the same time. That's not how I would want to play this game. I want the ambient downtempo laid-back style.

• The game clearly encourages stealth. You get tons of experience points for stealth. But I found myself upgrading all the non-stealth skills near the end. I was tired of the constant loading screens and just wanted to beat it quickly.

• A good example is the invisibility skill. Enemies can't see you. Cool huh? However, they can still hear you. So you need to keep track of another skill that eliminates the sound you make. On top of this, you have to worry about battery consumption and all kinds of stuff. So I just got tired of this stuff and relied on grenades and heavy firepower instead.
  
  The Bottom Line
  As mentioned above, Deus Ex: Human Revolution has lots of awesome qualities, as well as lots of unforgivable problems. Maybe that's what makes it Human.

The Good
What I liked most about Human Revolution is how the developers exercised a good deal of moderation in dumbing it down. For example, they introduced regenerating health, which is normally considered a dumb feature, but they also made the weapon damage high and the regeneration slow, thus negating some of the dumbness. They removed skills, but deepened augmentations. And so on... Overall it's nowhere near the disaster Oblivion or BioShock were.

In some ways, it's better than the first Deus Ex. The dialogues are deeper, and there seem to be more choices and consequences (I only finished it once), the graphics are of course a lot more detailed, and the engine renders the atmospheric environments well. I liked it a lot better than the shiny Unreal3 look from other contemporary games. Performance is fine too (at least on DX9.)

Aesthetically, it's quite pleasing. The Detroit area is the weakest. The other hub has some beautiful environments, and the missions have their striking moments too (except a certain dock mission, which is both visually boring and poorly motivated).

The side quests are interesting. Most of them somehow tie into the augmentation debate - the brainwashed mercenary-assassin who starts killing his employers, the prostitutes who are forced into augmentations to enhance their clients' pleasure (yikes), etc. They are comparable or better than anything the original had to offer.

The Bad
What bothered me the most was that they changed the gray, realistic visuals from Deus Ex into something that reminds me more of cyberpunk anime, which makes it lose some of its impact. For example when a character talks about private security forces as 'capitalism's final encroachment into one of the most lucrative industries' it's actually quite a deep thought that's relevant to our modern world, but because it's said by a cartoonish character in a cartoonish world, it will hardly register.

Then there are the three unavoidable boss fights that happen in small rooms and can only be defeated by shooting them long enough (and it does take a long time). I don't know why they put these in. Deus Ex is about being sneaky and clever. It's not about shooting a tank-like character in the face fifty times while dodging infinite bullets and grenades. It's almost like fighting bosses in a platformer.

Then there's the small stuff, like the third person cover and take-down mechanics, the much more game-y interface, the use of a quest compass (which is useful, but only because the map is so useless), lack of detailed locational damage, skills, lockpicks, etc.

The main storyline events are really dumb. For example, at one point, you have to figure out a freighter's destination. Well, we're the head of security of a mega-corporation in a cyberpunk setting, so how will we approach this? Will we attach a tracking chip to the ship? Will we watch it from orbit? From a plane? No? A boat then? How about hacking a computer for the schedule, or interrogating a dock worker with our arm blades? Nope, hobo Jensen decides he's going to hide in a cargo container to see where it's going.

The Bottom Line
It's... okay. It's better than Deus Ex in some ways and worse then Deus Ex in some ways. In most ways it's the same - and that's the problem. It's been ten years since DX1 came out, and one expects a certain amount of progress and increase in depth which Human Revolution hasn't delivered. It could've been more open, the world could've been more reactive, it could've partly simulated an economy and ecology, whatever. It could've been different, but instead it is too much of the same.