There is something incredibly frustrating about a game which does so much so well but simply fails at the most important pieces. Imagine a baseball game where pitching and hitting was terrible, but managing the team was perfect. Imagine the next MarioKart allowed you to tweak the karts themselves in brilliant fashion, but the racing was strictly mundane. Imagine a game which asks you to go around in a dystopian future and which requires stealth and gun battles where the upgrades are tremendous but the shooting, cover mechanic, and AI is dismal. That, in a nutshell, sums up Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
As this game is both a prequel and the first Deus Ex title in years, it is not necessary to have any knowledge of the two games which preceded it. The game has you play as Adam Jensen, a private security specialist working for Sarif Industries, a big corporation which developments augmentations for the human body. Essentially, you can get eyes that see really well (like through walls), legs that move really fast, and some other pretty fun (and nasty) stuff. You, as Jensen, quickly find yourself augmented after a security breach at the facility and on the hunt for who is responsible.
I can't lie to you, no matter how many themes and questions of what it is to be human the game may contain, it really is typical dystopian science fiction. No one who has seen Blade Runner (or maybe even The Terminator) will find it terribly deep and shocking – you have your people who like the augmentation and see it as the future, and those who think that's really incredibly detrimental. You also have your greedy businessman and your greedy crime bosses.
I am aware that I have a tendency to knock videogames for their storytelling, and it should be made clear that Deus Ex really is no worse than the typical videogame. In fact, I'm quite sure that it aspires to be better, but I don't believe it should be given a pass for simply being as good as everyone else nor one for simply trying. If you skip the cutscenes and fast forward through much of the in-game dialogue you'll still have a pretty good idea of what is taking place, and if games ever want to advance, they have to do better than that.
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Article comments
1 - Michael Prince
Wow Josh, while I appreciate some of your comments on controls, AI and cut-scene/in game disparity I feel that you let those dominate a review and completely overshadows all the truly great things about the game.
-The amazing sidequests
-Truly fun hacking mini game that never gets old
-the fun cat and mouse games you can play with soldiers
-The heaps of easter egg jokes
-The sheer amazing atmosphere of the game from the populated offices to the dirty streets and buildings
-The reams of truly interesting information in e-mails, e-books and newspapers.
Yes this game has problems, yes the boss battles suck, yes the cut scenes should have been dropped for in game footage. But by God no game has possessed me to just keep playing like this one does. Most people playing it are saying the same thing. I know you gave it 4 stars and I know you said you liked it, but the review really highlights all the faults heavily and fails to bring up the amazing moments and features that make this a game everyone should experience.
Just my 2 cents