Human Nature

What does it mean to be human?

Deus Ex: Human Revolution explores the question, but I'm not so sure it comes up with an answer.

Minor Spoilers Ahead!

Philosophical quandaries aside, Deus Ex: Human Revolution (or DE:HR from here on in) is a 2011 cyberpunk prequel to the famous Deus Ex (2000).

I like this game a lot. It's very pretty, the engine is good, the story is more than decent, but what I really like is that it hasn't tried to please everybody. The developers took a few concepts and stuck with them.

Combat is the main part of the game in many ways, and it's both smooth and fun. No complaints there.

Stealth is also fun, and a long standing favorite of mine. All well so far.

Hacking is alright, I suppose. As an every now and then element, it's in fact very good, but when you go through every computer in a news room, it gets very tedious. Not to mention that, once you upgrade your skill to max, and get hacking stealth to max, even the hardest locks are a breeze to crack.

Finally Social. This part is also quite fun, and can make your life considerably easier. But it's the smallest element in the game, and as such is the least important. Unless you're going for a no kill play through.

As a gamer, I like to explore, and here DE:HR falls a little bit on it's face. There are hidden areas, but most levels are rather small, which limits your possibilities a great deal. In fact, Detroit is downright tiny, but it's more than made up by Hengsha (fictional Chinese city) which in turn feels rather big. The rest are mostly different bases and similar locations that you infiltrate.

I suppose one could accuse DE:HR of being linear and “railroady” but that would be pretty unfair, and here's why. The hero, Adam Jensen is a very driven man. When he sets his mind to doing something, it gets done, whether it's helping an old friend or uncovering global conspiracies. Whatever his next goal is, Jensen goes for gold and not for hamburgers. This is not GTA, but man do I wish I could get the size of the GTA cities in this game!

Most missions have many different ways they can be completed, and this is where the options come in, and it's up to you to figure out how to do what needs to be done. If the game was more open, this would probably be much harder to figure out, which would impact on the flow of the game.

The one thing that did disappoint me though, where the boss fights. The first one is the hardest, and once you figure out how to do it, it's not all that hard. Personally I'd be happy if we could leave boss battles where they belong; in the past. But since they keep popping up, I guess I'm the minority. At least in DE:HR they occupy very little of your time.

Finally, I've noticed that Jensen's motive for doing all he does is ambiguous. It could be a sense of duty, or maybe revenge. Or possible love, I don't know. I suppose you have to figure it our for yourself.

If you want a game with a good story, compelling characters and great atmosphere, you can do a lot worse than Deus Ex: Human Revolution.