Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC) - Part 2

Click to jump back to part one.

I've found the leader of the terrorists! He's Zeke Sanders, an unhinged ex-military ex-cyborg who couldn't decide whether he wanted to dress like a monk or a pirate today, so he went with both.

This means I get to take part in my first social boss fight, which is like a regular boss fight, except entirely different. My responses aren't all that varied in content no matter what I choose, but I need to figure out what tone is mostly likely to get him to see things my way and let his hostage go. I could've just shot him though instead I suppose, that would've simplified things considerably. Plus I'd have gotten a cool revolver out of it.

It reminds me a lot of Alpha Protocol's dialogue system, except it's not trying to mimic the rhythm of a natural conversation, so it doesn't have the same time pressure. Plus it's a lot more win/lose in its outcomes, as there isn't really a benefit to anyone if I choose to manipulate him into freaking out and shooting the poor woman in the head. Well unless she survives and becomes an elite augmented agent out for revenge I suppose, then we could team up and have adventures.

Conversation complete! Well okay he managed to talk himself out of the room and escape, but I at least managed to convince him to leave his hostage behind.

Alright I've just been given a whole lot of points for my trouble and SWAT has moved in to take things from here, so I think I'm done. Not sure what Sarif is complaining about up there though, I did absolutely everything he wanted me to.

Oh... right... I honestly forgot about those guys. I would've rescued them if I saw them though! Great, now I have to load an earlier save game and replay half the level again.


SO I WENT AND DID THAT, AND THEN...

Oh I see! The hostages were being held in a room on the floor above in one of the first labs. I must have been too busy staring at arrows on the minimap to glance up and see the row of windows facing out at me the first time I came though here. The staff are shouting at me to stay out of the room as if I step through the door I'll trigger the bomb timer, but I've already very familiar with how that outcome works out so I'm going to try to disarm this thing.

Okay it seems to be a binary explosive, with the two separate tanks connected to a mixing apparatus with a keypad I can hack. Well I've seen Die Hard With a Vengeance so I get the gist of how it works... and I have a feeling that disarming it isn't likely to be all that difficult.

After taking care of the bomb I left the hostages alone and unarmed with terrorists still roaming around outside just a few meters away, and crawled out through the air vent that I likely could have crept in through without activating the timer. Ghosting the rest of the level was so much easier the second time around, now that I know where the enemies roam and how the vents connect, and I made it back through to Zeke in almost half the time.


MEANWHILE, ON MY LETHAL PLAYTHROUGH.

After slaughtering every single enemy in the factory with a variety of small arms and the occasional grenade, I decided that Renegade Jensen would have a sudden attack of conscience during the Zeke conversation and let him leave with his hostage... and this was what I discovered when I followed him outside. Now I'm sure I should have put a bullet in his head and took that awesome revolver.

Well I think I've seen enough of how combat works, so I think I'll put Renegade Jensen to rest now and stick instead to the ways of pacifism. By the way, there's no binary morality system in this, no light side/dark side split; there's no pressure to stay consistent with your choices and the game's better for it in my opinion.


LATER, BACK AT SARIF INDUSTRIES.

With my job done at the factory and everyone saved, Malik flew me back to HQ so I could return the Typhoon and get on with my real job. Apparently someone's been stealing drugs from the company, so now I have to go searching offices and hacking into private emails to investigate. Or not, it's just an optional side quest after all.

Computers work similar to how they did in Deus Ex, adding a bit of depth to the world and characters with emails, except now users are locked to a specific PC instead of the building's network. I can't just get a list of usernames and check out all their emails at the one terminal any more, so I have to break into their offices. Still, maybe they've got some candy bars in a desk drawer I can steal. For them they'd just be a snack, but I can use the sugary goodness to refuel my augmentation powers (seriously).


A BIT OF SNOOPING LATER.

Well that office searching quest lead to a bit of an anticlimax, so I decided to leave the building and go for a walk. The city on the other hand is the opposite of underwhelming and it's much bigger than the first mission hub in Deus Ex 1, never mind anything in Invisible War.

The first game had society on the verge of total collapse, the second game had its separated communities of haves and have nots, but this has progress and ruin basically on opposite sides of the street to each other. The massive Sarif Industries building and the flashy L.I.M.B. augmentation clinic are virtually next door to the shady arms dealer operating out of an abandoned petrol station, prostitutes have set up shop across the road from the police station, and no one seems particularly happy about anything anywhere.

Well except for the arms dealer, he's loving every minute of his job. The smug git.

Hang on, this is a proper shop interface here. I can even sell items now! This is a massive change from Deus Ex and Invisible War's dialogue based shops, which were basically just a list of three items I could buy. Hmm, I think I'll sell the wine and get myself a weapon mod. I don't plan to be shooting anyone any time soon, but if it ever comes down to it I want to be shooting them with the most absurdly pimped up firearm money can buy.

Damn, they've really upgraded the gun augmentation features as well this time around. Now there's functional mods like a laser sight or a silencer, and stat upgrade mods to increase weapon damage, ammo capacity etc. Well it's a good way to make the player get very attached to one or two of their guns if that's what they intended. I'm going to have to start thinking of a name for this pistol if I make it any more irreplaceable.

Okay, I should probably get on with doing something productive now.

There, I've finally built myself some steps to get onto the petrol station roof and claim the treasure up there as my own! Took me bloody forever it did; my box stacking skills must be rusty.

I found a sniper rifle up there and a datapad talking about a plot to use it to fire at augmentation protesters and trigger a riot. Man, everything is about augmentations in this game. Though it's a nice find really, as now I can sell the rifle for cash and buy more beer.

You know, thinking about this shoddy home-made staircase, it's a shame I couldn't have just switched on a Deus Ex-style strength augmentation and thrown over a couple of decent sized dumpsters to jump up on instead.

Oh, wait...

The original Deus Ex uses an experience based skill system in addition to collectable specific augmentation modules that can be further upgraded with collectable augmentation upgrade canisters. Each augmentation gives you a choice between two powers and once you've made your choice you're locked out of the other one forever. When it came time to make the sequel, Ion Storm decided that the system might be a little over-complicated and they might have had a point.

Unfortunately Invisible War ended up being streamlined to the point where it only features interchangeable augmentation canisters for a series of less than awe-inspiring abilities. Without the experience reward for exploration and completing goals, playing the game feels less... rewarding.

Human Revolution on the other hand takes the best of both systems and combines them. Now augmentations are gained from XP (and the occasional pick-up), via the application of Praxis points into your chosen ability. Two points to unlock an augmentation, one to upgrade it, and I'm never locked off from an ability due to my earlier choices. I can have hacking AND cloaking for instance (in your face Invisible War). Plus the augmentations this time include seeing through walls, punching through walls, super jumps and being able to survive any fall; things that would likely make gameplay more fun instead of just making me tougher.

Sorry bro, that was just a strength test, I'll reload my save now.

Throwing a box at people annoys them, throwing a dumpster knocks them flat on their ass. I'm eager to expand my experiments soon to include vending machines. Using a power like this uses energy, but as long as I don't use up an entire battery it'll eventually recharge again. The last battery always recharges whether it's empty or not, but the rest would have to be recovered with candy bars.

Hey, is that a basketball court over on the right...

Fuck yes! Straight through the net from the other side of the court. Every Deus Ex game has had a basketball in it, but this is the first time I've been given some recognition for my skills. My skill of spending five whole minutes throwing a ball until it finally went in I mean.

Okay enough screwing around. Sarif sent me out here to recover the neural hub from that Purity First hacker who was poking around in our computer system earlier (you know, the guy who shot himself). He's been taken to the police station though and influential people are very invested in covering this up, so I somehow it seems unlikely I'll be able to walk in the front door, stroll down to the morgue, and just ask for the hub. I imagine they'll be a few entry points I can use to sneak inside the precinct though if I take the time to look for them.

Holy shit look at the scale of this place. Sure it's tiny if you compare it to a GTA game or whatever, but for a game with this much detail in each area, that's a substantial map size, especially as I can go inside all of the buildings marked yellow. Granted they're mostly all near-identical apartment blocks containing several floor's worth of tedium each, but c'mon stop trying to ruin my good mood with your miserable facts.

Also, the game has a proper map! I liked how I had to work from satellite images and whatever else my team could dig up for me in Deus Ex, but this is way more practical, especially as these side-quests I've accumulated are sending me all over the place. If there's one change I'd make though, it would be adding street names, for the times where I'm told to be somewhere. By the way, all those little Xs can be toggled on/off individually or globally, depending on the player's taste. It's a very considerate interface.


SOON.

I decided I'd give walking straight into the precinct through the front door a try after all. With a bit of luck and some mechanically enhanced charm there's a fair chance I can talk my way past the desk sergeant.

This is another social boss fight like with Zeke, only this time I have an augmentation to assess and influence the subject, meaning a whole lot more information on screen. I have to pay attention to his tone, his body language, and the personality analysis, and relate it to his psychological profile and traits to figure out how to manipulate him to my ends.

It's interesting how the conversation isn't just a throw away thing, it actually relates directly to an event in Jensen's past that's been mentioned a few times now: the incident that led to him leaving SWAT. I'm getting backstory here, plus Jensen's emotionally involved; makes things more interesting.

Well I'm inside the precinct, so I might as well do a bit of snooping while I'm here. If anyone sees me hacking the door locks I'll get about a second and a half of warning and then they'll open fire, but they're less bothered about where I stack my cardboard boxes. Everywhere is a mess in this game so they're used to it.

So now I've got a wall to hide behind so I can hack the door in peace. What NPCs can't see, they don't know about, and they can't see through boxes. I don't even care what's in there to be honest, I just want the XP reward for hacking.

I am deeply deeply ashamed it never occurred until now that I'm playing as cyborg ex-cop in Detroit. How did I not realise that this is actually a stealth Robocop remake!

That reminds me, I need to watch that new Robocop film at some point. I never asked for a remake, but I might as well give it a fair shot. Though it doesn't bode well for the film if these cops have forgotten it even exists just 13 years later.

Alright, that's the security cameras for the morgue shut down. I'd have to upgrade my augmentations to access robots or turrets, but fortunately the Detroit police force have stopped short from using lethal automated weaponry to guard the dead folks so it's not an issue.

I shadow a guard to get inside, get the neural hub, and walk right back out again. Job done.

This seems like a good place for me to turn the game off, except for the fact that I haven't reached a even reached a boss yet! What's the point of playing the original version of Human Revolution if I'm not going to try one of the infamous original boss fights? So I'm going to keep on playing for a while longer, completing all the side quests, getting all the equipment and XP I can along the way without putting myself in plain sight of an enemy or shooting anyone.


HOURS LATER.

Well I've found a boss fight alright! I walk through a door, watch a cutscene, and a half second later I'm getting face full of incoming fire. I've lost a quarter of my health and the quest rewards for finding this guy haven't even faded off screen yet. I would've lost half my health by the way, except I used painkillers to double my health bar for the fight.

I immediately ran over to the right and got myself safely behind a pillar, then popped out to throw a grenade his way and follow it up with a few poorly aimed shots. But the delay on the grenade throw meant I had to hang around in the line of fire for longer than I'd have liked and then the guy just went and threw a few grenades of his own right back at me!

Oh, plus he's always walking closer and when he got in range he just picked me up and punched me to death in one hit. Thank fuck for quick saves, huh? I don't want to abuse the things too much, but for this fight I'll make a massive exception to that.

Except... I can't! Because reloading a save here puts me back outside the door before the cutscene has played! I can skip cutscenes thankfully, but with the loading time it feels like spending more time waiting for the fight to start than I am actually fighting the guy.

Obviously I'm supposed to be running around the arena, using all the weaponry, exploding canisters, and my bag of combat augmentations to keep him off balance... but he wipes me out in like 3-4 seconds whenever I leave cover! Plus I spent my Praxis points on hacking augmentations, so it's not like I can cloak or use armour. Oh, but I did bring one specific combat aug just in case of emergencies... that Typhoon prototype I've been dragging around with me since the Sarif factory.

So I finally took the guy out by spamming my room-clearing explosive Typhoon super attack. There was a total absence of satisfaction, but at least I can turn this off now.


CONCLUSION

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I'm not sure anyone was expecting Deus Ex: Human Revolution to really live up to the original classic, especially considering that it was the first game from a brand new developer, following on from a disappointing sequel from the genuine Deus Ex 1 team and a spin-off so ashamed of its heritage that it legally changed its name to Project: Snowblind. Sure the game looked cool in screenshots and the trailers were awesome, but there was definitely warning signs that Edios Montreal wanted to make their own game with a Deus Ex label on top, instead of staying true to the tone and setting.

But nah, they nailed it. Sure it's got a few flaws, like the boss fights and the limited energy batteries, but seeing as those were fixed for the Director's Cut I guess I'm leaving it way too late to really complain about them.

The setting is as bleak and troubled as ever, but the story focus this time is firmly on the theme of augmentations. Of course it's still packed with more conspiracies than an X-Files box set, but it seems every mission, every side-quest, and everything NPCs have on their mind (so far) can be directly related to the issues surrounding human modification. It's a proper grown up sci-fi examination of the subject, though fortunately it also has a sense of humour and Adam Jensen is very nearly as deadpan as JC Denton.

Gameplay-wise I am very happy to see it's still very much the player's choice on how he wants to approach a problem and I'm surprisingly okay with the new Metal Gear Solid-style third person sneaking. I've tried luring enemies into ambushes, taking them out one by one, avoiding them entirely, and going on a full on killing spree, and the game has been very supportive of my choices every time (so long as I got my ass behind cover when the bullets started flying). I guess some people could argue that making combat so viable devalues stealth, as getting caught doesn't have to be a big deal, but personally I find beating self-inflicted challenges more rewarding than when a game forces them on me. I actually enjoyed stubbornly ghosting every level and I'm not usually a fan of stealth games.

One thing I'm not impressed so much by though, is how they've taken the original version of the game off the Steam store. It's not a massive issue as the Director's Cut is probably what 90% people would want to play anyway and it's certainly my preferred version (because c'mon, it has reworked boss fights and in-game commentary), but what's wrong with giving people the choice? I mean was very grateful to discover that id software had the wisdom to put the original Doom 3 up alongside their shiny new BFG Edition, as it's a superior version of the game in my personal experience, so I know how some people feel here. I realise that implementing a 'Improved Lighting on/off' option is a bit much to ask for, but throwing the original version of the game in as a free gift with the Director's Cut would've been a nice solution.

Oh right, I mentioned way back at the start that I was wondering if this was going to be a Snake Eater or an Arkham Origins. The answer is no, it's a Deus Ex, and thank fuck for that.

    

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Well those are my thoughts on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but perhaps you think differently about the game. It's technically possible I suppose. In fact you should probably leave me a comment and share your thoughts on the game, my writing, or even the website in general, whether you agree with me or not.

Oh okay fine, I liked Snake Eater at times, but I much preferred Arkham Origins, which I found to be a surprisingly solid remix of the awesome Arkham City (and 99.7% bug-free in my personal experience). What can I say, I'm not usually a fan of stealth focused games.