Review - Deus Ex: Human Revolution

IT’S hard to not be cynical these days when a sequel, prequel or side story is announced that ties in with a classic game, mostly because remakes and reboots change the often much-loved franchise in key areas. Sometimes to the point where it’s only the name that bares any similarity to its predecessor. But Deus Ex: Human Revolution, prequel to the critically acclaimed PC game, stays true to it’s roots in many respects while pushing the series forward.

Set in Detroit in the year 2027 the game follows Adam Jensen who is a reluctant recipient of cybernetic augmentations after his place of work is raided by an unknown terrorist group, leaving him for dead after a brutal assault. Worse still they’ve kidnap his on-again-off-again girlfriend who just so happened to working on a new type of augmentation process. What ensues is what you’d expect from a game with Deus Ex in the title – a vast conspiracy involving shadowy organisations and a whole lot of lies and deceit before the end game where you can pick your desired ending.

The story overall is quite good in concept, but the execution is fairly hit and miss. I liked Adam quite a bit, which is an achievement in itself as most modern video game protagonists tend to annoy me these days, but the core storyline doesn’t feel fleshed out enough. That said it’s better than most games and the side stories are entertaining more often than not. But what really sells this world is the brilliant atmosphere. Cyber-punk is an all too often neglected genre in video games, so Human Revolution has an unfair advantage of being the only game of its type on the market. But far from resting on their laurels the game developers have created a vibrant world that is both engaging and a joy to explore.

The game’s main appeal is the augmentations, which is a sci-fi way of fitting out your character with new skills and abilities. If you want to focus on stealth you may choose to upgrade your invisibility skill to last longer or level up your hacking skills and shut down security cameras or turn enemy drones over to your side. Want more action? Upgrade your armour and aiming abilities then mow down whoever stands in your way. On top of this you can customise your weapons to further complement your style of play.  In fact I could choose an entirely altered load-out and play a completely new way on my second run through and experience a very different game. That’s what’s great about Human Revolution - you won’t punish for playing your way. Well at least not during the main campaign, the unavoidable boss battles are another matter all together.

Undeniably the worst part of the entire package is the confrontations you’ll have with a number of boss characters littered throughout the story. Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong here. In a game about freedom of choice your options for taking down one these boss characters is limited to “hit them a lot, preferably with explosives”. There’s no alternative take-down, no talking your way out of a fight, no using the environment against them. Just get a lot of ammo and start shooting. There’s also the whole believability of these situations – you’re a highly advanced killing machine like these guys, so why can they take about two clips worth of armour piercing bullets from your fully upgraded pistol straight to the head but you can barely survive a close range shotgun blast? So much work is put into making this world feel alive and realistic, only to be flushed down the toilet during these moments?

Ultimately the good excessively out weighs the bad. The customisation of your character, but more importantly how you choose to use these customisations, is executed with such care it’s hard to believe there was a time when I was actually worried this game may not turn out very well. The world this alternative future of 2027 is so well realised and expertly designed it’s going to be a hard act to follow for anyone else trying their hand at a cyber-punk game in the near future.

In staying true to what made the original so great and improving on it Human Revolution has restored my faith in remakes and reboot, but more importantly made me want to see what comes next in the series.

GRADE: A

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is out now on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC. Review written after the entire story was complete. The review reflects my experience on an Xbox 360. Review guidelines