Deus Ex: Human Revolution — Adam Never Asked for This, but Hopefully You Did

You have to be intrigued by a game like Deus Ex: Human Revolution upon hearing it was in development for more than four years at Eidos Montreal. That’s a long time to work on a game, it’s something that has to become a labor of love from the development team if they feel the need to slave over it for that long. It sure won’t look good for its prospects as a profitable venture, but will hopefully be remembered as a game whose vision was as perfect as its time and budget allowed. Well, if it’s good.

Fortunately for the developers, and its publisher Square Enix, DEHR is a quality product. It captures much of what worked in the original Deus Ex, and is enough to give fans hope for the franchise after the crippling disappointment that was Deus Ex: Invisible War. The development team knew they had to make this game as close to “perfect” as they could to wash IW out of gamers’ mouths and reestablish the franchise as a viable brand, even if it meant there was little chance of profiting from it.

For gamers themselves, though, it delivers where it counts. Human Revolution is a game whose itinerary involves taking the elements that worked about the original game and inserting modified versions of them into a current generation game. You could interpret them as being simplified for a new generation, but it nevertheless offers the player plenty of options for how to go about nearly each situation — well, if it isn’t as the plot dictates.

Well, it all starts off peaceful enough.

DEHR takes place in the cyberpunk-aesthetic fueled future year of 2027. Its protagonist, Adam Jensen, works as a private security operative for Sarif Industries’ Detroit operations, and is currently amidst security preparations for the company’s presentation at the National Science Board. They plan to discuss the necessity of a future where humankind can benefit from receiving bodily augmentations. Sarif plans to unveil a new discovery in the field of augmentation technology, which is being handled by one of its lead researchers: Megan Reed — who also happens to be Adam’s ex-girlfriend. Adam is preparing to meet up with David Sarif, the founder and CEO of Sarif Industries, but he and the team are attacked by soldiers led by three heavily augmented mercenaries. Adam stands no chance against them, and is severely injured while everyone else present at the meeting was charred in the ensuing fire.

Adam wakes up six months later with augmentations in place of the limbs he lost during the attack. He’s still alive, and a living example of how augmentations can actually help preserve life. But he didn’t ask for these modifications. But he rarely has time to question what remains of his humanity during the course of a game, as it’s become his decision to find out precisely what happened during the attack, and why Sarif Industries was targeted.

Eidos succeeded in making its world as brimming with life as they could within their budget.

Though there’s a main story you’ll have to tackle, you won’t have to solve all the mysteries at every given time. Plenty of side quests are available for Adam to tackle, some of which are actually relevant to either parts of the story or its characters. Some of them aren’t, but they’re intriguing enough that they’re worth your while to tackle. You’ll always get something special for completing them, and that doesn’t merely include experience points (which you’ll get plenty of because quite a few of them involve attacking someone or breaking into some place). Your reward will be whatever your client offered to you, which you’ll have the choice of asking them directly what it will be — though I was personally playing too chivalrous to ask them. Your reward will also be exploring parts of the world Eidos constructed what wouldn’t be explored in the main game.

And with the bevy of places to explore, you as the player can tell DEHR’s word was indeed a labor of love from the developers. You don’t have a massive open-world setting to explore, but you do have large cities where you can go nearly everywhere. You can also choose to go anywhere via hacking through the doors, though that depends on how many Praxis Points you’ve added to your hacking expertise. Regardless of your hacking level, breaking through never gets very difficult, so feel free to enter everywhere and explore as much as you like; though you may want to make sure no one with a gun is watching while you hack.

While doors are available for hacking, you can also hack through computers and find ebooks to learn more about the history of the world and the corporations and individuals within it. When I said the developers put a lot of love into the game, I wasn’t talking about the exploration. Eidos really wanted you to invoke yourself into DEHR’s atmosphere to portray its sense of verisimilitude. That feeling makes exploring fell like it’s well worth your time.

Things can go to hell in a hurry if you’re spotted.

You’ll be required to pick certain decisions that could change the course of some portions of the game. Some logic battles with bigger figures rely on picking one carefully; while some are courteous decisions, you may not get all the information you want if you take that approach. My advice is to make the decision that screws you over the least when one of these pops up (and you’ll know), because some can lead to dire repercussions.

The developers wanted to balance DEHR in a way that you could play through the game in a lethal or non-lethal manner. That means you can choose to make your way through the game as stealthy as possible, or kill every soldier walking. You can also increase Adam’s potential by spending Praxis Points on augments that give you better options for either stealth or offense and defense. My playthrough included a little of both, and while either is a viable option, they’re both held back by a few aspects.

If you’re playing stealthily, you’ll need energy if you want to dispatch enemies by using a physical attack that will KO them. To do this, you’ll need energy, and you’ll have three bars when you begin the game. You’ll also need to keep some items to refill the bars if you use them often, because only one of them will recharge after a certain amount of time. If you don’t and need to melee two guys quickly, you could find yourself in trouble. If you play lethally, well, let’s just say Adam goes down a lot faster upon sustaining damage than many other protagonists in shooters.

Most people are pretty nice, but sometimes Adam will have to deal with asshats like Pritchard here.

I really wish I could say the entire game was carefully balanced around both play styles, but that would make me a liar for not accounting for the boss battles. It was revealed a couple of weeks ago that the boss encounters were outsourced to GRIP Entertainment, and man does it show, because they’re completely dissimilar to anything else in the game. They can be handled a little easier (but not “easily”) if you’ve been playing the game lethally and have been building up Adam’s offense and defense, but you’ll find yourself caught off guard when you enter your first one if you’ve been playing stealthily. Fortunately, there are ways to deal with them due to items and objects placed in the environments of both boss battles, but they’re still stand in stark contrast to the rest of the game.

The voice acting starts off a little rough, but it’s pretty good overall — and it’s thankfully much better than the trailers portrayed. Some of the NPC voices aren’t so hot, but it’s fine where it counts. That’s fortunate, because you’ll be hearing a lot of it throughout the game, even in optional missions.

Despite a few hitches, DEHR one of the most enjoyable stealth/action experiences available in this generation of consoles. It will last you a good while too, requiring at least 25 hours to complete; and you’ll only make that time if you’re rushing, which is not recommended because this game’s world is begging to be explored. It’s well worth your time

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