What do you call a game in which you're given an objective you need to complete, but can then go about it in pretty much any way you want? For the last few years, it's been known as Deus Ex, a mega popular cyberpunk thriller of a PC game that's now in its third iteration on the consoles. Now, as the original Deus Ex came out 11 years ago, there's probably a good chance you haven't played it. If you haven't, don't worry, as Human Revolution is actually a prequel to the earlier games, so there's no complex story you'll need to pick up on. Set some 16 years in the future (25 years before the events of the first game), you take the role of Adam Jensen, a gravelly voiced Neo from the Matrix-alike chap, whose day job places him at the head of security at Sarif Industries. Sarif Industries specialise in human "augmentations", a rather controversial type of body modification which adds mechanical parts to the human body, allowing people to improve their physical and mental prowess, but, according to various protest groups, at the expense of their humanity. Protestors think of people equipped with augments in the same way that people used to think of Darth Vader - "He's more machine now than man. Twisted and evil…", setting the scene for a somewhat political cyberpunk thriller.
The game begins on the eve of an important press conference, held by Dr Megan Reed, Adam's ex-girlfriend, when the Sarif Industries building is attacked by a group of armed mercenaries. Adam, as Head of Security rushes to try and prevent them from causing a ruckus and destroying vital research, but is quickly overpowered by the leaders of the group and their impressive augmentations. Adam is almost killed by the augmented mercenaries, but Sarif Industries can rebuild him - like the million dollar man, they have the technology. After six months of extensive reconstruction surgery, Adam returns to work, eager to find out exactly what went down that night and why.
Wait for the turret to look the other way, then make your move.
It's hard to specify exactly what kind of game Human Revolution is, as it seems to be a mix of practically every game you can imagine. Bar virtual pet. It's played in the first person, but it's not really a shooter - in fact, you can play through the entire game without killing a single person. It could be classed as a stealth game, but then, stealth is optional here - if you want to stroll in all guns blazing, you can feel free. As you play through the game, you'll also be able to level up your various abilities as you gain experience, kind of like a role playing game - and we haven't even got started on the amount of freedom you have with how you approach a situation. It'll be easier if I try and explain. As an example, your second or so real mission sees you having to get into a Police Station to investigate a dead body they're keeping in the morgue. Go in the front door and it turns out the guy at the desk is an old acquaintance of Adam's, as they worked in the same SWAT team, but your old buddy doesn't seem too keen on you turning up and asking for favours after all these years. Sweet talk the guy by making the right choices during the conversation that follows (tell the guy what he wants to hear without being too much of a jerk) and he'll let you straight into the station, no questions asked. Fail at the conversation and you'll have to find another way in. Depending on how you're feeling, that can mean one of two things: 1) You can leave the police station and try and find a back way in, sneaking in undetected, potentially hacking a few security systems along the way or 2) You can go Rambo on the police station, and just shoot your way in and out. And because every mission has a variety of different ways you can go about the task at hand, it's a game that'll keep you coming back for more.
How you choose to play the game will also determine where you initially spend your "Praxis Points", which is where the levelling comes into play. As you progress through the game you'll gain experience points, which you earn for anything from exploring a building, to hacking a device, to incapacitating an enemy. Gain 5000 experience points and you'll receive a "Praxis Point" that can be spent on new augmentations, or upgrading any existing augmentations you may have already bought. For some reason, it costs two Praxis Points to activate a new augmentation power but only one to upgrade an existing power, so if you're keen to try and level yourself up as quickly as possible at the start of the game, you'll probably end up fully upgrading an existing power before even thinking about opening up any new ones. Having tried this first hand, I can assure you it's not the best tactic to take. The upgrade system would have been better done in a similar fashion to Mass Effect 2, where you spend a single point unlocking a new power, but the cost of upgrading increases with each upgrade. It would allow you to at least access everything pretty quickly, while only really specialising in the powers that are actually useful (if you're doing things stealthy-like, the power-up that lets you see through walls and the cloaking augment are probably the first ones you should activate).
Another useful upgrade is the Icarus Landing System, which allows you to leap from any height and just walk away. Perfect for when those Superman moments don't quite go to plan.
Another area where I wish they'd done things more like Mass Effect are the hacking mini-games, which are hardly explained and overly complicated. From what I can gather, you have to create a path to the "unlock nodes" (which are round green things), before the computer can trace your signal back to the node you started at.
Here's one of the simpler looking hacks.
It's a simple enough premise, but after the first few hacks it becomes congested, with various "enforcements" you can add to certain nodes, which apparently alter how easily trackable your signal is, and different nodes that you can capture. Unfortunately the vast majority of these other enforcements and nodes aren't explained, so I'm not entirely sure what they do - which makes hacking into any buildings something of a non-option.
The one thing that really baffles me about Human Revolution, is that in a game that rewards you for doing things the non-lethal way (there's a 100G achievement for finishing the game without killing anyone), there are still boss fights. Fights that you can't avoid, fights you can only win in one way - by killing the boss. There's no option to talk it over, there's no option to run away, and there's no option to defeat them in a non-lethal fashion. It ruins the flow of the game, as one minute you're sneaking through the shadows and the next minute you're hurling explosive crates through the air at a man with a gun for an arm. Plus, boss fights, as ever, can be incredibly tricky, so the option to bypass them would have been much appreciated.
Overall, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is only really let down by two things - the boss fights and the hacking. Once you've got the hang of the stealth sections (hiding unconscious enemies in air ducts and throwing boxes to create distractions, for a start) it all just seems to work, and the "Persuasion System" (Eidos' fancy word for the Let's Talk Things Over engine) is leagues ahead of anything we've seen before. If you're after a first person game that's a bit different, something that requires a bit more forward thinking and planning rather than shooting, this is where you should be looking.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
