Picture a world in chaos, where corporations wield more power than governments; shadowy organisations begin to initiate the final phase of their plans for subjugating the world. Welcome to the world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. “It is a time of great innovation and technological advancement”, as the protagonist Adam Jensen muses in the game’s trailer, Deus Ex takes place in the not so distant future of 2027; where technology has enabled powerful replacement of limbs for the human body. Like all great science fiction, such rapid advancement usually causes shifts in social norms and cause for great anxiety among all social classes. It is a new arms race to not only replace lost body parts but spur some to willingly discard working parts for enhanced, mechanical parts that elevates human ability to the realm of the Super Human. Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Deus Ex:HR) is a sci-fi action, stealth, adventure game set in a noire like dystopian future filled with uncertainty, strife and sinister conspiracies. Uniquely among video games, it boasts a strong story that never strays from being a social commentary on how technological advancements are tools that can enhance our lives or destroy the fabrics of our civilization should we choose to manipulate it for personal gain, at the expense of others.
As a prequel for the sleeper hit Deus Ex, released by Eidos studios in 1999, Deus Ex:HR is a magnificent game that bridges the gap between the tale of fantastic augmented super beings depicted in Deus Ex and its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War. The series became famous chiefly because of its then innovative style of game play, providing players with multiple choices to accomplish their tasks. For example, you are given the task to rescue a hostage. Do you charge in guns blazing and kill every in sight? Or do you use stealth with minimal violence to complete your task? You can also use a combination of both, combined with some detective work and negotiation/persuasion to convince or sometimes even join the opposing side if you are convinced by their ideology. Such layered storytelling allows for a deep gaming experience no other “First-Person Shooter” possessed at the time. Deus Ex beautifully intertwined the different role-playing adventure and action genres to synthesize a masterpiece of its time, embodying the vision of its lead designer Warren Spector; who believed that action games should be more than merely running and gunning down foes within a loosely constructed narrative backdrop.
Deus Ex:HR not only looks good, despite some stiff animations and low resolution compressed videos that serve as cut-scenes in certain parts of the game; it succeeds in showing us how the controversial technology of human augmentation is rapidly altering the course of mankind. Personally, I felt that the original Deus Ex, while epic in scope and excellent in the amount of game play choices provided to the player; was a little too futuristic for my taste. Little was explained on how and why the world became the way it is, which left me slightly confused till halfway through the game (around 5-6hours of gaming time). This was probably the reason why many gamers were either put off with the game, or enticed to continue further down the rabbit hole; to uncover the truth behind the web of conspiracy. Deus Ex:HR addresses all of these problems but also adds a few of its own problems in the mix.
Firstly, the protagonist Adam Jensen does not wield his potent arm blades in melee combat. Instead, close combat is only initiated with the tap of a key when you are near enemies. A further gripe is that doing so also drains your internal battery life that powers your mechanical prosthesis. Meaning that no battery power equals a defenseless Adam Jensen; who can still wield projectile weapons, open doors, climb ladders and jump real high but he cannot even swing a crowbar or any other melee weapon. Incidentally, the designers omitted any form of close combat weapons that existed in the earlier games and limited close combat to keyboard taps and some cool martial arts animations that drain the protagonist’s energy bar. Said protagonist’s energy bar can only be replenished by consuming nutrients in the form of muesli/protein bars. This not only abruptly disrupts the momentum of the game but also limits players who prefer close combat to either turn to ranged combat or stealth once they run out of energy and oddly enough, muesli bars.
Secondly, as a role-playing game, (where players are awarded points to further enhance their character’s ability) Deus Ex:HR’s skill trees seem to favour the stealth and hacking type of character build over the “Rambo” type. With more unlockable skills like seeing through walls, hacking complex computers to turn off security systems or turning totally invisible than action oriented skills like strength and accuracy upgrades for wielding powerful and cumbersome projectile weapons. In addition, staying out of sight and not causing any alarms to be triggered rewards the player with significant experience points to further augment Adam’s abilities. It would have been nice to see experience awards that award full carnage and mayhem that is in full contrast to the stealth rewards like “Ghost” (not being seen by anyone) and “Smooth Operator” (triggered no alarms during a mission). Perhaps a “Rambo” award for killing everything in sight would have been a nice touch as the irony of achieving many experience points like I did for playing stealthily was that I could build an extremely powerful character, with mastery in almost all the skills available. This allowed me the choice of going stealth, guns blazing or both later in the game when I got tired of sneaking around.
Some critics have also criticised this aspect of the game, where creating too powerful a character, renders many approaches to the game’s challenges, merely a matter of preference rather than necessity. I, however, disagree with this train of thought. Having followed the story, it seems that all the skills depicted in the game are actually supposed to be accessible to Adam Jensen right of the operating table where he had to have much of his body replaced. As the story goes, Adam cannot fully utilise them due to head trauma he experienced prior to his transformation. Thus, he has to familiarise himself by actively gaining experience by using his abilities and completing tasks and/or purchasing software upgrade kits to further enhance his brain’s mental link to his augmentations. Therefore, it should only be plausible that towards the end of the game, he should have near full access to all the abilities provided by his augmentations and be able to use them as he sees fit.
Another misstep in Deus Ex:HR is the inclusion of unavoidable “boss” fights with the major antagonists of the game. Such encounters were rare and usually avoidable via stealth or the right choice of words in previous instalments. Sadly, in Deus Ex:HR, such encounters are entirely forced on the player, dropping you in scripted ambush sites that forces you to kill rather than subdue or maybe even totally avoiding such confrontations. In addition, pacifistic players with non-lethal weapons will find such encounters massively challenging and frustrating as they will have to run around the battleground picking up oddly placed weapons that if I am not mistaken, are strategically placed by the designers, specifically for such players.
Aside from the above mentioned problems, Deus Ex: HR retains the spirit of its predecessors and is superior in terms of storytelling and most game play and graphical features. Its emphasis on stealth over action in most circumstances actually seems more realistic in hindsight for would anyone breaking into a high security building risk fully exposing himself to the onslaught of its security devices and personnel? Despite having given a lengthy description of its few problems, I think it succeeded in virtually all other aspects of creating an immersive; believable game world that draws players in with its compelling atmosphere and storyline. A worthy follow-up to a fast growing industry plagued by simplistic games and a story that would make sci-fi greats like Isaac Asimov and Phillip K Dick proud.
Reference Links:
1) http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Deus_Ex_Wiki
2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Spector
3)http://deusex.com/
4)http://www.philipkdick.com/
5)http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001920/ (on Isaac Asimov)
