Deus Surprise: One of the best stealth games I've played.
It's been a long time coming for "Deus Ex: Human Revolution". I've been waiting for this game for what seems like ages, ever since it was first announced in 2009. And while the Deus Ex series has been dormant since 2004's "Invisible War", the biggest surprise here is that this Deus Ex trumps the skeptics, and creates easily the best stealth action title I've played this side of Metal Gear Solid.
Deus Ex primary started out as a PC series, releasing in 2000. It combined first person shooter with some of the most basic RPG elements to create a much deeper experience. Sadly, neither the original or it's sequel hold up by today's standards.
Human Revolution sets itself up as a prequel to the original game, and stars Adam Jensen, whom at this year's end might just be the best new game character of the year, that's for sure. After a freak accident at his new private security job, he's resurrected with the help of augmentation. Augmentation is the ability to not only use robotic parts on humans, but it also allows humans to unlock their full potential, by various means. These means could be sprinting faster, jumping higher, etc. What's more impressive, is the entire backstory here that has the world up in arms over if augmentation should be allowed or not. There are "purists", which are those that don't agree with human augmentation, and then there would be those that are either augmented, or have no side. The story here goes much deeper then I thought it would, giving one of the best stories in a game this year as well.
But the most impressive part of Human Revolution its stealth gameplay. With a cover system that rivals both the Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell series, and many different abilities to upgrade with your augmentations, Jensen is turned into whatever you want to play as. You can play through this game as a run-and-gunner, but you'll be missing out on a lot of things. Sure there are situations that really stretch you to make hard decisions on stealth versus combat, but I've found that you are rewarded much more favorably for stealth in this game. But I would highly advise anyone that's looking for the next Call of Duty to take a pass here. This isn't your average FPS, not at all. This has more in line with something like Fallout 3.
In fact, I only have two big gripes with Human Revolution. Firstly, the boss battles, are surprisingly weak. They really tried to do the whole Metal Gear thing here, and the boss's just aren't that memorable and all can be defeated using the "typhoon" augmentation. For a game that prides itself on having multiple ways to do things, the boss battles are just too simplistic. It's as if they rushed through the boss battle part of this game. And finally, there is no option for a new game plus. Seriously? Who doesn't want to roll through this game with a fully augmented Adam Jensen? I do.
Your initial playthrough will probably take you anywhere between fifteen to twenty hours, not bad given this is an FPS, just not your standard FPS. But this is a game that is rewarding enough to warrant a second playthrough, just to see how things will progress differently depending on how you play the game.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution isn't a perfect game, but it's delay from March to August proves that those few months spent polishing this game up paid off in the end. This is a fantastic example of how to turn a successful pc franchise into a potentially great console franchise. I really hope that we see more of Adam Jensen in the future, either through dlc or a sequel.
