There's something deeply satisfying

about holding down the Q key and watching a mechanical blade slide out of your arm, to then disembowel whatever fool happened to be standing in front of you. Deus Ex HR is riddled with such satisfactions, and finding them for yourself is both engaging and rewarding. The pit into which DE:HR repeatedly falls is one of practicality; Namely, which is the fastest way to achieve my goals - as oppose to which is the most entertaining.

As a narrative example, let's consider the circumstances which led Sweep into the local virtual police station. Instead of skulking around looking for ventilation points, rooftop access, or invisibling (that's now a word) my way into the building, I walked up to the front desk and engaged the gentleman behind it in conversation. I had directed no praxis points to "Speech" and made no attempt at any Jedi mind tricks. In fact, the conversation seemed to take care of itself, despite prompting me to get involved on several occasions. I had no idea what the guy was talking about, so it didn't seem to make any difference what I said to him. The nametag in the chair seemed to be spluttering about something traumatic which had happened when he and whatever-my-dude-is-called were in a SWAT unit together. Without paying too much attention to what he was saying, I absently clicked my way through the sloppy banter.

Suddenly I found myself with permission to roam the halls of the police station as I saw fit.

"I'll tell the guys to let you through" sulks the cop, and away I skipped. I had somehow unlocked complete freedom to the entire building, where I could loot as many guns and pocket secretaries as I could carry. Meanwhile everyone on the force seemed to have gone temporarily blind. Maybe they just didn't care that a half-robot cyborg non-cop was taking their shotguns? They probably aren't being paid enough to care. Story of their meaningless virtual lives.

The most frustrating part of this entire adventure was that, once inside, I found a myriad of ventilation pipes and secret passageways, shortcuts and security puzzles which would have been fantastically fun to traverse incognito. I felt cheated, as though the accidental ease of fobbing off the receptionist with some goofy dialogue had somehow deprived me of a large chunk of gameplay. I might as well have opened up the console and activated god mode, for all the resistance that part of the campaign consequently offered.

This is, I feel, I pretty good example of my beef with Deus Ex.

I'm not blind to it's charm, nor obscured to it's obvious merits - it's narrative structure and freeform gameplay are admirable - but those choices remain so transparently linear that I find myself almost wishing for a more focussed and polished central set of tasks. On several occasions I was spotted halfway through a a sneak attempt and, resorting to the tried and tested plan B, simply pulled out my gun and blasted the room to smithereens. Not only was this easier and faster, it also meant I had the freedom to then walk around unhindered and explore the virtual landscape to it's full potential. It seems almost wasteful to bypass these elaborate cyberpunk stealth playgrounds, but if shotgunning this room full of criminals is an easier way to get from A to B then that's what I'm going to do. For all it's apparent choice, the story seems to continue regardless, making my gameplay decisions feel meaningless.

Maybe it's just me and my obnoxious lack of patience. Deus Ex is a solid game, but it's apparently not the game I want to be playing. Or maybe it is, and I'm just doing it wrong. Either way, I'm going to continue doing it, wrong or otherwise.

Thanks For Reading

Love Sweep