Deus Ex is a classic, a cult game considered by many to be one of the best ever made, so it�s not surprising that even eleven years after it was released, there is still a strong fan base which awaited with interest another member of the series. So enters the scene Human Revolution, announced in 2008 as the first title to be developed by Eidos Montreal, it�s a prequel that shows us the world as it was 25 years before the events in the original game�

Tin Man Now that the famous first paragraph is done, we can talk business. In the year 2027, nanotechnological augmentation was just a pretty dream, with biomechanical technology being the state of the art. These methods were crude, causing bad side effects, the most important being the rejection syndrome, which required drugs to be kept in control. Not to mention that the surgery needed for one of these augmentations was also very expensive. At a time when new technology was discovered every day, companies specialized in human augmentation battle for supremacy in a world where everything is privatized, including the army. Adam Jensen, ex SWAT, is hired by one of these companies (Sarif Industries) as a security specialist and he�s about to guard a conference where his ex-lover, also working for Sarif Industries, will unveil a new technology meant to make augmentation affordable for everyone by eliminating the rejection syndrome and so the dependence on drugs, in other words a groundbreaking discovery. Well, the conference in case never happens because, while in a meeting with David Sarif (his boss, and CEO of Sarif Industries), the company gets attacked and everything goes to hell. After a rather short fight with one of the mercenary leaders responsible for the attack, we witness what happens on an operating table and before you know it, Adam is half robot. Yeah, the beginning isn�t especially good, but things get better. Next follows the exploration of Sarif Industries headquarters, where we can enter each and every worker�s office and listen to the gossip in the relaxation areas, just about right to get a general idea of the surrounding environment, then we�re send in the first mission. Don�t be scared! Although the game progresses with each mission, it�s not entirely linear and we will get the chance to go out in the world and explore.

I can�t say what happens next because I would reveal too much, but after this first mission we gain access to the city and the RPG side of Human Revolution becomes obvious. To this side we can also add the abilities (implants) that can be upgraded and even have a logical explanation. It seems that after the surgery Adam was weakened, so a good part of his augmentations have to be manually activated. This activation is done using �Praxis Points�, which we get by accumulating experience. You know the story, not all of the implants can be upgraded to the maximum level, so the way you decide to invest praxis points will influence the way the game is played. For example, neglecting the hacking augmentation will severely limit the number of ways you can complete a mission. We will get to travel quite often throughout the story, starting with Detroit, a city fallen from grace after the collapse of its automotive industry, infested by constant gang confrontations and the conflict between the supporters of augmentation and the ones that think it somehow destroys the essence of the human race. On the other side of the world, in China, we visit Hengsha, an island where overpopulation has led to the construction of a second street level, with roofs being heavily circulated. Here the nightlife represents the main attraction, with clubs for the rich and even a brothel. These two locations (cities) are the biggest from an exploration point of view, and here is where we find side quests or shops from where to buy or sell weapons and equipment.

These cities are also a good place to observe the main selling point of the game: freedom. More precise, the freedom to take care of every mission in the way we

see fit, because the locations aren�t especially big and there�s even artificial barriers that stop us from going to certain areas. A good example of how the alternative routes to an objective are implemented is the point in story when we have to infiltrate a police station. Here the game gives you at least three choices: the main entrance, where you have to convince the receptionist (an old colleague of Adam) to give you access inside the station, or we have the back entrance and the roof access (there may be another entry point from the sewers). For the last two choices you will inevitably have to hack the security on a few doors and to avoid any cameras. Then we have the different situations for each access point, maybe convincing the receptionist didn�t go so well, so another path has to be used, but then maybe the security level of one of the doors is too high, so another solution is needed and this keeps on going until you reach the objective. For those of you that played Deus Ex, this is nothing new. Of course, you can also use force, assaulting the police station, but for obvious reasons this is not a good idea.

Sneaky half cyborg killing machine The stealthy way of playing is by far the recommended one. Like this you can really feel in character, and hiding behind a desk so that a patrolling enemy holding a cannon doesn�t see you, provides an amazing sensation. The cover mode really helps playing the game like this, jumping from cover to cover being very easy. Actually, you can easily move throughout a level using only the cover mode, it�s very simple and the intuitive controls coupled with abilities like temporary invisibility gives birth to spectacular moves, like rolling in front of enemies in order to get to a place where you cannot be observed. Still, it�s a little weird that many augmentations used in this kind of playing style are basically useless. I understand and agree that playing stealthy should depend on how much information you have, but it�s absurd to invest points in abilities that allow you to mark a target so it can be easily followed, if you can see it clear on the mini map in the first place, and with a lower cost you can get your vision augmented to see through walls.On the other hand, playing in full force turns the game into a repetitive FPS where you stay in cover waiting for the enemy soldiers to reload their weapons. The limited AI will do exactly the same thing, even though they have numerical superiority and could just assault your position. Like this, the game becomes boring relatively fast, despite spectacular abilities like shooting projectiles at a 360 degree angle, which proves that the ex-SWAT is now playing with the big boys. This is also where I had my first disappointment, although the game can clearly be played like a shooter or using stealth, in some ways similar with a first person Splinter Cell, the developers decided to divide the playing styles in lethal and non-lethal. The really annoying part is that the first means mass destruction, while the last is silence incorporated. But what about a silent killer? No can�t do, because it�s clear from the takedowns: if you decide to kill the poor, unsuspecting, sociopath, he�s going to scream his life out, but if you just throw a couple of punches in his direction, then he falls down quietly. Of course, the way Adam kills his opponents is not the most subtle one I�ve seen, stabbing with two huge blades does tend to be messy and make noise but it�s only normal that he should be able to cut a throat, decapitate, cover the enemy�s mouth etc. I�m not an expert on silent killing methods, but I would think a cyborg from the future would be able to handle something like this. You could mount a silencer on the 10mm pistol, which would allow taking out somebody quietly, but it doesn�t prove a reliable replacement for a takedown because shooting a bullet between the eyes of a heavily armored enemy will not have the desired effect. By the way, using a takedown (lethal or not) consumes an energy cell (represented by a battery). An interesting aspect of the game is the economy of these energy cells, because at any given time only the partial depleted ones regenerate. Once a cell is gone, it cannot be recovered unless you consume an energy bar, whic

h exist in limited supply. The last energy cell is the only exception, this one always regenerates. The point is that like this the abuse of certain abilities is limited in a very elegant way. For example, the temporary invisibility (cloak) only stays active seven seconds per energy cell available. I remember here Alpha Protocol, where a similar skill wasn�t limited and could turn into a downright cheat. In a similar way, the ability to shoot projectiles at a 360 degree angle (Typhoon Explosive System), uses one ammo pack per activation, and the ammo packs are rather rare, so it can�t be used abusively.

There is a large enough variety of weapons to choose from, with technologies that you would expect from the future. The weapons also feel real, at least until you invest praxis points in augmentations like aim stabilizer or recoil reduction. Every weapon has a series of compatible upgrades. Take the 10mm pistol as an example; you can mount a silencer and upgrades that increase the damage output or the size of the clip. The more powerful a weapon is, the more room it takes in the inventory, which is limited enough so that if you�re carrying a rocket launcher, there will only be room left for a couple grenades (it can be expanded if you�re willing to invest praxis points in the required augmentation). We have three kinds of grenades at our disposal: fragmentation, toxic gas and an EMP grenade. But you can�t really find them that often, so they�re best to be kept for tough situations. Like the boss fights, these big, ugly sores that plague Human Revolution. Basically, it doesn�t matter how you played until one of these fights, it doesn�t matter that you don�t want to carry a death store in your inventory, because here there�s only one way to go: in full force. Common sense dictates that the freedom to choose how to resolve a situation should have applied here as well. But alas, no!

Nightwalker Just like in the original game, the action takes place only at night, to deepen the player in this cyberpunk world and better make him realize the interior turm� oh, screw it, it�s for the sake of the �feeling�. The soundtrack is superb and it fits perfectly in this kind of universe, walking on a narrow street of Detroit, with the police sirens that can be heard in the background and all kinds of trash flying with each breeze; it�s hard to explain in words how nice this is. Too bad it doesn�t last, the distance between objectives is very short and entire areas of the cities are blocked by artificial barriers (hmm� DLC). Then there�s the unconvincing NPC�s, having either incredibly dumb conversations or highly philosophical debates, and this from a bunch of average Joes that should have better things to do. Graphic wise, you can see the darker tone of the game and although it occasionally blinds you with bloom, in the end the futurist design of the world serves its purpose just right. There are also a couple of augmentations that have a big role in exploration. Other than the omnipresent and oh so necessary hacking, we can improve Adam�s arm strength in order to break through weakened walls (this also works using explosives). We also have the Icarus Landing System, that allows us to jump from any height without fear of injury and it can also be used to stun enemies while landing.

So, gameplay wise, Human Revolution doesn�t bring shame to the original game, but neither does it represent a much more evolved version. First of all because of the AI, which is disappointing for a game launched in 2011, especially after we�ve seen in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory how enemies should react when they see your shadow or when their colleagues are disappearing. Here, everything is very basic, if you do something and enemies hear you, they will always go through the same two steps. First, they come to see if someone is indeed there, and if you�re noticed they start shooting in your direction, and that�s about it. They could have waited to catch you by surprise but no, they waste their ammo shooting at you, despite the fact that between them and your position there�s a cover object that prot

ects you from bullets. Then the way they talk, if they�re in the first step of suspicion, you can hear them saying stuff like �If anyone�s hiding there, come out!� Say what? What is the purpose for a so called professional to give out his position, making himself look dumb? But that�s not all, even if a building alarm goes off after a firefight in a room, the guys from the next zone will act like nothing happened. Another weird thing is that if you pick up and throw an object, the noise made will be heard by NPC�s, but if you stumble upon something and make the same amount of noise, nobody seems to care.

Deus ex machina For me, the story usually represents the spine of a game, and Human Revolution is crippled. Predictable, predictable, predictable; and what of it isn�t, fits in the game about as good as salt with sugar. I don�t want to ruin your so called surprise, but the entire motivation behind the actions of the man that has the highest influence in the ending, is just not convincing enough. Then there�s the moments when dialogues between NPC�s or the different reading materials (eBooks, emails etc.) give you very useful information about the situation you�re in, but somehow Adam seems to ignore them, then later he�s very surprised of how things turned out. Human Revolution is a game that would just not let me see it as the sum of its parts, but rather force me to pass judgment on each separate component. No doubt it�s fun, immersive, overall a good game, but there are other recently released games that this cyberpunk FPS-RPG hybrid can�t fight on equal terms, not when you strip it down to parts. If you want to talk about high variety gameplay and a true hybrid between the two genres, then E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, with all of his bugs, still stands a few leagues higher. The dialogues are also not very convincing in this last Deus Ex, most of them being childish and stereotypical, and this is especially bad when you have to convince a character to do something your way. Everything to do in order to manipulate him it�s being delivered to you on a plate and the words that come of Adam�s mouth are cheesy, like the ones from bad, overly dramatic movies. This guiding that the game offers you is also present in missions. Just off the top of my head, there�s a moment when you sneak into a highly guarded facility and you have to get to the most secure room. Well what do you know, two random NPC�s were talking exactly about that room and how the temperature dropped because of an open ventilation shaft� Or two of the bodyguards of a pro human rights activist were talking about the only UNGUARDED point of entry at a press conference that was the ideal spot for an assassin to strike. It�s useless to have many different paths to an objective if the game holds your hand every time.

There is also a good side; these shortcomings don�t really apply to side quest. Albeit there are few of them, they�re way more interesting than what the main plot has to offer, the ones where Adam�s past comes to light (and his symbolic name really starts to make sense) are especially well done. Honestly, I would have preferred that the part of the game involving a great conspiracy and the people that move in the shadows, pulling the strings of world governments, was developed more, instead of an unsatisfactory twist that in the end means nothing. I could also talk about the long loading times that you have to go through very often, or the sudden drops in the number of frames per second, but the first patch already took care of these. Although I was maybe a bit harsher than it deserved, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is far from being a bad game, it�s just that the satisfaction that you�re supposed to get from doing things your way, gets disrupted by gameplay inconsistencies and a stereotypical storyline, that�s disappointing especially in the second half of the game. Other than this, it�s worth its money (and time), even more so if you�re the kind of gamer that likes to explore and try everything. A nice, captivating experience, just not memorable. TG