Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review
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So You Want to be a Super-Soldier? Gameplay in Human Revolution, from a bird's-eye-view, follows the framework set down by the other titles in the series, and will likely appeal to most Deus Ex fans. Generally, the proceedings are split up into two main components - exploration, and missions. The former tend to take place in open hub environments, Detroit and Hengsha, and are where most of the game's side-quests are found, while the latter tend to be significantly more linear, and are focused much more on combat, though this line isn't perfectly defined. Story is as much communicated through the explicit conversations between characters as it is in reading text in eBooks and computer terminals all over the game world, though the main storyline, more so than the original game's, is contained on the critical path, with the extra reading existing more to tie Human Revolution into the fiction of the overall game series. Structurally, it's very similar to the original, with the beginning and middle section largely dedicated to the exploration side, and the later stages more focused on bringing the narrative forward to its conclusion.
Once again following in its elder's footsteps, Human Revolution is defined by player choice, both in building Jensen's abilities and skills, as well as in overcoming the various challenges found throughout the world and during missions. In any given situation, it's common to be given, at the very least, three or so different approaches, usually split between frontal assault, stealth and subterfuge, and acrobatics/traversal, with social options often provided as well, usually involving some persuasion via dialogue. Occasionally, additional possibilities are available, and can drastically change play. For instance, getting into a secure complex can be a daunting task without the proper authorization, but, take the time to find a passkey, and you won't have to fire a single shot or sneak past a single guard to make progress.
On the character development side, Human Revolution actually resembles Invisible War more so than it does Deus Ex, though in truth the intent seems to have been an amalgamation between the two games' systems. Skills have been stripped away and fully replaced by augmentations, attached to an experience system - accumulate enough experience, whether by exploring the world, completing quests, or dealing with enemies, and you earn a Praxis Point to spend on a new upgrade for Jensen (justified by the fact that his mechanical augmentations require no physical upgrades; their improvements are a reflection of his body's improved handling of the augmentations). Although not as varied in effect as Deus Ex's augmentations and skill trees, in general the number of options are enough to make the choice in upgrades difficult, and important in defining play-style, especially early in the game.
There are a few stumbling blocks in Human Revolution's overall design that can't avoid leaving a few blemishes. The first problem, and one that I noticed almost immediately upon playing, is that the environments, especially during the more linear missions, are more restrictive than those seen in the first Deus Ex, and in fact more closely resemble Invisible War's cut-down levels. While still fairly large in terms of sheer floor space, the design has shifted from "open space with multiple routes" to "branching corridors with optional side-rooms"; though I'd be willing to forgive this in the first or second mission, given that they're early in the game, this design sense presists until well into the game, and it's only in the final few missions that the level design really begins to feel freeform and open-ended, and these are by far the best parts of the game. Sadly, this means that there's nothing quite to the same scale of, say, Deus Ex's Liberty Island in Human Revolution, and as that open-ended design of environments was one of my favorite aspects of Deus Ex, it's unfortunate to see mostly gone this time around. Most importantly, it means that all those choices you're given in accomplishing objectives aren't as interesting as they could have been - choosing between the front gate and a hole in the fence isn't quite so defining if they're literally about ten feet away from each other, and I was never left with the feeling that I had missed anything at the end, whereas in the original game I'm still finding new things ten years later. On the upside, though, the hubs of Detroit and Hengsha are well-designed and quite large, featuring not just ground levels, but a large number of buildings to enter, rooftops to scamper across, and sewers to crawl through, and these parts of the game, to me, are what feel most like the Deus Ex I remember.
Another more general issue involves the distribution of augmentations, and their overall usefulness. Simply put, augmentations in Human Revolution could have been balanced better, mostly because many options are under-utilized. Hacking and cloaking see just as much use as ever, certainly, and general upgrades to armor, carrying capacity, and so on are all nice to have, but others, including the rebreather (immunity to toxic gas) and an arm upgrade that allows Jensen to punch through weak walls, see such limited use that it's almost jaw-dropping - I think I saw toxic gas all of three times throughout the entire game, and I played through as close to 100% as I could. This is offset somewhat by the number of augmentations that are genuinely useful (especially one which allows you to pick up heavier objects in the environment, allowing for convenient shortcuts via stacking objects), but there are too many augmentations that feel like afterthoughts, or as if the designers just couldn't think of interesting ways to include them. Additional upgrade potentials are also limited by gameplay cuts - there's no swimming anymore, for instance, even though including some optional swimming could have made that rebreather upgrade tree a lot more appealing. However, it is worth saying that the majority of augmentations are a lot of fun to use, and feel like they have a greater impact on gameplay than the more subtle additions to one's arsenal in Deus Ex.
