Deus Ex: Human Revolution Previews

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Written by BuckGB on March 18th, 2011

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Opting for stealth wasn't an active decision. While Human Revolution has an open-door policy on how you fight, rushing into situations like a Spartan isn't a good idea. The developers told us we would almost certainly die during the tutorial, and they weren't joking. You can't plow through this game like just another shooter. Even lethal combat requires some stealth skill to pull off effectively.

Since my efforts to both run and gun were met with a tremendous amount of death, I opted to move slowly and precisely. The augmentation system aided this effort as I explored its many options. The player can customize protagonist Adam Jensen with any number of defensive and offensive abilities. I opted for a well-balanced choice of better aiming mixed with the ability to see the enemy's line of sight.

The unique appeal of the '˜Deus Ex' series is freedom of choice. Although many modern games incorporate such an ideal by encouraging players to level-up certain attributes at the expense of others, quite often this comes across as thinly-veiled replay appeal. Oh, and let's not forget the Achievement / Trophy hunters out there. While playing '˜Deus Ex: Human Revolution' however the dramatic progression is such that your true instincts may overcome best judgement.

Mission One in '˜Deus Ex: Human Revolution' sees Jensen back on site at Sarif as part of a crack military team. They're here to prevent another attack, this time the '˜Pro-Human Purists' are making a violent and costly protest by tearing the place apart and taking hostages. The climax of this mission is a confrontation with Pro-Human leader Zeke Sanders, but there are many ways to reach this point and the outcome is different depending on decisions made and the time it takes to see them through.

Six months after literally being brought back from the grave, Jensen was already back on the job. Of course, it helped that he was sporting his trademark mechanical arms and, most importantly, his auto-sunglasses, which on their own pretty much justify the entirety of transhumanism, we think. Unfortunately, in Jensen's line of work there's no such thing as an easy day, so he immediately shipped off to defuse a hostage situation involving a group of pro-human-purists-turned-terrorists. Interestingly, however, we actually weren't entirely railroaded in that pre-mission situation. Jean-François explained:

(When you're in the offices before your first real mission, if you spend too much time there, the hostages in the other mission are going to die because it's a hostage situation! But we're not putting a counter [on the screen]. There's no timer. If you just decide to read all the emails in the office, well, of course the hostages are in trouble, right? So that's how we approach it.)

Hacking is also a big part of DX: HR, and an extremely basic version of the hacking mini-game was demonstrated. Jensen was shown navigating through several nodes in order to find protected information to both unlock a door and to take control of a mechanized sentry gun. To succeed, players need to finish their attempt before the server detects their presence. Jacques-Belletête noted that as the hacking puzzles increased in difficulty over the course of the game, players would be able to use augmentations, software, or viruses to make the puzzles less challenging.

After demonstrating the non-lethal approach, Eidos Montreal showed off the (shoot first and ask questions later) strategy on the same mission. Using a cover system similar to that of Gears of War, the camera zoomed out to third-person to show Jensen's position in relation to his surroundings while he hid along the wall. He was then shown throwing a couple of flashbang grenades into the room to disorient his targets and then eliminating them with a combat rifle. Visually, it was very rewarding and appeared very precise, but without controlling the targeting ourselves, it's hard to say how well it works.

Finally, Jacque-Belletete switched over to a more action-packed portion of the game to show off the many weapons you'll be wielding. Like most shooters, Jensen can take cover behind obstacles to switch to third-person view. He then flung some flash grenades to enemies and finished them off with a combat rifle. Some environments also seem like they can be breakable. One of the last things that was shown was Jensen shooting down a large pane of glass. The visuals were amazing.

Following the demo there was a Q&A section that answered many questions and also touched on some interesting points about the game like whether the PC version of the game would support the dedicated modding community or whether Jensen has any ties with Deus Ex's JC Denton. Of course, no definite answers were given. Also, the reason why you can't modify Jensen's appearance is because the creators wanted to create an iconic look for their character.

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