Deus Ex: Human Revolution First Impressions
More than ten years after the release of the original Deus Ex for the PC, Deus Ex: Human Revolution arrives on consoles and PC. The third entry in the series serves as a prequel to the highly acclaimed first game, set 25 years before the events of the original, so newcomers who haven’t played any of the earlier games won’t be lost, but veterans of the series will still recognize small little references.
The game starts off with you taking the role of Adam Jenson, a security specialist within Sarif Industries (a high-tech laboratory for cybernetic modification) on your merry way to lead a colleague off to Washington. Before leaving, you go up to have a word with David Sarif (the head of the company) when the alarms go off. At this point you take out a gun, and are told to go check out the source of the problem.
The game’s basic gameplay consists of a hybrid between third and first person gameplay. You move around the world in first person. However, as soon as you get behind cover, the game goes to a third person mode. However weird this sounds, it is done very seamlessly and you don’t feel like it pulls you out of the game at any point.
The first thing I noticed was the cyberpunk theme of the world. If you look outside a window, you see a futuristic rendition of Detroit. Everything in the game from the highlighted items that you can interact with to the background has a gold tint on it. During my gameplay, I ran along the hallways of the burning facility watching scientists get brutalised by oversized augments; I realised that I would have to go into cover if I wanted to survive. The game utilises a realistic approach to gunfire, meaning that you aren’t a bullet sponge and you will go down just as fast as your enemies, and they outnumber you.
I walked into a room with a bunch of enemies and noticed they hadn’t noticed me so I got under cover. I took aim and fired a shot into his head that put him down. This sent them all on an alert and they too, just as I had, dove into cover. A nice little touch that seems to be missing from some games today.
After I finished piling up the dead bodies onto the floor, I moved into the next room where a cut scene sprang up, ending the prologue and our hands-on with the game. Overall, my experience with the beginning of Deus Ex:Human Revolution was a great one. I loved the unique gameplay, the graphical style, and I look forward to playing more. Look forward to our review in the upcoming weeks.
