Deus Ex: Human Revolution
89/100 [spoilers]
TL;DR: one of the greatest single player first person shooters ever
Synopsis: man is tasked with finding the people behind a corporate raid and tracking down the scientists they kidnapped.
The original Deus Ex did not sell that well on release, but the game and the franchise garnered a strong following throughout the years. The game resurfaced as a meme during the COVID pandemic because the story in the original is about a global pandemic that is mismanaged by the powers that be.
Despite the poor sales of the game and its age, Deus Ex punches heavily above its weight in cultural influence, partially because the fans are higher in g and agency than those of other games, partially because it’s good; good games stay in the cultural conscience much longer than ones that aren’t.
After some bizarre corporate fiddling, the IP rights to Deus Ex went from the initial developers to Square Enix, who decided to make a prequel to the original Deus Ex. Normally, this is a red flag because of regression to the mean, but Square Enix have managed to knock this one out of the park. The storytelling and thematic exploration is not as good as the first one, but the combat and mechanics are on point.
Production Value
Deus Ex HR is extremely well optimized, and can run at 150-200 fps consistently on my 8 GB of VRAM. It has an exit bug on linux (which exists on Windows as well, if I recall correctly), otherwise I had no issues playing it on both linux and windows.
The soundtrack is well done, and they had a few standout pieces - notably the main theme and the police ambient soundtrack. They reused some of the old soundtrack that worked, like the UNATCO theme, which is great. Originality is overrated.
Gameplay
The thing that annoys me the most about most games in general is that the time to kill is way too long, and it is too hard to die if you are not griefing. Deus Ex is not this way. Headshots are able to kill basically every enemy with almost every weapon, which makes the game much more realistic than the average dumbass shooter that takes you 5 headshots to kill an opponent. Likewise, you can also die to about 4-8 bullets depending on your opponent’s weapon.
The boss fights have generally been a source of criticism; they were indeed underwhelming. Even in comparison to the original Deus Ex which had mediocre boss fights, they were pretty mid. Of the ones that were memorable, there was a man who walked around and chased you with a minigun, a woman who ran up to you and exploded, and a final boss that is… Strange. That said, the boss fights are still playable and are not as bad as they community says they are.
Story
The story isn’t noteworthy. Not bad, but not enthralling either. Most of the major plot points were recycled from the original Deus Ex (e.g. Illuminati, Augs, China/Hong Kong). What makes it suffer in comparison to the original is that the Illuminati is not engaged with at all — they operate like the Jews do in the minds of wignats. In the original game, you would drop by the illuminati’s hideout and kill their soldiers. In this version of the game, they’re just some word that is blamed for everything that happens in the game.
Some have critiqued the story for being articulated poorly - I actually agree; even after 2 weeks of finishing the game, the story itself feels difficult to remember. After some reflection, I was able to recall these details:
Mercs invade your company, kill a bunch of scientists, and kidnap the important ones.
You wake up 6 months later after being shot in the head.
One of the company’s factories is invaded and hostages are held (plot convencience?)
It turns out the man leading the op was duped, and there was an aug who participated in the mission, who committed suicide.
You take the aug’s brain from the police station later.
You track the aug to a hacker who lives in China.
You find him. He’s a brown guy from Amsterdam and tells you he worked for some Chinese medical company
You infiltrate the company and get tricked by the CEO when you meet her.
It turns out the Chinese medical comp is connected to the mercs.
You then infiltrate a news station connected to the Chinese medical company, and find that it’s under their control (?).
Apparently a faction within the anti-tech culture is partially responsible for the attack. The illuminati are involved somehow too.
[I forgot this part]
You eventually rescue the scientists who were captured, who are somewhere in East Asia.
Then, you take a detour to one of the Arctic poles, and face off against the main villain.
I was able to recall most of the important details, but I was unable to recall the Illuminati’s role within the story at all, simply because I couldn’t connect their influence in the story to a character, event, or place. If they had done this, I think the story would have been much more memorable. Looking at the internet, I also forgot about the illuminati biochip plot which made everybody go insane, though I think that’s my mistake and not their’s.
Also, the Missing Link DLC is terrible. I tried looking up how to remove it and was disappointed to learn that it’s built in to the main game.
Scoring:
Design (19/20):
Atmosphere: (5/5)
Graphics: (5/5) - a bit dated at this point, but extremely well optimized
UI: (2/2)
Bugs: (2/2) - few on windows, exit bug on linux
Sound: (2/2) - single fire for combat rifle sounds tacky and bad, otherwise fine
OST: (2/2)
Character designs: (2/2) - adam and serif look great
Script (20/25):
Character Investment: (4/5)
Character Realism: (2/2)
Character Complexity: (2/3)
Writing: (8/10)
Ending: (4/5)
Gameplay (28/30):
Skill expression: (9/10)
RNG: (5/5) - not much random bullshit
Satisfaction: (9/10)
Optionality: (3/3) - many different guns and playstyles
Novelty: (2/2)
Value 12/15):
Skill: (4/5)
Originality: (4/5) - a bit too similar to the OG Deus Ex, but does well as a spiritual remake
Thematic elements: (4/5) - some political/technological themes explored
Enjoyment (10/10):
Did I like it: (10/10) - incredible game
dude is adam jensen ur brother