The original Deus Ex mixed and matched genres like few others. It had FPS, RPG, and stealth elements without becoming a confused mess. The story was filled with meaningful player choice and used a player driven mission structure; with any objective, you had a huge number of ways to complete it. Unfortunately, the sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War (released in 2003) simplified many of the impressive elements from the first game, so sales and reviews took a hit.

Eight long years later, Deus Ex: Human Revolution came out to take back the crown.

More like Deus Ex: Grizzled White Guy Revolution, right? Also, get used to that yellow-orange color. — More like *Deus Ex: Grizzled White Guy Revolution*, right? Also, get used to that yellow-orange color.

DX: HR maintains the same amount of player freedom as the original. You play as Adam Jensen, the Head of Security for Sarif Industries, a leading company in human augmentation. One day, Sarif Industries is attacked by an unknown party. After you are severely injured to a point beyond normal recovery, you receive Sarif’s most advanced full body prosthetic augmentations.

Finally the flesh reflects the robotic personality within... On a serious note, I would totally chop off all my limbs for awesome robot parts.

Six months later, you return to work. You’re called in to rescue hostages and secure technology from a Sarif Industries plant. Right away, you have a choice. You can choose a lethal assault rifle, a long range tranquilizer gun, or a short range stun-gun. You can sneak past all the terrorists, take them out with stealth, firearms, or any combination of the above. You can hack all sorts of technology to get control of cameras, learn new information about the world, or open new paths for yourself.

How you upgrade Jensen determines the way you play the game, much like the original Deus Ex. After you complete quests or explore, you acquire experience points. After every level up, you get Praxis Kits, which are basically skill points.

With a large variety of possibilities, you can choose tech that can do anything from making hacking computers more efficient, to turning Jensen totally invisible, to seeing through walls. But there’s a limit. You don’t have enough points to upgrade Jensen completely. Refreshingly, DX: HR is not afraid to close off content to you if you don’t have the right kind of upgrades.

The game takes place in a number of hub levels, each of which is filled with areas to explore, shops, and quests. The levels are visually interesting, filled with neon and dark shadows. The levels can seem overwhelming at first before you find shortcuts between all the different parts.

Hengsha is the second hub you spend a lot of time in. It's seedy, dangerous, and basically Blade Runner: The Location. — Hengsha is the second hub you spend a lot of time in. It's seedy, dangerous, and basically *Blade Runner:* *The Location.*

Exploration is heavily rewarded, and certain upgrades, like the ability to jump 15 feet straight up, are basically designed to make exploring the hard to reach spots possible. DX: HR gives you the feeling that you can get anywhere, if you can stack enough crates to get up there. You can find all sorts of side quests just by speaking to people in the cities if you get tired of the main quest.

There’s a huge emphasis on character interaction in DX: HR that wasn’t present in the original Deus EX. Side and main quests have sequences where you can change the outcome based on what you say to characters.

These scenes can be really tense and are very well done. Most games will have conversation options that all lead the same place, but DX: HR puts power in your words. — These scenes can be really tense and are very well done. Most games will have conversation options that all lead the same place, but *DX: HR* puts power in your words.

The first quest, for instance, ends in a standoff between you and the head of the terrorists. He’s holding a woman hostage, but you can talk him down. Or, if you don’t think about what you’re saying, he escapes with the hostage and they both die in a hail of police bullets. Jensen is pretty much a blank slate, so he can be anyone from your choices.

For all its successes, there are a few times when DX: HR shoots itself in the (augmented) foot. Despite all the customization, the game forces you into several boss fights where you have to kill the boss. This really screws with the player freedom the game wags in your face earlier. You can play through the whole game up to the first boss as a sneaky hacker who only uses tranquilizer darts and suddenly you have to kill a guy with machineguns for arms.

Somehow I don't think my ability to crawl through gates and hack people's computers is going to mean much to Mr. ShootyMcMyArmsAreMachineguns here.

Fortunately, there aren’t a lot of boss fights. Some of the upgrades are basically must haves for any gameplay style, so should be either removed or included automatically. One is the Emotional Intelligence Upgrade, which tells you exactly what the person you’re talking to is feeling and allows you to release pheromones to guide the conversion the way you’d like to go. Some might say, “Just don’t pick the upgrade then!” but if a game offers you a dominant strategy, there’s no sense ignoring it, at least for your first run through. And in the most minor of gripes, the sprint time you start with is incredibly short. You can sprint for less than 25 feet, at the same time you can literally jump 15 feet in the air.

Worth Playing?

Yes.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a great game, full of player choice, well designed levels, and fun gameplay and the most minor of issues. I don’t do ratings on this site, but this game would definitely be up there if I did. If you can, pick up the Director’s Cut, which improved the graphics and removed some of the issues I spoke about with regards to the boss fights.

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