Muttering Man Machine

On learning that Deux Ex: Human Revolution was out, I had to stretch my memory to remember playing the original Deus Ex on the Playstation 2, some ten years ago. At the time, it was considered revolutionary for combining RPG levelling up/character building with a first-person shooter gameplay style. It's certainly a format that took off.

Over a decade on, the developers are looking to set down a new marker and in terms of looks, they may well have done. DX: HR (as I'm calling it for the purposes of this review) is visually stunning with a great soundtrack to boot - sneaking round the perma-dark streets (hello, Blade Runner), I felt a palpable sense of tension as I tried not to get spotted by tooled up guards and rent-a-cops.

Anyways, set twenty minutes into the future, you play as Adam Jensen who, despite losing his SWAT job due to some unpleasantness on a mission, seems to have it going for him. He's got the gravelly Clint Eastwood voice, has a cool black overcoat and his ex-girlfriend has set him up with a nice gig working in Detroit as Chief of Security at Sarif Industries, one of the prime movers in the new industry of human augmentation - fitting electronic limbs and other upgrades to bods. Sadly, sitting in his office all day watching the security camera in the female dressing room wouldn't make for a good game.

During an attack on his office, he's left in a condition very close to dead. Which is a step better than just about everybody else, it seems, including his ex-girlfriend. Luckily, he must have paid up his company health insurance premiums, as he's put all back together again with the latest tech. But is he now more machine then man? Hmm? And if this does sound a tad familiar, then it is lampshaded very well - listening in to a passing conversation between two cops has one of them mention "this movie from the 80s, about a cop who gets killed and they rebuild him..."

Despite this setback-of-sorts (it's never really explored how Adam feels about being turned into what he becomes), he's soon back to work and out to find out who was responsible for the current situation. Players of the original Deus Ex will not be surprised to find out this involves a mass conspiracy of sorts.

My problem with DX: HR is twofold. First, the boss fights seem against the spirit of the game. If, like me, you play as a sneaky get, avoiding detection and having to kill people, it seems a bit odd to have to suddenly engage in a stand-up firefight against someone who can end your game with a couple of well-placed grenades. It feels like you've suddenly been transported into another game.

It's a shame you have to go through these parts, as using stealth is a lot more fun than engaging every enemy mook you see: the combat doesn't really hold up all that well and becomes just another cover-and-shoot affair that we've seen before.

Secondly, the storyline isn't quite as clever as it thinks it is. There's a couple of 'twists' that came as no surprise whatsoever and I was disappointed that the various decisions I made throughout the game didn't really come into play during the endgame. Indeed, much like the original, your choice of ending is made by a decision at the very end. And anyways, as this is a prequel, we kind of already know what happens in the long run from playing Deus Ex.

Indeed, the mild feeling of anti-climax at the conclusion brought to mind Alpha Protocol, a game which got little attention a couple of years back, and its terrific story (in which decisions throughout led you to one of many endings) hindered by lousy gameplay. I get the impression that if that game had been afforded the budget DX:HR got, it might have been a classic. As we are, DX:HR is a worthy game that doesn't quite fulfill the potential it had but provides a decent 20/30 hours of gameplay with a decent slice of replay value.