I don't really know what can I say about this game. It's Human Revolution 2.0. The good thing is that they improved on HR on many areas, including some I specifically mentioned.
If I invent a scale where Human Revolution is "1" and the original Deus Ex game is "10", then this game should be somewhere around 7 on that scale. So there is a lot of improvement.
I didn't much like the beginning of the game, it felt off, out of place, especially with the unavoidable bloodbath at the end. But after the first mission things soon return to order, and the game starts to feel like DeusEx. In fact much more so than Human Revolution ever did. Partly thanks to the fact that the setting is almost exactly a carbon copy of the original setting in DeusEx.Regardless of the fact, that one takes place in Prague, and the other in New York. But hey, copying your betters is not a sin in my book. The similarities don't just stop there, in both games, you leave the city only to find it under martial law when you return.
But the similarity disappears with one very specific thing. In the original game when curfew was in effect you could still relatively easily move around the city without confrontation using the sewers, the rooftops and the apartments. Here that is not the case unfortunately. Sure there are a few places where you can cut trough a rooftop, but it's not enough. Most of the time you had to rely on sneaking around in the open, because even the apartments that are accessible have absolutely no secondary exits, so the only way out is the way in. So you can't use them to cross a city block avoiding the police checkpoint as you was able in the original. And on top of that the sewers aren't that good too, they don't form an interconnected web under the city, only small isolated sections under specific buildings where they can be used to infiltrate certain areas.
What the designers did improve upon are the vents, well they are still not perfect, but far less obvious than they were in human revolution. Now sometimes they do lead nowhere or to irrelevant places. Now the only thing left to improve is the network, since they show the same symptoms as the servers, they only serve as bypasses but they're all isolated, they never form a full system. I don't understand why do they need to be told how to do it, when the people designing DX in the last millennium already got it right?
Well maybe for the third try they'll get it completely right? Since the game seems like a prequel, a set up. It is like a first chapter of a much bigger story. If I continue to compare it to the original I'd say it's like if that ended after leaving New York. That said here you never really leave Prague, that's the only hub area you ever get access to. You only get three away missions from there. If I count the first one already as an away mission. So the setting gets boring after a while. You run around the same places most of the time.
On a more positive note side missions weren't neglected, they are really good, too bad there is not many of them. Assuming I found all side missions but I think I did.
They improved the biggest issue with the inventory, that you couldn't store more than one bioenergy in the same slot, now you can similarly to the original, great news indeed. Unfortunately the other big flaw of the inventory remained that weapon upgrades take up inventory space. At least not as much as they did before. But with all the various types of ammunition and loot you can collect you'll still be having a very hard time managing your inventory. Don't forget to sell valuables often.
The action is better than it was in HR, even without augmentations you can fight effectively. The cover system is a bit archaic but it works well, I forgot it even existed for a while during playing, because you need to press a separate key to move into and between covers, it's not seamless as in most modern games. The different ammo types have much more of an impact on what they're good for. I'd say overall the combat is not too hard, it's more on the easy side. The only problem about combat is that the game sometimes wouldn't let you initiate a takedown, the prompt just won't come up. I noticed that this often happens when the enemy is coming up stairs and you stand in the corner. Sneaking is pretty easy too, after you purchase the aug that shows the field of view of enemies on the minimap including cameras. So the invisibility aug is kind of pointless again, because it consumes so much energy and sneaking is so easy regardless. And there are other augs that are pointless too, like the tesla, or typhoon. Both need ammunition, that you can't find anywhere. During the entire game I found maybe one typhoon ammo and zero tesla ammo. And buying it is out of the question even if some vendor has it, it will be too expensive to worth it. And it's not like you can kill merchants to get the merchandise. I mean you can kill them, but you don't get their stash.
Speaking about killing, the game has no consequences for your actions whatsoever. At one point during the curfew I lost my patience because a bunch of cops were camping at the exact place I needed to get to, and there was no way of getting in without getting seen. So I decided to cull their numbers, with the reinforcements included I must have murdered a dozen or so. But it was as if I did nothing wrong. Noone confronted me, noone even commented on it. Like it never happened. And the funniest thing was that the civilians being rounded up still acted as if they were being held at gunpoint, when in fact all cops were cleared out from the area. So NPC AI is not very good, their search patterns are weird, and sometimes they will walk backwards.
Augmentation upgrades are again showered on you, I had a bunch left over by the end of the game that I didn't spend because I couldn't use them on anything useful. So it's basically the same way as in was in HR.
The story is allright, they're still ramping it up to be some kind of prequel for the original deusex with tons of references to people, places, and groups from that. But if course it can't be a prequel because the state of the world is completely different. But as I mentioned it's incomplete, feels like the first third of a three part series. And it's length reflects that slightly. I finished the entire game in 20 hours, including all side missions, without rushing, often taking my time exploring, and talking to NPCs when possible. But most NPCs don't have too much lines, they'll repeat the same conversation over and over. Unlike in DX where you could have an exchange lasting twenty minutes with Echelon IV. And the worst offenders are merchants. They' recorded a bunch of lines for them depending on the situation, but he game just randomly chooses a response, regardless of the context. Including Adam's response. So the conversation sometimes seems completely surreal, other times when the randomly selected lines match it feels perfect. And if you go back to the same merchant twice it will start the same introductory conversation again that you had before.
Finally a few words about graphics. Overall the game looks great, and I'd like to say it runs great too, but my definition of great is different than most others. I'm perfectly fine with 30 fps. And for me the game maxed out on 1440p ran 33min 38 avg and 47max fps according to the inbuilt benchmark. I'm fine with that. I won't feel the need to upgrade my GPU until the AVG starts dipping bellow 30.
+
- Great Atmosphere, reminds me of the original DX
- An improvement in almost every regard over HR
- Great graphics.
- Well designed, and interesting side quests
- You can choose to kill almost any npc
- You almost always have a choice between fighting and sneaking around.
- Very well done characters, they feel really unique and interesting.
-
- Still not as good as the original.
- Archaic cover system
- Menus hard to navigate, especially hacking and inventory.
- NPC AI.
- You only get a third of a story, and 20 hours of gameplay.
- Your actions have no consequences.
- Augmentations are not essential life savers, but small perks, that don't feel nearly as important as they should be.
- Why do all augs have their trousers cut off to reveal their prosthetic legs?
Scoring card:
graphics : 8.5
realization: 8.0
story: 6.5 (deduction due to it being cut short)
atmosphere: 9.9
gameplay: 8.0
controls: 8.0
Overall impression: 8/10