Hello! Since Deus Ex is my personal favourite game of all time (kanye.jpg) I figured I would try my hand at giving the latest installment to the series, Deus Ex: Human Revolution the official thread that it deserves. If you're reading this, I'm sure you are quite curious as to what the hell this game is about, and how you didn't know Deus Ex existed before now - hopefully this thread will help you out! Before we jump head first into the wonderful world that is Deus Ex: Human Revolution, why don't we get the boring stuff out the way:
There may be many newcomers to the Deus Ex series with the release of Human Revolution, so here is a brief summary of the series so far. Deus Ex is a series of award-winning cyberpunk themed action/role playing games. The series consists of Deus Ex (2000), Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003) and Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011). The series (specifically, the first game) has garnered much praise from its pioneering design in the players freedom of choice and multiple approaches to any given situation. The Designers, Warren Spector and Harvey Smith coined the game as an Immersive simulator, where nothing reminds you that youre playing a video game. Central to Deus Ex are the augmentations; the protagonist has been mechanically or nano-technically altered, being able to perform superhuman actions. While the specific mechanics alter between game, the general premise is the player unlocks experience points, which go towards purchasing and upgrading augmentations. These can range from silent running to seeing through walls; build a character in any way you see fit.
Deus Ex is so revered because of just how forward thinking it was. Most modern RPG's give you a 'choice' through a dialogue option, which usually boils down to something as bi-polar as "bad" or "good" responses. What you say in Deus Ex will alter people's opinions of you depending on their beliefs, and such choice extends to actions you carry out in the physical world rather than just a dialogue option. I'm sure many fans have fond memories of being told off by one's superior for going into the female restroom during a mission. Deus Ex also challenged gamers to really question their surroundings - not just in terms of narrative but in gameplay, too. If you played any other game back in 2000 and saw a fence, you would assume instantly that it was a literal barrier not to be crossed and even if you did manage to get over you would be met with an invisible wall. In Deus Ex, you could see an unreachable area, stack boxes or other such items to climb over and find a whole secret area, 9 out of 10 times being rewarded with item caches, experience and so on. There were rooms and buildings you could go in and explore, but didn't need to. They were just there to give the game's attempt to be an immersive simulator more cohesive ground to stand on.
Combine this freedom to explore and play by your own rules with a game world littered with a plethora of articles in e-mails, books and newspapers, visual feedback from the world around the player or spoken word from hundreds of NPC's and you have a gameplay experience that was almost unheard of at the time. The protagonist was left without any preset opinions; your JC Denton was who you wanted him to be. Each mission had multiple ways of being solved, usually aligning themselves with different play-styles. For the most part each path acted like a linear game in it's own right. Check this picture out to see how engrossing it is. However, the game was not perfect. Among other minor problems, the game was released over eleven years ago, so the idea was slightly hampered by technical ability.
You start the game off as a standard (albeit nano-augmented) special agent, sent on a fairly basic mission. Before you know it, entire conspiracies unravel before your eyes and you have no idea who to trust. Even at the end of the game, the narrative did not resort to a battle of guns versus bigger guns; you could change the world forever with who you were and what you said, all the way up until the credits rolled.
Hopefully you are beginning to understand why Deus Ex is so revered amongst its fans, and why it is consistently praised as the best game ever made by multiple publications, as game design has gone backwards in recent years! This is where Deus Ex: Human Revolution comes in...
Haven't played the games? No time is better than the present. Click here and here to be directed to the steam pages. Relax, your PC can run them, and they're cheap too! If you refuse to play games on a PC that much, the first was ported to the PS2 and Deus Ex: Invisible War was released on the XBox.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a prequel to the series, so newcomers can jump in with ease. Go h+!
But what is h+? Humans, plus. Transhumanism is the theme of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with the controversial science of human augmentation taking off. In the year 2027, previously impossible feats are fast becoming a reality thanks to the work done by the scientists at Sarif Industries. You are Adam Jensen, a security guard for a high level group of scientists at Sarif, and play a highly important role during these times of turmoil. An anti-augmentation group, Purity First, has been writhing ever harder against the progression of transhumanism and staging increasingly violent demonstrations.
Dr. Megan Reed has recently discovered something scientifically monumental, pushing the boundaries of humanity even further. It is big enough for her, and other high-ranking officials at Sarif to be called to Washington D.C. to defend her research. During preparation for the visit to Washington, a black-ops group calling themselves The Tyrants storm the Sarif Industries building, killing many innocent workers. You try to tackle one of the Tyrants, Jaron Namir, but he strikes you down and you are presumed dead. This is deemed the perfect opportunity to test new military grade mechanical augmentations, and against your will you are now a walking experiement and deadly weapon. The plot of Deus Ex: Human Revolution follows Adam as he tries to recover from this horrible incident, find out who the tyrants were, who they were affiliated with and what they gained by attack Sarif Industries in the first place.
Naturally, this is very brief as any more detail might risk spoiling even the smallest part of the game, and I just couldn't do that to you. However, I can tell you more about where we will visit throughout Deus Ex: Human Revolution!
Detroit, Michigan, USA is the location of Sarif Industries and one of the main places where augmentations have taken off. This, of course, means that the largest opposition is here. The division between the rich who can afford augmentations and the poor who can't is more prevalent here than anywhere else. The fall of some higher class people due to the high cost of augmentation anti-rejection drugs has made some very angry, and many just
oppose the science completely. Just like with the boom in motor vehicles, Detroit was made the center of technological innovation once more thanks to David Sarif setting up shop in abandonded warehouses, building his corporation from the ground up. The class divide is painfully transparent though; one goes from high-tech, new-age buildings such as the Sarif HQ, to run-down ghettos and apartment blocks filled with drug addicts and other fallen members of society. These shady places are usually ran by gangs, comprised of drug and arms dealers. These people are angry, and are opposing the higher-ups and augmented even more, day by day. Detroit is one of the 'city hubs' in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This means that once you arrive, you are free to explore around the city as much as you physically can. The main quest will center around Detroit for a while, before you fly off to other parts. However, if you walk around and explore, you can receive a mulitude of fleshed out side-quests, and find many secret areas filled with ammo, money or even items.
Hengsha Island, Shanghai, China is the second 'city hub' in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Hengsha is a two-tiered city, due to corporations and businesses running out of room to build on. It is a city on top of a city. The incentive behind such a project was to rival Detroit's rebirth in augmentations and become the silicon valley of the science, itself. This resulted in Sarif's main opposition being founded here: Tai Yong Medical. Being another city hub, you are free to explore most of the city at your will, finding side quests and such. It allows the game to return to the theme of the Triads in China, which was prevalent in the first game's venture to Hong Kong. Plus, it wouldn't really be a cyberpunk game without asian influences. There is just as much class divide here as in Detroit, as the top tier of the city is reserved only for the rich and powerful. The lower tier is filled with gangsters and questionable people who would not hesitate to attack you when you aren't looking, so watch your back.
Montréal, Quebec, Canada is another location in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. We don't know much of anything about Montréal at the moment, but we do know it will feature in at least a mission in the main quest when Adam has to investigate something at Picus Communications, the large media company which features Eliza the newsreader. If this is actually a full city hub that we don't know about, expect lots of exploring and side questing!
PC Gamer's Deus Ex Week
- Day One: The Deus Ex 3 Demo
- Day Two: Game Director Interview
- Day Three: A Deus Ex story
- Day Four: The art, explained
- Day Five: The art director, interviewed
- Day Six: The Deus Ex decision (DX1 spoilers)
- Day Seven: Writing Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- Gamespy: Q&A with Nixxes and Eidos on making the PC version the best
- Eurogamer: Deus Ex: Human Revolution wows us
- Gamasutra: The Human Question
- XBOX360A: Let choice be your weapon
- CV&G: Why is Deus Ex: Human Revolution black and gold?
- CV&G: We must respect the original
- Neoseeker: PC version with DX11 & eyefinity support
- Neoseeker: PC version has improved AI
- RPS: We didn't want to go black and white
The following previews detail the game's first mission, don't read if you don't want to be spoiled
- Eurogamer's impressions
- PC Gamer's impressions
- Destructoid's impressions
- Gamebanshee's impressions
- Gamespot's impressions
The following previews detail the 10 hour press build (yes, the one that leaked). Don't read if you don't want to be spoiled
- PC Gamer's impressions
- Eurogamer's impessions
- Gamespot's impressions
- XBOX360A's impressions
- IGN's impressions
Nothing like some home grown GAF opinions, too.
NeoGAF review thread.
EatChildren said:
charsace said:
EatChildren said:
Be sure to check out the impressions thread from the press build leak! Naturally, be wary of spoilers despite things being spoiler-tagged.
Need something Deus Ex-y to take your mind off the wait until launch? Try out the novel, Deus Ex: Icarus Effect, written by James Swallow. Also available is a 6 part comic book series. Beware of spoilers from both articles however, as they are set just before and during the events of Deus Ex: Human Revolution!
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun awesome/10
- 1UP A
- Ars Technica buy/10
- Worthplaying 9.7/10
- Destructoid 9.5/10
- Vandal Online 9.4/10
- Pelit 91/100
- Pelaaja 9/10
- Edge 9/10
- IGN 9/10
- Eurogamer 9/10
- Gametrailers 8.7/10
- Play4 88%
- Gamespy 4/5
THIS IS WHERE THE MINIMAL EFFORT AVATARS LIVE, GET YOU ONE!
Thread credit goes entirely to:
Abunai
I merely made some small edits to make the thread work in a singular post and added some small updates.
Wall of Shame
|OT1|
