Deus Ex: Human Revolution [Xbox 360]
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is set in the year 2027 the Biochemistry of limb replacements has advanced far beyond basic prosthetics, In this cyber punk dystopia where corporate empires have more power than governments, humans are now able to improve themselves with these "augmentations". They have become so effective that people with perfectly normal limbs will have them surgically removed and replaced with "upgraded" versions.
Adam Jensen is an ex-SWAT officer who is hired by David Sariff who is the CEO of Sariff industries a bio-tech company that specialises in augmentations, after Sariff industries is attacked by mysterious black ops soldiers Adam is left almost dead and to save his life he undergoes a "six million dollar man" style operation fitting him with almost every augmentation they could fit into his body.
The newly augmented Adam must find and stop these extremists and uncover a conspiracy that will change the world forever.
Mechanics:
One of the core themes of Deus Ex is choice this is core to not only the story which there is debate over the ethics of the augmentation technology and in game-play, navigation, weapons upgrades and social interactions.
The game is primarily a first person shooter but whenever the player takes cover the game switches to a third person view same for take downs the player can choose to go in guns blazing or play stealthy or any mix of both, each style has its own consequences and reward where stealthy and non-lethal options yielding the most points towards levelling up however this style can be more difficult.
The player can acquire praxis kits by levelling up or other means and these can be used to
upgrade and acquire augmentations, the player has complete freedom to choose whatever augmentations (or none) to upgrade provided they have enough praxis kits.
The only real downside to all the choices that the players are given is in the boss battles which force the player to kill them which means that some players can be at a severe disadvantage, because I had already read reviews I prepared my character for this situation.
Aesthetics:
The aesthetics have a combination of cyber punk with definite blade runner influences and refreshingly, elements drawn from the Italian renaissance because this was another time when grave robbers and surgeons were working together to dissect and study the human body a very ethical issue of its time.The art for draws from this like the design pattern on Jensen's coat and varilouos furniture and architecture.
Mis en scence is used expertly with lots of items some useable others not, many civilians walking around the hubs and plenty of computers with email conversations (some of which greatly enrich the story) This effective use of Mis en scence makes the world feel very lived in and thus easier to immerse into.
There is also a clear black and gold colour pallete and the almost the entire game is set at night to make Adam feel more like a "bad-ass" predator whose voice almost makes him seem like a future version of batman.
Technology:
The technology of the game is quite good detailing many things in the environment, all the guns handle well and most animations look really brutal and well done.
However there are some issues like in the social interactions where the same movement animations and facial animations when speaking seemed be stiff and also reused movements breaking the immersion. Not to mention some long loading times but it does have little story reminders to help you if you forgot what had happened previously.
Overall a fantastic game with great minute to minute combat/stealth, RPG elements and fascinating story and environments
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