Working through my backlog of RPGs I have arrived at
Deus Ex Human Revolution. I originally meant to replay Deus Ex and Invisible War but after getting a few levels of Deus Ex done I ran out of steam and realized that nostalgia does play quite a role with these classic games. Back in the day Deus Ex was all about getting immersed into the great setting but the immersion factor just isn't there anymore with the very -by today's standards- "naked", barebone level design. If you have gotten used to a certain level of realism in games and a certain object density then Deus Ex just doesn't cut it no more.
Also, with a backlog like mine I'd rather focus on finishing games I haven't played than replaying games I have finished before which in case of Deus Ex I actually haven't because when presented with the three ending choices I simply quit because I didn't like any of the possible endings but anyway…
… here we are playing DXHR and liking it pretty well so far. I originally bought the special edition that came with some extra goodies and I also got The Missing Link DLC installed.
The extra goodies (some silenced sniper rifle and explosives) will probably not do me any good since I have decided on a non-lethal, stealthy approach. We'll see if I will be able to pull it off throughout the entire game. I managed a non-lethal playthrough with Alpha Protocol and I'm hoping to repeat the experience here but I'm not hell-bent on it. If it gets too annoying, too time consuming or too difficult at some point then the lead is gonna start a-flying
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After finishing the first mission and now exploring the town my only real gripe so far is the voice (actor) they chose for the main protagonist. Sounds really annoying to me. I don't know if they intentionally distorted the voice to emphasize the augmentation characteristics but to me the guy sounds like a 50 year old bodybuilder who has been on 'roids for 30 years. So I'm trying my best to ignore the spoken text and just read the dialogues.
It's not just the main protagonist though. There's also some other pretty average voices and some atrociously bad (digital) acting performed by some of the game's characters.
Sheesh. I'm coming from The Witcher 2 as my last finished game and this is a drop in quality like spending one night at the Ritz Carlton and the next one at a motel 66.
The gameplay is fun though. My self-imposed non-lethal stealth approach is reasonably challenging. I naturally don't have any augs to make things easier yet but I'm looking forward to acquiring some cloaking and silent elimination skills/augs.
What I'm slightly concerned about is how long it will take me to finish the game with this approach. If every level works like the first level where you reach the end and then if you wish to get the most out of the game you need to backtrack through the entire level once it is cleared of enemies to pick up the loot you could not pick up earlier because of evasion tactics then I think that I'm looking at some pretty crazy mileage here.
A minor annoyance with regard to the gameplay is the interface which suffers from some consolitis as in most crossplatform titles these days. It is once again very obvious that controller friendliness was the no. 1 concern here.
Other than that I'm really looking forward to exploring the levels, the town hub(s) and the story of this promising title. As far as the story goes, I wouldn't be too surprised if Dr. Megan Reed is not as dead as she pretends to be
. There's gotta be a reason why they didn't explicitly show her death in the cinematic. They could have boosted the player's emotional investment x-fold by showing Dr. Reed's demise in cruel detail from all kinds of angles but they didn't so… why? Are we some kind of prototype that is remotely controlled and supervised by Dr. Reed? Is she in on some kind of conspiracy, forced or voluntarily? Are we a living experiment?
Don't tell - no spoilers, please, but those are the thoughts currently crossing my mind in these early stages of the game
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And back to 2027 we go…