Impressions by Gamespot
interview
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GameInformer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Human Revolution takes place before the original Deus Ex--in 2027, to be exact. It's an age of chaos and conspiracy. Protagonist Adam Jensen is a security specialist for a private company that manufactures nanotechnological augmentations. When the firm falls under attack, it's up to Adam to uncover the plot behind the violence. The demo we saw picked up about six hours into the game. Adam is following a lead, seeking out a hacker on an island located near Shanghai. We see a gunship flying above the waters and a brightly lit neon cityscape in the distance. The gunship lands, and your female companion gives Adam a rundown of the situation. We find out the hacker is a member of a triad, which as Deus Ex players know, is a mafia-type organized crime syndicate. Once his comrade flies off, Adam is left to pursue the lead on his own.
Adam makes his way down a stairway and past a cafe. The urban environment has that neon-lit, grimy sci-fi look that the Deus Ex series has always done so well. The area is teeming with pedestrians involved in conversations and going about their daily business. They aren't oblivious to your presence, though: An innocent pedestrian reacts with horror when the player points a gun at him. According to DeMarle, you can go up to any non-player characters to talk to them and can even obtain side quests that way. One thing is for sure: Human Revolution has a gritty look, exemplified by the seedy nightclub Adam approaches, which is called The Hive. The bouncer there isn't too excited to see Adam and isn't prepared to let him in without a little cash to massage the situation. The player chose to pay the bouncer off, but according to DeMarle, there were other options available. You might find a sewer or roof entrance, locate another way in by talking to nearby passersby, or simply kill the bouncer.
Once inside, Adam talks to the bartender and asks for his contact, Tong. The bartender sends Adam to the VIP lounge, where another bartender awaits--this one sporting a freaky-looking cybernetic arm. An aggressive conversation follows, and clearly, this man has no intention of letting Adam speak to Tong. We see several dialogue choices throughout the conversation, and each time they are presented as "advise," "insist," and "pinpoint." Adam has no luck with the bartender and, instead, must find alternate means. Fortunately, he overhears two guards mention that they've lost a PDA with an important passcode on it. Adam finds the PDA and uses the code to open a secure door and enter the club's basement.
From within these confines, Adam sticks to cover and waits for a patrolling guard to turn his back, then attacks him with a gruesome-looking fatality-type kill. One detail of note: While you generally play Deus Ex: Human Revolution from a first-person point of view, you move to a third-person view when taking cover and performing these kills, which are called takedowns. Adam then drags the body out of the way and enters a nearby vent. From here, he's able to locate Tong--who happens to be the very same bartender who refused you access. Tong is conversing with a comrade, and as it turns out, he knows a lot more about the situation than he let on.
The second half of the demo focused on pure action. In it, Adam makes his way around a dock cluttered with shipping crates, slipping from cover spot to cover spot to avoid detection. This is where augmentations come in handy. For example, because the player has given Adam the strength augmentation, he is able to move some heavy boxes out of the way and reveal a path that would have otherwise been unavailable. Once through this opening, Adam plunges a sharp weapon through a guard's midsection in another disgusting-looking takedown move. According to DeMarle, takedowns are always contextual and not scripted, so the takedown you perform conforms to the circumstance.
After a bit more sneaking, Adam infiltrates a security station, stabs the seated guard in the back, and hacks into the camera system. With hacking, you can take control of cameras or even read private e-mail that provides even more helpful information. The player continues to creep along the grimy dock and eventually leaps onto a crate and finds a combat rifle hidden inside. From here, he drops down between two conversing guards and takes them down in a single, expert melee move. Then, he activates another augmentation, which allows him to see through walls--at which point he punches through the wall and chokes the foe lurking behind it to death. Eventually, Adam finds the explosives he's been looking for and then takes advantage of another augmentation--one that turns him invisible. He slinks unseen to a nearby enemy, aims his pistol, and boom! The guard crumples to the ground, a bullet lodged directly in his brain. A few aggressive takedowns later, and Adam needed to enter a warehouse. Again, the player gets to make a choice. This time, he makes his way to the rooftop and breaks through the glass on the ceiling. Another awesome-looking takedown follows, and then--a boss fight.
The boss is a terrifying transforming robot that launches grenades toward our scowling hero. The player takes aim with his standard weapons, but the submachine gun he was using isn't really doing the trick. Luckily, there is a rocket launcher nearby, and Adam is able to apply an upgrade to it: heat targeting. This allows Adam to essentially shoot the robot without it being in sight. One rocket is all it takes, and the robot explodes in a shower of sparks and flame. Adam finds the trigger to the explosives he was looking for, but the effect he gets isn't the one he expects: a countdown timer signals a local detonation. Adam leaps toward a nearby window, and while it cracks, it does not shatter. Adam leaps a second time, just as the explosion occurs and thrusts him outward. Yet there is another surprise waiting for Adam once he dusts himself off: a hulking supersoldier with a rural accent and a nose ring, with a minigun built directly into his arm.
We'll have to wait to see where Adam's adventure takes him next, but it looks to be worth the wait. The build we saw wasn't extremely polished, but it made it very clear that the development team understands the franchise and wants to stay true to its roots.
interview
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GameInformer
In the demo I was shown, protagonist Adam Jensen is flown to an island off of Shanghai where hes tasked with hunting down a notorious hacker with ties to the Triads (a group that calls back to the first game in a way that should make fans smile). The first location Jensen searches is a packed night club called The Hive.
On the way to the club, Jensen can choose to talk to the many NPCs filling the streets. Each of these characters has dialogue options, potentially giving you more information on your location or even presenting a sidequest. Upon getting to the Hives entrance, Jensen is stopped at the door; only members can get in. There are numerous options here. Jensen could talk to NPCs in the area to figure out an alternate way to gain access. He could sneak around the back and find a different entrance. He could simply kill the bouncer blocking his path. In this case, he chooses to hand over the money for the membership so as to avoid causing a scene before hes even in the club.
Once inside, Jensen stalks the club for a while, asking random people where he can get more info on finding the hacker. Eventually he makes his way to a gruff bartender who seems to know more than hes letting on. What blows me away here -- perhaps more than anything else in the demo -- was the NPCs eyes. Eyes are a notoriously difficult body part to make realistic in video games, but in Deus Ex the eyes and the motions during conversation seem completely natural. At one point, the bartender tells an obvious lie; I can tell by the way his eyes look down from Jensens without his moving. Later, he tells Jensen that he doesnt know what hes getting into and turns his whole body knowingly. Matched with the very detailed character models, these subtle movements are a touch that makes the conversations significantly more effective than in the average conspiracy-driven video game storyline.
Though the bartender is unhelpful, Jensen chooses to leave him alone and seek answers elsewhere in the club. Wandering down one corridor, he overhears two of the Hives armed guards talking about a misplaced security card. This eavesdropping is done completely intuitively by positioning yourself near the guards and listening in the game wisely doesnt need to pull you into a cutscene or take away control for you to gain this necessary information. Needless to say, Jensen locates the missing the card, which contains a keycode that he can use to go deeper into the facility.
After this portion of the demo focusing on the games more adventure-y aspects, I got to watch a second level that showed off the combat skills. Jensen begins by using the strength augmentation to lift a heavy box out of the way of a secret path toward a warehouse hes looking to enter. Past that, he moves another box over to directly below the window to a small guard outpost. Jumping onto the box, hes able to silently open the window, sneak inside, and perform a stealth takedown kill on the unsuspecting guard. This opens up his path, though Im promised there are at least five different ways to get into the warehouse.
The takedowns, which all look incredible, are automatic kills that can be triggered when up close to an enemy. They could make combat a lot easier than it needs to be, but they also serve to make the stealth gameplay very approachable and satisfying. In one great takedown I saw, Jensen drops down from a crate, landing next to two guards who he almost immediately stabs through the neck with blades that pop out of his elbows. Does taking out a mere two guards with a single move not seem impressive enough? In another, he drops through a ceiling window, this time landing directly in the middle of four guards. Jensen then spins in a circle, releasing a ton of shells that fly toward the enemies around him and explode on impact. Four enemies dead with one stylish button press? Hard to complain about that.
The most questionable aspect of Human Revolution so far is the actual full-on gunplay the kind where youre not being stealthy and just taking dudes out with an assault rifle. This was also arguably the weakest part of the original Deus Ex, so it makes sense to be wary. That said, the cover-based shooting mechanics looked totally passable and potentially even a bit enjoyable. They just werent nearly as interesting or unique as all the other cool stuff that was shown off during the demo.
One element of the gunplay that looks kind of neat is weapon customization. At the end of the demo, Jensen is attacked by a giant robotic creation. Jensen puts away his machine gun and grabs a rocket launcher for this fight. Luckily hes upgraded the gun with heat-seaking rockets, allowing him to stand far away behind some boxes for safety. From that position, he fires into the air and watches his missiles move in an arc as they lock onto and destroy the robot.
In a final cutscene closing off the demo, Jensen is confronted and attacked by a giant, muscle-bound bad guy with a nose ring and a slight Southern drawl. This unnamed opponent talks Jensens ear off and then draws his weapon: a chain gun that appears out of the cybernetic enhancements in his arm. This villain seems like hes straight out of a Metal Gear game, and I say that in the best way possible. The gameplay of Human Revolution is already capturing my imagination. If the story can pull in some of the wild inventiveness of a Kojima narrative, Eidos Montreal may have one of the most unexpected franchise revivals ever in its hands.
