Deus Ex: Human Revolution Previews

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Written by BuckGB on February 3rd, 2011

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The game begins with our protagonist walking through the hallways and laboratories of Sarif Industries, an augmentations company where Jensen, an ex-SWAT officer, provides private security. Glancing around the research and development labs, you get a good idea of what sort of technology this company is working on when you catch sight of fleeting but thoroughly creepy visuals--a sea of dismembered limbs and people being rebuilt with mechanical attachments. (Though, oddly enough, the most unsettling visual we saw was a guy just running along on a treadmill right next to a pair of robot legs lacking an upper torso matching his pace.) Imagery like this certainly helps to understand the motivations behind the reluctant Jensen we see early on, a guy who's unsure of these augmentations as a way to develop his role within the company. After all, who's all that eager wants to run home and eat steak when you work at the slaughterhouse all day?

We should mention, though, that this is a very pretty slaughterhouse. If you've seen the various screenshots and trailers for Human Revolution, you know that Eidos Montreal is aiming for a very specific look; namely, a gilded cyberpunk landscape rendered in various shades of gold and black. The aesthetic that the CGI trailers established carries over to the game astoundingly well. Even doing something as simple as walking through office hallways, the sense of atmosphere is terrific. The game's art director, Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, calls this a "visual texture" designed to let you know right away which game you're playing. It's hard to say Eidos Montreal hasn't succeeded there. While the facial detail is a little underwhelming during cutscenes that really focus on character faces--at least on the Xbox 360 version we played--the overall art style more than makes up for it.

Quinns: Let's talk a bit more about the cover system. Last time we posted about Deus Ex 3 I read some people in the comments saying that they'd be OK with the cover system as long as it wasn't integral to the game, so they could play it like the original Deus Ex. That's mad as a bag of hats. The cover's great.

Alec: At the same time, it isn't integral. I spent a lot of time simply running and hiding. But using the cover system enormously amps up your tactical capabilities. Peering around and over, squeezing off a quick headshot, doing a quick dash. It just makes you a bit better at being an assassin. But you can totally go without if you're a big fussy oddo.

Quinns: I was talking to Kieron about this. The only part of the (Cover is shit!) argument I'm inclined to take seriously is that when the game swaps to a third person camera, you lose immersion. But having that extra bit of peripheral vision, being able to roll or slide to and from each piece of cover- that's what I /want/ to be able to do. It's what I believe Jensen /should/ be able to do.The boost to immersion from being able to make Jensen do precisely what I want outweighs the fact that I'm looking at him from behind, something I barely notice.

Life through death, eh? There is, as they say, no such thing as philanthropy. Perhaps that's why Dr Reed seems so sad, almost apologetic. At least she seems nice, unlike Sarif's tech guy Pritchard - a preening, prissy prat in a ponytail. I suspect I'm being gamed, however: he's so evidently unpleasant to Jensen that in turn it seems unlikely that he'd be secretly unpleasant too. I mean, he's even got an English accent - the Hollywood stereotype of villainy. For this reason, I am convinced, he isn't any such thing.

Sarif, though... I don't know, this Tony Stark act seems too good to be true. He seems nice enough in person, however, even if he's wearing a waistcoat apparently made out of metal hexagons. It's worth observing at this point that everyone I've encountered so far, even the incidental scientists, has appeared remarkably distinct. There is individuality and character to all these people. I don't know whether the game can keep that up for its duration, but within this extended tutorial it's certainly impressive.

Deus Ex is largely a cover-based first-person shooter at this introductory stage. Jensen can take cover behind walls, crates and machinery popping in and out to take shots at enemies. He can move agilely from cover to cover with taps and holds of the X button (playing on a PlayStation 3, as we did). Players must hold the L1 button to stay in cover, moving the left analog stick to emerge from that cover, a control implementation I initially found awkward.

Despite that initial control discomfort, the rest of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, when Adam Jensen is still just a mere human, is familiar stuff. Pick up objects to throw at enemies or to establish cover, make careful shot choices, all relatively straightforward first-person shooter mechanics. Pop-up video tutorials explain the basics: how to crouch, how to sprint, how to take cover against walls and avoid fire. We weren't being stealthy or tactical here, just shooting, getting our feet wet with Human Revolution's behavior.

We soon realise the magnitude of the situation: Sarif Industries is being invaded by an armed group apparently with orders to kill anyone that moves. Picking up a gun we're ready to save the company, the world and maybe even get the girl but for a long time we're forced into the agonising role of spectator as the carnage spreads.

Dashing through corridors, we reach Sarif scientists just in time to see their body liquids blasted across walls or arrive at lab doors just as they seal shut leaving you useless to the men inside. The point is we cared that we were useless, taking every innocent life snuffed out as a personal failure. Half an hour into the game and we already felt like the safety of these employees was our responsibility and it was thanks to that initial amble through the building, picking up irrelevant chatter and hints of personality along the way.

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