Deus Ex: Human Revolution Previews and Interview

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on May 12th, 2011

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Those arms and your other non-organic parts can be upgraded in multiple ways. Earning experience in Deus Ex and leveling up nets you Praxis points that can be dumped into a skill or augmentation (aug) tree. Based on my time exploring the nighttime city, it seems there are uses for pretty much everything. Some areas are blocked off by high walls that could only be cleared with the aid of the Jump Enhancement aug. Certain vents are clouded with poison gas that require a Chemical Resistance aug to pass through unharmed. Often, crawlspaces are blocked by sturdy obstacles that can be moved only with the aid of the Heavy Objects aug, and in abandoned elevator shafts it's tough to survive a fall without the aid of the Icarus Landing System aug. On my upgrade path I bypassed these and other options for stealth and armor enhancements so I could focus on hacking. In fantasy games I can never bypass a locked chest, and in Deus Ex I have a hard time passing up the opportunity to break through the security on a computer terminal to check private email accounts, open doors, deactivate laser gates and switch off security cameras.

I didn't invest in sneaking augs, but a high hacking skill seems especially effective for staying unnoticed. A sewer system running underneath most of Detroit's points of interest allows for access to basements and other unguarded entrances. In the police station, which serves as a destination for several quest goals, I could access the basement level only by having a high enough hack skill to break through a security door. One sub-goal for a side mission had me find a hidden weapons shipment, and after I fought my way past 20 or so armed guards I found the shipment sitting directly next to an interactive sewer cover - proof that exploration really does pay off.

Using cover to navigate areas without detection is as tense as it is fluid, with both mapping out guard patrol patterns and security camera locations proving vital to success.

Stunning guards with tranquiliser guns and stashing bodies is your safest way of dispatching foes, as is taking them down with sleeper holds or more brutal, potentially lethal finishers.

Where other games use moral code as a weak plot progression device, Human Revolution makes clear the effects of your actions at every step.

As soon as your mission debriefing and next mission briefing with David Sarif occurs in his swanky office, you're thrown in to the dank and rather pitiful city of Detroit. The first side mission is thrown at you literally moments after you step out of the elevator in Sarif Industries' HQ. A chap by the name of Tim Carella can be found in Jensen's office and after a brief exchange of dialogue, you discover that the scientist is being bribed by Tindall to steal the augment-medicine, Neuropozyne, with a video tape of him caught in the act. It's your job to head across town to his apartment, steal some footage and return it to the Sarif scientist. Things are never that easy though and after breaking into his apartment and hacking his computer, a psychopathic drug dealer bursts in through the door, whom we quickly dealt with. As always is the way, the computer was clean, and it was only after meeting with Tindall to find out he too was being blackmailed by dealers, that the mission throws you into the action. Deal with these drug dealers and you get the tape.

Nestled in the back alleys of Detroit were the drug dealers in question, and after passing various individuals tagging walls with spray paint galore and homeless people keeping warm around a fire, we were upon our pair. Actions speak louder than words, right? Bang! Bang! Both were dead, but in comes the back up. Using the retuned and refined shooter mechanics which was a grumble from our last preview we hop in and out of cover and make quick work of them and then return to Tindall to get the evidence so Carella can return to his normal life without fear of persecution.

It may be a little too soon to call the game a prodigy or a genius, but it can't be denied that the guys at Eidos Montreal have achieved a very meticulous job to create the world of Deus Ex Human Revolution. The soundtrack completely fits the futuristic atmosphere of their title and it is in perfect tone with the world led by multinationals it presents. A lot of effort has also been put in writing an interesting story and creating charismatic characters. However serious and dramatic the plot is, the developers have not forgotten to add a touch of humor. At some point, you will find a Final Fantasy XXVII poster on a wall, later you will notice that the surveillance cameras have all been manufactured by a company called (Big Bro). Another example: say you accidentally end up in the women's bathroom at some point. Well, if so, the next time you go see Pritchard (the tech guy responsible for the security of the network), don't be surprised if he reminds you that, no matter how much change your body has gone through, you are still very much a man.

A few missions into the game a potentially worrisome drawback to Human Revolution's open-ended character development came to light. In order to use the basic augments you have to spend Praxis Points on them, which means that unless you purchase the cloaking augment, that core aspect of the game won't be available to you. At first this seemed fine, because when we did our second try at a character build and totally ignored stealth, we had no problems. But then we reached a mission where we had to infiltrate a police station and steal a vital piece of evidence. The station was crawling with cops, alarms, and security cameras, and we found it nearly impossible to make it through without invisibility. We died many, many times.

How difficult has it been to balance series fans' expectations against your vision of what Human Revolution should be?

I think before we put anything of our own into the game, I think we needed to understand what made the first one so great; the flavour that it had. Whenever you turned off the game for a little while there was that feeling that lingered with you, right?

That was our first task to fully understand this, to fully distil it. After that, we started grafting our own vision around it. There was no question of us starting to create our own shit until we understood what was the essence of Deus Ex 1. Although obviously we still played through the second one, and everything!

This was the first obstacle to get to the point where we felt confident we had a competent Deus Ex mechanic. As a whole it kind of flowed, because we also had to put up an entirely new studio together in summer of 2007.

So, no team, no technology, no art bank all that stuff. So that, as well, was really daunting at the same time we just had to jump head first into all that and just do it really, so the scary '˜Deus Ex' thing was a little dampened by that.

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