Platform: PC
Release: 2013 (Original in 2011)
Developer: Eidos Montreal, Square Enix
Genre: Action, Stealth, FPS
Gameplay Stats: 25 hours, 46/59 achievements, Pacifist run
I was watching an episode of Game Maker's Toolkit a few months ago about the "Immersive Sim" game genre making a comeback, and it intrigued me quite a lot. The episode came paired with the release of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and was praising the kinds of games made by designing systems instead of set pieces and tools. This apparently leads to a different gameplay experience. The games extolled as part of the founding of the genre were early PC games that I didn't play and it didn't look like they had aged well. However; with the new Deus Ex came praise of the previous Deus Ex revival, Human Revolution. Some research said the Director's Cut was the version of the game to play since it let you play everything non-lethal and some other improvements. So, I figured, why not go for a pacifist run?
Visuals: The visual design of this game is definitely pleasing. You can tell that the game came out in 2011 versus 2013, but it still looks pretty for the most part. The facial hair in particular looks really bad, its just smudges on an otherwise normal facial model. I like the overall aesthetic, it's muted but with bright flares of color mimicking the thrust of the plot. I'm not by any means an engineer, but the body augmentations shown in the game seemed largely functional as well, which was neat. It added to the sense of immersion present in the game. The interface was clunky and seemed like a PC port of a console game which was odd considering the series began on PC. Maybe it was meant to be played with a controller and since I was using a keyboard/mouse it wasn't great? I don't know. Lot's of hexagons, which is always futuristic!
Audio: The sounds present in the game were quite good! The non-lethal guns sounded fine, and the alarms and everything conveyed what was happening quite well. I wouldn't say that anything particularly stood out to me, but everything was adequate. The music that was there wasn't usually too good, but neither was it distracting. The stuff at the end reminded me vaguely of MGS 4, which was interesting. I actually quite liked a lot of the voice acting! Adam Jensen, the main character was the one exception to this. He has a lovely gruff voice, but there isn't enough emotional depth shown. He was either gruff or angry, that was about it.
Plot: The story in this game is pretty normal. I don't think there is anything that I will remember as a stand out example in this game versus others. It propelled the gameplay, but it wasn't especially great or distracting. There were a couple interactions in Detroit that stood out to me, like berating the guy in the front of the police station to let you in. He later tries to kill you, which was pretty interesting, but that was the most moving little plot arc to me. You bully a guy who is already having a rough go of things which causes him to lose the last thing that was keeping him going. He comes to you in desperation with a half-hearted attempt to kill you. It was a little clumsy in execution, but the overall story arc there is wonderful.
Gameplay: This is the standout feature here. The game stands out with the sheer number of options available to the player. There are so many different ways to play this game, that I could have played it like a standard shooter and wouldn't have been punished. Which is a shame, because there was a lot of thought put into the level design and secrets in this game. There were so many different paths and hidden treasure troves. You could play through the game without upgrading hacking, or without being seen by a single enemy, the choice is yours! I think the thing that I liked the most was that the designers didn't seem to care if you saw all of their hard work. I know it's weird to phrase it like that, but it seems like this game is deeper than many others fitting similar genres. If you have the patience to dig, you will certainly be rewarded.
Overall, I think my main criticism of this game was that it was too long. I'm a fairly thorough gamer, so I suspect that I could have been done in closer to 15 hours if I didn't explore and do all of the side quests, but I would have liked that to be the actual play time of the game. I guess that sums up the whole game though, this game gives as much as you're looking for, and I really respect that in a game. Instead of being force fed the best bits of the game, they are there if you look, but if not that's okay too. 7.5/10
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