Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Ongoing Impressions Part 7

I take the train to the upper city. There, I find some maintenance tubes. A guy in a chemical suit seems to have gotten himself into a bit of a pickle and has poison gas filling his room. His head piece is cracked and no doubt left alone, he’ll die. I can’t help but want to a help a person who needs some help, so I head over to the door. It’s locked. Time to put my hacking skills to use for the good side. I go and fail not once, but twice. Shit. And now security is coming after me. Ok, quick takedown and security is no longer a threat. One last try, and I’m able to open the door. I go in, turn the gas chamber off and then clear some boxes out of the way. As a reward, our new friend says that the security guy Lee will let us through. Oops, sorry Lee.

Further into the maintenance area, I find a trusty air vent. The air vent leads to a pretty good fall, and after falling off just about everything in Detroit, I’ve learned that’s not a good thing, so I’m willing to spend some Praxis points on the Icarus landing system. It does the trick and Jensen coasts the last few feet of the fall in third-person. The animation for it is a bit over-the-top for my taste, but it works, so I can’t complain. The air duct opens and shit… I set of an alarm. An alarm with robots. And guards. A bunch of them. My stealth expertise is short lived.

I hide in the air vent and take pot shots until I toast all of the guards. My silenced combat rifle works well with the distance. The robot is a bit stronger, so I use my shotgun upgrade – I can set it to fire two rounds at once for twice the damage. After a little work, the robot is toast, too.

Time to find the elevator to the Medical Center upstairs.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Ongoing Impressions Part 6

Those pods? They weren’t just a bad, long-term hotel. They’re basically beds in stacked caskets. Rent an enclosed bunk bed. Cheap? Probably. Nice? Hell no. But, there’s a ton of them in a small space, so there’s plenty of exploring to do. I find some info about Malik’s friend in one of these pods. I also pass by an airduct that strangely leads back to the entrance of the place. On the third floor are several of these pods full of computer servers. Right next to them is our hacker friend, Van Bruggen.

Van Bruggen admits to using the hacker back in Detroit and he points us to the Upper Area of Hengsha – that’s where we need to go. As we discuss the finer points of life, chaos ensues. Belltower security is bursting through the place and they’re taking no prisoners. Gotta escape. (more…)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Ongoing Impressions Part 5

Hengsha’s huge. Really Huge. Really, really huge. I’m lost in the game. And this time, I’m lost in the sense that I can’t get my bearings. I refuse to turn on any sort of quest arrow. I want to work my way through and discover things on own, even accidentally or out of frustration. Malik lands me on the rooftops of some hotel building. Almost immediately, I see a couple of working girls on the roof, one of which has a Chinese accent and one of which very much does not. I talk with them and get the scoop that there’s a fight between a girl and the owner inside. I walk into the building, head down a floor and listen to their argument. He wants her to get augmented; she doesn not. Augmented girls make all the money, it seems. (more…)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Ongoing Impressions Part 4

Barret kicked my ass to the point that I had to knock the difficulty down to easy, so I need a brief recovery. I work my way back through the FEMA facilities to meet with chopper pilot Malik on the roof. The place is deserted after Barret blew himself sky high. As I’m traveling back, I’m noticing the paths I hadn’t taken – some that would’ve no doubt made life much easier. I’ll try these out next next time I’m in there. Scratch that, I’m going to blast everyone to pieces anyway. (more…)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Ongoing Impressions Part 3

Checking out some bodies at the morgue – all in an average night’s work. So now, I reach into the hackers body and remove the implant from our dead friend’s brain. Yep, he was augmented. Although, based on his expressions before he offed himself (the same scene from all of the trailers), it looks like someone was pulling the trigger for him.

More orders now. Pritchard, the tech guy and Human Revolution version of Alex, tells me to check out the augmentation at my home apartment. Too much heat at Sarif, I take it. Oh, and by the way, he’s also able to access anything from my home computer. There goes any sense of privacy.

After a bit of street wandering, I pass by some working girls. One happens to be working double-duty. No, no two guys at once, but as an undercover cop. One J Alexander, who’s computer I hacked back at the police station. And to think, I had myself fooled into thinking it was a joke login modeled after Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander. She’s got a few “off the book” assignments over in the anti-Aug gangland. It seems there’s a crooked cop who’s trying to cover up some his off-duty activities. Ok, I’m a nice guy; I’ll help her. (more…)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Ongoing Impressions Part 2

I’ve gotten lost in the game. No, not that I couldn’t find my away around. No, it’s not that I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Instead, it’s a feeling created by looking at a clock and thinking, “Damn, I was playing that long?” A very good thing. I’ve mentioned it before, but this game is very similar to the first Deus Ex in that there’s a lot of reading, a lot to peruse, a lot of conversing, and a lot of smelling the roses.

Last night, I continue to bumble through the apartments of Detroit, looking into whatever rooms that I stumbled upon. Often times I’d find myself up against a lock. The solution? Hack it. And another. Hack it, too. And another. Now that I think about it, there’s a lot of hacking in this game. Gone are multi-tools and lockpicks. Instead, we have hacking, hacking, and more hacking. If you’re into that aspect of the game, there are plenty of aug upgrades for hacking use. I think I’m up to a level three hacker at this point. Lethal hacker – that’s me in a nutshell. At least when I’m playing Jensen in the world of Human Revolution. (more…)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Ongoing Impressions Part 1

Detroit. What a wonderful place. Not really, but I was happily impressed with it in HR. I spent yesterday just wandering through the streets of Human Revolution’s Detroit. I disabled the objective arrow from the onset of the game, giving me the freedom to discover things on my own. I much prefer it to being told what to do. This gives me time to generally muck about.

The place feels pretty alive. There’s a good number of folks just hanging out on the streets chatting about the recent augmentation protests. It’s great to just stroll by and eavesdrop on some conversations. Some folks seem pretty friendly, others are just judging Jensen due to the octagon stamped on his forehead. In a way, it seems like to much augmentation talk, but if you’re the 2027 equivalent of Gunther Herman, that’s probably what people tend to fixate on when they see you.

I happened upon a transient in front of a door that had a hackable password. What was in there? Nothing that I could tell. Bizarrely enough, I’m quite satisfied that this is the case. Sometimes you just need stuff to explore and a few duds make the effort more worthwhile. I’ve got a nagging suspicion that it’ll come in handy later, though.

I encountered one of my worries. A big concern that I had (and that I really disliked about Invisible War) was that all of the decisions would be laid out for us. Go left or right. Be lethal or non-lethal. Choose the Omar or the other crappy side Good news: that doesn’t seem to be the case.

So, as part of the mission objectives, Mr. Sarif is asking Jensen to check out a LIMB clinic. With no arrow to guide me, I wander in on my own and the very nice lady behind the desk informs me that there’s a generous donation made in my name to the tune of 5000 credits to let me buy a Praxis kit, specially designed to let me access augs early. The augmentations were installed on Jensen during his life-saving surgery, but have not been enabled for fear that it’ll overload his body. These Praxis kits are software overrides that’ll power up the augs before their automatic activation kicks in.

As I took the cash, I left the place with no such Praxis device in hand. I spent a little cash on a supplement to charge my batteries, but nothing else. What can I say? I’m a hoarder. Save that cash for when I need it. With my horrible stealth skills, that’ll be pretty damn soon.

And then it comes over the info link: “Jensen, why didn’t you get a Praxis kit?” barks an agitated David Sarif. Just like that, the micro-choices I’m making on a small scale are influencing how others perceive me. There was never a “click here to keep Mr. Sarif happy” or “Make Mr. Sarif mad” option. Instead, it’s just myself, making the choices I’d make, letting the world react around me. That’s Deus Ex.