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.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – First Impressions

Last night, I spent a few hours with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. After all of the anticipation, I finally got to sit down with it and see what it’s all about.

Guess what? It’s absolutely a Deus Ex game. No question about it. (more…)

Zero Day

I’m about to jump in to Human Revolution tonight, but as I prepare for it, my thoughts drift to the Invisible War launch. At that point, I was regularly lurking the official Eidos forums. The place was pretty swamped and amid the constant complaints, one of the biggest issues of the time was IW’s hardware requirements. It required a card with… shaders.

A few other PC games had done this, but it was a relatively new, forced step to the future. Some seem to applaud the idea. “We get better graphics. Who cares about old cards. It’s time to upgrade.” Others were left behind in the dust. I fell into the latter camp.

Now, the reason I checked the forum so often was to see if someone had figured out a way around the shader issue. Short answer is no. I’d eventually play the game a couple of years later. And yes, I’d had the game in my possession since launch. Personally, I got what was coming to me. I bought a game that specifically said it wouldn’t run on my hardware and I risked it anyway. No problems. The people who were really hurt were those hit by Nvidia’s marketing strategy. The Geforce4 Ti cards could run the game. The lowly MX? Not so much.

Coming around almost full circle, Nvidia has started reusing the Ti moniker. Any bets on how long it is before the MX comes back?

Wait, who cares? Time for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.