Deus Ex: Human Revolution (video game)

Platform: Playstation 3
Developer: Eidos Montreal
Genre: Action, Role-Playing, First Person Shooter, Stealth
Release Date: August 23rd, 2011

I'm often surprised at how little cyberpunk is used in video games. With current struggles and the power corporations wield in current US politics, the genre is more relevant than ever. Yet somehow it remains something of a niche genre. Sure, you can name some really good ones - including this games forebearer - but how many big budget games focus on it, or even partially utilize it*?

Here comes Deus Ex: Human Revolution to help fill the gap. It has one hell of a legacy to live up to. Does it?

You are Adam Jensen, chief of security for a top biotech firm. You have a... complicated relationship with your ex, who got you the job, and are set to escort her to Washington to reveal her revolutionary findings that could change everything in the field of human augmentation. That's when everything goes to hell. The building is attacked and after fighting valiantly, you end up mutilated. You may as well change your status from "it's complicated" as well, since she apparently died in the attack despite your best efforts.

Six months later, you return to work, newly augmented and struggling to understand what happened and why. Your quest to find the truth will bring you neck deep into a conspiracy that spans the globe. Welcome to 2027 Detroit. It's only going to get worse from here.

If you're familiar with the original Deus Ex, you can already tell this one is a prequel. We're twenty five years into that games past, on the cusp of a technological revolution. At first glance, that sounds like a bad idea, but the change in time period allows the game to carve out a look and identity of it's own. It's a different period, with problems both new and as old as time.

It allows the developers to explore what it might look like to live in a time period where such things might be a reality. It starts to resemble the racial issues we as a species have always struggled with; the fear of the unknown and those different from ourselves. The politics, the discussions, all of it feels realistic, as though it were a natural progression from the conflicts of today. E-Books scattered around the maps also help to add detail. The effect is a world that feels as though it's fully realized and lived-in.

Sound is a bit more mixed a bag. Not so much the soundtrack, mind you - which is excellent - but the voice acting. It can and will range from very good to just okay. Since he's the protagonist, Adam Jensens voice acting sticks out the most; there are some great moments of subtle emotion in the voice - an argument early in the game where he slowly loses his cool, depending on which responses you go with, is a nice example - but other times monotone is the default. Sadly, the age old video game problem of "characters with accents they should not have" is also present.

Gameplay is always important and Human Revolution hasn't strayed too far from its predecessor. Choice is again the word of the day, with your decisions on how to proceed seeming to change the world around you. At times, this will affect even the most minor of things, such as NPC dialogue; your actions in the first mission, for example, will alter the reaction and dialogue you receive from the SWAT members at the end, as well as the civilians working at Sarif Headquarters. The little touches add to the experience.

That choice also extends to how you deal with enemies. You can play it like John Rambo if you want, shooting up everything in sight, or you could do like Solid Snake and deal with problems silently. That said, it's pretty clear there's a "right" way to play the game; you'll find you gain more experience in the long run through stealth takedowns and bonuses for remaining undetected. Same goes for non-lethal weapons. You can do what you want, but it ends up making a hell of a lot more sense to deal with problems in the most efficient way possible.

There's so much about Human Revolution that I love. But - and you had to know a but was coming - it's not perfect. There are two issues in particular that nag at me and must be addressed.

The first issue is the boss battles. Simply put, they do not play fair with the player. You may recall that Deus Ex allowed you to play a pacifist throughout the entire game, including boss battles. If you didn't want to kill anyone, you weren't forced to. Almost all of Human Revolution is structured the same way; if anything, non-lethal action is practically encouraged as noted earlier.

All except the boss battles. You are left with no non-lethal options here. You must kill the bosses. From a story perspective, it makes sense; the bosses are all members of the team that seemingly killed your kinda-sorta-not-really girlfriend and mutilated you in the opening - the latter of which leaving Jensen with no choice but to be augmented or die - so Jensen has a pretty legit reason to want to shoot them in the face. From a gameplay perspective, it's a nightmare on your first playthrough unless someone warned you it was coming.

If you're anything like me, you realized early that stealth and takedowns are the methods with the most reward. This is even worse if you played Deus Ex and the rest of Human Revolution tricked you into thinking you could do the whole "mercy" thing for the the entirety of this game too. Which means, ten to one, you dumped most of your early praxis points into stealth and hacking upgrades, eschewing the ones pertaining to gunplay. You probably sold any lethal weapons and upgrades you may have picked up as well. Bad move.

The first boss is a wake-up call you just don't see coming. It's likely you have no armor upgrades at that point - if you're playing a proper stealth run you likely figured you wouldn't need it - meaning he'll shred you in seconds. Worse still, he's essentially a walking tank that will no-sell your weapons. Then, the capper; if you had no intention of killing anyone, you probably sold all your lethal weapons for cash and space. The boss room anticipates this possibility and does provide you with weapons, but you're still walking in unprepared.

In this situation, abuse of the cover system is necessary to get past him. Even that's not a guarantee; he's frequently moving toward you and moving around your cover, because it's not like he needs to duck behind something to avoid gunfire or anything.

The second problem I had pertained to the endings. Put bluntly, they're a complete letdown. You have four options, but no matter which one you choose you get a voiceover narration of Adam musing on what he's done, his choices and whether humanity will move in the right direction. It wraps nothing but the main plot thread. Anything pertaining to Jensen, his friends, unfinished business and where the characters would go from here receives exactly zero closure. While I realize it leaves quite a bit to be dealt with should a sequel be made in this time period - and the fact that it bothers me at all can be seen as a triumph, since it means I care about the characters - it makes for an unsatisfactory conclusion to the twenty to thirty hour game you just finished.

Niether problem is enough to sink it, but they are a pair of black marks on an otherwise great game.

The Score: 8.5 out of 10

It isn't perfect and isn't quite on the level of the original Deus Ex, but Human Revolution is a worthy successor to the franchise. I'm kind of hoping for a sequel set in this time period, but I'll be there for a sequel regardless of when it takes place. Well worth your time and money.

* Final Fantasy VII - one of my favorite RPG's - is guilty of this. The first quarter of the game is heavy on the cyberpunk influence. The dystopic cityscape, the corporation that rules over everything and does what it wants, the conspiracies, the cover-ups for the ill deeds of said corporation; right up until the last few scenes in Midgar, where the game shifts to a bit more typical "save the world" plot, the game is dripping in it. There's still strands of it in the games DNA, but once you leave Midgar in the dust it's mostly abandoned. It's interesting to think about what could have been had the game stuck to it. It likely would have made for a tighter story; as great as Final Fantasy VII is and as much as I love it, the game was all over the map at times.

Hexyz Force (game)

Platform: PSP
Developer: Sting Entertainment
Genre: RPG
ESRB Rating: Teen
Release Date: May 25th, 2010

The PSP has a fair number of RPG's, so it's easy for a lower key title to get lost in the shuffle. Hexyz Force is one I'd never heard of before I came across it and decided to play it. It doesn't stand out enough to really make a big impact, but Hexyz Force is unique enough to be worth a playthrough.

A long time ago, the Goddess of Creation descended with the Holy Vessall and created the land of Berge. But eventually, disaster struck and a group of the divine had to fight off Delgaia, the god of Destruction. The world was reborn under one condition; that one day an hour of judgement would come to pass and the chosen would choose the future of creation or destruction. You play as those tasked with this decision; only you can stop those who wish for Destruction over Creation.

One thing of note with this game is that you have some measure of choice here. There are two main playable characters and you will choose one at the start. Each has their own story to play through. This offsets the fact that this RPG is fairly linear; there's only so much to see and do - side quests in particular are few and far between - but it's easier to go along with this when the game offers you two twenty to thirty hour plot paths to play through.

The battle system of the game is unique. When you boil it down, it's a big old game of rock, paper, scissors. Each weapon has one of the three different forces, each of which has a strength and weakness. If you coordinate your attacks so the elements are used in order, the damage you do - and even the amount of health you heal - is multiplied. Monsters must also be taken into account, as their attacks add to the multiplier and they also get the damage bonus. Use the wrong force type and the chain will be broken, requiring you to start over again.

It's a system I welcome, because it requires some semblance of strategy. The key to defeating a boss quickly is proper use of this mechanic; if you just attempt to power through boss battles without keeping an eye on your multiplier percentage, there's a good chance they'll massacre you. Even some of the stronger common monsters can take you down if you don't keep an eye on things. You won't be holding the button down on "fight" like in other RPG's.

I liked the music in the game well enough. It's not on the level of an Uematsu, but each song fits the area it corresponds to well. You won't find yourself humming the melodies or anything but some might stick in your head. Pretty respectable overall.

The Score: 7.5 out of 10

A perfectly respectable RPG to kill time. There are several ways it could have improved - more to do in the world not related to the main quests is one particular way - but it's otherwise a solid game. Feel free to rent it from your service of choice.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (video game)

Platform: PSP
Developer: Atlus
Genre: RPG
ESRB Rating: T
Release Date: September 22nd, 2009

Can we all agree that the Playstation era was a bitchin' time for RPG's? Seems like that system had a truckload of classics in the genre. Many of them hold up pretty well to this day, despite now antiquated graphics*.

Today, I'm going to talk about one that hasn't aged gracefully; this game's the equivalent of a hundred year old man who's nothing but skin and bones kept alive through an IV drip and an oxygen mask.

The story is that you're a group of students at a local high school. In this school rumors about gaining magical powers by circling a room are apparently taken at face value, so you find yourself goaded into doing this by the class jerkoff. Shockingly, it works and each student finds themselves with a "Persona", or basically some spirit thing that gives them abilities and determines their strengths and weaknesses.

Because this is clearly not something to be overly concerned with, they then proceed to a hospital to check on a friend. Then demons invade because what the hell else were you going to use your Persona for, cooking? Clearly, this must be stopped, so off you go to find some baddies to stomp.

This PSP port is billed as a remake, but the truth is that it's really more of an upgrade. When I think remake, I think rebuilt from the ground up. When you look at screenshots of the original and this, however, it's obvious that little has really changed. The graphics are essentially the same - even the neat first person dungeon crawling view has it's early Playstation pixelation intact - the gameplay hasn't really changed - which is the real shame - and the music seems the same. That's... a lot of things left as is for a "remake".

So what has changed? The script, mostly; while I haven't played the original localization, what I've seen makes it clear the new translation is leagues ahead of it. There's less Americanization as well. Hell, they even kept Mark as a goofy white graffiti artist instead of randomly changing his race. There's an entirely separate quest line available that was never localized in the original edition. Cut scenes were apparently touched up too, switched over to more of a cel shaded look - they still look like really bad early CG animation with a new coat of paint though.

The graphics are... well, dated. The isometric view for rooms with NPC's and battle scenes look alright for their age, but the first person dungeon crawling definitely retains that old "early Playstation" look. Oh, have I mentioned the cutscenes? I really do not get why, if they were serious about the "remake" aspect, they didn't give it a facelift or redo this stuff entirely. Say what you want about Square, but if this was one of their projects the visuals would have been rebuilt from the ground up.

The gameplay is where this old game just falls apart. It's clear the developers were going for something different with this game, but clearly forgot that different doesn't necessarily mean good. Each character has different weapons and skills, all of which have attack ranges. You place your characters anywhere on a grid on your side. Neat idea, but far from practical; if a character doesn't have an enemy in range of any of his attacks, he's going to sit there like a doofus unless you waste a turn switching the positions up.

The result is a combat system that feels boring. Mix with the fact that this is one of those "two or three steps before a random encounter" games and you've got a recipe for trouble. The battle system wears out its welcome before the halfway mark. I'm usually not averse to level grinding, but games like this make the process extremely tedious.

Speaking of leveling, that's another problem. This game went with the lovely idea of having experience for each party member depend on how much damage they've done. You probably know where I'm going with this. Eventually, a party member is going to lag behind the others in level pretty significantly. This party member is usually Mark, who sucks. So they end up being little more than canon fodder for a turn or two. This is not the best leveling system I've ever encountered.

Oh, there's the phases of the moon thing, too. As you play the game, it cycles through the different phases. In theory, this is supposed to give different advantages and disadvantages depending on the phase. In practice, it does little of value. Aside from giving you a bit of a head start on negotiations with the monsters during a certain phase, it really doesn't affect the game much at all, or at least not in a way that's very apparent, making it a worthless feature.

It's not all bad though; occasionally there's a good idea hidden in the rough. In this game, you're able to contact your enemies and try to befriend them, with the rewards ranging from spell cards used to conjure up new personas to items. Each characters has different ways of interacting with monsters and not all of them will appreciate the same responses. Obviously, if you fail, there are drawbacks, but it adds an interesting wrinkle. Why not just talk your way out of a situation from time to time, right?

I also liked the fact that, depending on your choices, you can basically pick your fifth party member. Unfortunately, you can't mix and match your party with the available options - otherwise, Mark would be the first to go given his general uselessness - but the option is nice to have and was still relatively novel in RPG's back in '96. It just didn't happen very often - in the RPG's people actually played, at least - barring a notable exception or two.

A lot of other mechanics are kind of confusing, though. The game does allow you to have guided creation of personas, but manual is like an odd puzzle without a clear solution. You really don't know what will affect what and the possibility of creating fusion accidents is frustrating. There are so many variables involved with it that even the basic instructions given to you don't help much, leaving guided fusion as the preferable option.

Mechanics like this seem to come with the expectation that you were probably going to drop a twenty on a strategy guide - remember those days? - to help you grasp it. Even with free game FAQs readily available online, I still don't care for needlessly obtuse things like this. The kind of guesswork required by things like the manual fusion of this game is not the fun kind.

Sounds a bit iffy as well. The voiceovers are pretty iffy for an upgrade made about a year ago - I assume they didn't bother redubbing - and sometimes some of the music can get a bit grating. Usually video game music is fantastic and easy to listen to over and over again. This game uses some ambient scores with plenty of j-pop. Listening to a battle song over and over every time you have a random battle is much easier when there aren't vocals.

The Score: 6 out of 10

I'm afraid I can't really recommend it. I'm interested in some of the ideas put forth here, so I'll be back for the sequels, but this game doesn't really stand the test of time. Why Atlus didn't just go the full remake route, I haven't a clue, because this game has aged badly. It's very easy to find yourself bored around the halfway mark. It's probably only worth it if you're a die-hard Persona fan; otherwise it's a relic that was probably better left buried.

* Antiquated is my way of being nice. Seriously, I cannot believe the crap we used to think was stunning back in the late nineties. Back then 3D models were the new, shiny thing, so it was a big step forward, but good lord do some of those games look like ass. I suppose time's affected my opinion on this though; I'm used to the HD era, which is a stark contrast to the blockiness of early 3D modeled games. They just don't hold up like 2D sprites do, but back then it was an exciting new frontier. Ah well.