Deus Ex: Human Revolution

I had no interest in this game preparing myself for Gears of War 3, Batman, COD, Battlefield and the new Assassins Creed and Dues Ex was sacrificed due to funds, my friends were all talking about it but I really couldn't see why. Then something I never expected happened. I read a review where it got 10/10 in a magazine, next day I went out and got it, and it is stunning.

The game is all about the Augmentations your charecter can improve himself with, you start with just the basics (you HUD and basic radar) which is all well and good. Within a couple of hours I had played and thought "this is ok". The graphics are excellent and moody, voice acting was solid and the gameplay was smooth and challenging. However fairly quickly I was finding I was struggling to get anywhere wihtout entering a firefight or just dying. I turned the game off and went back to it the next day and then it all came together.

I did what the game wanted me to do but I was being too stupid too see it first play, I explored the world around me, and I mean I explored everywhere, and it pays off, sneaking around and avoiding combat has never been so satisfying, rewarding and plain brilliant fun.

And that is where this game gets it's brilliant score for me. It could have been a first person shooter where you improve your charecter and blow stuff up and kill things. All well and good but nothing special or different there, but it's not that at all. It rewards exploration and imagination to get to your desired goals.

I will say for the odd mission I did mess up the exploration and end up having a big firefight and that was a lot of fun and broke up the sneaking around nicely, but a game where it gives a 100 point achievement for completing the whole game for not setting off a single alarm (which I didn't get (damn!)) knows it has made exploration an important and fun way to play.

I will now stop rambling and get to the point a bit more.

Graphically this game is one of the best

Gameplay is just so massively engaging, I was playing for 8-9 hours solid, and you just don't do that with games that are not fun to play, I have no higher praise for it than I was utterly hooked once I work out what this game wanted me to do.

Length- I have no idea how long my full game was but when I finished it I didn't feel cheated, or dissapointed, it was spot on.

The voice acting was good, along with the fantastic story which takes a completly new line in story, I was compelled throughout and loved it, the way you could affect your game by even the tinyest action added something to every conversation you had as I never once felt I just could press any button and move with the story, what I said mattered. There are even better examples of your choices affecting you but I won't spoil the excellent story for anyone.

However I have now got to come to the negative bits of the review, and its a very short section:

I did not enjoy the boss fights, of which there are several. And it was purely because winning them was shooting someone as much as possible, which they had to do in the game, but I just desperatly wanted to get back to sneaking around!

I think my ramble there covers it. Basically Dues Ex was a game I was going to miss out and I am delighted to say I didn't, I fully expect at the end of the year I will look back and say this was the best game I played this year alongside Dead Space 2.

Hope this helps anyone if they are undecided. But trust me, I bought this on the strength of a review, and I regret it not 1 bit.

This game is not COD. If you go in guns blazing, you'll die. To start with, I almost gave up. Just getting down one of the stair cases near the beginning was nigh on impossible. Until I thought "I've always wanted a game where if you get shot, you die (unlike COD etc.)" Once you realise this game is it, things become a lot better.

It takes patience and a lot of sneaking around. You need to hide, use ducts to avoid areas, work out where you need to go (you even need to use the map!). If you're like me, you'll spend a lot of time waiting for the enemy to walk passed, so that you can knock them cold - all good stuff. Of course there are moments, when you think "What the hell, I'm going to blast the **** out of some people" You can do this, you just need to be careful, have an escape route or somewhere to hide when it all goes pear shaped.

There's a good augmentation system allowing you to upgrades all parts of your body as you progress, adding a good bit of gameplay to the game, e.g. smashing through walls, jumping high.

This game is also long. Possibly because you do spend so long waiting around. If you're not patient, you won't like this game. If you like sneaking games, or ones where you actually have to think, then get it and stick with it. It justs get better and better and you become quite addicted to it.

So why only 4 stars?

There's not a great deal of change in scenery - it's all a bit brown. When I went from Detroit (miserable brown and dark) to Shanghai, I thought things would brighten up - nope, still miserable brown. Think GOW but brown. Perhaps a bit of colour like Crysis 2 would have been nice.

Also, mostly the AI is pretty good (if a little on the preset-pattern side). But sometimes they are just so thick; Shoot someone, go into an office with no way out, get followed by several people, hide under the only piece of furniture in the room, they all wander round saying stupid things, then a few seconds later they wander off. It doesn't occur to them to look in the only place I could possibly be. Of course, the game would have been 10 times harder if they did.

It's also a shame that most of the "alternative routes" were thought air-com ducts. A bit more variety would have been nice (there's the odd pipe to go through but that's about it).

I hope this helps. Don't let the negatives put you off. The AI flaws actually become part of your strategy. You do really need to think about this game a fair bit. Give it a go if you fancy something different, I don't think you'll regret it.

I had very little idea what to expect when I began playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I barely knew anything about it, or the previous games in the series (don't worry, Human Revolution is a prequel and requires no knowledge of the first two entries), but the good things I'd heard from friends had me intrigued.

What I got was one of the richest gameplay experiences I've had in a long time. The plot: a mystery-fuelled sci-fi thriller that genuinely had me hooked from start to finish. The gameplay: a fully-functional first and third-person shooter, or a tense stealth-espionage game. Unlike many games that offer players this kind of choice, though in practice only consider one of those options to be the 'correct' way of playing, it actually works here. Finally, the world: multiple cities and top-secret complexes rich in atmosphere and packed with side quests and hidden extras.

Think Metal Gear Solid, with two major differences: the plot is actually comprehensible and isn't shoved in your face every 5 minutes, and the shooting is actually a viable option if stealth isn't your thing.

Do yourself a favour, take a gamble on this, you won't regret it.