Deus Ex Human Revolution Directors Cut (3DVD)
I'm fascinated by this place, as I often am by futuristic clubs in games and film. When I explore The Hive, or Mass Effect 2's Afterlife, or Anachronox's
Club Foot, I am intrigued not just by the pulsing neon lights and the
cleverly named cocktails, but by the trendy patrons, who I imagine
embody all that is cool in this place and at this time. I don't like it
because I feel at home, or because I have a sense of belonging; I don't
even feel that comfortable in a real nightclub. I love being here
precisely because it is so foreign. It is a place filled with people I
don't quite understand in an alternate future that makes me glad I live
in the present.
Of
course, this isn't my first trip to The Hive. Human Revolution was
released for other platforms in 2011, and it was then that I came to
know Adam Jensen, the star of this action/stealth/role-playing hybrid.
Adam is a security expert for Sarif Industries, a biotech company that
manufactures mechanical augmentations that allow us to see better, to
think more clearly, to jump higher and fall further. Company head honcho
David Sarif would have you believe that such synthetic enhancements are
the next step in evolution, and that lucrative military contracts are a
means of funding more peaceful applications of the tech. Perhaps he's
right. And perhaps he's not.
Adam knows a thing or two
about augmentations, having been augmented himself after an attack on
Sarif Industries left his researcher girlfriend dead and Adam close to
it. I feel as disconnected from Adam as I do from The Hive, yet it's
this cold detachment that so fascinates me. As I follow leads from
Detroit to Shanghai, Adam does his best Christian-Bale-as-Batman
impression, rarely letting real emotion creep into his voice, even when
his words express empathy or rage. It's the right characterization for
this man. Adam is as much a machine before his surgery as he is
afterward. In a game that asks us to consider how much metal we can fuse
to our skeletons before we lose our humanity, we must wonder how truly
human Adam is to begin with.
Human Revolution sets you free into its world and gives you the tools to succeed.
It's
Adam's inexpressive demeanor that makes him such an effective proxy for
our experiments in his world. Human Revolution is about choice. You
move about in a first-person perspective, moving out to a third-person
perspective when you slide into cover. From here, you might decide to
stay hidden and sneak your way to your destination, or maybe you'd
prefer to just pop your head out and let the bullets fly. The game lets
you choose for yourself, and provides an upgrade system that encourages
you to enhance those choices. If sneaking is what satisfies you, go for
upgrades that allow you to move more silently. If your trigger finger
itches, choose augmentations that steady your aim.
The
Jensen I envision is a hacker. He infiltrates by locating ventilation
shafts and following them to corner offices. He crouches behind desks
and bypasses computer passwords by connecting network nodes before the
security system shuts him out. Tapping into a higher-level system can be
a strenuous race against the clock as you furiously tap the Wii U's
tablet, activating nodes while nervously eyeing the countdown timer. The
tablet doesn't always improve the gameplay--I grew tired of having to
look at the tablet screen when looting bodies to see what goodies I
might pilfer--but hacking is improved by the addition of the tablet. I
didn't feel like a real hacker, but the kind you see in movies--the kind
that pulls up digital displays you've never seen loaded with data you
can't visually decipher.
The
colors recall the brightness of modern machinery and the darkness of
Detroit's alleyways, and evoke the works of Botticelli and Da Vinci.
Human
Revolution sets you free into its world and gives you the tools to
succeed. In combat, this means wielding guns and grenades; when
sneaking, it means performing stealthy assassinations and activating
temporary invisibility; and when exploring, that means punching through
concrete walls and breaking into storage facilities. It's possible to be
entirely nonlethal, or to approach most circumstances with a shotgun,
but I have always enjoyed mixing and matching, following whatever path I
first stumble upon, and relying on my skill to succeed, even when the
predicament seems hopeless. (I don't recommend getting too aggressive in
a well-staffed police station.)
On their own, individual
systems don't always stand up to scrutiny. While "improved AI" is
listed as one of the Director's Cut's bullet-point features, I saw no
sign of improvement. When blasting your way through offices and sewers,
enemies think nothing of wasting dozens of bullets by shooting the wall
that separates you from them, and have no qualms about standing in front
of comrades, taking one shot after another in the backs of their heads.
It isn't the individual mechanics, but the sheer diversity of gameplay
styles that enthralls me. I can follow my whims should I encounter a
hidden entrance, or I can bend the game to my will if I stubbornly
insist on progressing my way.
Hacking
aside, this all sounds more or less like Human Revolution's original
incarnation, but the updated release makes meaningful additions and
improvements, and includes hours' worth of developer commentary, a sad
rarity in video games. The developers offer warm, sincere, and sometimes
funny insight into the game's making, sharing how a designer's initials
found their way into the name of a fancy hotel, why Adam's posh
apartment building was erected in a rundown neighborhood, and what Adam
and Clint Eastwood have in common.
More
interesting are the retooled boss fights, which you can now complete
without firing a shot. The original release's boss fights tainted the
experience by forcing you to comply with one specific kind of gameplay.
The encounters are still similar, but there are new avenues of victory.
In the first boss battle, for instance, you can get defensive turrets to
do your dirty deeds, but if you just want to take aim and fire, the
redesigned combat arena requires you to work for that kind of victory by
hiding a big ammo stash behind a locked door. My favorite boss
encounter is the spacious, predatory confrontation that closed the
original Missing Link add-on, which has been inserted into the
Director's Cut with relative ease, and provides the game's most personal
and emotionally resonant story detours. Another addition is a powerful
one: an augment that reveals vital information about the people in your
vicinity, such as their armor grade and the trinkets they carry with
them. This is an invaluable skill if you seek computer passwords but
prefer to avoid hacking and wish to keep casualties at a minimum.
What
makes Human Revolution on the Wii U special aren't the additional
features, but that which was already constructed. The game draws
remarkable contrast between the sterility of the corporate world and the
grit of the city. Office interiors feature clean lines and metallic
surfaces; in trash-ridden street corners, the homeless huddle around
flaming barrels for warmth. Conversing with these folk, or any folk,
introduces harsh angles to the fluid world building, however. Stiff
facial animations and disproportionate character models often prove
distracting. Several characters--a cop with an attitude, a Sarif
employee with a secret--have weirdly small heads attached to their
weirdly bulky bodies, and it's hard to develop an emotional bond with a
waxy grieving mother whose limbs flail robotically as she confides in
you.
But it all comes back to that gold and that black.
The color combination rivals teal and orange for its known visual
appeal, but the color palette's impact goes beyond its attractiveness.
In China, the term "black gold" refers to political corruption and
corporate greed, key narrative elements in Human Revolution. The colors
recall the brightness of modern machinery and the darkness of Detroit's
alleyways, and evoke the works of Botticelli and Da Vinci, who ushered
in a renaissance, just as David Sarif hopes to lead the world into a new
era of enlightenment. There is so much meaning in this single detail.
Human Revolution's mechanical particulars don't always withstand deep
examination, but its symbolic details are beyond reproach.