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Proteus Review

I’ve dreamt of a game like Proteus for many years. A game that plunks you down in a virtual world where your only task is to just exist. You look, listen, and just exist. No violence. No shooting. No context or explicit story arc. Just a little place that you get to observe and enjoy. This is arthouse gaming at its finest, taking up only as much time as it needs and nothing more.

In Proteus you experience the course of a year on a small, randomly generated island. Each season only gives maybe ten minutes of gameplay each, with weather, ambient music, and wildlife all changing as you progress. The natural beauty, if digital representations of nature and animals can be called natural, of this game is minimalist but profound. Chasing small pixelated frogs, listening to the digital plink plonk, plink plonk of a group of chickens, and gazing at a deep-blue, night sky are the kinds of little joys that Proteus has to offer. It is magical realism at its finest, evoking a sort of childish wonder at the strange details of this small biome of a world.

Saying anything more about this game would spoil it, so I’ll finish with this: play it. Take a trip into this enchanting space and see if you feel the same way that I do about it. It shows how far the indie scene has come that we can finally have these kinds of ambiguous, interactive experiences as well as the usual genre fixtures.

 

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by codynewill on July 1, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by codynewill on July 1, 2013

https://codynewill.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/proteus-review/

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Review: Ain’t No Fortunate One

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune strikes me as Naughty Dog’s coming of age project. Though the Santa Monica based studio has been around for over 20 years, most of their games have been cartoony, lighthearted platformers with little in the way of story. So it is sort of weird playing a serious action-adventure game in the vein of Indiana Jones from the same folks who brought us Crash Bandicoot.

That doesn’t mean that Uncharted is completely different from the studio’s earlier efforts; the DNA strands of Naughty Dog’s PS1 and PS2 classics are clearly here. But the game struggles to find a good balance of combat and character throughout. Uncharted ends up as a good launchpad for a series of globe trotting adventures, despite being a mess in terms of gameplay.

We open with treasure hunting protagonist Nathan Drake and broadcast reporter Elena Fisher reeling in a coffin from the Panamanian Coast floor. The box supposedly holds Sir Francis Drake’s remains, and Nate believes himself to be one of the Elizabethan privateer’s descendants. But when Nate and Elena crack open the casket, there is nothing but Sir Francis’s diary. Drake is elated, for this diary records all of Sir Francis’s adventures and treasures; namely, the location of El Dorado. Just like Raiders of the Lost Ark however, there is another faction vying for Drake’s diary. A competing treasure hunter named Gabriel Roman sends a legion of pirates after Nate, Elena, and their money obsessed partner Sully to capture the diary and find El Dorado.

And so opens the 8-10 hour adventure wherein you’ll shoot countless pirates, navigate through swamps, jungles, and ancient ruins, and watch some of the best cutscenes in the business. For a game released in 2007, Uncharted still looks good, with some great facial and motion captured animation. There are tons of little effects on display like Nate’s shirt only getting wet up to the point where water actually touches it instead of a binary wet or not wet state. It’s a testament to Naughty Dog’s visual artists and programmers that this game still holds up in purely graphical terms.

But, as the old nerd’s proverb tells time and time again, graphics do not a good game make. Back when it was originally released, Uncharted dropped right in the middle of the post-Gears of War boom of third-person, cover based shooters that altered the course of the genre. And at least it tries to hit all mechanics that Gears did. Hit a button to stick to cover? Check. Two weapon slots plus a grenade? Yep. Rolling dodge move and ability to vault over cover points to the next cover point? Done and done.

Beyond the initial layer of imitation, Uncharted’s gameplay fails to capitalize on anything further. Enemy encounters are stacked stupidly against the player; dozens of pirates will flood from a single point, and when they are all taken care of, another wave comes out to beleaguer the player to the point of frustration. These enemies start easy enough, perhaps taking more shots than you’d like, but it isn’t too hard to get the upper hand. But somewhere around the second half of the game, enemies become Herculean in their ability to take and deal punishment. Ammo becomes scarce at the same time, making any missed shot a severe blow to your progression.

These factors aren’t insurmountable individually, but the last third of the game starts to join them in a sort of perverse concert. A late game encounter in a cathedral stacks nearly a dozen enemies with one-shot-kill weapons against Nate and Sully. Banish any notion from your head that Sully may support you; like so many other games, his AI doesn’t include being able to do anything other than wisecrack occasionally. It has been a long time since I’ve had to put the game on “Easy” difficulty because I could not progress through some fights. But no matter how conservatively I played, the pirates nearly always had an advantage. I seriously contemplated putting the game down for good at many points.

There is also a startling amount of ludonarrative dissonance in Uncharted. Nate is supposed to be the flawed, but good-hearted protagonist, but he also kills hundreds of people in order to plunder ruins and temples. The mechanical ability that the player has at their fingertips is in stark contrast to Nate’s everyman image that the story conveys. He is always on the cusp of danger, but never incurs any damage or consequences. This wouldn’t be nearly as noticeable if the characters weren’t so well written and acted. As it is though, It felt strange killing every brown person in sight and then segueing into a cutscene where Nate is cracking wise.

Despite this, I found myself compelled to finish Uncharted because of the characters and the popcorn flick, action-adventure vibe; Elena and Sully are great supporting characters, and Nate is as charming a rogue as any. Elena is particularly noteworthy for being a really strong female lead. At no point did she feel like a damsel in distress or a hopeless fawn; she knows how to take care of herself, and tells the player as much. The game’s story did start to lose me in the final chapters due to an ill conceived supernatural twist. The game forces you to fight against mutated Nazi-Gollums for nearly two hours, and it just feels out of place. Not only are those enemies overpowered, but they break down what was up to that point a semi-believable storyline.

Another area of Uncharted that just doesn’t have quite enough polish is the climbing and platforming elements. Sure, I got a little rush of nostalgia when the camera pulled in front of Nate and forced a Crash Bandicoot-esque running sequence. But I also found myself frequently missing jumps even when I was squared exactly in front of a ledge. It is also difficult to differentiate what is a grabbable ledge and what isn’t. It isn’t always an issue, but it happens enough to add just a hint more annoyance on top of the gunplay.

Uncharted is definitely a product of the early years of this console generation, and has not aged well. So many other games have done gunplay and linear platforming better in recent years that it is hard to make it through. Everything but the story and characters could’ve used just a few more months of refinement and attention. To be fair, this game is dirt cheap now, but bad gameplay is bad gameplay regardless of price. I would recommend just watching this edited version of the game’s cutscenes and skip to Uncharted 2. You’ll save yourself about six hours time and lots of frustration if you do.

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by codynewill on June 7, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by codynewill on June 7, 2013

https://codynewill.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/uncharted-drakes-fortune-review-aint-no-fortunate-one/

Journey Review: One Way Trip

With thatgamecompany’s first two games, the Los Angeles based developer established some serious arthouse cred. Both flOw (2007) and Flower (2009) used the Playstation’s Sixaxis motion control to create some minimal, ethereal experiences. Their latest game Journey doesn’t follow suit with motion controls, but it does continue the developer’s goal of creating airy, emotionally driven games. What Journey lacks in substance, it makes up for with pure feeling.

As a robed Bedouin figure in a vast desert, your goal in Journey is, well, to make a journey. It starts simple and remains so for the entire two-and-a-half hour pilgrimage. A large mountain in the distance soon becomes your goal, as it sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the endless dunes. This becomes the crux of the narrative as you weave through ruined highways and grand halls. What will happen when you get to the mountain? Well the game doesn’t give up any sort of answer before the very end, and only conveys story through intermittent cutscenes that feature absolutely no dialogue.

As you make your way forward, the loneliness of the desert can be a little harrowing. If you are playing online however, you’ll occasionally run into other players making their own way to the mountain. It is random, there is no way to contact the other person besides a chirping sound that you can make, and there is no guarantee that the other player will stay with you. But when they do, it adds a sense of companionship that changes the entire dynamic of the game. You’re sharing this experience with another person in a very restricted, yet powerful way.

Besides walking rather slowly forward, sliding down dunes, and chirping incessantly, players are given a kind of gliding ability that can only be used when charged up via magical pieces of cloth. These little scraps of cloth often serve as markers for which way you’re supposed to go, and also lead to some of the more impressive moments in the game. An early puzzle has you reconstruct a bridge made entirely of the stuff, and then lets you fly over it in a wide arc. These moments of elation pop up between much solemnity, and give the game much of its emotional appeal.

At all times, Journey is a beautiful game despite not pushing a huge amount of polygons. Sand blows across the land like a golden ocean, and the entire aesthetic is sort of like a mosque drawn in a cel shaded style. The game makes liberal use of pink, maroon, gold, and even cooler tones as you move through the world. The soundtrack supports this style even further, with long, buzzing cello pulls that reinforce the isolated vastness of the desert. But in moments of joy and excitement a full orchestral ensemble blends in naturally.

You aren’t likely to spend more than a few hours at most playing Journey, but if you’re into the minimalist indie scene, you’ll be very glad to have spent that time with it. I can see how it would be too barren for some to appreciate; I fully admit that what story is here isn’t well explained. But the point is to feel your way through the game. To get caught up in the moments that the designers have carefully crafted. If you can’t get into it, then I don’t know what would pierce your cynical soul.

Journey is available only on the PSN for PS3. All screenshot credit goes to thatgamecompany’s own selection of screenshots available via their website.

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by codynewill on April 12, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by codynewill on April 12, 2013

https://codynewill.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/journey-review-one-way-trip/

A Short Review of Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving

“Cinematic experience,” is a common phrase in the game critic’s repertoire, but I’m not convinced that it should always be connoted with merit. For example, the Metal Gear Solid series has deep roots in anime and action movie cinematography, but often at the expense of player control. Cutscenes can go on for nearly a half hour without any player input, which often makes me wonder why the game wasn’t just a CGI film.

Brendon Chung’s Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving are the antitheses of that design philosophy; shining examples of how to pull off cinematic qualities in a video game without compromising player agency. Chung experiments with jump cuts, montage, on-screen text, and nonlinear narrative in ways that some bigger studios could benefit from.

From the first greeting horn blast of Xavier Cugat’s “Maria Elena”, Gravity Bone presents itself as a sort of 1960 spy flick crossed with Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Though the visuals are based in the Quake II engine, Chung’s modding resulted in an amazingly simple, but gorgeous art style. Characters all have the same cheese-cube on a stick physique and the color palette is predominantly golds and browns. Despite the abstraction, this wood panel filled throwback feels appropriate to the time period it is trying to evoke.

It’s a world where everything looks like it was made from wood and metal, not plastic. It’s a place where a tape recorder with actual film stock gives you instructions on how to carry out your mission, and works well to steep players in the vibes put out by Mr. Cugat’s Latin swing. This is also a technically good looking game of its time, with plenty of lighting tricks that bathe the world in plenty of colors and contrast.

While the art style and audio are immediately in your face and bombastic, the narrative remains minimal and purposefully vague. More is learned through flashback montages than any exposition. In fact, most of story is something the player gets to kind of fill in with their own imagination.

You’ll probably wonder, “Am I supposed to be playing as some sort of corporate espionage agent?” Well I certainly felt so, but Brendon Chung never programmed anything in the game to make me outright know that I was. All I knew was that a cutscene (appropriately shown as a slide projector series) told me that my first mission pleased my “clients”, so I knew I had to be a fix-it man of some sort.

This is something that some people are going to hate. They are going to hate that the game is only about a twenty minutes long, and they are going to hate its experimental, art-house energy. And it only gets worse in Thirty Flights of Loving, which is about half as long and twice as willing to take risks.

Which makes it the better of the two in my opinion. For all its amazing atmosphere, plethora of unique art assets, and mysterious story beats, Gravity Bone has one platforming section that I kept messing up because I didn’t know where exactly the edge of the platform and my feet met. It feels much more like a traditional first-person-shooter (not that you’ll be shooting anyone) with some unorthodox story beats packaged around it. Thirty Flights makes no such mistake, instead making jump cuts, montage, and uncertain narrative the main feature.

Instead of forcing players through long walkways and platforming sequences or backstories that are relegated to “quest logs” that you’ll never check, Chung cuts out most traversal–which is crazy if you consider that first-person shooter lineage practically demands plenty of time spent in corridors full of nothing–and there is nary a dialogue interrogation ala Mass Effect in sight. Any part of the game that could be considered slow, or god forbid boring, is simply made into a jump cut, and players simply jump forward in time. And player interaction with the two supporting characters is told through flashback and small character moments.

Short montages let you know that your female companion is a sharpshooter, but what is she sharpshooting? And for whom? Likewise, your other buddy is the best man at a wedding, but you only see the after party (which is one of the game’s highlights because of its great use chronology) and you don’t really know anything that’s going on. Again, like Gravity Bone, you are set loose in a set of often non-linear events that give you just enough to make a story out of it.

Thirty Flights is a much different looking game than Gravity Bone as well, if only because of the color palette. Pinks, reds, oranges, blues; this is the kind of stuff that makes you balk at Unreal Engine titles like Gears of War (which I do enjoy despite its gray tones). Technically, perhaps this isn’t quite as stunning as Gravity Bone was back when it was first released in 2008. Still, Chung gets plenty of mileage out of the quirky design.

To continue detailing both these games would be getting into dangerous spoiler territory considering that they are both only about a half hour in total length. So I’ll leave this review with this: buy these games. Soak in the collective 30 minutes of gameplay and enjoy the feeling of existing in these rich vignettes. If you aren’t into the whole, “games as art,” thing, then perhaps you won’t enjoy you time with Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving. But if you are that person, you probably aren’t searching WordPress for blog reviews of them anyways.

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by codynewill on February 22, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by codynewill on February 22, 2013

https://codynewill.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/a-short-review-of-gravity-bone-and-thirty-flights-of-loving/

Dust: An Elysian Tail Review: Auteur Theory

Dust: An Elysian Tail is unique even by indie game standards. Dean Dodrill, who had almost no experience in game design, computer programming, or story writing, designed it almost entirely by himself.
Knowing that fact along makes it shocking that this game’s mechanics work as well as they do. The juggle heavy combat is simplistic, but responsive, and the RPG elements are deeper than most other XBLA games.
From a narrative perspective though, Dust has some serious pacing issues, and a glut of dialogue performed by irritating characters. For every great moment of story telling comes many more moments of overacted melodrama. Because Dodrill was the sole creator, he could put whatever he wanted in the game, and however much of it that he pleased. Auteur theorists may be pleased, but all I could think was that some editing would’ve helped greatly.
In Dust, you play as, well, Dust. Joining the annals of amnesiac protagonists, Dust awakens in a Wonderlandian forest with no recollection of how he got there, why here is there, or who he even is. A magical sword named Ahrah and its winged keeper Fidget find Dust and tell him that he is the chosen one to wield one of the Blades of Elysium and bring order back to the land. A great war between two factions has raged for years, and Dust must find a way to end it and figure out his past.
Much of your time spent with Dust focuses on killing monsters and other evildoers with Ahrah. Dust only has two or three main combos and a whirlwind attack on his own. Use Fidget’s projectile attacks with the whirlwind however, and things get really interesting. The whirlwind causes the normally puny fireballs to explode across the screen, racking up the combo counter and experience bonus quickly. There is a fluidity to combat here that can’t be understated. Dust is incredibly agile, able to jump from side to side to dodge incoming attacks or high into the sky to continue slicing up enemies. To put it simply, fighting feels good in Dust.


The world of Dust is also of high quality. The soft focused style evokes a lushness and color palette not seen often in games. Teal, purple, yellow, and orange all work in ways that most other contemporaries don’t dare attempt. There is a small amount of exploration, helped along by a map system cribbed from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Sadly, the character animations also look like they were taken from the PS1, which is jarring in front of the meticulously detailed environments and abundant HD particle effects.
The story here is clearly inspired by SNES and Playstation era RPGs, and anime. The focus is on surprisingly dark themes such as death and loss. The side quests are where most of the whimsical and goofy writing comes out. As you travel the Elysian lands, the lesson that all things will eventually die is married with pretty well characterized quest givers.
One of Dust’s greatest failings is how such heavy and poignant story content is buried beneath a surplus of dialogue delivered by nearly every character. I don’t even care that all the characters are anthropomorphic animals. That’s fine. But the endless amount of talking is unforgivable. When it isn’t grating—Fidget’s unfunny attitude never hits the mark—it is just pointless. The game stops the action for literally every interaction. Hitting up the store for some health items? Well prepare to hear the shady shop-keep spout some nonsense every single time. At a certain point, I just quit listening and skipped as much talking as possible.
And then there’s the last hour of the game, which is quite simply terrible. Forget that the story takes a complete right turn and refocuses on characters that are either introduced entirely too late or not characterized well before hand. The real killer is a difficulty spike leading up to the final boss, and the final boss itself. Enemies suddenly gain the ability to block your attack chains, bringing what used to be a great sense of combat momentum and fluidity to a full stop. Oh, and good luck buying enough health items to make it past the final confrontation where one strike eliminates ¾ of your health bar.
I have a feeling that plenty of people will like Dust more than I did. There is a huge amount of content here for $15, and who knows, maybe some folks actually like Fidget’s annoying voice. Ultimately, I found the game sloppy and amateurish, which is to be expected from a first effort. Dodrill has a lot of promise, and Dust isn’t a complete waste of time at all. There are plenty of moments where the story and gameplay mesh, but there are also plenty of moments where the action gets bogged down in melodramatic, snarky, or just plain boring dialogue. Give this guy a team of 10 other developers, and there could be greatness in the future.

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by codynewill on November 13, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by codynewill on November 13, 2012

https://codynewill.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/dust-an-elysian-tail-review-auteur-theory/

Borderlands 2 Review: World of Guncraft

The MMORPG genre has been in a slow state of decline for the past few years, but if the first Borderlands, Dead Island, and Torchlight are indicators, the designs behind it are still strong. Even though Borderlands’ blend of cel shaded graphics and slap-happy humor was odd back in 2009, the real time shooting blended well with stat heavy RPG elements. Gun lust tied it all together, even though the sheer novelty of the whole thing hid some serious pacing issues.

After three years of development, it is clear that Gearbox Softworks has addressed almost every problem fans and critics had with the first game for Borderlands 2. Sluggish first act? Gone. Static enemy routines? Axed. Without a doubt, Borderlands 2 does feel much more polished than its predecessor, but still relies on grinding and a cocksure tone far too often.

The fact that Gearbox secured the rights to the profane Duke Nukem franchise makes perfect sense after playing Borderlands 2. The wild and wooly world of Pandora is filled to the brim with some of the most idiotic and offensive characters ever created. The voice actors try their hardest, but one can only go so far with a script that slings out, “Bonerfarts”, and, “These powers are the tits!” with such reckless abandon.
Far too many quest-givers, companions, and even the main antagonist try too hard. Base humor is fine, but not when it is paraded out yelling, “CHECK OUT HOW EDGY THIS IS!” When Borderlands 2 gets out of its own way and sticks to pop culture parody and reference, the jokes play much better and the script is given some room to explore more somber storylines. I’ll be damned if I didn’t actually feel a little bit sad for some characters when the game reined in the cock jokes for rare serious moments.

At the very least, even the idiotic characters add to a sense of place in Pandora. A sort of blend of futuristic sci-fi, Old West martial law, and dude-bro humor, this world is eclectic to put it mildly. The variety of climate is really noteworthy, taking the player from glacial tundra to floating city in the sky without feeling dissonant or unbelievable. The amount of color afforded by the cel shaded graphics is also amazing considering this is an Unreal Engine 3 based game.

The story of Borderlands 2 starts with a poorly explained cutscene and a fair bit of exposition. After an alien vault was opened by four legendary Vault Hunters, Hyperion Corporation leader Handsome Jack swooped in with his legion of robots to take advantage of the new growth of Eridium, an alien mineral with mysterious powers. You play as a new Vault Hunter looking to strike it rich in the wilds of Pandora only to be nearly blown up by Jack, who harbors a deep hate for, well, pretty much everything. Jack is heinous in every sense of the word; too psychotic to be a humanized villain, and too snarky and long winded. He is bound to end up on some “Worst Character of the Year” lists.

But Borderlands isn’t trying to be some amazing piece of interactive fiction. From the first hour of the game, it is clear that your main focus will be killing all sorts of creatures, bandits, and freakshow oddities. This main goal is so well executed that I found myself tolerating the game’s most egregious personalities, particularly an explosive expert that happens to be a 12 year old who spouts a sort of gangster/instant messenger slang, because I was still having fun blasting dozens of foes. Enemies don’t just suicidally charge like in the first game. They dive out of the way, jump off platforms and railings, and seek cover when it is near.

Gearbox also succeeded in making every weapon feel punchy and unique. The assorted shotguns, pistols, rifles, and explosive ordinance all have raucous sound effects to match their lethality, yet none of the weapons are exactly the same. Modifiers like elemental effects, ricochet, and different ammunition types are just dandy for killing on their own, but become truly effective when used in concert with specific weapon makes and a blend of class based abilities.

The different weapon brands distinguish loot drops the most, as each has wildly contrasting effects. For example, a Tediore gun will act as a makeshift grenade when reloaded, whereas a Maliwan will always have an elemental effect such as fire, electricity, or corrosiveness. I found some of the brands to be less useful or too cumbersome to be bothered with, but it is conceivable that different players will find every one to his or her own liking.
The four starting character classes available are the same way. There is the stealthy Assassin, dual wielding Gunzerker, turret toting Commando, and otherworldly Siren. I picked the last, but even though her stun-lock ability seemed to be geared towards defensive play styles, the way the skill trees work allows much more flexibility. They also seem to be intended for co-op play, which works really well. The difficulty increases drastically even with just one other person playing, as more “Badass” enemy types show up.

At level 10, my Siren was a healing machine, capable of keeping co-op teammates and myself at full health relatively easily. The only caveat was range; there was no way I would last for long in any close quarters situations. Thankfully, Gearbox allows the player to reset skill trees, so at level 20 I opted for a more aggressive set of perks. It radically changed the way I approached every fight, allowing me to fight from all ranges with any weapon of my choice. I also decided to keep some healing powers that I had before as well.

Reinvention like this usually isn’t something that is facilitated in any RPG, since it can have balancing implications, but it works really well in Borderlands 2. But while Gearbox is more than happy to shun certain conventions of MMOs, the developer still clings to some of the worst. The eternal fetch-questing grows tiresome after the fourth or fifth time that you’re asked to go collect five Arachnid Spines or gather 15 Bandit Brains. The game tries to use humor to distract from the monotony, and occasionally manages to pull it off, but again, the facade is thin.

Inventory management is another problematic holdover in Borderlands 2. There is simply too much loot and too few vendors to sell it all at. At least you can mark gear as trash and sell it all with one click, but you have to be at a vendor or at your home base Sanctuary to do it. An option to sell items in the field–like in Torchlight–would’ve been much appreciated.

Borderlands 2 has a strong gameplay core, but surrounding elements that fail to fully capitalize on it. The hit or miss script alternatively exacerbates excruciating fetch-quests and manages to make the game’s sense of place and action gel. I suspect many gamers will either love that they are getting more Borderlands, or just be bored with the fact that they are getting more Borderlands. I fell somewhere in the middle, pleased with the great weapon designs and pop culture references, but scorned by some poor choices in dialogue and quest design.

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by codynewill on October 28, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by codynewill on October 28, 2012

https://codynewill.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/borderlands-2-review-world-of-guncraft/

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review: Not a Roller Coaster, but a Theme Park

Despite Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s setting being in the future, the game itself doesn’t even feel like a modern shooter. It incentivizes exploration, which modern shooters were weaned from long ago, and features the kind of sci-fi story that languished after Neuromancerand Blade-Runner came out. At the same time, Eidos Montreal has taken several contemporary concepts and blended them with the old. It is a weird mix, and as a result Human Revolution has the look and feel of a mainstream shooter, but the experimental options of a game from the early 90s. It is among the few games in recent history actually trusts you to find every nook and cranny of its world, and then goes another step by doling out plenty of rewards for it.

That being said, Human Revolution’s open nature results in some technical instability, bugs, and some general rough edges. Because you are allowed to exercise so many different play styles and navigate incredibly complex levels, the game tends to break every once in a while. But when everything gels and the game doesn’t unleash its plethora of glitches, Deus Ex showcases a world that is more theme park than roller coaster, and is worth seeing to the end.

You'll quickly learn the shortcuts and alleyways of the Chinese metropolis, Hengsha

You’ll quickly learn the shortcuts and alleyways of the Chinese metropolis, Hengsha

Human Revolution starts promising with a story premise that sets the stage well for the entire duration of the 15-20 hour narrative. The year is 2029—a time that, barring any accidents or diseases, I will live to see—and cynicism seems to have blown through the roof. An oil crisis fourteen years prior almost crippled the United States, and the future now rests on cyber-prosthetic augmentation. This new technology, which isn’t just on par with nature, but superior to it, obviously rouses some controversy. Pro-human protests are growing tenser by the day, as regular citizens start to feel pushed out by the super strength, speed, and brainpower of augments. The pro-augment corporations toe the ethical line well, but much is left to the player to decide. In fact, Human Revolution never tells you outright which side is correct. Both sides take morally ambiguous actions, and both give good arguments for their causes. Again, Human Revolution is a game that gives you the information and tools and lets you decide what you think and how you’ll act.

It is in this volatile environment that Adam Jensen, head of security for the augmentation pioneer Sarif Industries, finds himself unwillingly thrust into. A mercenary attack upon the Detroit based company, just before an important unveiling of groundbreaking research leaves lead scientist Megan Reed (and Adam’s squeeze) presumably dead, Adam nearly so, and all research burned. In order to keep Adam alive, David Sarif (big boss of Sarif Industries, and Spicoli sound-alike) orders him to be outfitted with top of the line augments. Adam sets out with his new shiny arms, legs, and brain implants to find who was responsible for the attack, and unravels a sci-fi mystery straight out of the early 80s.

The future is aesthetically amazing

The future is aesthetically amazing

Though the premise is really engaging, the execution throughout isn’t as consistent. There were several moments where I wasn’t really sure why I was doing certain objectives. Deus Ex communicates much of its story through in-game books and computer terminals, most of which can be missed entirely. There are also some cut scenes that don’t particularly do much to explain certain occurrences, and don’t look crisp or animate well. Add in a confounding late game Illuminati conspiracy twist that doesn’t feel appropriate and doesn’t wrap up nicely, and Deus Ex starts to feel a little jumbled.

Despite the occasional confusion, the visual style of Human Revolution goes a long way to making this vision of the future interesting. The color palette is fairly restricted to deep gold and black, but works well with the neo-renaissance design aesthetic. The art team at Eidos Montreal obviously took inspiration from 16 century artists, notably Rembrandt (whose Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp makes an appearance in-game). Chiaroscuro seeps into the hard shadows on character faces, lean cyber-musculature looks appropriately dense and strong, and the cutting, geometrical lines of downtown Detroit and Hengsha, China all form a cohesive style that is unique.

Despite the obvious amount of work put into the aesthetic styling of Deus Ex, the technical side of the presentation drags the art down. On the Xbox 360, the game simply doesn’t run that smooth or look particularly great. The frame rate bogs down for seemingly no reason, load times are lengthy, and character faces and animations are lacking in quality. By the end of my play through, what I took away from Deus Ex’s visuals definitely wasn’t the technical fidelity, but the art that still manages to eke past the ugly.

The Undertaker would be proud...

The Undertaker would be proud…

Though the graphics and story have inconsistencies, actually playing as an augmented espionage agent (or killer depending on your play style) compensates for most issues. Jensen’s augments can be unlocked by earning “Praxis points” through experience leveling (read: skill points). Every 5000-experience points nets you one Praxis, and the first unlock of any augment class costs two. After you unlock a class of abilities on the skill tree, you then only need one Praxis. Augments vary wildly, giving you choices such as physical abilities like jump height and the ability to punch through walls, stealth invisibility cloaks and footstep sound suppressants, computer hacking buffs, and more shooter oriented powers such as armor and marksmanship. Each augment serves a particular purpose, and you can’t (yes, you really can’t) change your mind once you choose. This gives a weight to each decision on how to allocate points, and definitely made me think about the advantages and disadvantages of each augment carefully.

This goes for the melee system as well. Takedowns come in two flavors: lethal and non-lethal. Both take up one of Jensen’s disposable battery meters, which can be upgraded to recharge faster or expand to allow more active augment usage. Only the first notch of the meter can recharge though, so unless you have energy candy bars (read: mana potions) you’ll either have to use a weapon, or wait to recharge. Again, this is another example of Human Revolution giving you a choice and forcing you to make a decision, even if it is on a small level.

Choices then have a certain tendency to lock your play style in place for the entirety of the game. If you start as a stealthy corporate agent, buffed out with invisibility and non-lethal weapons, you’ll likely stay that way since you won’t be able to repurpose any of your augmentations. The same goes for those who will choose blunt force, though there are many more experience bonuses for finding hidden air ducts and roundabouts than there are shooting bonuses. Compounded by a definite sluggishness in aiming and Jensen’s inability to take more than a few bullets to the chest, and the gunplay in Human Revolution starts to feel like it isn’t as viable an option as stealth. It is feasible, but I found that a mix of predominant stealth and occasional gunplay (mostly when I messed up and alarmed a group of guards) was the most satisfying way to play.

Jensen's augmentations are your bread and butter

Jensen’s augmentations are your bread and butter

One thing that I must say is necessary is hacking proficiency. The hacking mini-game in Human Revolution is a timed node-capture affair that is simple and nets large amounts of experience for success. You can technically blow open most hackable doors in the game with explosives (subsequently alarming everyone within a five-mile radius) but there are dozens of computer email accounts and safes that can only be accessed by hacking. And since most of the story details are communicated through in game writing, hacking and finding new expository notes and scripts becomes pretty important.

Conversation dialogue also is an important way of initiating, and even swaying story events, and Human Revolution takes a unique approach when it comes to talking the talk. Instead of responses being strictly good, bad, or neutral, there is a mix, and most situations won’t be clear-cut morality lessons. This makes Human Revolution feel much more complex than, say, Mass Effect 2. Investing in an augment that makes persuasion and coercion easier is also an ability that I heartily recommend to anyone who wants more side-quest opportunities, or a more direct hand in story happenings.

One surprising feature of Human Revolution’s game world is that side-quests, and even some main missions can be completed before they have been officially bestowed upon you. This meant that at several different times you could end up visiting an area once and complete several objectives you didn’t even have in your mission log, circumventing future visits to that area. This happened at least twice during my time with Human Revolution, and it is a great showing of developer-player confidence by Eidos to include it.

I briefly mentioned the game’s tendency to break down, and that claim bears more explanation. Human Revolution is a fairly large open world—akin to Batman Arkham Asylum’s world albeit with more options—and most areas have interweaving air ducts, alternate pathways, and dozens of game agents walking about. This leads to some pretty bewildering bugs, particularly concerning non-lethal kills. Occasionally, shooting an enemy with pacifying weapons or a non-lethal (but definitely rib shattering) takedown would actually kill them instead of knock them out. I also encountered a situation where a guard slumped onto a wall after I smacked him, and he actually died when he touched the wall! I don’t know if this was an issue with bodies touching certain geometry, or if the complexities of the game world were too much, but it definitely was annoying. I also found that sometimes guards would turn hostile when I stepped over an ill-defined hostile zone. Notably, during a police station infiltration, which resulted in 20 to 30 armed lawmen turning on me at once.

Human Revolution can be a frustrating game, and there are flaws permeating nearly every aspect of it, but there are simply too few games approaching choice and play options to discount it based upon the issues. If you’re up for a lengthy excursion into the augmented reality of a future that presents itself as a harkening back to 80s sci-fi, then Deus Ex will delight. If you like your games fast, focused, and frenzied, rather than methodical, open, and trusting, which is perfectly fine, then it might not be for you.

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by codynewill on October 14, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by codynewill on October 14, 2012

https://codynewill.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/not-a-roller-coaster-but-a-theme-park/