Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011)

Genre: FPS, RPG, Stealth | Players: 1 | Developer: Eidos Montreal

Eidos takes the reins for the Deus Ex franchise with some help from Square-Enix who have begun to make a push towards publishing since they have recently forgotten how to make games and are now buying up other developers to make games for them. In the case of Eidos, it has paid off with an entry in the series that more than lives up to the franchise's pedigree.

Adam Jensen is the new head of security of Sarif Industries who produce biomechanical augmentation technology. Just before an important congressional hearing, a group of soldiers storm the laboratory complex killing scientists and destroying equipment and research during which they brutally put Adam down. Adam is then augmented to save his life from his massive injuries. 6 months afterwards, Adam is healed and called back to look into who is behind the attacks as there are a number of suspects including rival companies and purists who object to augmentations among others.

Like the rest of the series, players are given a great amount of freedom in how they approach mission objectives. Cover-based gunplay and stealth can be used and enhanced with a wide array of choices in augmentations to suit either play-style. Augmentations can be gained with points by completing objectives or buying upgrades at clinics which is where the RPG part of the game comes in as well as extensive weapon modification. There is also a great emphasis on character interaction. Players will often have multiple conversation choices and characters will react differently based on what players choose versus the character's personality. Depending on the person, players can flatter their vanity, appeal to their reason or just plain coerce them into giving up information. Also whether the player uses lethal force or not can affect gameplay.

The depth of story and themes of trans-human ethics give a rich experience along with solid gameplay. There are only so many character models, but Eidos tried their best to cover it up with mixed results as players may notice a lot of the same faces running around. The levels are surprisingly big given the detail put into them and while shorter than the original, the length is surprisingly long for a modern game. At least 20 hours depending on player skill and sidequests chosen. There were some technical hiccups like NPC's sinking slightly into the pavement and such, but nothing game breaking. The boss battles were somewhat incongruous with the rest of the game, but that is to be expected when they are done by a totally different studio. Pretty, but not shallow with some replay value.

Buyer's Guide:

Available on PC, Mac, PS3 and 360. There is also downloadable content called The Missing Link.

4 The I.T. guy is an abrasive douchebag, like a lot of real counterparts out of 5