First Impressions: Deus Ex

Oh yes, I know that everyone and their mother is talking about Deus Ex: Human Revolution.  The hipster in me in screaming at the top of his lungs right now.  "DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT GAME!  EVERYONE IS PLAYING IT!  STOPPIT!"

Damned hipster alter-ego.

So despite that, I'm here to offer my first impressions of the game, after having played approximately 2-3 hours of it.

First I will share with you one complaint that I was going to have, but that is no longer valid.  I feel it's quite interesting and worth explaining.  I was very early in the game, only a few missions beyond the prologue-slash-tutorial.  I had two or three side quests to do, all of which were behind locked doors that I couldn't hack because I didn't have the proper skill to do so.  At first I was annoyed, thinking the game was pigeon-holing me into having to upgrade my hacking augmentations first in order to make any progress through the game.  But then I remembered that I'm playing Deus Ex.  Dur.  Oh look -- a manhole. Oh look, it leads to an alternate entrance to the building.  Oh look, boxes.  I can stack those up and jump over this fence.  Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that if you don't want to hack a door, then don't.  There is ALWAYS another way, and that is fantastic.

Next:  Bugs.  I've seen only one so far.  I was in the middle of a dialogue in a police station, and the audio went into an infinite loop.  I had to re-load an auto-save to fix it, and it didn't happen again.  Minor, but begs mentioning.

I've avoided reading any type of reviews for this game.  You know me and game critics -- we don't get along.  But I did stumble across a few snippets of information regarding the graphics, and how they seem just a bit dated.  Now having played some of the game, I will agree with this to an extent.  Some of the character models look pretty bad.  The receptionist up in Sarif's office barely looks human.  Others look fine though, to include Jensen, and the environments look fantastic to me, so I've no complaints there.

The flagstone of Deus Ex is the gift of choice, and it's not lost here.  Big breath of relief, everyone!  As I touched upon in my story with the hacking situation, you are free to solve any mission however you want.  But it goes so much further than the simple choice of either running in with guns blazing versus stealthing in all sneaky-like.  In one mission, I started out deciding I was going to be stealthy.  I took down guards with my silent non-lethal dart gun, hid the bodies, and sneaked around like a half-robot ninja.  The next room I entered, though, was a big large open area.  It begged me to start a gunfight.  And so, start a gunfight I did.  Because I could, and it worked just as well as sneaking around worked for me in the previous room.  That is what makes this game special.

Other complaints?  Not many so far.  The loading screens are noticeable, but I've also noticed they speed up after you've been to the area once in a sit-down.  What I mean is -- let's say I just walked into the police station from the city.  The city will load faster for me than it did the first time when I go back outside, since I'd already loaded it once before during my current session of playing the game.  So that's not bad, but y'know, we all hate loading screens.

Aside from the incredible feeling of freedom and choice, there are some other moments that have thus far stuck out to me.  Watching the take-down animation never gets old, whether you're using the lethal or non-lethal variety.  There're more RP elements in the game than I had expected, and it's a pleasant surprise.  Also, the cover system is exceptionally slick.  Diving behind cover and moving from cover to cover has really never been easier, I think.  They kept it simple but extremely effective.

All that being said, I only have one other complaint:  I'm not playing the damned game right this moment.