I’d have written this sooner, but I’ve been too busy playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, also known as Deus Ex 3 (DE3).
I didn’t get to play the original Deus Ex until about 10 years after it’s release – I’d been playing Thief as my First Person Sneaker of choice. Not that DE was purely a Sneaker; it also incorporated RolePlaying Game (RPG) elements, and allowed you to go in guns blazing if that was your thing. But I played it as a sneaker, probably because I could.
One friend described DE3 as “coming home”, and I’d agree with that. For those that loved the original DE, this is going to be familiar. That’s not to say that they’re the same. DE has changed a lot: it’s older, more mature … let’s just leave the relationship analogy there, shall we?
DE3 is billed as a prequel to DE and story wise that seems a good move. I’m not really sure how they’d sensibly fit DE3 into the various threads they had in DE (and probably DE2, which I never played) and kept things sensible. Taking a step back, and being able to start “anew” works.
The world is well realised and the game really lets you immerse yourself in it. As with the original you can find multiple ways to achieve your objectives. The objectives also begin to multiply as you move through the story and get past the “introduction”.
I don’t think I’ve played enough yet to make a judgement, but the choices I’ve made so far do seem to affect later parts of the game, and that really draws you further into the story. I hope this continues as it was yet another thing I loved about the original.
So far it seems we have a game that really does follow in the original’s footsteps, but has been updated and tweaked for a new generation. Sounds great to me!
