Deus Ex - Why doesn't everyone love cyborgs?
Signal Interrupted
"Deus Ex: Mankind Divided" has been on my radar for a few years now. Square Enix's incredible first foray into the Deus Ex universe with "Human Revolution" scratched the itch that I didn't even know I had until I played it. Ion Storm's "Deus Ex" was a showcase in environmental storytelling, letting the player figure out what had happened or where to go by observing the room they were in, and Human Revolution was an up-rezzed, golden glowing homage to the stealth mechanics and lateral thinking that made the franchise so good to begin with. Despite being marred with some iffy combat mechanics (that didn't bother me because I play Deus Ex all stealthy-like) and some questionable boss-battle design (that did bother me, because I was spec'd for stealth and not combat), the story and setting ensured that I was going to play any sequel to Human Revolution. Oddly enough, one of the minds behind Deus Ex's incredible design; Harvey Smith is presently finishing off Dishonored 2, which is the only other game I can see dethroning DEMD as my game of the year. I guess time will tell.
The aesthetic design of the different environments is incredible.
So with a legacy as strong as Deus Ex's, it became my most anticipated game of this year. Of course between losing my job and desperately scrambling to find something to keep me afloat, my mind was nowhere near playing games for fun. I completely forgot about DEMD until my brother mentioned it in passing, saying he was happy it looked like the game would be living up to expectations. Waiting on money coming through and working a job and a half to keep myself busy, I felt horrendous that I wouldn't be able to justify the purchase of a new game to myself. When the 9+/10 reviews started to roll in, I knew I was likely to crack, and I justified it to myself (and my long-suffering wife) that I really needed to just escape for a while, and while Fallout 4 has new DLC, I needed a more engaging story; the kind of story that DEMD delivers.
The Details Make The Design
When it comes to world-building, Deus Ex has taken a look at the ways humanity is developing (or regressing, some might say), and is able to craft a cyberpunk dystopia that feels uncomfortably close to an imaginable future. The whole planet has developed from the end of Human Revolution, with humanity divided along the lines of "natural" and "augmented" people, with the naturals persecuting the augmented for a number of reasons, all of which are outlined in a 12 minute intro video that goes over the events of Human Revolution. This backdrop is used expertly to allow players to guide their stoic (some might say "robotic") character through a maze of corporate intrigue, political corruption, brutal law enforcement and as somewhat ill-advised writing labels it; "mechanical apartheid".
The augmented ghetto known as "Golem" feels like classic Cyberpunk.
The story is great, although it's hard to go into any detail without risk of spoiling it for those who haven't played it yet, or for those who are planning on picking up Human Revolution; a recourse that I whole-heartedly endorse! Instead, I want to cover the commitment to detail and storytelling that the designers decided to showcase through their environments.
I don't think I am the only one who appreciates the incredible design of Deus Ex's spaces. From the cozy corners of your engineer's underground lab & bedroom to the cramped high-rise alleyways of Golem, the level designers have crafted an incredible space to play in. Every space feels useful, and often tells a story. The disparity between the rich and poor is put on show in a way that doesn't feel tired or preachy, despite being a central plot-point. While dialogue also conveys the differences between the poor and the rich, it's the living environments where the player can rake around and get a real feel for who's living in 2029 Prague.
Beautiful interior design with high ceilings, minimalist design and little reading cubby-holes make me think that Deus Ex's level designers must be contract architects.
For example, almost every palacial upmarket penthouse has a PC in it that players can hack into and snoop around in the affairs of major characters, NPC's and sometimes even dead bodies who are lying next to the PC you're reading from. The content you're likely to read can involve child custody battles, apologetic emails from parents to now-dead drug addicts and letters from the corrupt corporate body, extorting people for money and making you feel so bad about stealing someone's credits that you drop all your pilfered beer and spirits so that they can at least get pissed when they find out that the trenchcoated weirdo with the naff-looking sunglasses has robbed them blind and read their emails for a laugh. Of course, while the player might appreciate these little snippets of seemingly useless flavour text, the aesthetic design of the city as a whole serves the classic gaming adage of "show, don't tell" and what a show the city puts on. The "Golem" environment feels like classic Cyberpunk, with dark alleyways, barely lit by flashing neon signs, beggars that hack and cough, rowdy locals and aggressive police officers. Naturally the Cyberpunk setting demands that the locals all have robotic limbs. It's a bleak place, but it's damn cool to visit.
Jensen's base of operations has several departments, most of which have cool high-tech looking goodies like this forensic scanner.
More Time in The Vents Than Newt
As well as the obvious visual appeal of Deus Ex's environmental design, the player agency that has always been at the core of the series is served so well by the diversity and depth that the game provides. Every time I needed to get into somewhere I wasn't meant to be, I found that there were normally three options:
Hack your way in.
Find a vent and creep in like a robotic John Mclean.
SHOOT EVERYTHING
Of course, there are sometimes opportunities to talk around problems, or maybe a case for combining some of all the different techniques, but I found myself crawling around in the vents for what felt like a third of the game. The augmentation skill-tree will often dictate what route you can take, with the hacking, traversal and combat skills all requiring sacrifices to be made in other departments to develop. I made myself a half-decent hacker with springy legs that let me jump up high and that sorted most of the puzzles I'd been dealing with. Of course, choice is the real take-away here and while the combat in DEMD is an improvement from HR, it should be mentioned that you are easily killed if you don't have the super-soldier augmentations installed. For all his spiked arm-blades and guns, Adam Jensen collapses under a hail of gunfire if you've stuck all your points into making him some kind of cross between the Blue Gene supercomputer and a pogo stick.
Every good counter-terrorism unit has a command room with lots of monitors, right?
DEMD isn't without its faults mind you, and the open nature of many of the environments are poorly served by some badly signposted environments, but sometimes a hunt to find the next area can lead you to discovering more of the incredible environments that Eidos Montreal have put in the game. The lip-syncing for voice-over is poor, but I am a culprit of sticking on subtitles and skipping through the very well voice acted lines as soon as I've read them. When compared to games like Mass Effect or Fallout, Deus Ex's writing is so brilliantly done that I never found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place, but the out-of-sync faces and the lego hair that clips through character's clothes is unfortunate and detracts from the performance.
In the end, it's a great game for people who like their story-driven RPGs, and the choice to play through the game as a stealth shooter or just a massive cyberpunk gunfight is an example in branching gameplay that rewards players with unique outcomes depending on how they complete a given task. If you like "doing it your way" then Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is worth your time.