Deus Ex: Human Revolution gets presented @ PAX ’10

The more videos of upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution I watch, the more hyped I get. It’s hard not to:  sequel of one of legendary games with an amazing art direction (which, as you might notice, is important for me just like any other game element) is getting tastier and tastier, and seems to bear Deus Ex’s legacy quite gracefully. Penny Arcade Conference or PAX was an occasion for Eidos (under Square Enix’s wings) to show off some key gameplay elements, and there quite a lot to show.

I have to admit that I have not finished the first Deus Ex yet – I am still playing it through on PS2 (that is not the debate which version is better – I know that PC one is), and haven’t even got off New York yet, but it’s a great game with many interesting ideas. Dozens of NPCs to talk with, loads of paths to get to your objective, RPG elements, augumentations (combat skills) or quite an interesting story is a mix that still makes gamers replay it over and over again, even though it’s 10 years old. Only stealth elements feel like, as I saw someone describing it neatly a “guesswork”. Nevertheless, it cannot be helped, I just can’t wait for the sequel. Deus Ex Human Revolution looks and seems to play great, and manages to keep the spirit of original, somehow.

The game is presented by Mary DeMarle, the script writer of the upcoming Deus Ex. A nice lady with positive attitide and quite a sense of humour has worked on games like Myst (since 3rd installment), Homeworld 2 or recent Splinter Cell: Conviction, which are rather proud entries in any portfolio. The presentation starts off with showing part of Shanghai in 2027 which looks drastically different from what it looks like nowadays, mainly because it’s 2-tiered, as DeMarle comments: “a city built on top of a city”. We can see rather lively streets and DeMarle promises you can talk to every NPC in the game unless it’s obviously an enemy (Becaue we all know what the enemies are for – shooting ‘em down). Game looks amazing in both terms of art direction and design as well as technical aspect that gamers nowadays are so pumped about.

I really liked the action part of the presentation, in which the protagonist infiltrates an enemy base. Stealth seems improved, but you can’t really tell unless you played. We can see some interesting and effective augumentations, such as some pretty cool fireworks that get rid of surrounding enemies. Auguments seem to be numerous in game but we have to, again, wait for the game until it’s released. We can already see the blend of shooter and stelath game working great already, but I’m kind of concerned of lack of RPG elements. You couldn’t really see disabling things with multitool or opening doors with lockpick, so it’s hard to tell whether the player distribute skill points or not. It may look completely different in the full game. Beside, there was no characteristic frame around highlighted objects, which looks like the designers ditched whole RPGey aspect to the game, and they DeMarle did not really mention magical shortcut to the subject. Overall the hud was minimal, so maybe it was disabled for the presentation’s sake.  Personally, I’m really concerned about those RPG elements, I am a RPG fan after all. On the other hand RPG part of the game was indeed marginal… Time will tell.

So far, so good. Game looks great and seems to carry some of the original ideas over, so at least we can be sure it’s not an another brainless shooter. According to the DeMarle multitude of paths are there, non-linear conversations are there, stealth and augs as well. I am a bit worried about aforementioned RPG elements, and characteristic to this genre length of the game – games get shorter and shorter nowadays, but I really hope DeusEx will be a at least 20+ hour long game. Since it should be highly replayable (I hope), it would make for a pretty long game indeed. Mind says, that without Warren Spector, the original game designer and genius behind such highly acclaimed gems such as the Thief, System Shock  and upcoming Epic Mickey (who doubts it’s going to be a killer app for Wii?), a sequel to Deus Ex has no right to exist. On the contrary, the heart screams of love: Deus Ex: Human Revolution has the potential to be a game of the decade, a landmark of this generation… but isn’t the heart an easy organ to be fooled?

You can see the last part here.

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