Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Review!

Adam Jensen returns (although, TECHNICALLY this is the first time he's been seen on the... um.. scene) with no messing about. He looks slick, sleek and cool, and that's even before he's been augmented to F*CK. You are head of security for Sarif Industries, and you are one badass mofo. Even if he is suffering from a horrible case of Cookie Monster/Christian Bale sydrome. Sarif, however, have an awful lot of enemies due to their continued research and development into the world of human augmentation. Many people (called Purists) feel that the human body is not something that should be toyed with, and we should all be happy with what God gave us. As for Adam, he is undecided on augmentations, and is choosing to stay well away from them for the time being.

The intro sees Sarif come under attack by the Purists, with the majority of the working staff at Sarif coming under fire from apparently augmented people, including yourself, by getting seven shades of shit kicked out of you to the point of near-death. The only way to save you is to replace your damaged limbs and organs with some of that crazy man-made stuff!

So that was your mind made up for ya.

What follows is an amazingly in-depth story that grips ahold of you and never lets go, right up to the very end. You'll encounter greed, corruption and numerous double 'ard bastards that wanna rip out your insides and wear them as various body adornments.

The world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a sight to behold. The graphics are gorgeous, and the mix of people you encounter are rich and varying. The conversations go by thread selection, with you choosing the response to the current topic, and if needing to garner further information from them, making the right choice and appeasing them.

The gameplay is fast and fluid, where first-person switches to third-person perspective with a left-trigger initiated cover system. The developers have been keen to push the "four pillars" of gameplay present, combat, stealth, hacking and social, meaning that most if not all sections of the game can be conquered in more ways than one. You can upgrade your abilities/augments as the game progesses, to make you (for example) a smoother talker, faster hacker, harder puncher or a sneakier... er... sneak. Hacking was a personal favourite of ours, as it tends to give you access to goodies you wouldn't otherwise be able to get, such as extra supplies, money or ammo, and you can also hack security systems, turning off security cameras and getting sentry bots/turrets to turn against your enemies.

Using some of your abilities drains your energy, which can only be refilled by eating energy bars or certain other foodstuffs scattered about the place. This is mainly in place to stop you from moonwalking through the game, punching peoples' faces out the other side of their head... as much fun as that can be.

Literally the only issue we had with the game is the loading times. If you get stuck at a particular section, say one of the boss fights, and you keep dying, you're more likely to give up and walk away because of the amount of time you spend looking at the 'loading' icon spinning around than the frustration of the actual death. Otherwise, what we have here, is a definite contender for game of the year. Well done Eidos, our hats are officially doffed.