Deus Ex: Human Revolution Preview

Games On Net has cranked out a thorough preview of Deus Ex: Human Revolution after spending some firsthand time with the PC version of Eidos Montreal’s highly anticipated prequel. A little something to get you started:

I initially tried to treat the stealth approaches of the game like I would in my beloved Splinter Cell: sneak up behind a guy, snap his neck, and quickly drag his body back into the shadows before anybody could figure out what happened. However the way it works in Human Revolution is like this: when you’re close enough to a guard, you can either tap ‘˜T’ to perform a non-lethal takedown, or hold ‘˜T’ to go lethal. I figured that a lethal takedown would be in order: I’m a ruthless sort of man when it comes to my videogames and I wanted to make sure this threat was disposed of quietly and permanently. It didn’t take long before I realised how wrong I was on that first point.

You see, a lethal takedown in Human Revolution isn’t a quiet, neck-snapping sort of affair, a brief flash of violence in a brooding melody of tension and paranoia. A lethal takedown involves you extending your arm blades and then brutally dismembering your enemies from behind, often beginning or ending (or both) with a series of vicious impaling strikes that leave you in no doubt as to the lethality of the takedown. Needless to say most guards don’t take well to being violently hacked up, and they start screaming. Loudly. Cue alerted fellow guards, gunshots, red screen of death, and reaching for the reload button.

The game autosaves very intelligently, by the way. Ask me how I know.

The non-lethal takedown is considerably more quiet and won’t instantly give you away, but it’s still a fairly lengthy affair that you’d be rather stupid to attempt in a well-lit warehouse with multiple guards patrolling randomised routes. As the tutorial for cover-hugging explicitly states: it’s always better not to be seen. Human Revolution’s stealth is non-violence by proxy – at least until you get the right augments later on, going stealthy seems to always necessitate going non-violent. There’s plenty of distance options for takedowns as well including a tranquiliser dart, but guards aren’t stupid and will quickly raise the alarm if their comrades spontaneously develop narcolepsy.