Deus Ex: Human Revolution Previews

The Internet is home to another fistful of Deus Ex: Human Revolution previews, courtesy of the press event that quite a few of us attended earlier in the month.

AusGamers:

There are cool things that happen throughout Deus Ex: Human Revolution, one of which is the implementation of time and tardiness. The first example of this is when Megan asks you to follow her, only the game gives you some room to stretch your legs and explore. Spend too much time doing this though, and Megan will scold you; often relating to whatever it is you’re specifically doing. If you’re looking at a photo, for example, she’ll start talking about the memory attached to it before snapping out of it and telling you to put it down and get a move on. Later in the game this element actually has long-lasting, moral ramifications that will really separate the men from the boys.

Without giving any other story-specific moments away, at some point during the game’s ‘˜on-rails’ intro Sarif is attacked and you’re now on the action move. Again, there’s not a lot of branching gameplay here, this is all obviously part of an elaborate introduction, but it serves its purpose well. From a gameplay perspective, PC fans will be happy to know they’re going to get the best version of the game. Not in so much that SE Montreal have crafted a better version for PC, as platform parity is actually a touted aspect of the game, but simply because the console controls don’t feel right (yet).

Siliconera:

Guards patrolled the entrance to the factory. I took out the first one with a non-lethal takedown. Tap a button to spare their life, hold it down and Adam will stab them with knives in his augmented arms. Other enemy units can wake up unconscious soldiers, but mercy has its benefits. You earn 10 experience points for defeating an enemy plus 20 for not killing them. Go the lethal route and you only get 10 points. Adam, reminiscent of Solid Snake, can drag bodies to hide them. I pressed on and knocked out two more soldiers with takedown moves, which meant I was out of energy. While I had three batteries, Deus Ex: Human Revolution only restores *one* of them overtime. It takes roughly a minute or thirty seconds, if you upgrade Adam’s charging ability to the maximum. The other battery bars can only be restored by eating cyber-energy bars.

This means Adam can only use his cloaking ability for three seconds with a “full charge” and has to wait a good minute before knocking out another enemy. Patience is required if you opt to go for the non-lethal assault route. There aren’t enough tranquilizer darts to disable all of the enemies. You can slip by many of them as they pace back and forth if you’re careful. If you decide to let lead fly, Deus Ex: Human Revolution stocks players with plenty of ammunition. Bullets are in plain sight, hidden in lockers, and can be obtained by picking up guns dropped by fallen foes.

AtomicGamer:

While Human Revolution won’t be laying out a fully free-roaming universe to explore, you won’t find yourself in a corridor-shaped tunnel leading to every goal, one at a time. It’s up to you to search around to find alternate paths to infiltrate, attack, or escape. You can go on the direct assault if you like, too, and your choices for how to improve your augmentations will generally influence the way you choose to finish your objectives. If you’ve been improving your stealth augs, then finding that air vent on the side of the building often leads you to the most success. Improve your ability to soak up direct damage, and shooting your way into the front door might work best. It seems unlikely that the best bet for most players is to avoid combat entirely, but if half of your enemies have met mysterious ends before the shooting starts, then you’ll at least have a distinct advantage.

I did play around with the AI and stealth in the demo, using manual saves (yes, even on the 360 or PS3) to experiment with ways to take on a warehouse full of bad guys patrolling, guarding hostages, and ransacking the warehouse. What I found was that the AI has occasional moments of brilliance and sometimes moments of intense stupidity, so I can’t really say this is a shining example of AI, but sometimes they will really surprise you. My melee takedown run was really pretty rough, as the spacing and timing of patrols left me very little time to do a non-lethal takedown and drag the guy’s unconscious body into a dark corner. After watching someone else using the HUD-enhancing augmentations to see patrols’ cones of vision and track specific people on his little minimap, I was able to see that it’s definitely viable.

And Shacknews:

In another area of the lab, Jensen comes upon three more soldiers, two of whom are in conversation. Sneaking remains an option here, though shooting a nearby canister full of green (and therefore, toxic) gas will also do the trick. Shortly after this battle, another augmented invader is witnessed killing some more scientists before cloaking herself and vanishing. The final pre-credit combat section consists of another room, this time with five bad patrolling bad-guys. As before, both stealth and combat were viable options.

After dealing with the last set of troops, Jensen heads down a flight of stairs and down a hallway where part of the wall has been blown out. As he approaches the flaming opening, he’s grabbed by the augmented soldier he saw wreaking havoc earlier, and thrown through a wall, shattering through the glass and electronics on the other side. Dr. Reed is there, and tries to save Adam, whose guts are literally hanging out at this point, before being punched and kidnapped by the modded invaders. The huge augmented soldier then grabs a gun from the floor and shoots Adam at point-blank range.