[Birthweek] Game Reviews

Question, will the other two judges know who wrote which review? or will it just be you? Just wondering. :hmmm:
 
They'll know, yes. Speaking of which, I need to go around and ask who would like to be one of the judges. :ryan:
 
Yeah, I think it would be fairer if people didn't know who wrote which. :hmmm: But it's your rules :lew:
 
Either way is fine, it isn't going through a voting poll, and there will only be three of us judging the reviews. But sure, I'll make it anonymous.
 
Is it to late for me to crack in a review at all? I will most probably have it done by tonight or tomorrow early morning Mitsuki :) Should I send it to you if your happy for me to participate?
 
I think it would be okay. She gave me a couple days so it will most likely be a yes. :hmmm:
 
.Mosh said:
Is it to late for me to crack in a review at all? I will most probably have it done by tonight or tomorrow early morning Mitsuki :) Should I send it to you if your happy for me to participate?
Click to expand...

Yeah sure go ahead. We're still reading the two reviews anyway. :)
 
Sorry about that. I need to do a tie-breaker so I'll re-read the reviews tonight and hopefully announce a winner.
 
So after much deliberation, and taken into account what the other two judges had to say about both reviews, the first place winner goes to Conor (500 points), with Cali (300 points) taking 2nd place. (If you guys want to post your reviews, you can go ahead and do so).

Both entries were excellent. I must point out that we all agreed that Cali's structure and presentation was stronger than the other review, but the content and detail of Conor's review cannot be ignored. Truly, both were an entertaining read, and I'd like to thank you two for taking the time to write a review for us. :)
 
I would like to see yours too


Deus Ex: Human Revolution​

'Is it ok to mechanically augment a human beyond their normal capabilities?'. This is the question at the centre of Deus Ex:Human Revolution. Which at first sounds like an incredibly deep and morally complex question, until you realise that means you could effectively turn yourself into Inspector Gadget or cook bacon with laser vision. Not long after which you'll find yourself baffled that this is a question at all. Still, the game takes an interesting approach to resolving this dilemma. The lead character Adam is chief security officer at a large Biotech firm pioneering human augmentation. After a terrorist attack he is left for dead and his boss has him augmented to a large extent in order to save his life. From there the game follows Adam's quest to find out who attacked the company, and why.

Storyline/Characters
The story is quite good for the most part, except when it starts to wobble at the end. Which really, is representative of the whole game. The story is developed very well over the course of the game, with good pacing after an initially slow start. Some argued that as a narrative it never took a firm stance on the issue of human augmentation, and almost offered an over-abundance of competing viewpoints on the topic. I disagree though, I don't think a game should have to have some definitive stance on a complex issue, I don't think that was the intent of the game. It was simply a story set in a world growing steadily more volatile over the the conflicting views of the population. As for the story itself, it is a refreshing blend of action and drama. There is a well developed sense of urgency, but that doesn't make it feel like the story is being rushed or feel like a simple succession of linear events. The characters all seem to have their own agendas and motivations outside the scope of the story we are being told as the player, which adds a feeling of depth to the game. It makes characters easy to like and relate to, yet you always find yourself questioning the real meaning behind their words and actions. That is what a game should be doing, creating a believable world that doesn't just feel like one sentient character in a sea of one-dimensional NPCs.
Sadly, the longer the game goes on the more the story and character development wobbles. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't start wobbling till maybe 3/4s of the way through. Even when it wobbles it is still a very well-written game. It just feels rushed (which it was, so not really an astute observation here) and because of that the characters don't really get enough time to be resolved nicely. The endings were also a disappointment. You are simply presented with four buttons which will initiate a different ending. Which in itself is ok, but the endings are lacklustre. Rather than seeing how your decision changes anything, you just see some stock footage jumbled together while Adam narrates what happened. You see nothing of the places you went or the characters you helped, or in fact of any of the characters. The endings themselves were labelled ambiguously and it was not clear quite what you had chosen to end with until it occurred which was a bit annoying. Overall the story was very well-written and despite some pitfalls and stumbles was brilliantly paced.
6 pineapples/10 starfish

Gameplay/Controls
The gameplay was absolutely sublime and the mechanics of it worked incredibly well. The combination of cover-based shooting (which has become the cumdrenched whore of action gaming) and first-person aiming was refreshingly good. The first-person shooting was also pretty easy to manoeuvre, but the iron sight aiming for most guns was very poor and made it much more difficult to hit an enemy. The guns themselves were nicely balanced and ammo drops were actually well thought out for each one. Thankfully the game didn't go with the horrible 'can only carry two guns' trope, instead opting for an inventory case similar to that in RE4. You are given a grid and each item you pick up takes up a certain amount of squares. The grid can have more squares added to it with subsequent upgrades. Which allows me to sashay sexily into the augmentation system.
For some poorly explained reason Adam cannot access all of his augmentations straight away, he has to wait for them to kick in naturally. Unless he wants to buy a praxis kit to instantly bring one online. Apparently the super-rich corporation he works for gave him the upgrades, but not the means to use them. It'd be like your parents buying you a car then demanding a few thousand to buy the keys from them. Nonetheless the upgrades work well, after activation some can be upgraded further, but plenty only require one purchase. This works incredibly well, as opposed to multiple levels of upgrades for even minor augmentations like in the game's predecessor. It does have one flaw however that ends up spoiling another element of the game. The price to upgrade is just too low. By the end you have found and bought so many upgrades that you could defeat even the hardiest enemies with a mean stare and your exploding breasts(I'm only joking about one of those, and it's probably not the one you think).
The other great element to Deus Ex gameplay has always been the multiple paths to defeat every mission. Stealth, hacking your way through, or just shooting everything that is alive and then shooting the pieces etc. . The final option is generally very difficult, until roughly halfway through the game when you have so many upgrades you could survive a dickslap from Odin. Then it becomes less about choosing or discovering paths, and more about killing all living things before looting the area. Still for the most part the gameplay itself is good, and the alternate paths are interesting and fun enough that I still found myself choosing them more often than not.
The only problem with the stealth option was the takedowns. You have the option to take an enemy down either lethally or non-lethally, which worked very well. I generally went for the non-lethals (though considering he broke every bone in an enemy's body, it was hardly the nicer option) which sounded very loud, but the game considered quite. Naturally I would alert a guard every now and then and would have to go and hide. The guard would wake his pals (who apparently slept off those trifling shattered arms and legs) and then I would have twice as many enemies looking for me. Therefore I decided to takedown some enemies lethally, so the same thing wouldn't happen me next time. Despite the lethal takedown being silent onscreen, barely more then than a whisper as Adam stabbed a guard fifty or sixty times, the guards would still hear it in a place they would not hear the non-lethal takedown. It made stealth sections occasionally aggravating, but is a minor complaint in an otherwise exception gameplay mechanic.
The main problem with the gameplay was the boss fights, which offered no alternate path bar fighting them head on. So someone focussing exclusively on other aspects of the game would find them incredibly tough. Even playing as a fairly beefy Adam, they were incredibly arduous and really broke the flow of the game.
There were also occasional verbal battles with characters in order to gain access to an area or garner important information. These were far too rare for such a well-implemented idea, and in most cases were a bit too easy.
There were also a deluge of side-quests in the beginning, which slowly petered out becoming less frequent and lengthy as the game progressed. Unfortunately so much of this game points to it needing just a bit more time.
9 octopuses/10 seahorses

Graphics/Sound
Even the harshest critic would have to admit that the game is visually stunning, undoubtedly one of the best looking console games ever made. I personally loved the art-style but have heard some complaints about the prevalence of the orange and black colour scheme that seems to cover all the locations. The characters are all individual masterpieces, beautifully designed, clothed and animated. The terrorist mercenaries in particular had very unique looks, the final one being my favourite. The locations were wonderfully rendered in both artistic style and realism. They looked stunning but didn't look bizarrely alien or overly futuristic.
The sound is beyond sublime, it is a lemon at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. The score is wonderfully atmospheric for all the different areas and cinematics. It is digitally created without sounding like computerised techno. An electronic orchestra almost. The voice acting is also in a league of its own, presumably after the horrors of the first game. Adam's trademark rasp sounds serious but is still able to convey emotion and doesn't fall into Christian Bale/Batman territory. The rest of the voices are also well done but none particularly stand out.
10 silly nouns/10 ridiculous object words


Extras/Replay Value
I bought the game pre-owned so I had no access to the extra missions or weapons, thank you for forcing me to include this heading. I do enjoy reliving such traumas. Which rather wonderfully leads me into replayability.
How replayable is this game? Very! Or at least that is the answer I think the game wants me to give. The idea of multiple paths implies that you could replay the game a few times and have a different gameplay experience every time. If someone did want to replay it I think they would find plenty of variety, but I don't think there is sufficient variety to tempt people back justfor that. I will play the game again in a few months, but I play most games more than once if I enjoy them. There is nothing in Deus Ex that particularly made me want to replay it again straight away.
5 fish/ 10 surgical gloves

Overall
The game is simply spectacular, even with it falling apart somewhat towards the end it is still very good. No particular aspect seems to have been neglected which is both good and bad, as everything is perfect at first but declines across the board towards the end. I wouldn't say it has something for everyone, but it caters well to a wide-range of gamers. I suppose what I am trying to do here is say “buy it”
 
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