Randum

(Originally posted at www.360NationPodcast.com)

Many of us played Metal Gear Solid 4 and we missed the days of knocking guards out and sneaking around corners. Finding various ways to navigate the level. Something was lost in the last game of the series, but was replaced with massive amounts of story. Deus Ex: Human Revolution brought back stealth with a side order of gun play, I like it.

Without ruining the story portion of the game, its worth mentioning you are getting a fully flushed story, with characters and personalities. Expect to see good guys go bad and bad guys maybe not so bad after all. A lot can be predicted, but overall I have no real complaints with the story portion of this game. It kept me engaged, kept the game moving, and motivated me to see what was around the next checkpoint.

The visuals are up to par with this generation, slightly stylized with a gold/black scheme. Reminded me of some style used in Crysis 2 at times, but entirely its own. Fans of Blade Runner and the Matrix will like the art direction. The music also compliments the visuals extremely well. No complaints at all with the visuals.

The gameplay is where Deus Ex shines. You can choose to navigate without killing any bad guys (or good guys), go guns blazing, or maybe a little bit of both. Aside from these choices, your character has a number of upgrades available; hacking doors/computers, stronger armor, bigger inventory, jumping higher and more. These upgrades will help in whatever direction you choose to navigate the levels. Stealth mode will have you sneaking up behind enemies, or maybe just running from them into the air ducts – and if you choose to go in hot, you’ll be using the well executed cover system you will feel right at home if you have any experience with Gears of War. Weapons will vary from normal rifles to future plasma guns and sniper rifles. I would say the game offers enough combat variety to keep you interested in using your arsenal throughout the game.

The only downside were the boss battles. You could win usually by some sort of cheap blow, like a couple nades followed by a shotgun blast, or maybe you just got the boss stuck in the environment or barrier. My favorite method was the run-hide-shoot-repeat technique. This really was the strongest weak point of the game, and although did not distract from the entire experience it did prevent me from placing this as game of the year.

If you want a non-conventional shooter, with some RPG elements mixed in with stealth, I have yet to find a better game this generation. Before the big heavy hitter FPS games hit later this year, you owe it to yourself to at least rent this game and check it out.