By Sam Coles:
The Deus Ex series is known for its open ended level design,
decision making and epic stories. The series got the reboot treatment back in
2011 with the excellent Human Revolution, after that game’s release we wanted
for more. In 2015 Square Enix announced Deus Ex Mankind Divided and it looked
very good, however that was not the problem that gamers had with it, it was
first the pre-order tiers that they introduced which was heavily criticised and
they quickly backpedalled on it. It seemed to be looking good as Square Enix
was responding to their customers, but just a few weeks before the release they
put micro transactions in a singleplayer game that you pay for and a lot of
people hate this game for that fact alone. Is it a bad game? No absolutely not,
but it does have a few issues on the technical side. Let’s get into it.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided takes place after the events of
Human Revolution where a virus was spread to corrupt augmented humans, where
they went mad and butchered people. Fast forward a few years and cities around
the world are under martial law where augmented humans are shunned by society where
they have to go in separate bath rooms and are constantly harassed by the law.
You once again play as Adam Jensen, where is sent to Prague but it is not long
until everything goes wrong and a train station is bombed where it kills a lot
of people and cripples Adam for a few days. What transpires is an investigation
into a terrorist group coupled with governmental conspiracies; it has a Blade
Runner style of story.
The gameplay is a jack of all trades it’s not quite a first
person shooter or a stealth game, however I feel as if the game is judging me
if I take the violent approach by going loud. Game developers if you give me
the option of going loud or take a stealthy approach I’m going to feel more
inclined to take the stealth option because it feels as if you are standing
over my shoulder like a concerned mother judging me.
In each level you have various ways of getting to your
target or objective, I really like this as it evokes of old school level design
not the headache inducing maze levels from Wolfenstein, but the open ended
levels from Thief. You can go in loud and shoot everything, which I do not
recommend in the early stages as you are as fragile as a mouldy peach, the
sneaky approach is more viable with satisfying and brutal sneaky takedowns.
This is one of the morality systems that come into play as you’re given the
option to take them down lethally by stabbing them with cybernetic arms or
knock them out by slamming their face into a wall, the non-lethal option
apparently. It encourages changing your
play style and of course encourages replay value as you can discover a completely
different path on a different playthrough, as it may lead you to new weapons or
a quicker path to your objective.
The new feature in this game are the experimental
augmentations as Adam has discovered that he has hidden abilities within his
body, this comes with a cost as it can overload your body resulting in some
unusual behaviour so you have to disable certain augmentations to balance
things out. This is great as you have to make some hard decisions of what
augmentations you want to keep, but once you make the right choices you get
some great powers that can help you with sneaking or combat.
Visually the game looks beautiful especially during the
segments in the rain at night on the neon lit streets of Prague, as you see
rain drops on Adam’s suit as well as puddles glistening as the moon reflects
off them. Character models look good for the most part on the main characters,
although they look poor on some of the NPCs. Animation is great during the
pre-rendered cutscenes, on the other hand during the in game scenes the
animation can look truly awful with some questionable lip syncing and gestures
during conversations. There are clipping issues with the takedown animations as
Adam will punch thin air, this is coupled with a few moments where the frame
rate tanked below 20 and I was playing this on the PS4.
The main issue I have with this game is the final boss; this
boss can go back to the depths of hell and stay there. This is not because it’s
particularly hard it’s the fact he is a bullet sponge, as he b-lines towards
your position, game developers increased health on an enemy does not equal high
difficulty it makes the fights cheap and frustrating.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided has its flaws but overall it’s a
great game with excellent stealth gameplay coupled with an engaging and complex
narrative that will have you leaning out of your seat from start to finish.
Pick this game up you can pick it up for £10 brand new at the moment, you won’t
regret it.
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