Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut Wii U Review

Upon its 2011 release, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was met with a warm reception, with praise surrounding the amount of choice that allowed you to have a say in where the story goes, what route to take through areas and the choice to play the game in a stealthy or shooty manner. It was an excellent game, but certainly not one without its problems, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut attempts to address such issues.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in 2027, where human augmentation is commonplace amongst the more wealthy of people, allowing them to improve certain areas of their body and mind with advanced technology, though there is of course ethical concerns about messing with nature in such a manner and many oppose it.

In RoboCop like style, ex police officer turned chief of security of augmentation company Sarif Industries Adam Jensen is badly hurt around the start of the game and his life is saved by augmentations, which also have the bonus of granting him some fancy new abilities, which will prove helpful in his line of work and to hunt down the killers of his ex girlfriend, Megan Reed. The story grants you some level of input in how the engaging, complex and mature narrative unfolds.

Exploration also has an emphasis on choice, with multiple routes that can be used to travel through certain locations and you’re able to mould Jensen to suit your playing style: hiding and using non lethal methods of taking down patrolling enemies or going all loud and mowing them all down.

Hacking allows you to unlock doors, turn off laser grids and gain access to computers to find passwords and read emails to gain further insight into the world of the game. It is carried out with an enjoyable and rewarding risk and reward based mini game that sees you attempting to capture nodes, without being detected by the system and, in the process, also hopefully receiving some XP and monetary bonuses. Detection will see a timer count down, and it’s up to you to do your business before it reaches zero and you’re temporarily locked out of the system

Many actions in the game will reward you XP, and earning a certain amount will grant you a Praxis kit that can be used to improve Jensen in various ways. There are abilities that allow you to accentuate Jensen’s strengths in the areas that most suit your play style, so there’s stealth things like an invisibility cloak, additional health and a shield for those that like to go in all guns blazing, exploration based abilities that allow you to move heavier objects or to hack higher level systems to perhaps gain access to new routes for instance.

Though even with a skillset based around action, since Jensen is able to sustain little damage Deus Ex: Human Revolution is obviously more designed around stealth gameplay, and this is clearly the best method of going about playing the game.

The Wii U GamePad is put to great use, acting as your radar, as well as a scope for certain guns, and menus, E-books, hacking and such are all displayed on its screen. In an appreciated addition, you’re also able to mark areas, enemies patrol routes and whatnot and MiiVerse is supported, allowing you to take in game photos to help out fellow players by pointing out shortcuts and the like.

Exploring is a constant pleasure in the game, with plenty of money, ammo and E-books scattered around, and plenty in the way of hidden routes around the sizable environments waiting to be found, some of which can only be accessed through the use of certain skills. The only real downfall in this regard is that corners were clearly cut during development and, as a result, some areas look identical to one another.

The most glaring issue of the original version of the game were the boss encounters, which were unfairly designed and went against the emphasis on choice that was running rampant throughout much of the rest of the game. These have thankfully been dramatically reworked for this version, giving you the choice to tackle them in various ways and making the battlegrounds larger, so for instance the first boss Barrett can be took down by more indirect means through the use of automated turrets.

It’s just a shame that the visuals that were a weakness first time around, whilst marginally improved, remain little more than adequate and with the use of the colour gold to signify objects that you’re able to interact with, it looks reasonably interesting as it did first time around but nevertheless surprisingly low tech for what is a substantially budgeted game.

Developer commentary during play is an appreciated new addition, which allows you to learn of what went into crafting the game by listening to some of the developers themselves who give insight into the games development that is both rich, passionate and often funny, though those that are playing the game for the first time need to be aware that there are some spoilers and that some of the commentary occurs whilst cut scenes are playing, which drowns out their audio.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut is an improvement to a game that was in little real need of attention, though its primary issue, the boss fights have been dramatically improved, while the second screen support and all the less significant improvements do their part in further augmenting what is already a modern videogame classic.