Review by Matt “Steerpike” Sakey
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Developer Eidos Montreal
Publisher Square Enix
Released August 23, 2011
Available for PC (version reviewed), PS3, 360
Time Played Finished; 20-ish hours
Verdict: 4/5 Thumb Up
“Human Revolution is a thoughtful shooter, and a great example of that rare but wonderful breed. Other games could learn from this one.“
First, the Video
Okay! I’m trying to teach myself Adobe Premiere (my company’s switching from Sony Vegas to Premiere as our editing platform), and I thought a nice video review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution might be a good learning platform. Check out the video, but don’t let that keep you from the wordy review. It’s totally awesome.
Human Revelation
A moment in 2003’s Deus Ex: Invisible War has always stayed with me, despite the game’s overall comparative forgetability.
At about the halfway mark, I’d discovered that the bad guys weren’t all that bad – but weren’t great. I’d discovered that the good guys were far from good – but weren’t evil. And I’d discovered to my horror that they were the right and left hands of the same entity, and that to some degree, their respective leaderships were aware of this fact. I had no idea who to trust any more. No one was who they seemed to be, and everyone had an agenda. I hadn’t a clue what was right, what was wrong, or where I fit in. I remember quite clearly playing one Saturday and just… kind of wandering the streets of Cairo in a daze, trying to reconcile the fact that my entire worldview lay in tatters.
I felt an overwhelming need to talk it out. In the game, I mean. I needed to talk to someone who would listen, someone I could at least trust a little. And there was nobody. Deus Ex: Invisible War did something that’s outlandishly rare: it made me think like my character, even feel like my character. I wasn’t stuck – a number of paths were open to me. I just had no idea which one to take, because each felt like pure deception.
No such moments exist in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but don’t take their absence as a shortcoming. The developers at Eidos Montreal took a well-loved franchise and did a lot of really good work with it, producing a thoughtful game of rich moral quandary, solid mechanics, and surprising prescience about the future of our species.
It’s Latin
Deus ex Machina: “God out of the machine,” a narrative mechanism whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. Straight out of Wikipedia. Bam. That’s not really what the Deus Ex series is about, though. It’s the same words, reconfigured:
What if the machines could make us gods?
A prequel to the two previous installments, Human Revolution plants you smack in the middle of what might just become reality one day. By 2027, advances in human-machine interface have led to remarkable medical breakthroughs – “human augmentation” means amputees get new limbs, the blind can be made to see, the deaf to hear. Unlike today’s clumsy prostheses, these are controlled by the brain. They feel, they operate as though they were natural.
And of course three predictable things happen: first, augmentation starts to become elective, so though your vision is perfect, you get your eyes augmented to see like an eagle rather than just a person. Or maybe you want a chip that helps you read other people’s personalities, and control your pheromones to have an edge in social situations. Or maybe you want to crush a car with your hands, who knows.
Second, the military gets involved. Companies begin developing augmentations that have no possible application beyond killing.
Third, some people decide it’s unnatural to augment yourself, and a sort of purity movement begins. With varying degrees of militancy, these individuals and groups fight against the affront of augmentation, like people today fight against stem cells. There’s talk of UN regulation, and some are calling outright for a ban on augs. As Director of Security for Sarif Industries, one of the largest augmentation producers in the world, Adam Jensen has some skin in the game. Not literally, though: Adam’s happily un-augmented.
And then a building falls on him and he dies.
Sarif is funding its commercial business with research into military augmentation, and it’s on the verge of releasing Typhoon, an aug that… well, it can kill a lot of people in a short time, let’s put it that way. On the eve of a major UN hearing at which both David Sarif himself and Jensen’s girlfriend, augmentologist Megan Reed, are to testify, terrorists invade Sarif’s Detroit-based world headquarters. Are they after Typhoon? Are they just anti-aug loonies? Who cares? They’re here, they’re killing remorselessly, and they just set the building on fire. Go deal with it.
That’s the opening sequence, which introduces the controls and cover system. Former SWAT officer Jensen knows his way around ass-kicking, and he’s doing okay until some monstrously augmented knuckle-dragger throws him through a concrete wall, snaps Megan’s neck, and drops the building on them. And Adam Jensen dies.
But maybe he didn’t read his contract thoroughly. When you work for David Sarif, you die when he tells you to. If you die at an inconvenient moment, he reserves the right to rebuild you. Jensen wakes in the hospital six months later to find that practically his entire body has been replaced by advanced augmentations, from toes to nose. What little they could they salvaged, so Jensen retains his absurd triangular facial stubble, his spikadelic hairdo, and his grinding “do you feel lucky, punk?” voice.
The meta-story of Human Revolution is tied to the conflict between anti-augmentation activists and pro-augmentation corporations, and is a very effective callout to the problems of today’s society. They do it well. News clips, books, overheard conversations; the debate is heating up and growing more violent every day. You’ll hear about augmentation doctors getting shot outside augmentation clinics. You’ll see the poor suffer massive rejection because they can’t afford the drug that makes their bodies accept the machines they’ve had installed. You’ll watch picketers outside your office building and listen to interviews with luminaries on either side. Billboards proclaim the wonders of LIMB clinics, all sexy models with cybernetic arms. Private military corporations (Belltower Associates is a thin veil for Blackwater USA) are contracted for law enforcement and some companies maintain entire private armies, loaded with proprietary augs. Street gangs clash for no other reason than Gang A is augmented and Gang B hates augmentation. “Get outta here, you fuckin’ Aug,” people snarl, though Jensen’s only crime was getting squished by a building.
The story is told with a keen eye for drama, which never overtakes the gameplay but is nonetheless prevalent at all times. The writers knew what they were doing and they toy with you. At one point a riot breaks out in Detroit because the leader of Humanity First is giving a speech and protesters lose control. The harried cops unleash gigantic robots with flashing lights and gatling guns for crowd control even as many on the force are disgusted by the idea of augmented humans. Later on a massive global recall of faulty bio-interface chips sparks a worldwide panic as lines around clinics stretch for blocks.
Human Revolution makes you feel that there’s something bigger than you going on, all the time. The oppressive weight of the game’s narrative environment just doesn’t let up, as Jensen trots from the slums of Detroit to a bi-level city in China, then off to Montreal and finally to the North Pole, where a very different kind of jolly old elf has erected a science project of billionaire proportions, one that’ll save the world, or maybe wreck it, or maybe do nothing, because global warming isn’t real.
The story is, in many ways, impersonal; Human Revolution is not about the stuff I describe above, it’s simply set in a world where those things are a reality. The direct storyline is much more videogamey, and in a way this hurts the experience. Deus Ex – the original, conceived by game design genius Warren Spector – was intended as a what-if scenario: essentially, “what if every single conspiracy theory were true, from the faked moon landing to the Skull & Bones club?” Human augmentation is a major factor in all the Deus Ex games, and Spector touched on augmentation controversy in the original, but never was it center stage like in Human Revolution, and, honestly, never was it so deftly handled.
Thus when the Illuminati and all that conspiracy-theory stuff turns up, it feels completely unnecessary in Human Revolution. They put it in out of respect for the foundations of the Deus Ex franchise, which I applaud, but it’s kinda too bad because it also takes some focus from Eidos Montreal’s own contributions.
Deus Tech
Working from a much-tweaked version of the Crystal Tools engine that powered Final Fantasy XIII, Eidos Montreal does some pretty excellent visual work with Human Revolution, taking a chance on a heavily stylized, gold-tinted presentation that worked for me but can already be turned off with a mod. At 1680×1050 and fully frosted, Human Revolution ran better than could be expected on my midrange PC, with near-perfect stability. If the graphics in the video don’t impress you, take them with salt; I captured the gameplay footage at 840×524 to reduce file size.
Now, that said, neither the technology nor the developer’s attention to detail always live up to what I’d have loved to see. The aforementioned Detroit riot, for example, is heard rather than seen. The Detroit hub is suddenly full of cops and police bots; they tossed on a few burning cars; and there’s sound effects of rioting, but no press of thousands fighting and looting. I’m not docking points or anything, I know how hard that would have been – I’m just saying sound effects only go so far. I’d also add that Eidos Montreal went with a glance-at-a-map approach to research rather than making any actual effort. I’m a Detroiter, and they got so much stuff wrong I don’t know where to start. I do applaud the use of Detroit as a hub. I applaud that the game makes a point to note that Jensen’s employer Sarif Industries chose Detroit as a headquarters as a way to help get the city back on its feet. Knowing his company was huge, David Sarif selected a down-on-its-luck metropolis as his base of operations. That’s kind of decent. But I didn’t like the occasional sample of a woman’s scream as part of the Detroit hub soundtrack, and I wasn’t impressed by the fact that Michigan geography and Detroit lore alike felt as though the developers did a five-minute Wikipedia search rather than making a few field trips.
Beyond minor setting mishaps, though, the technology of Human Revolution cannot be faulted. It may not be astronomically innovative, but it’s solid and reliable, and it looks like a this-generation game, no question.
The Deus Ex series has always walked the line between stealth shooters and action shooters. The addition of okay-once-you-get-used-to-them-but-far-from-perfect cover mechanics in Human Revolution mean that this installment errs much more on the side of stealth. While it’s not impossible to play the game as a pure action shooter, it would certainly be very hard. You upgrade and enhance your augmentations as you proceed, earning experience that translates into “Praxis,” the currency by which you improve existing augs and install new ones. A portion of the sizable augmentation tree is devoted to making Jensen a better straight-on fighter, but the game is not meant to be played that way and you probably won’t have a good time if you insist on treating it like Quake.
There are plenty of ways to play even if you stick to the obviously stealth-centric mechanic. Most foes can be avoided altogether, and if you elect to engage them, you’ve got an array of options. Jensen’s potential arsenal runs the gamut. Many effective, nonlethal weapons are available, and at times his fists are his best weapon. Just because you’re not killing a person doesn’t mean the fights aren’t brutal – Jensen breaks arms like it’s going out of style. And you can go the bloodthirsty route if you so desire. As in Invisible War, I’d been playing this game mercifully until… until something happened that made me snap a little, and I started using bullets rather than tranquilizer darts out of pure in-character rage. I managed fine with a nicely upgraded 10mm pistol, but some of the heavy weaponry (much of which doesn’t turn up until the very end) is damned impressive, provided you’re willing to sacrifice the inventory space required for personal cannons and their giant ammo boxes.
Here, too, Human Revolution demonstrates a canny knowledge of how to manipulate people. There’s a scene where Belltower paramilitaries invade an apartment complex in Hengsha, China – literally dropping in guns blazing, killing everyone without thought, simply to accomplish their business objective. The scene is gripping because it demonstrates a completely unnecessary loss of life, at the hands of people who are in no way competent to make life-taking decisions. As Blackwater did in Iraq, Belltower does in Human Revolution, and that’s really just one of many such savvy narrative efforts.
While I wouldn’t call the experience subtle, it’s definitely more subtle than most games. Remember how I said I got pissed off and started shooting? Something happened that made me realize none of these people were concerned with my life, so why should I go to lengths to preserve theirs? Then, of course, shortly thereafter the game put me in a position where the people who threatened me actually were innocent. Killing them is the easy path, to be sure, but Deus Ex has never lauded rampant violence. You have to choose. And sometimes, the choices you make in Human Revolution tell you things about yourself you may find a little shameful.
Deusaurus Rex
Meanwhile, there’s one choice the developers of Human Revolution made that’s pretty shameful. For reasons entirely inexplicable, they outsourced the boss fights to GRIP Entertainment, a third party AI and NPC toolset developer. And they’re pretty crap.
Well, now, let’s be fair. As boss fights go they’re okay. As Deus Ex encounters go, they transcend unacceptable. You see, in all three Deus Ex games, there are always choices. Many paths, many solutions, to every challenge. None are explicitly right or wrong. If a door is locked you can bash through, or find a key, or creep through the HVAC system. If a person is recalcitrant you can beat the shit out of them, or turn on the charm, or sleep with their sister. If a robot has you in its sights, you can blow it to smithereens, or hack its control terminal, or distract it with something. If a… you get it.
In most games a boss encounter means a conflict with a more challenging foe. Not in Deus Ex. Boss encounters need multiple solution paths, including nonviolent ones. Who can forget the clash with Anna Navarre from the original Deus Ex? Insane, brutal, blood-drenched, hard as hell – unless it wasn’t (“Have it your way, flatlander woman”). In Human Revolution, GRIP produced lackadaisical ordnance contests with no alternatives save bullets. I can’t believe that Eidos Montreal, which so clearly understands the universe of Deus Ex despite being new to the property itself, allowed them. This was one of those situations when the lead developer should have said “you guys aren’t doing it right,” and either made sure they did do it right, or taken the job away.
I kind of pity the fools at GRIP, because they’ve been buried with negative coverage. And again, if this were, you know, a straight up action shooter, the boss fights would’ve been okay. But the vendor chose not to familiarize itself at all with the universe (in an interview, GRIP’s CEO says flat out he knew nothing about the Deus Ex franchise), and the work they turned in wasn’t acceptable for this kind of game. Truly, though, I blame Eidos Montreal for allowing it more than I blame GRIP for doing it.
Fortunately, there are only four such encounters in the game, and if you give it some time you will fight your way through. The boss situation is a major misstep in Human Revolution, a game that otherwise bears marks of really solid design.
Deus Exeunt
Human Revolution is a thoughtful shooter, and a great example of that rare but wonderful breed. Other games could learn from this one. Minigames like computer hacking are clever, well-conceived, and thoroughly entertaining. Challenges like inventory management are teeth-grinding because they’re realistic. Dialogue is witty and well-done, even if the voice actors don’t at all live up to the general level of quality seen elsewhere in this game. The action is fun, the moments of pondering are fun, indeed, almost everything about it is fun.
So I give it a Thumb Up. Why not the coveted Gold Star? Why not that ultimate seal of glory for which all developers slaver, that glimmering torch of perfection reserved for only the most tumescently exemplary of works? Why not promote it to the hallowed heights of approval of which millions speak – in hushed tones – but that so few ever dream of realizing?
Because though I enjoyed the bejeezus out of Human Revolution, I’ll also forget it in about a month and a half. It is in every way, shape, and form a better game than its predecessor, Invisible War. And if someone were to sneak in and change my score, I’d be okay with that. But it remains that Invisible War – which also would not get a Gold Star, or even a Thumb Up – had at least one moment that’s stayed with me for years. Human Revolution does not.
I recommend it. In fact, I’ll even say that you shouldn’t wait for a Steam sale. This is a good game that’s worth its price. It tries to be intelligent and mostly succeeds. It tries to be rich in theme and mostly succeeds. It tries to be a solid stealth/action shooter and mostly succeeds. There is almost nothing flatly wrong with this game… and there’s no “but,” either. There’s almost nothing flatly wrong with this game. You’d be doing yourself a disservice not to grab it immediately, on whatever platform seems best.
In a way it’s unfair, because Human Revolution’s treatment of this thorny issue – human augmentation – is prophetic. We may well see exactly this story play out, possibly in our own lifetimes. They do every aspect of it well. Perhaps in its strong-thewed workhorsedness it also becomes forgettable. The reliable are never adored, and Human Revolution is completely, totally reliable.
Email the author of this review at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
Website: DeusEx.com
Minimum System Requirements (PC): Windows XP/7/Vista; 2GHz dual core; 2 GB RAM; GeForce 8000 or Radeon 2000 or above; 8.5 GB hard drive space
Reviewer’s System: Windows 7 x64 SP1; 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q9450; 8GB RAM; GeForce GTX 460 1GB; installed via Steam
The raid at Hengsha apartment complex that you mention remains the high water mark for me. I played a non-lethal playthrough (well, I did kill the mercs in the intro sequence… wasn’t aware there actually is a non lethal way of disposing of them) but when these arseholes burst into what was up to that point a convincingly painted accommodation facility for people down on their luck and started killing everyone I was literally thinking to myself “Well, if they don’t show any respect for human life, why should I spare theirs?”
And yet I koncked out every single one of them and let them live to regret their actions. Because the game let me do it. Because it actually let me overcome my impulse and make a moral choice that mattered to me.
Yes, it’s a game with flaws, but this described moment is something I don’t really see in other games these days.
Great review, Steerpike. I enjoyed the video too, quite well done.
I’ll definitely grab Human Revolution sometime before the end of this year, hopefully when I can afford it! I had to use my Q3 new game purchase money on Gears of War 3 due to old, old obligations to a friend.
There was so much to like about this game that I was able to forgive the less-than-fun bus fights. I think my favorite part of the whole thing is the mood and atmosphere though. The cities were designed so well, I could completely see it as a viable future for humanity.
Great review Matt.
I’m 11 hours into this and I’ve just hit Montreal. I think I’ve only encountered one of the boss fights, and it felt really shitty, cheap and horribly out of place, but after spamming the Typhoon a couple of times it was relatively simple to pass. I’m hoping I can use the same tactic against the other’s so I can move on and forget about them as quickly as possible.
Loving the rest of the game though. The atmosphere and realisation of the locations is amazing.. probably one of the most convincing and fleshed out game worlds I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. I’m currently playing on a stealth focused play through and have managed to keep my kill count down to single digits so far (assuming the neck breaking animation after punching through a wall and hacking gun turrets count). It’s a very enjoyable and rewarding game to stealth around in, and with a few choice augments Jensen feels like an absolute bad ass.
The stealth element still reminds me of an obviously much more advanced Metal Gear Solid. I’m getting the same thrill from toying with the guards while I lurk in the shadows against their knowledge that I did when I first played that.
“The reliable are never adored.”
I’m stealing that.
“…less-than-fun bus fights.”
Wait, there are BUS fights!? I WANT THIS GAME.
Oh yeah. Spoiler warning: You fight a bus.
Stupid bus! I hate that thing!
I did post an epic rant about the games third boss earlier. An action I took earlier in the game absolutely gimped me for this fight and even with the difficulty turned down it took me a good 30+ attempts to better it. Ridiculous.
Still, I eventually found a nice laser cannon casually discarded in a draw in the battle area (seriously, who does that?) and that made things easier. I’m at the 15 hour mark now and I think I’m almost done with it. I do want to do another play through though. Clearly there’s a hell of alot to this game I’ve not seen yet.
I know exactly what you mean, Mat, by the action you took and being gimped. Even as I took that very same action, I thought to myself, “you freaking moron, this is not the right thing to do.”
I had just picked up a plasma gun before that fight, and managed to get the cadence of it after, oh, 25 attempts. So you’re not alone. 🙂
Matt, hi,
I had picked this game up before Xmas, and was having trouble getting into it. But that inevitably happens to me. As a jaded old gamer with less time to spend on games, it’s always a matter of “should I invest the time to make this a worthwhile experience, or not?” Then a colleague told me it was way over-hyped, and I decided not to bother.
But now… I totally respect you as a reviewer, and it looks like I’ll have to pick it up again. The original Deus Ex is one of my top 5 all-time favs, and I’ve played it to all 3 endings over the years. Looks like this one might just stack up to it after all. Nice review.
Thanks, Metzomagic! I do think you’ll enjoy it; Eidos did a really good job with the title. The opening section in Detroit is actually quite slow, now that I think about it, and I can see why you’d have trouble getting into it. By the end, though, I was on board with the conviction that in many ways, this really is the best installment. I hope you enjoy it!
Not too late to the party I hope? Surely it’s just getting started…
I’d go for the 5 personally, because it will stay with me for a single image – In the Alice Garden Pods one of the silhouettes shows not the usual occupant but two children playing. That single image told a whole world-building story.
And when the private security burst in and started shooting – well, I was so outraged that the non-lethal approach was no longer appropriate. I still KO’d every enemy, but then executed each with a shot to the head. When they came to recover the bodies they’d know – I could have let them live, but chose not to.
Jansen only lost it once again later in the chop shop, and that time was pure spontaneous rage with no other message.
I love the Deus Ex games because they let you express these little character moments – in the first game I remember leaving one of the evil scientists conscious, but stranding him in his laboratory with a freed alien subject. JC just walked away and left them to it.
In Invisible War the neutral character to talk to in the confusing maelstrom was the AI NG Resonance – I always enjoyed bumping into the strange hologram in each location.
I managed to glitch my way through most of the boss fights. The first one has the usual grenade-using-AI problem, that if you hide for long enough he’ll blow himself up. The second just stopped dead in front of me, not moving or reacting while I unloaded about fifty sniper rifle rounds into her head (not daring to move in case the AI woke back up). On the fourth you can punch yourself a safe-house in one of the walls, which makes the whole thing a doddle.
The conversations were the real boss fights.
Welcome, CdrJameson! You made a lot of great points – particularly that the conversations were the boss fights. There are some where it’s, like, get this right, and the decisions aren’t obvious. They did a good job with that. I’d have loved a few more.
The thing about NG Resonance in Invisible War was really fascinating design. The first time you encounter the hologram, she essentially tells you flat-out that anything anyone says to her is being recorded, and that it’s all going to be reviewed by police AIs, but people still tell her things they’d never tell anyone else. At the beginning of my review, when I was talking about the crisis of self I was having, the lightbulb popped in my head and I thought, “I know! I can go talk to NG Resonance, she’ll have an idea!” I ran off to find one of her displays and… she was offline. That led to the whole the-real-NG-Resonance-is-in-trouble subplot, and still stuck on the need to talk to an impartial third party I went through it. But of course, like meeting a celebrity in real life, the human NG Resonance wasn’t anything like her chatterbot hologram. It was brilliant.
All in all this was a great game, but I still think its solid reliability hurt it in the end. There simply isn’t much to complain about – even the bosses aren’t that bad. And yet as the Game of the Year opinion pieces roll around, you’re not seeing Human Revolution in most of them. It was like a trustworthy lawnmower. It does its job without complaining every week, and because of that you don’t think about it. Still, money talks, and the game sold very well. I’d be surprised if this is the last game in the Deus Ex universe.
Thank you for reminding me guys. NG Resonance: Invisible War’s high point.
This game has sucked me in. I’m somewhere in the middle of the Detroit riot section and the Steam timer reads 93 hours. Subtract 10 hours for general fooling around and I’m still over 75 hours at what I think is the two-thirds point. I’m exploring everything though. The result is a lot of praxis points and a nearly completed augmentation tree. Also, you get to fill in a lot of the gaps in the story by exploring.
I’m not the greatest fan of stealth games but like Steerpike says, this game steers the player toward stealth. I’m maybe killing only 15% of the enemy NPCs, mostly using lethal force when cornered by overwhelming odds. Obviously they are chasing me down to kill me and not just hapless guards/gang members on patrol so I feel it only fitting to return the favor.
There have been a few annoyances. I just now figured out how to throw barrels and boxes using the mouse button. I assumed I had to use the THROW command and when that didn’t work, I assumed again that it must be bugged. For some reason you have to use the trigger command to throw a box. I guess it’s for aiming purposes but it was really non-intuitive. And the boss fights are pretty absurd. Somebody, somewhere dropped the ball on this is all I’ll say. Luckily there’s a pretty easy fix for them.
On the plus side, though I still don’t understand the speech mini-games I seem to win most of them just by going by instinct so that’s nice. And the hacking mini-game is first rate which is good cause they could have really screwed the pooch otherwise. Hacking is such a huge part of Deus Ex: Human Revolution that a bad mini-game would have been tragic.
EDIT: STEAM has this on sale this weekend only. Normally 19.99, now just 7.49 through Sunday.
I figured you’d like this one, Scout, it’s got a good story and plenty to do. Aside from the boss battles I really feel like Eidos hit it out of the park. For those who haven’t invested, if it’s a mere $7.50, you can’t go wrong.
I just played this (finally) about two weeks ago. I even managed to beat the bosses using my shamefully stealthy build on the highest difficulty, though the process is less “Hurray, I did it!” than “Gods, I never want to do that again.” I am seriously contemplating whether or not I’m just over boss fights forever.
I am curious, though, because this is a conversation we haven’t had at least while I’ve been here, but what’s really the beef with Invisible War? I’ve played it pretty recently – actually I’ve played all 3 Deus Ex titles for the first time in the last year – and though I think I’d call it the weakest of the series, I still generally feel like, as a video game, it’s solidly above average.
I’m definitely over boss battles. Not sure if it’s me or just the haphazard way they are used anymore. I wouldn’t mind them so much if they were designed to arise organically from within the game. When 99% of the gameplay is player driven, when say you are happily playing your RPG and suddenly you get dumped into a boss battle that requires platformer or a first person shooter skills that don’t even apply to the rest of the game… it’s kind of sad.
There’s no doubt that Human Revolution is a very strong example of how not to use them, but yeah, boss battles feel (almost always) disappointing and antiquated these days. I mean, the moment I say something like, “I’m over boss battles and would not be sad if I never played one again,” I think of titles like any given Zelda game or some of the really brilliant boss fights in the Metal Gear Solid series (Psycho Mantis, anyone?) and amend, “Well, I’d be okay with boss fights like those.”
Does anyone still really dig boss fights in general? Tap vs. Tap anyone?
>>>Does anyone still really dig boss fights in general? Tap vs. Tap anyone?
Yes!
Are you volunteering, Steerpike? Because I’m ready to get my write on.
I am. Let’s do it!
I remember when I was still gaming mostly on PC, I would roll my eyes at the notion of “Boss Fights”, which I saw as another silly, console-kiddie convention, right up there with save points, combos, and unlock-able content.
I still think that way to a degree, but as Dix stated there’s definitely a right way to do boss fights. Oh, I don’t have anything to say about DXHR, other than that I still haven’t finished it. I definitely like what I’ve seen so far.
Very late to this one but thought I’d read through your review now I’ve finished the game (wrong way around I know but I’m very sensitive to spoilers because I remember things too well!). Anyway, your video review was terrific Steerpike and I think your score is about right to me too.
Thanks Gregg! I’ve got a new video coming soon. The eyes applied to them probably don’t justify the amount of work to make one, but they’re fun to do. Stay tuned!