A great cyberpunk adventure.
This is a sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Though there is a catch up video you can watch, I'd recommend playing Human revolution if you can just because it's fantastic. To sum up though you play a character called Adam Jenson a former head of security for Sarif industries, who now works for Interpol stopping terrorist attacks.
I enjoyed the story quite a bit, it has some interesting themes but isn't quite focused enough on it's direction or characters and is probably the weakest aspect of the game. Just as it was all starting to get interesting the game also ends, it's not quite a cliff hanger but it practically went "to be continued". Fortunately to compliment the main story there are a number of side quests to both find and complete which are generally speaking of a much higher quality than the main story allowing Jenson to interact with more characters and just feel more fleshed out. I would have liked more like that throughout the game.
Onto the actual gameplay. It's a first person shooter/role playing game hybrid though how you really want to play is up to you. Being augmented Jenson has a lot of abilities you can unlock using praxis kits that are gained either through experience points from actions or can be bought or found in the world. Each ability has different trees expanding upon what it can do allowing the player to specialize in a style or jack of all trades as they see fit. There are skills that allow players to hack doors, see through walls or have temporary cloaking for those that want to play completely stealthy. There are also skills allowing you to slow time while aiming, electrocute people etc. for those of a more direct nature. There are plenty of weapons and gadgets to compliment them from stun guns to grenade launchers and hacking tools all of which can be sold, bought and upgraded as you choose.
To follow that freedom is the designs of the levels. There are a huge variety of ways to get to objectives through various shortcuts including large jumps, through sewers, over rooftops, vents, punching walls, hacking doors, with the games extra challenges I love like completing the game without tripping any alarms or without killing anyone which at times can be tough. Mankind Divided has a large hub city to explore where all the side missions are then several other locations Adam gets sent to on missions. The game took me 30 hours+ to complete but then I love exploring and collecting everything I can, hacking all the computers and reading all the lore. If you just speed through it you could complete it in about 10 I suspect but you'd be missing out a lot of what makes the game's universe so interesting.
The presentation of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is pretty mixed. The art style is really nice, I like the near future design of everything and the advertisements. The environments are eye catching and there is a good attention to detail everywhere. The character models are...less great. They are solid enough but feel a little last generation. The lip synching for the characters is also ludicrously bad at times which I just don't expect of a high budget release like this in 2016. To add to this there are times where the frame rate seems to skip, especially when running through the city hub. None of this is game breaking but does hurt the immersion a bit. The sound is a little better, while the voice acting is pretty passable being neither good nor bad (Jenson is especially amusing sounding like a blender full of gravel) the music is at least excellent throughout although at times it would play super loud drowning out the dialogue and I had to adjust it in the settings.
So while I wished for more of the main game because I was having fun with it despite a few minor flaws it's not the only mode to come with the game. Mankind Divided features a new mode called Breach. I hate it. I mean it's awful. It feels like wasted resources that should have been spent polishing the main game. It's essentially a little score attack mode for you to compete with other players. You play a hacker called a Ripper and you control an online avatar completing various missions hacking data to unlock new augments, new levels as well as weapons and items. This mode is not only surprisingly boring but seems to be aimed at getting people to buy packs of new gear, items and boosts with real money called microtransactions which is a practice normally related to free to play mobile games that seems to be steadily encroaching on consoles. Now while both this mode and transactions are completely optional it's pretty bad to have them in there when many gamers feel this game ends rather abruptly anyway.
The bottom line is if you enjoyed Human Revolution and want more than Mankind Divided is exactly that. It doesn't break the mold or put anything new to the table but has managed to refine a lot of what made it's predecessor so good. It's not a perfect game by any means, there is still room for improvement but it was certainly fun for me, just sad the series seems to have been stopped after this release.
+ Side quests are brilliant.
+ Nice amount of abilities and weapons.
+ Level designs and options are excellent.
+ Great art and music.
- Story could have been a bit more focused and complete.
- Dodgy lip synching sometimes, some frame rate issues.
- Breach mode is both awful and unwanted.
This is a sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Though there is a catch up video you can watch, I'd recommend playing Human revolution if you can just because it's fantastic. To sum up though you play a character called Adam Jenson a former head of security for Sarif industries, who now works for Interpol stopping terrorist attacks.
I enjoyed the story quite a bit, it has some interesting themes but isn't quite focused enough on it's direction or characters and is probably the weakest aspect of the game. Just as it was all starting to get interesting the game also ends, it's not quite a cliff hanger but it practically went "to be continued". Fortunately to compliment the main story there are a number of side quests to both find and complete which are generally speaking of a much higher quality than the main story allowing Jenson to interact with more characters and just feel more fleshed out. I would have liked more like that throughout the game.
Onto the actual gameplay. It's a first person shooter/role playing game hybrid though how you really want to play is up to you. Being augmented Jenson has a lot of abilities you can unlock using praxis kits that are gained either through experience points from actions or can be bought or found in the world. Each ability has different trees expanding upon what it can do allowing the player to specialize in a style or jack of all trades as they see fit. There are skills that allow players to hack doors, see through walls or have temporary cloaking for those that want to play completely stealthy. There are also skills allowing you to slow time while aiming, electrocute people etc. for those of a more direct nature. There are plenty of weapons and gadgets to compliment them from stun guns to grenade launchers and hacking tools all of which can be sold, bought and upgraded as you choose.
To follow that freedom is the designs of the levels. There are a huge variety of ways to get to objectives through various shortcuts including large jumps, through sewers, over rooftops, vents, punching walls, hacking doors, with the games extra challenges I love like completing the game without tripping any alarms or without killing anyone which at times can be tough. Mankind Divided has a large hub city to explore where all the side missions are then several other locations Adam gets sent to on missions. The game took me 30 hours+ to complete but then I love exploring and collecting everything I can, hacking all the computers and reading all the lore. If you just speed through it you could complete it in about 10 I suspect but you'd be missing out a lot of what makes the game's universe so interesting.
The presentation of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is pretty mixed. The art style is really nice, I like the near future design of everything and the advertisements. The environments are eye catching and there is a good attention to detail everywhere. The character models are...less great. They are solid enough but feel a little last generation. The lip synching for the characters is also ludicrously bad at times which I just don't expect of a high budget release like this in 2016. To add to this there are times where the frame rate seems to skip, especially when running through the city hub. None of this is game breaking but does hurt the immersion a bit. The sound is a little better, while the voice acting is pretty passable being neither good nor bad (Jenson is especially amusing sounding like a blender full of gravel) the music is at least excellent throughout although at times it would play super loud drowning out the dialogue and I had to adjust it in the settings.
So while I wished for more of the main game because I was having fun with it despite a few minor flaws it's not the only mode to come with the game. Mankind Divided features a new mode called Breach. I hate it. I mean it's awful. It feels like wasted resources that should have been spent polishing the main game. It's essentially a little score attack mode for you to compete with other players. You play a hacker called a Ripper and you control an online avatar completing various missions hacking data to unlock new augments, new levels as well as weapons and items. This mode is not only surprisingly boring but seems to be aimed at getting people to buy packs of new gear, items and boosts with real money called microtransactions which is a practice normally related to free to play mobile games that seems to be steadily encroaching on consoles. Now while both this mode and transactions are completely optional it's pretty bad to have them in there when many gamers feel this game ends rather abruptly anyway.
The bottom line is if you enjoyed Human Revolution and want more than Mankind Divided is exactly that. It doesn't break the mold or put anything new to the table but has managed to refine a lot of what made it's predecessor so good. It's not a perfect game by any means, there is still room for improvement but it was certainly fun for me, just sad the series seems to have been stopped after this release.
+ Side quests are brilliant.
+ Nice amount of abilities and weapons.
+ Level designs and options are excellent.
+ Great art and music.
- Story could have been a bit more focused and complete.
- Dodgy lip synching sometimes, some frame rate issues.
- Breach mode is both awful and unwanted.