Diaries: Psychopath
I found a number of relatively old but nonetheless interesting articles about how to play Human Revolution if you approach the game in different ways. I suggest starting with the first one.
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For the past few weeks, several people from the editorial team have played the first ten hours of [Deus Ex: Human Revolution](/games?search=Deus Ex: Human Revolution), but until today we couldn't share much. The problem is that the game is exceptionally good. That's why our restrained excitement spilled over into a series of diaries: today we're talking about what happens if you try to play the game as a cyborg psychopath.
Tomorrow, Graham will tell us about how he role-played as a hacker, and on Friday, Rich will try to complete the entire episode relying on conversations and stealth. We'll avoid serious spoilers, but we will inevitably describe the situations you'll find yourself in when the game is released in August. In the meantime, you can read our general impressions in my preview and our spoiler-free opinions in a special Deus Ex episode of our podcast.
[Deus Ex: Human Revolution](/games?search=Deus Ex: Human Revolution) begins with phone conversations between four or five ghostly figures. Perhaps they are plotting something. I won’t be discussing that, nor the next half hour: there is a semi-interactive introduction that isn’t very relevant to the rest of the game.
I’ll start with the first key choice presented to you: you fly to prevent terrorists from stealing a secret prototype of a new implant from your employer, Sarif Industries. Sarif himself will inexplicably act as your lackey while you fly in the helicopter. Does the sir want to kill his opponents or incapacitate them? That’s fine. Does the sir prefer close combat or long-range? If you allow it, killing up close is a great choice.
So I got a revolver. Wait a sec, I had a picture that was five thousand pixels wide somewhere.
Being dropped in front of two SWAT fighters, I felt a strong urge to use my new weapon. I had already played the first mission sensibly when given the chance to play the console version. So this time I asked myself the question every gamer should ask themselves at some point in life: "Can I just, say, shoot these guys and take their gear?"
BANG. Yes! His partner was greatly surprised but managed to fire only one shot into the air before my aim shifted to him. As it turned out, in this game allies are not invulnerable. And with a mouse, hitting people in the head becomes much easier.
The SWAT fighters in the next room were on guard but not hostile—they had heard the shots but didn’t see who fired. It’s an unresolvable mystery, guys, get used to it. Clearly, it wasn't the guy with the revolver who has now taken cover behind a box to shoot you from there.
It gets trickier: three armored fighters at once. I took out the captain without issue but had to take cover when the other two opened fire. Switching to third-person view while in cover felt much nicer on PC—it’s implemented almost the same way as in [Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas](/games?search=Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas), which is one of my favorite shooters.
One fighter started reloading while the other advanced. I leaned out to shoot the first one, then stood up to fight the second in melee. Gigantic blades shot out from my wrists, I plunged them into his throat and spleen, then slammed the enemy to the ground.
Oh, I’m a terrible person. With a free assault rifle.
I was gentler with the terrorists, just breaking their arms and jaws to knock them out. When things started to spiral out of control, I dove for cover and pulled out the revolver. Soon, I found hostages—they were just a side quest, but I really messed up with them when I played on the console. This time, I discovered the code needed to disarm the bomb in someone’s email, so I seamlessly went in and saved everyone. Then I thought.
How would the game react if I saved the hostages and then killed them all?
— Pritchard, — Jensen radioed, stabbing his blades into a woman’s chest, — I found the hostages.
— I take it that’s good news? — Jensen tossed the limp body onto the sofa and went for the next one. — They’re all fine.
For science, I shot each of them in the head and left. Deal with that, game.
In this same mission, I received my first "practice point." These can be used to buy or upgrade implants for your now semi-mechanical body. A new implant costs two points, so if you want to spend the first point right away, you must upgrade what you have. One of the hand modifications allows you to lift and throw heavy objects, so I, of course, took it.
The first thing to toss: a cursed turret. To get behind it, I had to sneak past a camera, so I took the whole setup and hurled it into the camera. The camera shattered to pieces, literally, and I placed the turret in the corner like a disobedient child.
Finally, I met the terrorist leader, Zeke, who was holding another hostage. Negotiations? Of course, I was going to negotiate with a bullet… wait, missed. I will negotiate… oh, he killed the hostage. I’ll negotiate… well, yes, I ended up shooting him, so truthfully, those weren't negotiations.
I shot the guy who burst through the door right after that before realizing he was a SWAT fighter. Then I gunned down all the remaining fighters on the helipad and then all upstairs, only to discover that the entire complex was now filled with SWAT fighters. And I passed the mission again, but in reverse.
As in Hitman: these guys won’t turn hostile until they see you attack, so you can sneak up to them delicately and eliminate them one by one with blades, without raising an alarm. I don’t know why Eidos Montreal thought I might want to play the hour-and-a-half mission in reverse after I already completed it, but they accounted for that possibility. And for the insane serial killer my character was, it was fun in a new way.
I’ll skip the post-mission briefing since I don’t want to spoil that part of the story. But the characters at Sarif headquarters reacted to my deranged rescue slaughter quite convincingly, correctly determining that the hostages had died. Nobody knew I had killed them, of course, but I was surprised that completing the "rescue" objective didn’t lock everyone into "Great Job!" mode—the game really checked whether the hostages were alive. The only mistake was in the newspaper article stating that the bomb exploded, even though I had disarmed it.
Next time you leave Sarif headquarters, it’s not by helicopter, but through the front door. You’re in Detroit, the first urban center in the game, and the point where the game really opens up.
It’s not a full city like in GTA or Oblivion—the nearest equivalent is obviously [Deus Ex](/games?search=Deus Ex). There are several blocks of streets and alleys, and while you can’t enter every building, there are more places to explore than ever before in [Deus Ex](/games?search=Deus Ex).
I found a weapons dealer at an abandoned gas station and bought a shotgun from him. I found the LIMB clinic, where new implants can be comfortably installed, and bought some practice points to upgrade mine. And finally, I went to an apartment complex to talk to a former cop turned guard about a side quest I had just taken.
He turned out to be helpful, but… science. I needed to find out if the game would let me kill him. Heading to the apartment he was guarding, I hacked open someone’s door and lifted the refrigerator. It wasn’t easy getting it down the stairs as the strength implant drained energy, but I had enough left to hurl the refrigerator at his head once I’d managed it. He fell onto the table, dazed and obviously hostile, but when he got up, I had already lifted the refrigerator again and threw it at his chest, finishing him off. Sorry, buddy. It had to happen.
Exploring apartments in Detroit is enjoyable. I kept stumbling upon scenes and snippets of stories that seemed to relate to something significant that I hadn’t uncovered yet. Once, I broke into an apartment that had nothing interesting besides a gun on the table and a locked door.
My hacking skill was too low, and I was already preparing to leave in disappointment when I noticed a grate in the door. I crouched down and peered inside, seeing light. I became doubly annoyed that I couldn’t get in and even more incensed when I realized it was likely explosives—this is how contact mines glowed in [Deus Ex](/games?search=Deus Ex). If games were logical, I could simply shoot the mine through the grate, blowing the door open.
Hmm.
This is Deus Ex. It truly can be that logical. I tried.
It worked. The explosion was monstrous; it not only broke but completely annihilated the door. Inside, I found loads of money, ammunition, and grenades, as well as a computer waiting to be hacked that contained information about the tenant's activities. He was definitely up to something nasty.
In this playthrough, I never learned how nasty, but when other diaries appear, look for mentions of O'Malley—there’s still a lot to uncover about that.
Finally, I found what I was looking for—the apartment of the person connected to the robbery I was investigating for a friend. While checking his computer, I heard someone approaching. Esc! Esc! Esc!
I pressed myself against the wall and looked at the bedroom door. A thug with a gun was prowling around the apartment, calling for me to show myself. I decided not to give him that service and shot randomly with my new shotgun.
The noise was terrible, but a cloud of lead only grazed him. He started firing at the door until the magazine was empty, and at that moment, I sprang out, aimed for his neck, and fired more accurately, knocking him onto the table.
He’s not the guy I need, but I know where to find the right one. He’s hanging out by a dumpster outside, and I know from his email that the records I need are with him. In our conversation, he justified himself by saying he had good intentions and said he would give me the records if I dealt with the drug dealers chasing him.
I thought for a moment, then punched him in the face hard enough that his head slammed against the dumpster.
Not everyone appreciated that. Most of the punks and strays in the alley scuttled away, but two pulled out uzis and opened fire. They hit me before I could make it to cover, but I survived, barely. As they split up, I leaned out and shot one in the head, then stabbed the other with my blades as he tried to flank me.
That’s why they do it in games: if the quest you’ve written doesn’t appeal to some players or they simply don’t think the reward is sufficient, they will still have something to entertain them. I don’t mind taking out drug dealers—I love killing—but even if I weren’t role-playing a psychopath, I don’t think this guy was in a position to give me orders. The game allowed me to express my feelings about that, with my fists.
The last pleasure in the residential area of Detroit I missed until Rich told me about it. The entrance to the block is closed, but if you carefully stand on a barrel and jump onto the fire escape, you can get in. And at a table there slouches a hooded man.
He doesn’t know my character, but I’m not the guy to sell a silencer to. I shot his bodyguard in the back of the head with a satisfyingly dull sound, then turned around and gunned down the dealer before he could pull out a shotgun. Most of his goods were locked in heavy chests, but he had some decent stuff on him as well. I slipped away from there.
One of the important side quests in Detroit can be obtained from a prostitute on Derelict Row, claiming she knows you.
— Jensen, over here! — she screams as you walk by. I approached her and slammed my robotic fist into her face. Everyone screamed.
Hmm. Listen, I know how this sounds, but honestly, I didn’t mean to do it. I just remapped the fist fighting attack to the key I usually use for interaction, and out of habit, I pressed it.
She was unconscious, and nobody cared that I hit her—at least nobody with a weapon. She had a thousand credits and a rare weapon modification. Well, I can’t let good things go to waste. I mean, yes, she’ll probably wake up soon, but… just listen, I’m taking all this. Go ahead, judge me.
The last mission in this build of the game is one that Rich found last week. It’s fun, but it has less room for a psychopath’s experimentation since everything here is initially hostile: killing them is almost the same as stating the obvious. And at the end, there will be a boss battle, which so far is the only disappointment: we looked, but it seems there’s no peaceful alternative to fighting him.
Overall, the centers reveal the richness and flexibility of Deus Ex. Missions give you a new objective and the chance to subject new weapons and implants, whether for combat or stealth, to serious testing. But I hope that the full version of the game will roughly adhere to such a template: a few missions per center and at least as much time for exploring the world and its stories. There will be three urban centers overall, and the first playthrough will take between 25 and 35 hours, so the estimates suggest that it will be so.
Thanks to Soth for proofreading and some help with the translation.