This is part two of a six-piece blog series that shows my in-depth impressions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I'll publish one post on a different topic about the game every day this week through Saturday.
Part 1: Inspirations, improvements and missteps
Part 3: Universe and relationships
Part 5: Augmentations and controversies
When you strap into Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you are definitely playing by Eidos Montréal's rules. Thank goodness, the rules aren't as strict as they probably would be if someone else developed the game.
Take the stealth vs killing options — in some games, if you choose (or are forced) to start a mission with the intention of not being seen, it would punish you for breaking stealth. In Human Revolution, you can break stealth whenever you want and kill people with no punishment. Sometimes a few more enemies will show up or you'll gain the attention of a sentry robot, but it's nothing more than a slap on the wrist, assuming you're equipped for the situation. Even if you're not, it's not too difficult to hide again and wait for the enemies to calm down, just like in Metal Gear Solid.
If you are detected, Human Revolution does a pretty good job of segmenting the gunfights, too, as long as you're not in the middle of a city hub wreaking havok. If you're in a building, it's likely that only people in the immediate area will be alerted to your presence and open fire. A similar stealth system was used in last year's Goldeneye 007 remake and it worked beautifully. Human Revolution even has the Shink! sound effect when guards become suspicious, much like Goldeneye.
Unlike Fallout 3 and Mass Effect, Human Revolution has no morals system. You're not penalized for killing people. It feels more like Crysis or Hitman in this regard. Even NPCs in the streets can be killed for no reason and you'll never see a karma blip in the corner of your HUD that tips moral scales for you "being bad."
In a generation where developers have adopted moral balances to keep you in line, it's refreshing to see Human Revolution leaving only your own judgement to fight with. Can you live with murdering everyone? Then do it; the game certainly won't judge you.
If you're a softy like me, you can choose to incapacitate by weapon, by hand-to-hand takedown or bypass almost all the enemies in the game without shedding any blood. Here, Metal Gear Solid pops up again. However, unlike Metal Gear Solid, Human Revolution forces you to kill off boss characters. Perhaps they deserve it? Human Revolution never really gives you enough information besides "They're trying to kill you, so kill them first" to decide. Oddly enough, after one boss battle, someone asks Jensen if he wants to save the boss before s/he dies, all during a nonplayable cutscene. He says maybe, yet the game never gives you, the player, the option of saving or killing the boss for good.
One of the only decisive factors for going guns blazing or stealthily has to do with the XP you get for both choices. You gain more XP for incapacitating enemies and for reaching the end of sections without being seen or setting off alarms, but it can be offset by the amount you get for killing enemies with headshots, and taking out robots and turrets. This is the only drawback with the XP system is that it almost encourages you not to be seen and not to kill by awarding you more XP for it. On the other hand, you get no XP if you completely ignore enemies, so you should probably do something with them. What you do is up to your own imagination.
Photo from Deusex.com