Deus Ex: Man Kind Divided (30/60$)

Chadum Jensen

It’s not the worst I’ve done

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has some huge shoes to fill both on it’s launch and it only filled them halfway out.  Like a runner who would be that much faster if he could just fill the rest of this mis-sized shoe.  The shoe being a metaphor for the original 2000 release of Dues ex being a legitimate legend in PC gaming.  That being said, the series has gone through a much needed reboot and re lift in terms of quality and gameplay.  The gameplay is amazing and the environments fit the tone.  I’m not sure I would like to live in a futuristic Prague, but I can say for sure that it would look like it does in this game. The game takes its world building to another level by having the police stop you for ID, and at one point insulting a curfew that you have to work around while traversing the open world.  However, one of the main problems with that game is that the open world might be deep and filled with neat stuff, but it really doesn’t matter.  Like getting told you are a nice person after being dumped.  Mankind Divided is 20 hours long if you just do the main mission, and around 30 hours if you do the side missions.  This would all be forgivable if the game offered you solid reasons to replay the game, but it doesn’t sweeten the pot enough for multiple playthroughs, especially when you already know how unfulfilling the story ends.  

That is not to say it is a bad story.  It’s just basic. A stone cold secret agent with amnesia taking on a shadow organization in a multichapter fight against a tyrannical cabal who control the world.  With cliche characters like a misunderstood activist and a mean Russian man, and a ball buster who’s got a heart of gold.  The actual plot is good too, after being set up by shadow agents, Adam Jensen is nearly killed by a terrorist bombing and when he recovers he is tasked with bringing the bastards responsible to justice. It does sound a little to cliche but what sells the plot is the world that it is told in.  Through reading emails and phone messages, you learn so much more about nearly every character.  From coworkers to unnamed guards that you need to knock out quietly.  Which is an absolute treasure to do.  The game does not pussy foot around the fact that Adam Jensen is a cybernetic badass and you will feel like it as you tear through this game.  Even playing a no kill run, I was able to avoid enemies or knock them out quickly from the start of the game to final level, the only thing that changed was how quickly I could do it.  If I wanted too, I could have done a kill run and the gameplay would have been entirely different, but the game clearly is meant to be played with a stealth approach, proved through the background details of the world, the excellent cover system, and the fact that there is a nonviolent way around just about every problem.  Which is refreshing for a shooter.  So many games might give players binary choices like lethal or non lethal.  Or good, bad, or middle.  But Deus ex blurs those lines in both gameplay and story.  You can tackle rooms through stealth shooting, hacking, takedowns, round about pathways, or a combination of all of them and the game shines brightest when that is the approach the player takes. 

But the problem is that playing the game as a cover shooter is awful.  Using certain perks, you will quickly become an unstoppable god no matter what style of play but the main shooting mechanic just doesn’t feel good.  Which is a pretty big flaw in a first person shooter.  The game definitely tries to steer players away from shooting gallery gameplay by letting players figure out their own way around puzzles through skill and environment manipulation but even on my stealth no kill run, I found myself popping a smoke grenade and sadly tranquilizing my targets with little satisfaction. I would even venture to say that Fallout 4 has better gun play than this game.  So even though the stealth gameplay is fun, it will get boring after a while.  Especially when the majority feels like the same setting and the same objective.  Some of the side missions are more unique in task, but no matter what you will stealth through them and they follow the same structure of gathering intel about the target, knocking out or getting an item, bring it back to the quest giver.  The writing for them is good though, but it is just not enough when the mean quest is only 20 hours.  This game could have been on the same scope as the Witcher 3, but since the main story is short to the point where it relies on these sidequests to make it feel more varied and there are not enough of them to do that.

But all of these problems don’t take anything away from what the game does right.  If you are looking to lose yourself in a world for a few hours, then this is the game for you.  The level of care that has gone into building the atmosphere in this game evokes thoughts of the movie Her (2013), but directed by a french Christopher Nolan because this game does get dark and gritty.  You might think the characters are cliche, but they are so well done that you will support their struggles against oppression.  The stealth game play is clean and the freedom it gives the player to solve it’s challenges rivals games like Breath of the Wild.  But the problem is those challenges are almost always: go hack this computer, go take out this bad guy, go talk to your boss to get the next assignment. That’s it.  But you don’t really notice those faults, because it is such a joy to do those assignments.  The true problem comes when the game ends on it’s clear halfway point in the story they must have wanted to tell.  It makes you look back at the game you just played and think, “is that it?” 

 But fortunately for the patient gamers out there, this game is only 30$ now and it is totally worth that price, maybe even a little more.  But if I got this game at 60$ and saw those end credits role when they did, I would’ve been peeved.  30$/30$.