A much anticipated reboot of a fantastic old game. You return as Adam Jensen, Head of Security for Sarif Industries, the leading manufacturer of human augmentation. You are made to dive into a world of corporate espionage, while dealing with some real philosophical conundrums, the main one being: What does it mean to be human? Sarif Industries has created a means that allows ANYONE to have augmentations without the need for drugs to sustain the use of the augs. That raises the question of abuse. If everyone can get augmentations, what’s to stop the wrong kind of people getting their hands on augs and going on a killing spree?
The game is beautiful. The music is perfect, the atmosphere of the game lends itself to its rather dark story. The game opens with Adam, while Sarif Industries is under attack by three augmented soldiers, and this mission serves to teach you the game basics. Finally Adam is defeated by the enemy, seeing that they are augs and he is just a regular human being. Adam is pretty much dead. He is then put under the knife, ordered by David Sarif himself, and is COMPLETELY augmented. You, as Adam, are now a cyborg super soldier. During the attack the head scientist and four others were kidnapped. Because of the research that makes augmentation safe for everyone, your mission is to rescue these scientists and find the hidden hand behind those trying to destroy your company.
The game is First Person Shooter RPG, You play as Adam, you gain experience for completing objectives and taking down enemies, which gives you praxis points that can be used to unlock special abilities within your augmentations, like super strength, speed, hacking, multi-takedowns, and the ability to fall from any height while taking no fall damage. Your character is completely customisable to how you want to play the game. And like Metal Gear Solid, you can play a full stealth game with no killing, or go completely offensive and destroy everything. Which makes for some fun gameplay decisions. There is plenty of chatting to do, talking with other characters in the game to gain new knowledge, and finding out how to alter the game’s progression through conversations is good fun to try out. You are given access to an arsenal of weapons, from a stun gun to a rocket launcher, to Sarif’s proprietary Typhoon weapon system that decimates enemies with ease. As the game goes on, you learn there is more to this kidnapping than you think and you visit places like China, Singapore, Montreal, each with its unique feel and story. A web of conspiracy has opened up to you. How will you untangle it?
Now for the drawbacks. The actual graphics of the game, as in the character models, leave much to be desired, the lip syncing is rather sad, while the mouth movements are lacking in definition. There are times when a lack of augmentation can lead you down a path that you didn’t want to go down. And being that non-lethal kills give more experience points, it tends to stop you from going all Rambo in the game; and let’s be honest, you want to unlock as many augmentations as you can, making Adam a beast. While the underlying story for the game is amazing, Adam’s motivation seems unconvincing. He could have solved the problem and left it at that, but he gets dragged into the conspiracy and it’s hard for you to understand why he’s making so much effort. Pistol, and Rifle, EMP grenades and Gas Grenades, that’s all you need. The rest are just for show.
While it does have its shortcomings, the game is lots of fun, with great re-playability, the harder difficulties are crushing, they teach you to play smart. Buy the game, you won’t regret paying for it. You will have fun.