Deus Ex: The Fall Review

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CPU: Intel Core I3-2120 3.3 Ghz / AMD Equivalent
VGA: GeForce 500 Series or Radeon 7000 Series
RAM: 4 GB
HDD:  4 GB
DirectX: 9.0c

Review code provided by Publisher

Deus Ex: The Fall is a cyberpunk FPS set in 2027. You play as Ben Saxon, an Ex British SAS soldier and former member of the Tyrants – the enemies from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. He is now an augmented mercenary hiding out in Panama running low on drugs. Technically he is not an addict; the use of Neuropozyne is so that the body doesn’t reject its augmentations.

The game starts with you being on a mission in Moscow – which is basically the tutorial section of the game. This is where you learn how to use the tech you got, how to buy weapons, equipment and teaches you to hack. After this you begin the actual story which is where your partner comes into it, Anna Kelso. Like you her body is also rejecting the augmentations. Ben’s primary objective is to secure a source of Neuropozyne and in order to do this he must help out a local doctor who will trade him the drug for information.

I see you.

I see you.

The game is a port from the original mobile version. This becomes obvious as the keyboard/mouse combination has a few issues. First, no matter how high you turn up the mouse sensitivity, it always feels sluggish. Secondly, you can’t alter the binding of the keys from their default layout. The cover system doesn’t work that good, with moving from cover to cover being not very precise so you come out of cover and end up getting shot. Using a controller did help make the controls smoother with better sensitivity when compared to using the mouse to look around.

The game does have the feel of a Deus Ex title and if you stick to the main mission it will take you about two hours to complete. There are side missions available which does extend it to around five hours, which is not bad considering it was a mobile game. This looks likely to be an episodic game, as when you finish it you get a message saying “To be continued…” Whether this will be in the form of another game or DLC is unclear. A leftover feature from the mobile game is the prompts during interaction. These look like they pop up for you tap on tablets, whereas on the PC they come up but don’t give which key to press so quite pointless.

You stabbed me in the back.

You stabbed me in the back.

The level layout has not been altered from the IOS and Android version. Moscow is very linear and feels like that you are on rails going through it, with all you are doing basically is interacting with objects and killing enemies. When you come to the open Panama the loading of different part of the location gets very annoying. You can be walking along and then you hit an invisible wall and get a prompt asking you do you want to travel? This happens a lot and you also find that though it is not linear, there is not a lot of variation in locations where you need visit.

Graphically, the game looks OK. On mobile devices it looked good thanks to the smaller screen; on larger PC monitors, you get mixed results. The main character models are detailed and look realistic, while all the NPC are simplistic and repeated a lot throughout. The backgrounds really stand out though and Deus Ex fans will observe lots of posters and stuff that was used in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Lip-sync is annoying as when the character is speaking the mouth just open and closes with no pattern.

Nice guns.

Nice guns.

The storyline is average and the script is just as mediocre. The voice acting is ok just let down by the lip-sync problem mentioned above. The background music is probably the best part about the audio experience in this game. Being as this looks like being a chapter-based series, there are no multiplayer options. The hacking parts of the game are a big let-down, during the game you will find that a lot of doors will require a skill level which is higher than you will have. This happens early in the game so many areas are not accessible. When you find when one you can hack, it is more hit-and-miss if you are successful or not.

Final Thoughts

Deus Ex: The Fall is a great mobile game. What it is not is a great PC game. Mediocre would be a better description, with it being aimed more at the die-hard Deus Ex fans more than the casual FPS gamer. I would say give it a try for the price point, but play having big expectations about it.

6 out of 10

 

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