What Human Revolution Got Wrong

Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw, in one of his less comedy-oriented ‘Extra Punctuation’ angles, editorializes on the five things he thinks the original Deus Ex – despite not having aged well, according to his opinion – does better than its recent and much-praised prequel. Two of them:

2. There are danged melee weapons

This was one of the most glaring omissions in Human Revolution’s gameplay: not so much as a sharp stick for whacking things directly in front of you. Are melee weapons another thing that modern-day shooters are attempting to phase out, like health bars and fun? There used to be a dedicated weapon slot for it and for a while it was almost de rigueur for each shooter to have its own iconic melee weapon (Quake’s axe, Half-Life’s crowbar, Blood’s pitchfork, Duke’s shoe). Then melee weapons had to start sharing a slot with a gun, as with Gears of War’s chainsaw bayonet, and now for the most part shooters eschew independent melee weapons in favour of a pistol whip or rifle butt attack.

And that’s fine. HR should have had that sort of thing, rather than only being able to take down enemies with a context-sensitive button press that leads to a cutaway finishing move. It’s like they’re deliberately baiting me now – the worst parts of games like God of War are the endlessly repeated pre-baked brutal finishers and now they’ve literally cut straight to the bloody things. I might have tolerated the boss fights more if I could run up behind them, twat them around the back of the head and run away.

Also, melee weapons have more uses than just battle, such as smashing breakable objects without spending ammo. Early in HR when my HUD informed me that the cardboard boxes were breakable, I wasted some time hurling them against walls hoping they’d split open and disgorge goodies. I’d like to see Adam Jensen get a job with a removals firm.

3. There’s danged specialization

My interpretation of a role-playing game is a game in which you choose a role from several alternatives. The classic model is fighter/rogue/mage, but in Deus Ex things were a little more nebulous. You could be a sneaky locksmith who carried a pistol for emergencies, or an invisible hacker who secured the area with a long-range rifle before they went in, or a mad bastard who ran around smacking people with a light sabre. Watch me blow your mind as I accurately describe the character most of you played in Human Revolution: a bloke who started out with the intention of doing a stealthy run but had to start carrying proper guns after a few hairy moments, who by the end of the game was also an expert hacker with very good arm strength and the ability to jump over buses.

See, what characterizes the “action game with RPG elements” rather than the action RPG is that by the end of it you’re basically skilled across the board, so every player eventually becomes the same thing. And this removes both replay value and the potential for “water cooler gaming”, which I’ve always found appealing, where every player has a unique experience they can share over an office coffee break or after-hours sex orgy. Even Alpha Protocol made you specialize. You could even specialize in shotguns if you were dangerously thick.