Team Fortress Is Free. Yay.

When a few seconds into my first game of Team Fortress 2 in nearly two years, I was killed by a scout wearing a top-hat and wielding a fish, you can surely forgive me for wondering which new strain of class A hallucinogenic Valve had been taking prior to their decision to release the game as free to play. Then, when a maniacally cackling pyro with a rubber glove stretched over his gimp mask ran past, waving an axe wrapped in barbed wire; I started wishing all the developers were taking it.

For a well-balanced and competitive multiplayer fps; Team Fortress was completely bonkers the first time round, only now, like a sexually deviant granny, we get it free of charge and with an abundance of hats. Clearly Valve have realised that their sales of the game had plateaued and have quite sensibly decided to open their gates so that the masses can flood inwards in a frenzied spree of micro-transacting and hat wearing.  

You heard it right - micro-transactions – say it again without choking. To be fair, any which can be deemed game changing are extremely cheap; allowing you to bag most of the important ones together for under a tenner, if not less if you only play a few classes. If you have the patience, you can just play the game without them and wait for them to gradually unlock over time, which they do. You need a premium account for this though; you can get one by either being someone who has already bought the game prior to the changes or by buying one item. Given that the cheapest of them are below 30p this isn’t the end of the world.

Valve have also streamlined the game-finding process (without illiminating the ability to manually search for a server) and gone to great lengths to improve the amount of information on offer to a new player in the form of tutorials for each class. These are basic at best, but provide a vital staging area for new-comers to grasp the basics before getting involved in the game proper. There really couldn’t be a better time to get started. 

Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants? Or Just An Augmented Midget?

So recently I finally got around to finishing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It was brilliant. More consistently fun than anything else that I've played in a long time. Annoyingly though, I was also left with a residual feeling of dissatisfaction that I just couldn't seem to shake. As I lay in bed one night, wondering why I was so jaded and hard to please, it came to me. The problem with DE:HR is that it's standing in the shadow of a game with a reputation so grand that it's almost mythical. This got me thinking; is Deus Ex really as good as I and everyone else remembers it? Is it really deserving of the pedestal that we all place it on? It's been over ten years since it was released and lets be honest here; people who look back, misty-eyed, at the good old days are often wearing a very large pair of rose tinted specs. So, I decided to take the hit, and fork out just over a fiver on Steam to find out.

The first thing that I did after installing and booting up the game was spend ten minutes cheerfully singing 'Durr na na nurr nuh!' along to the theme tune as I cranked up the resolution and changed the controls. Then I spent another five jigging along to that dancey bit in the middle as I faffed around with the colour of the interface. This is a proper old-school PC game right here, with hot-keys for everything under the sun. There are even keys for looking right, left, up, down and for centering my view, which I admit is pointless but it's nice to have options.

Finally finished with my setup I started a new game. 

Satisfyingly, I'm greeted straight away with more options for customisation, getting to choose my face, race and hair colour before being moved on to choosing my skills; most of which I decided to pump into low-tech weapons use. My plan was to get it up to master level as soon as possible so that I could 'Render most enemies dead or unconscious with a single blow', which frankly, sounded awesome. I didn't have quite enough to get me there from the paltry amount allocated to me at the start, so I dumped what was left into hacking.
One of my biggest quibbles with DE:HR was that despite all of the different augs available to choose from, it's apparent that you will always end up the same as everyone else by the end. There were so many praxis points on offer that by the time you were 25 hours in, you had already unlocked everything that you wanted. There were no more hard choices to make about my characters development, and that took away a large part of the fun. Hard choices that force you to consider carefully and effect how you will be playing the game are fun. Feeling like whatever choice you make will ultimately not matter, is not. 
Deus Ex has a lot more options available. For example; instead of hacking being a catch-all skill that allows you hack all PC's and door locks with the same repetitive mini-game, there are separate skills that influence doing things like, unlocking mundane doors, bypassing electronic devices, or if you wanted; blowing them to pieces altogether. The need to find consumerable multi-tools, lock-picks and explosives to do this only adds to the gravity of the choice that you make. Sure, this one in particular is only about how to open a door, but that's the point isn't it? If even the smallest task presents you with interesting options then that can only be a good thing. This sort of complexity is often shied away from in modern gaming. It's a shame.


The first and most obvious thing that struck me when I finally got going, was that the engine is definitely looking it's age. It wasn't exactly a looker when it was released, and unlike a fine wine, time has not been a friend to it. No anti-aliasing, dodgy unnatural looking shadows and walking animations that make people look as if they have been mounted rear-end first onto a metal rod and wheeled around flailing their arms and legs to make it look authentic. It didn't matter though. I've always had the imagination to ignore stuff like this, as long as the situation that I'm in is suitably exciting and the things I'm doing are suitably interesting. So after grabbing a mini-crossbow from my brother Paul (in the game unfortunately), I set about interesting-make-believe-ninja-sneaking my way forward.     



The first try at tranquilising a terrorist didn't go so well. Without the cover system and radar from DE:HR, it was much easier to be surprised and spotted by a guard that I didn't know was there. Also the rules about whether they spot you or not sometimes seem quite arbitrary. For example; I was told in a training mission that sticking to the shadows would keep me hidden, but when I did just that and fired a silent dart into an oblivious terrorists head, he instantly seemed to know where I was hiding and pole-bum-wheeled his way towards me like an angry pistol waving marionette. If marionettes had bum-poles instead of strings. Justifiably terrified, I ran in circles around some packing crates until my tranq dart knocked him out, nicked his gun, and cursed Anna Navarre for providing me with the most useless stealth training ever. So sure, the AI is bollocks. The thing is, and maybe I'm just being ignorant out of sentiment, it didn't matter again. Just because the AI isn't acting realistically doesn't mean it isn't acting interestingly. I was still having good fun predicting their patrol routes, and once I mastered the crossbow-and-run-like-a-girl tactic I was golden. Apply a little bit of imagination and you can still be a stealthy killer from among the shadows; it's just not quite as aesthetically pleasing as in more modern games.  


When I had stealth-dicked my way close enough to the wrecked shell of the Statue Of Liberty that I was supposed to be getting into, I stopped and checked my objectives. So far so like Human Revolution. Find and interrogate terrorist leader... check. Rescue hostage from terrorists...check. Massive island with multiple avenues of approach...check. Except the last one only applies to Deus Ex. In DE:HR on multiple occasions you only really have one path to take. Sure you can move along that path in more than one way, but you are still essentially on the same straight path. Worse; because a lot of the time this means crawling through an air vent, it's often significantly less fun to take an alternate route. Why would you crawl through a dull, grey vent when you can have fun sneaking around a bunch of guards? There isn't one vent that I found on Liberty Island.


I got in by sneaking around the back and piling up boxes so that I could scale a wall. I then stealthily set about disabling security cameras and alarmed laser grids with my multi-tool before making my way to the prison cell where they were holding the captured agent that I had to rescue. The mighty Gunther Hermann. He wasn't happy, so after taking my pistol, he went upstairs and killed every living person there. It rendered my philanthropic entry slightly redundant, but fuck me it was hilarious. The great thing is, this part wasn't even scripted (I don't think). Gunther only went mental because I neglected to see the guard standing in the next room. Who decided it was a great idea to fire a pistol into Gunther's back. So, after being severely bullet-ridden, the guy ran upstairs with my half-robotic friend in tow. There were guards upstairs. When I followed, there was only a big gory mess with Gunther standing in the middle of it. Bravo, augmented Arnie, Bravo.


I didn't even need to rescue Gunther. I didn't need to give him the gun. I didn't need to stack the boxes and climb the wall, I could have learned the code for the front gate and tip-toed past the bot patrolling in front of it, or I could have shut it down with an EMP grenade, or I could have put more points into hacking at the start and turned the security systems upon themselves. The list goes on. When I reached the terrorist leader, I listened to what he had to say and arrested him. I could have just shot him in the head, It all counts.


In all fairness Human Revolution gives you similar freedom at various points, and often how you approach these sections have far reaching effects that change how later events pan out. But somehow, it feels more contrived in that game, as if when you reach these points you are being presented with a cleverly disguised menu that gives you a flat choice of  how to proceed. Of course, this IS what is happening in both games, but Deus Ex seems to do it far more often and not just with the big choices, but with the insignificant ones as well. As a result, the illusion of being able to do what you want is made so much stronger.


In conclusion then; yes, Deus Ex is the classic that we think it is. I've only done the Liberty Island mission upon writing this but I've been sucked back into it just like I was the first time. Sure it looks dated, the voice acting is terrible and the action can be a bit stunted, but i'm enjoying it as much as its newly released prequel and not just because of nostalgia. It really is nice to be transported back to a time when games were just for geeks, where menus weren't chunky designed-for-television affairs and it was impossible to unlock and upgrade everything on the first play-through. It was a geekier time, a more contented time, and apparently I've written this whole thing wearing those rose-tinted specs I was trying to avoid. 


Bugger.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The Verdict.

Adam Jensen, winner of the Detroit pointiest beard of the year competition and Chief of Security for Sarif industries, is trying and failing to get into a hotel. The place is crawling with guards, and any thoughts that he had of simply walking through the front door have long since evaporated. Of course, Adam knows that this is the way of things. It was, after all, in his first week in his new job that he was impaled unto the point of death on the jagged wreckage of a large piece of machinery. Then shot in the head. He's ok now though. His boss chucked him onto an operating table and saved his life. Indeed, he also replaced all four limbs and most of his internal organs with mechanical replacements before hammering some sunglasses into his skull. 

You take the rough with the smooth, thought Jensen, as he detoured around the side of the building to wedge himself into a conveniently placed air duct. There's always a way in.

As a prequel to what is widely regarded as one of the best games of all time, Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a lot to live up to. Deus Ex set the bar of excellence so high that it has rarely been reached since. It was revolutionary in that it offered almost unprecedented freedom to approach any challenge, in any way that you wanted. You could be a sneaky, stealth, ninja who only stabbed people in the backside with electric prods, or you could be a raging, nigh-on-invincible, bazooka wielding machine. Not only this; Ion Storm had designed a game that was so thorough in it's predictions of what a player might do in any given situation, that even if you went in the exact opposite direction of where the game was prodding you; it would accommodate this and change accordingly. To this day, the bit where Anna Navarre ordered me to kill an unarmed hostage, only for me to save my game and experimentally kill her with a bunch of grenades, stands out as one of my fondest gaming memories. Not because I particularly enjoy blowing sadistic cyber-agents to bits with grenades (i do) but because I wasn't confronted with a game over screen for doing it. Will Human Revolution live up to the name? 

As I mentioned above, you play as gravelly voiced Adam Jensen. A mechanically augmented ex-SWAT operative who is now working as Head of Security for Sarif Industries; one of the worlds premier creators and suppliers of augmentation technology. It's a time of political unrest as the world is divided over the ethics of forcing evolution by grafting machinery onto our bodies. Where some people fight for their right to choose this path, others believe that it's an abhorration and that our humanity is reduced with every upgrade. In addition, anyone who has been augmented runs the risk of their bodies eventually rejecting the implants and so, must take drugs bought from the government for the rest of their lives. For me, this gave an interesting spin on things as my opinion on the matter fell somewhere in the middle. Do I agree with people effectively being trapped into paying for drugs for the rest of their lives? No. But on the other hand, Adam himself would be dead if the same augmentations hadn't saved his life. It's a debate that is often brought up throughout and it's interesting to play a game where the line between good and evil isn't so obvious.


The game itself plays as a kind of stealth-rpg-cover shooter with multiple ways to achieve your objectives. The levels are split between a series of fairly tight linear sections and large, open, hub areas where you are free to explore and pick up side quests. Although the linear parts do shepherd you from point A to point B, Eidos have done so well with creating the illusion of choice that you rarely feel as though you don't have it. Indeed, there are always alternate routes available or turrets to hack or roofs to recklessly jump off of; but you're really just walking down an extremely wide corridor as opposed to a narrow one. The hub sections are far more open and look fantastic, with multitudes of npc's to talk to and conversations to overhear. Heng Sha especially, is a real joy to explore with bustling labyrinthine streets lined with bars, shops and clubs with chefs outside cooking food in woks over open flames: All is bathed in the neon glow of hundreds of individually branded signs hanging from the twisted, cramped buildings, towering above. It's deliciously foreign and you get a real sense of futuristic culture as you walk it's winding paths. 


The missions and side quests themselves are also a real joy to fight or sneak your way through for various reasons aside from the beautiful design. First, the much lauded third person cover system is actually fantastic. The transition from first person feels extremely natural and any perceived lack of immersion is more than made up for by how cinematic it looks when Jensen rolls from cover to cover. By default, holding the right mouse button will cause you to stick to any valid object in an instant and releasing will un-stick you just as quickly. I've never once had any frustrating issues with getting stuck behind cover when a bad guy flanks me, or accidentally ducking behind something when I wanted to go around it. That's right, i'm looking at you Mass Effect and Gears of War. 
The enemy AI is perfect too. Well, I say perfect. The very essence of their perfection is that they are not quite perfect. That makes sense right? I'll explain... The enemies in this game are a bit too forgiving when it comes to spotting you diving around stealthily, and will tend to miss you even if they are standing right next to you cowering behind a sofa. This is never annoying. In fact, because of this imperfection it stops the game being about cowering behind sofas and allows you to get on with the sneaking and the stalking and the frenzied beating of bad guys with cybernetic fists. If they do happen to spot you (or if you're the Rambo type) they will fan out convincingly, cover each other with suppressing fire and try and flush you out with grenades. But again, they are stupid enough so that you can still pick an opportunity to disappear. Maybe to flank them and pick them off one by one. I've had great fun doing just this; zipping from enemy soldier to enemy soldier and taking them down with kung-fu uber moves.


And what kung-fu uber moves they are! You have probably heard of the animated take-downs that you can execute if you get close to somebody. If you do this, and press a key, you will expend a bar of energy (used to power your augmentations) to launch into a brilliantly choreographed and violent insta-death move. These are entertaining right up until the end of the game and were my primary way of dealing out destruction all the way through.


Annoyingly, the constant fun provided by the basic guards in the game is broken up somewhat by several boss fights that follow the basic game formula of being invulnerable until they reveal their one weakness. Further to this, they feel shoe-horned into the story. The bosses' appearances don't really add any significance to the plot so it remains a bit of a mystery as to why they were added in the first place.


There is another type of 'boss', however, that is far more satisfying. At certain intervals you get to engage in a kind of conversational battle (which may or may not actually be the official name for these) with key characters. The idea being that you need to convince them to release some information to you or to do something else that you want purely with the power of speech. An extremely well acted and well animated sequence will start where you need to listen carefully to what your 'opponent' says and react accordingly by choosing the correct response. It's a very well done, surprisingly natural process that feels far more at home in Human Revolutions world.


You also have access to a large range of augmentations to unlock and upgrade as you progress. These are upgraded by earning experience points. Once you get a certain amount you're rewarded with a praxis point which you spend to upgrade yourself. (Someone needs a thesaurus....) The aug' tree is deceptively expansive but, in all honestly, only a handful of them are actually fun to use. The majority are either passive abilities that make you harder to kill, immune to the effects of certain weapons or better at hacking computers (done with a brief but entertaining mini game). The others are used mainly for exploration and only five really change the way you play your character. One being massively over-powered; a fully upgraded stealth aug' almost feels like an invulnerability button. 
Finally, in this regard; the hacking augs are far too important. Not upgrading them massively gimps your chance of accessing interesting areas throughout the game, and as I didn't want to miss content, I felt forced to invest heavily in fairly boring augs early on. Upgrade.


Having said all this, when you manage to jump off a roof in a ball of shiny light, only to stun everyone nearby with your shiny fist slam, and then spin on the spot to release a load of tiny explosives that kill them all, before cloaking and sprinting into the night - it's damn cool.

The game runs brilliantly on my HD5770 and looks fantastic doing it. Some of the textures dont quite make the grade when subjected to a closer inspection as there are some weirdly low-res clutter items sitting around. For the most part though, they dont detract from the overall feel of things and you don't really notice them. Loading times were reasonable on my PC and considering how much I used the quick load function, (more often to re-play fun sections than because of horrible deaths, honest) it says a lot that I never felt frustrated when waiting for the action to start back up.


Overall It's about as worthy a successor to Deus Ex as we are going to get. No other game on the market that I'm aware of right now manages to pull off such a deft mix of linearity and freedom. In fact, I'd go so far as too say it's the best game that I've played this year. If it wasn't for minor problems such as the dodgy boss battles, slightly unbalanced augmentation system and a bit of a repetitive lull in gameplay during the middle segments, It would be right up their with Half-Life 2 in my all time greats. It falls a bit short, but you can do far, far, worse than devoting 30 or so hours to this gripping, futuristic, thriller.

The past to the future. Why I think games are lovely, lovely, things.

My name's Shaun Carr and I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember in one form or another. My earliest gaming memory is way back in the day, when we had one of those old Amstrad things. I remember the games used to come on cassette tapes that I had to rewind when I was finished playing. Then I was bought a Sega Megadrive and experienced the wonder that was Sonic The Hedgehog - the one game that I actually played with my dad.


It wasn't until a few years later when I went round to my neighbors house to play with action figures (or something) that my obsession with gaming really began. As I was walking through his kitchen I saw his dad sat in front of a big beige PC. We didn't have one of our own at this point so, curious, I wandered over to see what he was doing. 
'It's time to kick-ass and chew bubblegum. But i'm all outta gum.' came the arrogant drawl from within that magical beige thing. Duke Nukem 3D. 
I'd seen FPS games before... at least I think I had. Doom, maybe. Somewhere. Possibly. But this... this crazy man with his mouse and his keyboard? It boggled the mind to not use a controller, yet here he was; chucking pipe-bombs at pig-cops and being chauvinistic to strippers with all the freedom and accuracy of a skydiving-ninja.


Then some time later, whenever it was that Quake 2 came out, I remember sitting in my friend's  bedroom as his dad came thundering up the stairs; bursting into the room with excitement.
'I'm playing Quake, online, against other people, from like, all over the world!' It was like sorcery and I was hooked. Consoles just didn't give me this kind of freedom, this connectivity and sense of community that the PC does. I've never looked back since. 


I firmly believe that games are art. Society just doesn't know it yet. No other form of entertainment media connects with people in the same way that video games do. I've ridden wolves across the great, empty, plains of The Barrens on Azeroth and stood sword and shield in hand, protecting my friends from giant slavering monsters. I've been to a future vision of China and walked its neon streets; beating up goons with my cybernetic fists and to the Orwellian nightmare that is City 17 as Gordon Freeman.


People love to travel and see new places in real life and they're respected for doing it. 'Ooh ain't you grand for broadening your horizons!' they'll cry, and I'll agree. Travelling is one of the most mind opening and interesting experiences you can have. And I've done it to a degree. I'll continue to do it. But when I don't have two grand in the bank to go backpacking around Thailand, i'll still be taking a bathysphere to the underwater dystopia that is Rapture. I experienced the same sense of wide-eyed wonder riding a train through the vineyard covered valleys of Italy as I did cresting that rock to see Andrew Ryan's underwater metropolis. And they say that games promote violence and hatred.


A well made game is a beautiful thing, and I'm proud to be part of the first generation of people to truly experience them. I'm literally going to be among the first wave of geriatric gamers sitting in their wheelchairs, headsets glued to their ears, blowing each other up on Team Fortress 2. Retirement is going to be a blast.


So, swing by if you can. Cos' I'm all out of gum.