Hello there! Between work, my master's degree and going to the gym, I had a bit of time to play some more video games. That means I have been playing Elden Ring and not really much else.

What even is this game?

Moving on, between Elden Ring sessions I've played and finished the PC version of Deus Ex: The Fall. What is this game though? Well, to put it bluntly, it is a lite companion game to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, created for Android and iOS. It was supposed to be an episodic adventure, but only the first episode was ever released (probably because Square Enix higher ups actively hate all their western games), ending on a big "To Be Continued" screen. This mobile version also had microtransactions attached to all in-game resources, be they weapons, upgrade points or consumables, but the option to buy them with real money was removed in the PC port.

Story

Now that we established what the game is, we should talk about the story. This game is supposed to be a sequel to a novel called Deus Ex: Icarus Effect. The main character is an ex-mercenary, Ben Saxon, after he deserts the Tyrants, who, amusingly, are the boss encounters of Human Revolution. The gist of this betrayal is as follows: the Tyrants wanted to recruit Ben into their ranks so they sabotaged a mission he was a part of. After several months of working with them, he finds out and deserts by jumping out of their plane. Those events are related in the book and also are the prologue of the game, to provide some background for the people who haven't read it.

After going through the betrayal, the game uses the end of the book as its starting off point. Ben and secret agent Anna Kelso are holed up in a safehouse in Costa Rica, hiding from the Tyrants and the Illuminati, who are pulling the strings of every powerful entity in the world. They are both augmented people (aka they have parts of their bodies replaced with robotic parts), and they need a drug named Neuropozyne (shortened as Nu-Poz) in order to keep them functional, since their bodies refuse their tech. Ben talks to a contact of his, Janus (who becomes very important in Mankind Divided), about not having stocks of the drug. Sadly, he can't help them but he suggests that Saxon go to Panama City to inquire about an offbrand version of the drug, since there is a catastrophic shortage of Nu-Poz worldwide.

To keep it short, in Panama Ben finds out the offbrand version is called Riezene and uncovers a plot of the company producing it using the population of the Panama slums as test subjects for it, using a PMC and the local gang to dispose of the bodies of the ones with averse reactions. To make it worse, the Tyrants are somehow involved and just when the plot gains some momentum and Ben is going to Australia to investigate the company producing Riezene, the game ends, the second episode never being released.

Gameplay

Gameplay-wise the game is decent. It is a very watered down version of Human Revolution, porting over the stealth, but with dumber AI, alternative routes to objectives or even outright bypassing them through conversation puzzles, hacking minigames copied straight from the main game and cover-based shooting, with the caveat of the weapons being really bad. The things they took away are inventory management (now you are allowed to hold as many items as you wish), the invetory screen being replaced with the store. A remnant of the microtransaction plagued mobile version is this store, because it presents multiple versions of the same gun, the better versions having insanely better stats and exorbitant prices. That's kinda it for the gameplay, on PC it is nothing special, but as a phone game, the amount of effort is endearing.

Presentation

The game was made using Unity and it emulates the look of Human Revolution pretty well, within the constraints of a smartphone. The levels are pretty small, the open world being segmented into 3 separate areas which you can traverse end to end in about 20 seconds, connected by loading screens. The interior levels, like the gang hideout, the hotel or the secret base under the city are also pretty small, being sequences of a few rooms and hallways connected by more loading screens. The level design is pretty good, still offering quite a few alternate routes, so I commend them for the effort. So, game looks nice (for mobile), but suffers a bit due to it. What about sound? The voice acting in the game is really good, which helped me remain invested, and the soundtrack is reused from Human Revolution, which makes it exceptional by default.

All in all, the game warrants a playthrough for the novelty of it, beign a pocket version of Deus Ex, which only took me 5 hours to fully complete (and 2 more for some achievement hunting). Sadly, the mobile version was delisted a while back, so the only way to play it is through the PC version, which doesn't help its case, since it will be inveitably compared to Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Steam link: here

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