14 DAY TRIAL // Deus Ex: Human Revolution was released last week by publisher Square Enix and developer Eidos Montreal as a prequel to the massively successful and influential Deus Ex, and its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, launched at the beginning of the 2000s.
I've already praised the game for its great visual design, while bashing it for the convoluted Hengsha city hub that doesn't want you to reach any of your destinations.
Now, it's time to talk about one of the game's core mechanics, at least in the words of its developer, Eidos Montreal, the social aspect of gameplay.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, like any good role-playing game, allows players to choose their own dialogs and the reactions of the playable character, Adam Jensen, to certain events within the game.
While that's not something new for RPGs, the social nature of Jensen and the player are put to the test in the so-called Social Boss Battles, where the protagonist needs to gain various key information from other characters in the game.
This isn't similar to Fallout games, for example, where if you have the necessary Speech skill points, you automatically convince the other characters to give you anything you want, however. Instead, Jensen needs to formulate his own phrases while reacting to the arguments of the other NPCs and slowly persuade them to give him what he wants.
You aren't just choosing replies blindly like in Mass Effect, however, as the game also allows Jensen to equip a Social augmentation. This turns the protagonist into a walking human analyzer, displaying all sorts of extra information when engaged in these social battles.
As you can see in the screenshot above, he now has a full description of the other character, complete with personality traits, not to mention a Persuasion Level, which shows how close you are to getting the other person to spill his secrets.
What's more, if the player makes the wrong choices, Jensen can emit three different kinds of pheromones, depending on the personality of the character (alpha, beta or omega) and get them to do what he wants.
Basically, while interacting with characters in other games is quite boring, in Human Revolution, it becomes a crucial gameplay aspect and, like with other things, including stealth or combat, you can use augmentations to conquer it.
What do you think of the social aspect in Deus Ex? Have the boss battles delighted you or should the system be scrapped? Share your thoughts below.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is now available for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.