Deus Ex Revision - Review
I've put nearly 40 hours into Revision - more than double the length of my last Deus Ex play through three or so years ago.
Part of the reason for the added length is that I played on Realistic difficulty with the vanilla rule set and it was at times punishingly difficult (snipers were particularly difficult to deal with).
I was initially trying to play non-lethally but ended up abandoning that approach just before getting captured by MJ12 when I ran out of tranq darts and electric prod ammo.
DX:R improves the original quite a bit visually - the new city levels feel more "real" than their vanilla counterparts. Hell's Kitchen feels more like a place now rather than a giant box with some more boxes built inside of it. The biggest highlight for me was outside the Paris Cathedral - simply stunning.
However at times the level changes do not work with some of the spoken dialog or direction in the game - for example finding Smuggler proved to be far more difficult this time around due to what could now be perceived as misdirection by an NPC.
In addition to the major overhauls of some of the more ambitious DX areas - the developers made the correct choice of making minimal changes to certain areas that we're either perfect before or would be redundant to redesign. Thankfully - lighting, texture and clutter tuneups have been applied across the entirety of the game and this really makes DX:R standout against the original. The lighting in particular is far more focused with better static shadows across the board (Unatco HQ in particular has some of the best lighting I've seen in an Unreal1 engine game).
One of the biggest ways that Revision changes the DX experience is by dramatically altering the soundtrack - though it does retain the original for anybody who does not want the updated music. I personally love the new music- it retains much of the cyberpunk aesthetic and melodies presented by the original but is delivered much more organically which lends to a cinematic style that matches what is happening on the screen better than the original tracker score.
Revision still retains many of the idiosyncrasies of the original game as well as a few of it's own. But overall the game has been given an incredible face lift complete with updated geometry, AI placements, secrets and was designed with the high resolution texture pack in mind.
For the most part it kept me on my toes and forced me to approach situations with cautious regard instead of on autopilot - I died far to many times to count. However this made it rewarding to play as each time I pushed through a difficult area it was due to choices I had made with the resources available.
In that regard it is easy to recommend Deus Ex Revision as the new way to play Deus Ex for returning fans - as the new levels at the most basic function provide a new environment to test out the gameplay systems present in DX. And for new players - they won't have to deal with the drab and boxy environments of the original*.
On the whole I would and have recommended Deus Ex Revision to my friends.
*Nothing against the original levels - I've played DX more times than I care to count since it's release but I have always found sections of the level design to be drab/boring and boxy as if they were designed for function.
