Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review | Eurogamer.net

I’ve been playing Deux Ex: Human Revolution without a break for the past 36 hours. Well, I’m taking the odd nap and toilet break, and scoffing my face with protein bars to top up the energy levels, but other than that my entire waking hours have been consumed - CONSUMED - by this incredibly engrossing videogame.

By the barest whisper of a whisker, I narrowly missed the opportunity to review it for a national newspaper, and quite frankly I’m gutted about this. There’re so many good things to say about the game, so many enthusiasms I want to share with other people who’d get a kick out of it. So what the heck, I’m going to quote a review from another source, and then tack on some opinions of my own.

Here’s an extract of what Eurogamer has to say:

You’re playing as Adam Jensen, chief of security at Sarif Industries, a leading augmentation company and the target of all sorts of corporate jealousy and militant activism. Following a break-in at the start of the game in which you fall through some glass and get both your arms amputated (hang on, what?), you wake up to be told that your ex-girlfriend, a leading scientist, has been burned to a crisp and that it’s your job to go around the world with your new robot arms finding out why.

The systems that underpin everything are all great. Dialogue and interrogation are like boxing, full of ducks and weaves and - if you buy the right augment - vital signs and physiological tells upon which you win or lose exchanges. Stealth is based on line of sight and the cover system is perfect, allowing you to hide and move with confidence in every situation. Direct combat is brutal and difficult, but once you think beyond the assault rifle and start mixing it up with various kinds of explosives and projectiles, you can really master your environment.

Hacking is my favourite, though. There are computers, door panels and security systems all over the world to break into using a mini-game where you have to take over nodes one by one without being noticed. If you are, then it’s a race against time, or you can pull out and try again using viruses and augmentations to try to remain undetected. Most hacks yield bonus cash and tools if you probe the right regions, too. It’s always about risk versus reward rather than just puzzle-solving.

And here’s what I have to say:

First observation: There’s a plethora of references to cinematic science fiction, most obviously to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Alien, but also more subtle nods to the work of Stanley Kubrick, William Gibson and Katsuhiro Otomo. They’re scattered through the visual design and narrative, like chunky chocolate chips wrapped up in a moist cookie dough, and every bite is a delight.

Second Observation: It’s not just about paying tribute to sci-fi’s greatest hits, its got something of its own to say about the concept of transhumanism. As in, the subject is more than pretty window-dressing for the game mechanic, it’s properly explored and discussed, and gives the narrative a weight it needs to be truly memorable. Case in point, a visit to the protagonist’s apartment reveals that the bathroom mirror has been shattered, presumably by the occupant in a darker mood when he reflects upon what he has become.

Third observation: The design of the game is immaculate and defies pigeon-holing in a particular genre. It’s not a role-playing game, it’s not a first-person shooter, it’s not a stealth game. It’s all of the above and more, accommodating multiple styles of play within a massive storyline and game-space. Some players like to flit through the shadows, an unseen ghost of corporate espionage. Me, I like to make my presence felt and trip every alarm I can find. Both approaches are equally valid and satisfying.

Conclusion: I’ve just fallen in love with videogames all over again. Also, I need to go to bed.

Close up on Stanley Kubrick: the exhibition with Time Out Film - Time Out London

This sounds absolutely fascinating:

History is everywhere. There’s a framed invitation card to a ‘Dr Strangelove’ preview that never was, on which Kubrick scrawled: ‘Never Held. The day Kennedy was shot.’ A series of photos taken by Weegee on the set of ‘Dr Strangelove’ record the filming of the custard pie fight in the War Room that was cut after test screenings. A handwritten letter from Audrey Hepburn declines an offer of work. A notebook kept during production on ‘A Clockwork Orange’ details a ‘Malcolm McDowell cold report’. The exhibition concludes with unrealised projects, among them ‘AI’, which Kubrick developed for years before it was directed by Steven Spielberg whose ‘Schindler’s List’ scuppered Kubrick’s Holocaust drama ‘Aryan Papers’.

Here’s the kicker - currently, no immediate plans to stage this exhibish in London. A daytrip on the Eurostar to Paris, anyone?

The Kubrick Site: Kubrick's Interview by Joseph Gelmis

Stanley Kubrick explains the plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey in this 1969 interview:

You begin with an artifact left on earth four million years ago by extraterrestrial explorers who observed the behavior of the man-apes of the time and decided to influence their evolutionary progression. Then you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man’s first baby steps into the universe — a kind of cosmic burglar alarm. And finally there’s a third artifact placed in orbit around Jupiter and waiting for the time when man has reached the outer rim of his own solar system.

When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he’s placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man’s evolutionary destiny.

That is what happens on the film’s simplest level. Since an encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our present earthbound frames of reference, reactions to it will have elements of philosophy and metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself.

See, that’s what I thought it was about. But to hear myself saying it aloud, I would have been confined to a loony bin. Thanks for clarifying, Stanley.

Playing Chess With Kubrick | The New York Review of Books

All during the filming of 2001 we played chess whenever I was in London and every fifth game I did something unusual. Finally we reached the 25th game and it was agreed that this would decide the matter. Well into the game he made a move that I was sure was a loser. He even clutched his stomach to show how upset he was. But it was a trap and I was promptly clobbered. “You didn’t know I could act too,” he remarked.