Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Day One Edition (PS4)

I highly enjoyed the previous version of Deus Ex (Human Revolution) which came out for last gen consoles (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) and PC. The protagonist, while a bit monotone, was likable enough to follow his story. Deus Ex's protagonist Adam Jenson is something of a combination of previous protagonists in design and gameplay, and his story is just compelling enough to keep the player at the controller/keyboard.Deus Ex: Mankind Divided follows on the story of Adam Jensen two years after the events of the last game but it isn't hugely necessary for you to play it. If you didn't play the last game, then let me recap: The year is 2027 Adam Jensen is a thirty something ex-SWAT officer who was dishonourably discharged for some undisclosed reason (that has little to do with the story) and ends up working as the security manager for a famous biotechnic's company in Chicago which provide artificial electronic prostheses for people which are dubbed "Augmentations". The company goes under attack and when Adam goes to investigate, save his ex-girlfriend (one of the leading researchers of the company) and disable the threat, he is brutally attacked and almost murdered, the aftermath left most of his body so broken that his boss, David Sarif put Adam under the knife to save him, leaving him with all four limbs, part of his brain and his eyes replaced by augmentations. Now known as what is called by the rest of humanity as an "Aug", Adam goes off on a series of missions and small adventures trying to uncover conspiracies and plots all focused on the world of augmentation.Mankind Divided: Two years later, 2029, Adam Jensen is re-located to Prague after the events of the first game. Now working as an agent for Interpol (and as a double agent headed by the Juggernaut Collective trying to uncover more conspiracies and corruption) Adam finds the world has changed dramatically. Prague is a police state and governed by rules of segregation, keeping humans (aka 'Naturals') and Augs separate, he and his augmented brethren are less than second-class citizens. His missions will take him to Golem city, the swiss alps, and even London, while mostly focused in a small neighbourhood in Prague. He will go through banks, highly secured facilities and labyrinth-like fortresses in the name of his cause in fighting cyber terrorism and crime.Gameplay: There are a few methods of gameplay in this instalment of the franchise, just as the last. Either you can play it guns blazing and shoot everyone dead, causing pain and wreckage wherever you go, or alternatively you can play stealthily, whether you want to be foxlike and never be seen, or just take everyone down humanely by knocking them out or putting them out with tranquilizer (or simply slipping by them). Regardless of how you take down an enemy you gain experience, and each time you accumulate a certain amount of experience you're awarded "Praxis points" which you can spend on fine tuning and unlocking Adam's augmentations (whether you want him to have a better jump range, be able to use shields to make him invisible, or have him better at hacking, it's up to you).The game has several ways of doing things for each mission, there is almost always more than one way to get into a place, whether by air ducts, holes in walls, hidden doors or just by finding a keycode instead of hacking in. You can choose to either completely take down a boss enemy by killing them, or appease to their better nature and use a passive approach where no one has to die. There are hundreds of computers in the game that you can hack and access private emails and chats, learning more about the game and missions around you, unlocking the world around you. You'll find pocket secretaries on enemies or lying around which will provide you with passwords and codes (if you can find them, you just need to look) which can make the ease of entering areas far different from having to hack your way in and risk being caught).Challenge: The challenging aspects of the game are focused in mostly areas that you need to get to which will most likely be swarming with enemies - the more you explore, the better your chances of getting in and out of areas without being noticed if stealth is your thing. Truthfully, the game is meant to played somewhat stealthily, which is why Adam Jensen's health is so pitifully low and he can't take many hits before dropping. If you opt for shooting anything in sight, expect to have a hell of a challenge, if you play stealth, you'll find yourself needing to take time, having to reload and make several saves, and find alterative paths to avoid conflict. Unlike the previous game, if an enemy is knocked out here, another enemy can actually rouse them awake, so you want to take care to move knocked out enemies out of the line of sight to ensure your hard work isn't negated by the enemy being woken up again. You'll find that there are highly armoured police which will not go down easy, security cameras everywhere and even auto-shooting turrets and robots who can take you down fast, it is your challenge to find a way to disable them or bypass them completely. It's up to you.Missions: Unlike the previous game, this game is far longer and offers many more missions and tasks than the previous game, you can buy information with certain game elements to find points of interest that might have money or weapons, or might provide you the way into a place you want to infiltrate. There are also a few scattered side missions, and you have to look for them by talking to people, buying information or stumbling upon them through a main mission. It's fair to say there are far more side missions in this game than there were in the previous (previously, you were lucky if there were two or three side missions, where as here you'd find triple that if not more), making gameplay extended and giving you more incentive to travel and explore the world around you to find them.My advice if you're getting this is to make SEVERAL save games once you've started, as you'll find that you might miss something and need to backtrack or might mess yourself up to where you're surrounded by too many enemies to take down with not enough ammo or battery power to escape. I keep at least ten save games, and keep one game aside that is for the very start of the mission. Unlike a lot of games, this game gives you NO choice to go back and restart a mission if you find you've messed up somewhere along the lines, so take note and keep a few saves on hand to be sure you don't end up not being able to restart if you're unhappy with how your level is going.

I know this game has been out for many years but I’ve only just got around to getting a copy of it … and, to be honest, I’m glad I did.For me, it’s a little akin to “HomeFront, the revolution”, with a similar game play.The beginning gives you the story of what happened over the years to get you to where the game plays. Basically, set in the future where the some humans have been surgically enhanced with parts of their bodies creating stronger, faster people, these people are called augmented. Only some crazy man causes destruction using the augmented which cracks the trust of humans towards augmented.You play as Adam Jensen, an augmented special agent who is given a task of investigating crimes of terrorism, be that by human or augmented. Taking you through several missions in order to stop a major terrorist attack which will widen the divide between humans and augmented even further. To the point of the annihilation of the augmented.But can you, as Adam, find and stop the ring leader before the attack happens?That’s the story, sort of, and once you start playing you’ll soon get the hang of what you have to do, what you have to find and how you should travel around in order to crack the case.The story is pretty good, much better than some games I’ve played, and the gameplay itself is nice and smooth. Although scrolling through your items, such as weapons, ammo and other things you carry, can be a little distracting at time. But pick the right weapons, load them with the right ammo -emp bullets, armour piercing or standard bullets, and more – and you’re away.The mission, and there’s several of them, are a mix of stealth and all out shooting everything in sight … for me, I found it best to use stealth on as many mission as you can as the ammunition can be a little scarce at times, especially at the beginning. More ammo can be found along the route, taking from those you’ve killed or knocked out, (if you knock them out they can be revived by their friends)Throughout the game you have to collect things in order to proceed, codes, passwords, credits and more, all helping you get through the game. (Codes/passwords can be found online if you want to play it that way) But if you want to go it solo and can’t find the codes you can always try and hack the computers.The protagonist, (You/Adam)has some serious power and is helped along the way by others and given side mission along side the main mission, all found using the ‘map’In all, a fine game with a good dystopian story line regarding the trust between man and machine (sort of). There’s plenty of mission, good graphic/gameplay bringing several hours of fun. With difficulty levels you can make it easy or hard … the choice is yours.Well worth the £6.83 (at time of writing) without a doubt.