"The Fall isn’t the next Deus Ex, but rather a short addition. But it fails to utilize the potential of its predecessors."
Positive
- Plays like Human Revolution, giving you plenty of options in how you approach situations
- Some interesting areas to explore
Negative
- The shooting is absolutely weak
- Average character models and poor voice acting
- Some actions that don’t function well
Deus Ex: The Fall was originally released on the iOS, which must have been a huge blow for Deus Ex fans after such a successful achievement with Human Revolution. But fortunately, The Fall arrived on PC, and is very similar to Human Revolution. But sadly enough, The Fall is a mere weak imitation of a successful predecessor, putting us in an uninteresting story with an unconfirmed follow-up, weakened gameplay mechanisms, ugly facial animation, and some hiccups in the translation from the tablet.
The story maintains Human Revolution’s futuristic cyberpunk setting, where augmentations have become common place. Set in 2027, the story follows Ben Saxon, a former member of Belltower, along with Anna Kelso, both on the run from the illuminati, the Tyrants. Aside from being hunted by an inevitably approaching nemesis, both are suffering from side effects of augmentation rejection. Ben sets out to get Neuropozyne, and his journey sets him in a path to discover corruption and another form of illegal drug. The story is decent, despite the 4 hour length and the unromantic ‘to be continue’ epilogue, plus occasionally boring dialogue, contributing with the camera shifting to the talking person, something that Human Revolution suffered from as well. It is further weakened by the fact that character models aren’t pretty and the voice acting is flat. There are still some options and different answers to give that change the situation, for better or worse.
Fortunately it plays mostly as good as Human Revolution played. There is still a strong emphasis on having a variety of ways to tackle most situations, where you can choose to sneak past your enemy unnoticed by watching them and still past or finding gaps in the way to slip through, or rather stealthily taking them down one by one, or gunning them down. It is easy to find holes in the wall and pass through. If you’re going to take them down individually, you can opt for lethal and non-lethal method. Silently gunning them down with a pistol and a silencer is satisfying, as much as a takedown is, by pressing or holding the Q button for non-lethal and lethal. Lethal takedowns causes’ noise while non-lethal doesn’t attract attention. The animation for the takedown is generally the same and overly repeated, plus suffers from occasional glitches. Also enemy bodies disappear, regardless if you killed them or not, which is pointless.
You can still try to force your way through with shooting everything that moves and hide behind cover, but you will be simply complicating your life. Some enemies are tough so it is always better to outsmart them, but for example on rare occasions, there are chances you can take control of enemy robots and pit them against each other, which is a brilliant idea. But that option is limited to a few occasions. The shooting in the game is very, very weak and lacks any form of impact in action. It feels like you are merely shooting a BB gun instead of a firearm. Plus controls don’t really function well for some movements, like when you are trying to shift from wall to wall. It also happens when you try to get an item and there is a person near the item. It prompts the person to talk.
You can also instantly purchase any weapon, needed ammunition and any item from the pause menu. On the bright side it is quite handy and needy, for when you really need a shock grenade to take out a robot, or serious need to replenish your battery for when you need to takedown a foe. This system though, decreases the level of challenge by babysitting you every time you need anything and removes any strategic approach. With Praxis Kits, Ben will level up and unlock further and enhanced abilities for his body. There are fewer this time, but enough to sustain the game’s short length. Gain the ability to break through weak walls, double takedowns, run faster and silently, and many more. You can choose whichever depending on your preference, contributing further freedom in the game. You can improve your abilities in hacking, which is a returning fun mini game that never overstays its welcome. Hacking can sometimes be avoided by finding pocket secretaries with 4-digit codes in them. And there are no boss battles this time around, at all, despite encountering Human Revolution’s bosses.
The Fall looks simplistic in its design but looks good, and benefits from lower system requirements than newer games. It still plated with the yellowy visual design that is identically to Human Revolution’s. Enemy variety is scarce, and what’s there is clone of each other. Each thug looks like the other, and even the NPCs, look similar. Plus character models look really ugly, and god forbids, Anna looks horrendous, almost as if copied and pasted from a 2005 video game. The camera shifting to the character talking in cutscenes remains, and can lead to some monotonous and drab cutscene development, particularly since most voice acting is poor, even from the returning antagonists. Especially the thug’s voice acting.
Returning fans would enjoy The Fall despite its inadequate port to the PC. It suffers from poor shooting and other gameplay mishaps, and a story that can be occasionally on the path to something interesting yet doesn’t reach anywhere and ends on an irksome ‘to be continued’. Despite that, excluding the presentation and the story, The Fall still manages to feel a bit like the successful Human Revolution with offering multiple ways to outfox your enemies rather than the usual run-of-the-mill shooting.
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Graphics = 7.0
Looks basic but good. Character models are ugly though.
Sound = 5.4
Flat voice acting from most characters. Good music though
Presentation = 6.0
Dialogue presentation leaves something to be desired. Weapon menu feels a little clunky, but fast loading and convenient quick saves. Some takedown animations can be glitchy.
Gameplay = 7.5
Resembles Human Revolution, but from the tablet port, it lost some things. Shooting is puny weak and some actions don’t work, but the stealth is strong and effective, with a variety of methods to tackle each situation. The lack of boss battles feels like a missed opportunity.
Story = 5.0
Story is average but coupled with uninteresting side characters. Plus it ends unexpectedly. Decent amount of side quests to do. Levels you will be exploring as rather small.
Level of Difficulty = Easy
Quite easy, but alertful AI. Despite some magical detection after grenade or mine explosion. It is all about how you tackle the situation. If you try to gun blaze, it will be harder than sneaking.
Recommendation Level = Low
I loved Human Revolution and The Fall’s gameplay emulates that, so I can recommend it for its gameplay. The rest though, doesn’t live up.
Hours Played = 8 Hours
Campaign takes about 4 hours, with New Game+ where you retain your upgrades and items. Probably can be breezed through half of that time if you ignore side quests. Also, something about the Steam Achievements. Achievements that require you to do a certain amount of an action, always appear as /100, despite the target in the game is /25. Plus, achieved ones don’t pop up at the right-bottom side of the screen until you enter a new area.
OVERALL = 61 / 100
The Fall isn’t the next Deus Ex, but rather a short addition. But it fails to utilize the potential of its predecessors.