Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - PlayStation 4

Note: while I own the Day-One Edition, in the interest of fairness, this review is based on the vanilla experience of the game. No extras, no pre-order bonus and no patch. I played the game unpatched to give a more ample feeling, specially for those who just can't download the patch at the moment.The original Deus Ex was, and still is, one of the best videogames in existence. It brought innovative, extensive choice-based freedom, an interesting story that played with expectations and a fun system that let you choose how you wanted to play and allowed for emergent gameplay. Its sequel, Invisible War, while not really a bad game, was dissapointing, as it didn't display the same level of depth and suffered from bad porting. It wasn't until the prequel, Human Revolution, released a decade after the original, that the series got back on track. That game, while not as extensive in gameplay as the original, was still a worthy successor, and while its original release suffered from tacked-on unnecessary and unavoidable boss battles, those issues were fixed in the later "Director's Cut" version.When Mankind Divided was announced, people were both excited and aprehensive. Would it be a great game that built on its predecessor or would it suffer the same fate from Invisible War, relegated to merely a place in the shadow of the last one? Fear not, the game is out now and I tell you: it's just as good as Human Revolution. While it falters at areas that HR didn't, it improves in others, balancing itself well enough to be called a worthy sequel.MD picks up a couple of years after the events of the last game, where, at the climax, the great majority of augmented people (Augs) suffered from a psychic meltdown that turned them temporarily insane due to the machinations of a billonaire who didn't want humanity to continue the path of augmentation. While HR had multiple endings, only one of them is considered canonical, and it's the one where the building protagonist Adam Jensen is buried in the sea. He manages to survive for a new adventure, though, marking this as the first game in the series to have a returning main character (understandable, since Adam is easily the most popular protagonist in the series). Adam now works for Interpol, in a world that fears and hates Augs because of the madness event, and it's put in the middle of a fight between groups of people who want a law to control the augmented passed, and those who don't.Gameplay-wise, if you played the previous game, you'll feel right at home here. The same basic gameplay is present, but tweaked to be improved in almost every way. You can still choose to be lethal or non-lethal. You can still choose the stealth route or the noisy one. You can still choose to be nice or rude to people. You can still improve your character by gaining experience. Difficulty is well balanced, and you'll rarely feel you lost because of something unfair. All of those things are complemented by new weapons and abilities at your disposal, as expected, but some new changes are going to make it hard to go back to the previous game, as they're going to be missed.For instance, Adam can now pull an enemy from behind a corner to attack and hide him instantly. Sounds simple, but it's really helpful. He can also distract enemies much easier. New augmentations like the ability to hack cameras from a distance will let you wonder how did you ever live without them. And guns now can use different ammo and have different add-ons that can be changed on the fly (Crysis-style). There's also a crafting system now. You can find scraps that allow you to craft useful objects or even improve your weapons. Most importantly, bosses are not mandatory now. I only found one, and it's because I went expressly looking for him. Once I did, I found I could deal with him a number of ways instead of being forced to use lethal force.The world is extensive. You have a major hub city (Prague), which is inmensely detailed, and a smaller one later in the game. While inside stages are large and having a lot to explore. After the tutorial stage, once you reach Prague, you'll easily spend hours exploring, finding side-quests and improving your character even before getting to launch your first mission. There's an inmense amount of freedom here, specially since the quests and exploration can be approached in a number of ways, so you can choose the style you prefer. Hacking, brute force, sneaking, convincing, stealing, taking the long path, etc. Graphics are, of course, very good, though there's some noticeable slow down in some of the in-engine cutscenes.So, in general, this game is an improvement over the previous one in almost every aspect. Let's talk now about the parts the game did worse.The most noticeable one is the story. Or, at least, the approach to it. First of all, it doesn't feel finished. The game ends with a triumph (well, assuming the best ending is canon), but it's too open and doesn't actually finish the presented conflict. It really feels like they cut this to present as DLC or a sequel, and that alone is dissapointing. The real problem, though, is the presentation. The game wants to present Aug discrimination as an allegory to racism, and that just absolutely doesn't work. There's a clear difference between disliking someone for having a different skin color than disliking him because at any time it might snap and dismember you, or even kill you (remember, the hate for Augs is based purely on the incident where such a thing actually happened). But the game runs with it anyway, and it feels completely ridiculous. You see Augs being forced to use a different entry, or constanly being called racist terms even by the police, and it's the absolute great majority of people who hate them. Society doesn't work that way, it just doesn't regress centuries back, even when they actually have valid reasons for fear of others.There are also a few bugs (remember, though, I'm playing the unpatched version). Once I lost all quest markers and was unable to regain them. Another time I lost the ability to save the game, so I had to quit the game and reload. One time finishing a side-quest unmarked the other ones from the map. And once a side-quest got permanently marked on the map and was never marked as finished, until I reached the game's ending (this was the only one that wasn't solved by reloading). Nothing game breaking, assuming you keep at least one save besides the automatic one (which I most certainly recommend).The last one, and most important one, are the microtransactions. Yes, this is a single-player game, and it has microtransactions. Turns out that those pre-order bonuses are one-time only. They're tied to your save, so once you use them, they're gone and can't be recovered, and the same goes for everything you buy with real money (the only way around this is to keep a save game right after you start the game before taking the items out of storage and start all your new games from it). Then the game allows you to buy more stuff. Yes, this is disgusting, greedy and should not be supported, but understand: it's completely and utterly unnecessary. You don't need those items, you don't need the extra experience. Again, I played this game without the pre-order items and I finished the story with 4 extra un-allocated praxis points (those would mean at least TWO extra powers, by the way) and, in fact, didn't even know I could purchase more with real money until it was pointed out to me by another review. Yes, the publisher is clearly trying to take your money with this practice, but clearly the game was not developed around this practice. Vote with your wallet, don't buy those items.Anyway, those problems I mentioned didn't hinder my experience. I still had a a blast with this game, and I haven't even touched the extra missions. There's a lot of replayabilty here, and as long as you don't give the publisher money they don't deserve by not buying their ridiculous and unnecessary microtransactions I definitely recommend you buy the game. It's one of the best games out there right now.

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Please be aware that there is a ~4GB update (version 1.02) to download. This review is based off that version.Quick Review: It's all about choice in Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and while it feels much like it's predecessor Human Revolution, the variety of ways to finish missions and achieve your goals is as vast as it is satisfying. The graphics are better and the audio is well done (though the music is too loud to hear the voice-overs clearly without adjustment). There is no multiplayer. I encourage everyone to NOT SPEND MONEY ON MICROTRANSACTIONS that SquareEnix has added. I'm not knocking any stars off because it doesn't interfere with the game at all, but is still a dishonest and greedy cash grab from corporate.Full Review:After roughly 20 hours of playing, I feel like I can confidently say I think Deus Ex Mankind Divided is a great game. Not perfect, but I already feel like I have received my money's worth.Mankind Divided feels like a continuation of the previous Deus Ex, Human Revolution in all the positive ways. New augments, more choices in how to finish missions, and you don't actually have to kill a single person to finish the game! I'm currently working on my non-violent play through first and think it's fantastic. There are consequences to everything you do. For example, when I broke into someone's apartment, I was caught and they tried to find me. They ended up pulling guns and being shot down by the police. I lost a merchant that will never come back.To start, there are three difficulties to choose from: Give me a story (easy), Give me a challenge (medium), and Give me Deus Ex (hard). There is a fourth option for a hardcore mode once the game has been completed once. I choose Give me Deus Ex because I wanted a challenge and let me tell you: I receive a good challenge. Not once did I feel like I was cheated when I died.Like the Elder Scroll or Far Cry series, there are a variety of ways to achieve your goals. Do you go in guns blazing or as a silent killer? Take the merciful route using non-lethal take downs and stun guns or sneak around using sound to distract the enemies instead? Being able to choose my approach to fit my play style (or current mood) is a huge plus to me. Not to mention that you don't have to kill a single character in the game, including bosses. I chose the social enhancer augment so I could successfully win the conversation battles.The first thing I noticed is that the music is LOUD. I could barely hear the dialogue spoken during the first cutscenes (I watched the recap video). I turned the music volume down to 60 and turned subtitles on. Setting the music volume at 60 has given me a great experience so far.For the first mission I was given two options for the first mission: Non-lethal or Lethal. I went non-lethal. Then, I was given the choice of a long range or short range weapon. I choose the tranquilizer gun. I found the coverr system great. It's easy to navigate and enables you to quickly move around for strategic positioning. I was quietly running from hiding spot to hiding spot without any mistakes.There is an optional tutorial mode to get a feel for the controls and abilities. Going into the tutorial doesn't affect the game and can be replayed as many times as needed. Afterwards, you're put back in the game where you left off. The controls took a little bit to get used to (I still sometimes mess up the crouch -- L3 -- versus item wheel -- R3 --) so the tutorial was a great way to get familiar with it.Graphics are good, as expected of a next gen game. But you can clearly see the FPS slowdown during some in-game cut scenes. It was easily noticeable and reminded me I was playing a game, taking me out of the experience. However, I did see cut scenes that didn't suffer FPS loss; not all cut scenes were created equal. The lighting is fantastic, shining on various materials with realistic qualities. Whether plastic, metal, leather, skin, brick, or other substance, it behaves as it should in real life. I thought the skin textures looked realistic for a PS4 game as well.The battery system is back, like the game before, and is both good and bad. While it forces me to think about how I approach a mission and to use it sparingly when I need it, I felt there were times when it was detrimental. I don't like that non-lethal take downs require you to have battery power. How is the non-lethal take down any different than the super jumping or sprinting?Experience points are how you get and use praxis to learn and upgrade augments. Experience is earned from exploring, killing or taking down enemies, hacking, reading eBooks, and other events. You are rewarded for exploring every nook and cranny, and thats what I've done. I loved looking through the vents and trying to break into the various locations. Weather I hacked the front door, went in through a window, or snuck in through the vents, there were always a number of ways to get inside the place I wanted to go.The inventory from Human Revolution returns as a slot based system. You can expand it, but you still have to manage it by moving items around. You can upgrade your guns with crafting supplies or other expendable items like the always fabulous and useful multi-tool.The augments from Human Revolution return with a few new ones. The twist here is that it overclocks our hero, meaning he'll have to choose which to invest in, and which to shut down permanently. Most of the augments were uninteresting to me, mainly focused on the action part of the game. There are a few stealthy or hacker-y augments to choose from though. If you like inflicting pain or being superhuman you'll likely dig the augments and might have trouble choosing which to shut down.Hacking makes a return as well, and so far I haven't seen any real difference between MD and HR. There are plenty of keypads to hack, but also computers to find codes or just read about people's lives. Collecting data pads and other items (like ebooks) gives you deeper insight into the world of Mankind Divided.The story seems standard fare so far, but what I really like about it with this game is that when you're choosing a response, you're not sure who to trust. It creates a tense atmosphere of wondering if you're doing the right thing. Also, the atmosphere is compelling. You feel like you're being discriminated against and segregation is openly happening. If you get on the "naturals" side of the metro, you'll be stopped by police when you exit because it's against the law. One of the other locations in the game show you just how bad the augmented population is treated when compared with Prague, the main city.Pre-order and DLC items can only be used ONE TIME and are SAVE LOCKED. What does this mean exactly? When you choose to take your item out of "Storage" (press L2 when in the inventory screen), you cannot redeem it again. That means the pre-order guns I received I can only claim ONCE. This is a pathetic. I don't blame the devs, as they are likely to not have anything to do with this shady practice.DO NOT GIVE SQUARE-ENIX ANY OF YOUR MONEY BY PURCHASING MICROTRANSACTION ITEMS FOR A SINGLE PLAYER GAME THAT CAN ONLY BE USED ONCE. I'm sick and tired of this practice. Vote with your wallets, please. I think the game is great but detest some of the practices that the marketing team/corporate come up with. It's a shame too, because Eidos, the devs, deserve props for this great game.As for bugs, I've only encountered a single one during my playthrough and that was when trying to turn in a piece of breach software. The game hung during the conversation scene and I had to shut the game down and re-open it. Otherwise my experience has been very smooth.I highly recommend this game to people who like stealth games, futuristic/sci-fi action games, games with choice, and RPG elements.I would not recommend this game to people who like constant killing and murder sprees with no consequences like Doom or Call of Duty.