Deus Ex: The Fall Review: Shock to the System

It's decidedly less exciting to go into situations with guns blazing, partially because aiming and staying in cover are so tricky. This leads to problems in the game's more action-oriented final hour, which all but demands that players — regardless of their style up to this point — get shooting. At this point, alert enemies can bring you down with one-hit kills through walls — a cheap move that you are admittedly also privy to, should you chose it as an upgrade — and stealthy take-downs just left me vulnerable in rooms full of combat rifle-toting commandos.

This focus on gunplay at the game's end was a poor choice, especially since the rest of the game actually let me decide how to go about my stealthy business.

The touch controls fare better in other parts of the game. Hacking is now intuitive — and enjoyable, as tapping on nodes and deploying viruses is now as simple as tapping the screen. Conversations with major characters are also easier to parse, thanks to the intuitive UI (and a "social" upgrade that allows you to read people easily). In these sequences, I actually felt like I was inside a futuristic adventure, instead of simply awake late at night on my couch.

What really sells the game, however, is the atmosphere and attention to detail. Everything from the e-books scattered throughout the world to the Picus news broadcasts paints the picture of a complicated, fascinating world. While the game can probably be finished in five hours, my play through stretched close to seven, since I was determined to read every email and inspect all of the incidental environmental details. Deus Ex: The Fall was clearly made with an understanding of what makes the property special.