The Day the Earth Stood Still, Terminator: Salvation, and Pulse (renamed from Kairo for the U.S.) all have something in common: They’re all horrible, big-Hollywood remakes of or revisits to well-loved films.
In Day the Earth Stood Still, screenplay writer David Scarpa left out the key moral message of the original 1951 feature -- that humans had better mend their violent ways or face extinction. Terminator: Salvation forgot about the intriguing character development of past cybernetic excursions on the big screen. And Kairo went from an intense, exceptionally mortifying Japanese horror flick about loneliness and alienation in an era of unprecedented mass communication to a run-of-the-mill, teenage scare fest.
At this year’s E3, I saw three titles that each aim to reboot a well-regarded series. Square Enix demoed Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Front Mission: Evolved (OK -- Evolved isn’t exactly a reboot, but we haven’t seen a new entry in the series since 2004’s Front Mission 4 in North America), and 2K Games showed off XCOM (without a hyphen).
So, how do they stand up? Will they be more like Pulse, or will their respective developers deliver us a Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone's critically acclaimed return to the Italian Stallion)?
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Set in the year 2027, Deus Ex is a tale of technological innovation and corporate conspiracy. You take control of Adam Jensen, a mechanically augmented security officer, in this cyberpunk, first-person adventure.
What I liked: The Deus Ex demo portrayed a fully realized world with non-player characters independently tending to their own business. They’ll also react to your actions, such as whether you’ve holstered your weapon.
The four “pillars” as described by developer Eidos Montreal -- combat, stealth, social, and hacking -- appear to retain the original’s focus on multiple solutions to any single problem. I also like that you can permanently close off an option through repeated failure, thus forcing you to try something different.
In an attempt to uncover the location of a suspected hacker, our hero tries to convince a particular shady-looking individual to schedule a meeting with a man who knows something. When that fails, Jensen instead hacks a security panel and slips through the shadows to observe the crime lord unseen.
Alternatively, we could have blasted our way through in first-person combat, which Eidos portrayed in a rather exhilarating face off against a mechanized walker armed with machine guns and rockets. Each avenue of potential success is always initially open for the player to exploit.
What concerns me: Cinematic takedowns. Square Enix’s demo showed this feature off with abandon, and I’m worried about how it may lessen the game’s difficulty.
In one part, our protagonist jumps down from a great height into the middle of four enemies, throws explosives in a circle around him, and annihilates the entire threat. Certainly, the maneuver brought my inner child to the surface, but it looked all too easy.
On a related note, Deus Ex alternates between first- and third-person quite frequently. The cinematic takedowns are one such example; the view will also switch when going into cover or using the environment, such as ascending a ladder. The back-and-forth seemed a little disorientating during the demo.
