Cyborgs & Ninjas

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Finally figured out what was making me sick. Turns out the refresh rate of the game was set to 59Hz. The native resolution on my monitor is 60Hz. Once I made that adjustment, everything was good.

I finished the single player campaign and while the overall experience was good. A common complaint I've read about is the poor quality of the boss fights. For the most part, I was ok with the boss fights since I customized my character for combat/hacking (the fights weren't friendly for stealth builds). However, the final boss fight was anti-climatic. It was just so easy. At no point was I ever in any danger of losing. And it wasn't a very creative fight either. Shoot some turrets and robots. By then, I had tons of powerful weapons. With that said, I must've saved a hundred times during the campaign.

Usually, I don't get into video game stories that much, but I liked the DXHR plot. It fully embraced its cyberpunk roots. Reminded me a lot of the old Cyberpunk pen & paper RPG. Good times. I'm looking forward to the next installment. 9/10


Mark Of The Ninja
Other than watching a few gameplay videos, I knew nothing of this game. The artwork looked pretty in the vids. That's the extent of my knowledge.

The first thing that hit me about this game was it's sense of style. It had a very Genndy Tartakovsky look to it. The animation is smooth and the artwork, despite being a stealth (i.e. shadowy) game, is stunning. It's like playing a well-animated cartoon. The gameplay matched the graphics in terms of quality. Lots of different moves were available with a relatively simple control set.

One problem I had was the game punished killing. At the end of every level, points were awarded, but some points were not given if a mob was killed. I don't understand punishing the player for that when half of the skill/talent tree is dedicated to killing. That and I'm a ninja. A cold-blooded killer hiding in the shadows. A ninja that doesn't kill is just a dude in black pajamas.

This was a pretty short game (roughly 9 hours) but I think it was the right amount. Any more and the game would probably start feeling repetitive. I normally find games with puzzles very boring as it typically involves a lot of running around and/or collecting stuff. The puzzles in MOTN were very well designed. Complex enough to be fun, yet did not require a lot of farming or wasting time. Plus, there were multiple ways to solve some of the puzzles. Good job, game designers!

The story was fairly generic, but I can overlook that given the fantastic graphics and gameplay. The voice acting was on par as well. The female ninja sounded like Kelly Hu.

8/10