Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Deus Ex: HR came saddled with a selection of preorder incentives, a phrase that tastes like a little bit of sick in my mouth. The upshot is that if you didn’t buy the game from a grid coordinate during the correct lunar sequence, you may be missing little bits of content. No longer. Now, everything can be yours, provided you’re willing to reach into your digital wallet once more. There are two packs available, neither of which I have any experience with so don’t expect an informed opinion. Personally, I haven’t found the game to be lacking any of the things that are listed below. Have you?
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Update: new video!

Adam Jensen’s story (which he never asked for) may be the canon prequel to the cyberpunk conspiracy theorising of the original Deus Ex, but the future-world’s a big place – there’s plenty of room to tell new tales from the time before JC Denton trotted across the globe. 2027 is a massively ambitious, Russian-made mega-mod for Deus Ex 1, the English version of which launched last week. It offers a new, apparently highly non-linear story, levels based on real-world locations, amped-up DirectX 9 graphics with stuff like weather effects added and a slew of new abilities, weapons and spider-bots. Also, new fonts. I do so like a font. Haven’t had a chance to give it a spin yet, but the below in-game footage certainly speaks for the visual upgrade.
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The kerrrrayzeeeee hi-jinks of Adam ‘Elbows’ Jensen are set to continue very soon, with the impending The Missing Link downloaderised content injection. What mad scrapes and hilarious misunderstandings will our man with the facially-implanted sunglasses get into this time? Well, let’s have a little look, as Eidos Montreal’s Lead Narrative Designer Mary DeMarle narrates a five-minute taste of the new, ship-bound corridors, staircases and security control rooms Elbows is due to explore.
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Right, so here’s the first step in answering the mystery of Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s boss battles – they were outsourced. Meaning, a lack of continuity during the development process, one has to assume. That’s not a condemnation of the work done by G.R.I.P., the company responsible for the bosses, who will have their own story to tell. As I said in my review of the game, the real story of how they happened will likely come out in a few years time, once enough people have moved on to be willing to explain. So why such a feature was outsourced, why there wasn’t a coherence between them and the rest of the game, and why they weren’t just ditched when it became clear they didn’t fit in, are questions that will perhaps one day be answered. But not yet. But as a magazine noticed, there’s a behind-the-scenes video with GRIP’s president discussing the battles that quietly appeared last month. So yes, this information was always out there. You can see it below.

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“Patch notes, RPS? Really?” YES REALLY WHAT OF IT, EH? When it’s a game as big as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a lot of what might otherwise be minor becomes major. Square-Enix have chased a few bugs out of their bearded man simulator, including some important-sounding stuttering performance snafus, as well as adding in the really very useful windowed full-screen mode, the saviour of impatient alt-tabbers the world over. Most importantly: you can now skip the logos at the start of the game. Alas, it also introduces occasional tiny but silly/obnoxious loading screen ads, as seen above. No, I don’t have time to watch a 70s cowboys in space soap opera for the millionth time, no matter how high its definitions are: I have a world to save from corruption and people with robot legs. Thank heavens the last patch improved load times so I don’t have to stare at this cheekily-added promotional bumpf for even longer. There’s a dark rumour more ads might come to in-game billboards, which is an extremely unpleasant and disruptive prospect. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to pass.

Update: there’s an ad-disabling mod here. Thanks, Theory.

Meantime, full patch notes are below. Bulletpoints!
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Attention, owners of expensive, hard-to-upgrade aluminium PCs: Square-Enix have just sent word that Deux Ex: Human Revolution is going to be getting a Mac release. It’s due out in “Winter 2011/12″, and London based Feral Interactive are going to be responsible for it. They tackled the Mac ports of the likes of BioShock, Borderlands, Rome: Total War, LEGO Star Wars & Tomb Raider: Anniversary, so I guess they know the ropes. Has anyone played any of their ports?
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You there! Remember the parody video in which the likes of DLC references, object highlighting and iron sights from Human Revolution were added to the original Deus Ex, and how even-tempered everyone was about it? Well, now you can recreate that past-meets-present, JC/AJ mash-up yourself, as creator Ceski has released the mod he made to achieve the video.

Also includes instant wristblade takedowns (press use when behind an enemy), regenerating health and a surfeit of black and gold. Grab Deus Ex: Unreal Revolution from here.

The order in which information arrives is very confusing. Everyone heard about Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s The Missing Link DLC earlier this week, and today Square have officially announced it. But that means we also get pictures and a video. I’ve augmented the post with the details below. Do you see? I said “augmented the post”. Because in Deus Ex you augment yourself with augments, and so in saying “augmented the post” I’m applying that theme to a piece of writing about the game. It’s a bit of wordplay.

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