I really wish MS would stick to 500 GB limited edition consoles, I'd love to trade in my Xbox for the Gears 4 console but at £399 it's just to much (I might give in), Just give me a 500 GB Gears console at £299 instead. The extra HDD space means nothing to me as I've had a 3TB External HDD since I bought my Xbox One and still to this day never installed a game on the internal drive.

I could be wrong but I'd imagine most who buy a Limited Edition console will be enthusiasts who own external drives as well to eek out that little extra performance.

Well, today for your timezone I assume? =P

Tomorrow for me.

I think they should get rid of 500gb models. I have 500gb xbox one and with games like halo 5 (which is almost 100gb) I always need to delete some games in order to install new. 500gb is not enough fore modern days. I don't understand why they made 2tb version limited because it would have been really good 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Review

I discovered the Deus Ex series much later than most, in fact I didn't even know it existed until 2010. So, I was truly surprised when I saw the first trailer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution in 2010. From the amazing song Icarus used during the trailer, to the cool augmentation technology, to the dystopian setting, the trailer truly resonated with me, and went on to become one of my favorite game trailers of all-time. I played the game immediately when it released and loved it, it wasn't a perfect game, but it was still good enough to become one of my top 10 favorite 7^th gen games. So, the question is, is Mankind Divided a worthy sequel to such an amazing game? The answer to that question is a complicated one, but in short, the answer is no.

Story

Mankind Divided picks up 2 years after Human Revolution. In the canon ending Panchea is destroyed, and Adam Jensen is saved from the ocean by rescue workers. He spends 6 months at a rehab center in Alaska before he is released. Meanwhile, the world is recovering from the Aug Incident that occurred during Human Revolution, when Augmented people went crazy and started attacking people around them. Augmented people are being persecuted worldwide; they're being segregated into ghettos, the Neuropozyne they need to keep their bodies from rejecting their augs is in short supply.

Adam begins working for the Juggernaut Collective, a hacktivist group that is attempting to expose the Illuminati, with whom he previously had dealings during the Missing Link DLC for Human Revolution. The Juggernaut Collective places him inside of Task Force 29 as a sleeper agent. Task Force 29 is a division of Interpol tasked with stopping augmented terrorists, but the Juggernaut Collective believes that they are pawns of the Illuminati. This is where the game opens, with Adam on a mission with the Prague division of Task Force 29.

I won't spoil any of the story here, but I will summarize it for you: disappointing. It pains me to say this, but the story in Mankind Divided just isn't that good. Very few characters from Human Revolution return aside from Adam, just 2 of them in fact, which is a real shame because Human Revolution had some really well designed characters. Some of the new characters they've designed have potential, but sadly Mankind Divided's main story feels rushed, you never really have the time to get to know any of the new characters all that well. 2 possible love interests are implied, but nothing happens with either of them. Overall there is a lack of character development for most of the characters in the game.

There is no continuation of the side story about Adam's secret past in Human Revolution, which is very disappointing. Instead Mankind Divided adds another mystery side story that isn't solved during the game, who implanted prototype augments into Adam during his 6 months at the Alaska rehab center without his permission?

To make matters worse, the ending is anti-climactic. The whole game feels like it was designed to set the stage for a 3^rd game, rather than to be a good game in it's own right. The disappointing main story is partially offset by some pretty good side stories, but I will cover that later in the World section of the review.

World

Whereas Human Revolution had 2 diverse hub maps, Detroit and Hengsha, Mankind Divided only has one, Prague, which is kind of disappointing. Thankfully Prague is roughly the same size Detroit and Hengsha combined, and content density is higher. There are secret areas tucked away all over Prague, many of which you need to remember to come back to once you unlock certain augments.

There are roughly the same number of side quests in both games, though I feel like Mankind Divided has better side quests overall. None of them feel like generic fetch quests, and the best among them are really good.

Gameplay

This is where Mankind Divided really shines. While Human Revolution had a really strong storyline, it also had several glaring gameplay issues. Mankind Divided reverses that, it has a lackluster story but fantastic gameplay. Nearly every aspect of Human Revolution's gameplay has been improved for Mankind Divided.

The cover system is smoother, you can now move from cover to cover easily. Stealth has likewise been improved, there is now a detection bar that slowly fills up if you're within sight of enemies, which gives you chance to hide before you're spotted. The shooting mechanics are greatly improved, Mankind Divided feels like a proper 1^st person shooter now.

Augments-wise, the game starts you off with all of the augments you had in Human Revolution for the first mission. However, an event occurs early in the story that damages your aug systems, and when you go to your doctor to have it fixed, he is forced to reset your system to prevent damage. So the bad news here is that you have to play through the early part of the game without the augs you're used to from Human Revolution. The good news however, is that you have several new experimental augs to unlock, most of which are pretty cool, plus some new improvements for your previous augs.

Overall I'd say that difficulty is a bit higher than Human Revolution. I can't speak for combat difficulty since I played a stealth character, but stealth is a bit more challenging this time around, there are more enemies on patrol, and enemy cones of vision seem to be longer range than they were before.

There is only 1 boss fight in Mankind Divided, which is disappointing, but unlike Human Revolution (pre-Director's Cut) you're not forced into combat, you can sneak around during the boss fight and take him out non-lethally.

Graphics and Performance

  Graphics are a mixed bag for Mankind Divided. There is some really cool technology on display, but this is countered by some really outdated stuff as well. Some environments look gorgeous, others have noticeably low res textures. Main character models look pretty good, but this is countered by some very outdated NPC models.

One of Human Revolution's weakest aspects was it's animations, and sadly this has not changed for Mankind Divided. The animations feel quite outdated, one in particular is recycled from Human Revolution, and it felt outdated then. Adam has a comically bad running animation where his arms flail about. Facial animations in particular are quite poor, and there are some lip syncing issues.

Framerate is a fairly stable 30 fps on consoles, which is acceptable. Loading times are decent for smaller mission zones, but awful for Prague, it can take upwards of 30 seconds to load the Prague map. The loading times are particularly disappointing considering the fact that save scrubbing is pretty much required to get the no alarms achievement unless you're really good at stealth games. There is also a forced load whenever traveling between the southern and northern sections of Prague.

Sadly Mankind Divided isn't very polished. I encountered numerous bugs over my playthrough, it was almost as bad as a Bethesda game at release. I've had the ragdolls for knocked out enemies get limbs stuck in the floor and start glitching everywhere, I've encountered NPC's walking into walls, I've seen stacked items banging noisily into each other, I've been spotted by an enemy when I was in a completely enclosed vent. There is a common glitch on one of the main missions where an alarm automatically goes off, ruining your attempt at the no alarms achievement unless you load up a save from before that main mission starts. I made it past that auto-alarm glitch only to have the no alarms achievement not unlock anyway, even though I was never spotted the whole game and no alarms ever went off.

Audio

Michael McCann has delivered yet another fantastic soundtrack for Mankind Divided. Human Revolution had the 2^nd best soundtrack of 2011, and so far Mankind Divided has the best soundtrack of 2016.

Sound design is pretty good overall. Most of the main characters have good voice acting, though NPC voices aren't quite as good. In particular I've heard that the Czech spoken by many of the NPC's around Prague is painfully bad to a native Czech speaker, though this wasn't an issue for me obviously. Sound effect design is decent, weapons sound pretty good, and Adam makes the proper sounds when walking on various surfaces. 

Summary and Score

Final Score

8.3/10