Deus Ex : Human Revolution’s developer Francois Lapikas spoke at Game Developers
Conference on March 7th and
admitted that he is “truly sorry about [the boss fights.]” He explained that they
“saw them as a thing to break up the pacing more than a way to test the
player’s skill” and that they “figured by putting in enough ammo in the room,
we would be fine and could move on.” He later lamented that they “didn’t know
what they were for” and promised that “next time we’ll think about them more.
They were a big part of the game and we should have put more effort into them.”
After hearing this announcement, I went back over the game and rethought the
boss fights. I always thought they were out of place but couldn’t explain
exactly why. Well, I thought about it, and I’ve reached a conclusion. There are
unavoidable spoilers, but plot points aren’t brought up.
Spoilers:
I blame their lack of depth primarily. Let’s compare how to
fight a boss and a typical mission. The player must enter a highly guarded
building so they can either jump on to its roof and secretly enter there or use
it as a snipers’ nest, crawl through air ducts on the street unseen, or do a
full frontal assault. To fight one of the bosses, the player must throw
explosive containers at his head and then shoot him a few times before ducking
into cover and repeating this pattern three or so times. You can see the
problem. The climax to missions shouldn’t be so much more restrictive and
shallow than the buildup. On my second play through, I got so fed up with the
boss fights that I ended up looking up the exact prescribed method of fighting
them because there truly is only one successful way of approaching them.
That brings up the other problem with the boss fights, they
are really gimmicky. For example, throwing explosive barrels is something I
never did except in that one boss fight, and another fight is just a shootout
where the player’s vision is obscured. I
overlooked this until the final boss fight, which is literally wave upon wave
of gimmicks. In that fight, the player must go from hacking turrets, to timed
attacks, to avoiding an electrified floor, to fighting insane people, to evading
security robots. That boss fight was noticeably artificial feeling when I first
played it, especially because I encountered all of those gimmicks naturally on
their own. When they were nonsensically strung together, it felt like the game
was yelling “show me EVERYTHING you have learned” at me as I summersaulted
around the level.
But don’t get me wrong, Deus Ex: Human Revolution isn’t a
bad game. In fact, it’s one of my favorites and I highly recommend it. Honestly,
the boss fights aren’t even so bad. They are short and rewarding, but they’re
also below average in a game where everything else was truly exceptional. They
definitely fulfilled their purpose of breaking up the pacing and, if the
developer’s promise can be trusted, their future games will continue to be
outstanding.
Sources:
Personal experience
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/03/07/deus-ex-designer-quot-truly-sorry-quot-for-human-revolution-39-s-boss-fights.aspx
http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/07/gameplay-director-truly-sorry-for-deus-ex-human-revolutions-bosses/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/07/deus-ex-human-revolution-designer-on-boss-fights-we-are-truly-sorry/
-Mike Kerstiens
Sources:
Personal experience
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/03/07/deus-ex-designer-quot-truly-sorry-quot-for-human-revolution-39-s-boss-fights.aspx
http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/07/gameplay-director-truly-sorry-for-deus-ex-human-revolutions-bosses/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/07/deus-ex-human-revolution-designer-on-boss-fights-we-are-truly-sorry/
-Mike Kerstiens
