Video game review: Deus Ex Human Revolution

Albert Einstein said "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of pathological criminal." Is technological progress always good for our human existence on this planet? Should we play God, and use technology to speed up the human evolutionary progress, to improve our human potentials?

This is, the main theme of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. A new addition to the "Deux Ex" franchise originally released in 2000. The first Deux Ex game was a great success, and the game is widely known today as an action/RPG classic. 11 years after the first Deus Ex game. Eidos Montreal has released Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a prequel to the first Deus Ex game.

Story:

Deus Ex Human Revolution, is a cyberpunk action/RPG. Set in 15 years from modern day (2027). In the story, in 2027 the world has reached an era when the society has begin to use biomedical engineering technology to improve our human status. Through the use of biomedical augmentation and genetic modification on the human body. This major trend to implementing human augmentations is driven mainly by international, multi-billion dollar corporations. The movement takes the form of 21th century renaissance, and much debate is presented at UN if human augmentation is a good or a bad thing. The player takes control of a highly trained security personnel Adam Jensen, an employer at a biomedical augmentation company Sarif. An incident occurred where a group of unidentified terrorist assaulted the company HQ, and kidnapped a group of scientists. Adam Jensen, was heavily injured during his attempt to stop the terrorists. In the status of near death, Adam Jensen was rushed to the emergency operating room and received military class augementations. 6 months later, Jensen worked relentlessly trying to uncover the true identity of the terrorists that assaulted his employer. In the process, discovered a series of intriguing conspiracies and secret plots that will ultimately challenge humanity on the question of "should we use technology to propel us ahead of our progress in natural evolution?"

Gameplay and design:

Deux Ex: Human Revolution is an action/RPG game. The player will be able to travel in an open needed, near futuristic world. Most of the game takes place in two mega cities: Detroiet, and Heng Sha. The city design and environment is believable and eye catching, and feels like something that is taken from the movie "Blade Runner". Being an open ended world RPG game also means the player will have the freedom to roam the cities, explore, talk to NPCs, and perform side quests in any order you choose. Overall, the environment in this game is very well designed and crafted.

In terms of the actual gameplay and combat mechancis. Deus Ex Human Revolution is primary a FPS stealth game. However, the game designer has implemented a 3rd person view when in stealth mode. This means the game gives players options of some of the most non-linear game play in today's video game titles. To complete a mission, the player can choose to either: shoot your way through, use stealth to remain undetected, or brawl your way through the levels assassin style! Like all RPG titles, Deux Ex has an experience system where the player will be rewaraded with experience points through completing objectives or taking down enemies. The experience points can be used to purchase augmentation upgrades that will make Jensen more powerful, depending on how you want to play your game. The non-linear game play in this game is very well designed, and when it all works, it works really well.

While the game play of Deux Ex Human revolution is truly marvelous. However, I do have to criticize three elements in the game. First of all, in the game, the player will have to perform a lot of "hacking" mini games. To hack into computer systems or door security console to gain access that are critical to completing objectives. The "hacking' mini game is essentially a race against time to control "nodes". While the concept is simple, but it somewhat feels like a repetitive exercise that could have been left out of the game.

Another criticism is the dumb AI. For some reason, the game designer has implemented some of the most stupid AI I've seen in recently released video games. Although the AI is dumb, but your enemies, especially at later stage will have ridiculous amount of health, making it extremely difficult to take them out using projectile weapons, and will force you to use the stealth/take down approach instead. This lead to a highly unbalanced game play that can be quite frustrating at times.

Thirdly, the zoom in/out from first person view into third person view in stealth can be quite annoying sometimes. Personally, I do not understand why Edios Montreal didn't implement the option to let players choose either first person or third person view. I mean, when in stealth mode, the camera zooms out and you get to see Adam Jensen, and he looks awesome. But the moment you go back to normal running/sneaking the camera zooms in to first person and you can't see Adam Jensen anymore..

My thoughts on the game:

I have always tried, to the best of my ability to review a video game story based on Christian world view. So here I would like to talk about my thoughts on the story of Deus Ex Human Revolution. I guess the main theme of the story is, "should we play God and use biomedical technology to enhance our human abilities?"

In the story of Human Revolution, augmented human can perform wondrous feats such as: improve their social skill through enhancement chips, lift cars, see through walls, perform super human feats, be connected to networks 24/7, and to many extents, such augementations can help to cure many diseases. But, is it a good thing?

Although this is a sci-fi story, but it is not something out of total fantasy. It is actually very real. Right now, as we speak, our genetic engineering technology is improving by the seconds. With the much debated ethics of human cloning technology still on the table, and stem cell research. I think it is highly likely that in the very near future, our technological progress will reach a point when, we can use our genetic engineering and biomedical engineering technology to make us super humans. Or even prolong human life spam to unimaginable length.

Personally, I cannot find any passages in the Bible that addresses topics of if human cloning or genetic engineering is right or wrong. However, certain Biblical wisdom can still help us to be aware of our situation.

While most technologies are invented with good intentions, to make our world better. At the same time it is also often abused and perverted into something bad, because of our sinful human nature and the tendency to abuse good things for our own selfish and sinful intentions. For example, the internet, can be used to improve communication, but at the same time it has also been perverted into an instrument to view pornography, stealing money, fraud and identity theft, and have created a generation that lacks face to face social interaction skills.

If Deus Ex Human Revolution reminds me of one thing, then that is our science and technology cannot solve all of our problems. Our proposed solutions through science and technology have, in the past been double edged swords that cuts deeply into the well being of our world, just as we reaps benefits from its wake. It is because we, the human are inherently flawed creatures.

So maybe the problem isn't with the technology that has been invented, but the problem is actually the end user of the technology. As Einstein said "Technological progress, is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal". So one day, if we do have the technology to make us "better and stronger" physically, will we use it for good? Or will we abuse it? Will it be better for the world? I wonder if the technology to make us more than we are meant to be will pave the way for unforetold human injustice and tragedy. It is impossible to tell right now. It seems it is what people do with technology that determine the outcome of such technological progression, and people have not always employed technology for good courses.

So how do we propose to approach the 21th century with all these new powerful inventions in our grasps, while we know so little of the long term consequences? What does it mean to be human? As inventors of technologies, how do we avoid letting technology rule over us, so we are not changed fundamentally from what we are truly meant to be by our technologies (socially and biologically)?

This, is a question worthy of time to think about. Actually, this is a question that I need to think about as well. I think Biblical wisdom is a good starting point to find the answers to this pending challenge of our era.

Conclusion

Story: (9.3/10): I think Deux Ex Human Revolution has one of the best story line in video games. It is a story of where conspiracy theories interweaves with human struggle in grasping hold of our place in the line of technological progression. The ending of the game is thought provoking, and the story is well narrated.

Gameplay and design (8.7/10): The environment design is amazing and believable, feels like something from Blade Runner. The combat mechanics is solid, but the dumb AI, annoying first person view and the meaningless hacking mini game is withholding an otherwise spectacular game.

Sex/nudity: none

Violence: heavy: Not recommended for people under 15 years of age

Final verdict: 9/10: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with its engaging and thought provoking storyline, makes it a truly worthy sequel in the Deux Ex franchise. The gameplay is solid, the game environment is well crafted. This is truly one of the better RPG released in 2011.

Book Review: The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Tales by HP Lovecraft (Vintage Classics)

Introduction:

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, was an American sci-fi, horror fiction author, who often based his stories on "cosmic horror". Most of his stories were published between 1920's-1930's, and although you might have never read his stories before, but you have definitely seen something that are inspired by HP Lovecraft's horror stories. For example, if you are a Metallica fan, you would know that the band has an instrumental song "The Call of Cthulhu", which is inspired by the Lovecraft story of the same name. Or "Arkham Asylum" in the Batman mythos, is inspired by Lovecraft's fictional American city of "Arkham".

Stephen King, have said that Lovecraft, is "The twentith century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale". While some other said Lovecraft is the comparable to Edgar Allan Poe in terms of his wild imagination, and the ability to weave the most spine chilling tales of the unimaginable.

Personally, I have never been a fan of horror fiction, and I have never picked up any of Stephen King's novels, and I am only about one third of way into a massive Edgar Alan Poe collection. However, I've always wanted to read some HP Lovecraft stories, only because I heard that back in the 30's, HP Lovecraft was a good friend of my most favorite author "Robert E. Howard", the creator of Conan the Cimmerian. This duo, is kind of similar to J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, the only difference is that HP Lovecraft is an atheist, and Robert E. Howard, has a very strange view about the world that is obviously twisted. Unlike the friendship between Tolkein and Lewis where both are Christians.

Anyway, I was not sure which collection of HP Lovecraft to buy. There is a book published by Library America, featuring most of Lovecraft's famous stories, and there is another volume called "Necronomicon", published by GollanczF, a massive tome containing a well collected library of Lovecraft's literary works. As a new comer to HP Lovecraft, I wasn't sure if it would be worth it to invest the bucks into getting those collector's books. Until one day, during a casual walkthrough at the book store, I stumbled across this book, "The Call of Cthulhu and the other Weird tales of HP Lovecraft", published by Vintage classics, the book only costs 12 dollars. At 551 pages, contains 12 of Lovecraft's most mind shattering horror stories.

In the last 2 weeks, I have been reading this book after work, while hiding under my blankets and paging through stories after stories of fantastic cosmic horror tales. And I have come to the conclusion that, HP Lovecraft not only has a great command of the English language, but he also seem to have the unique ability to weave sci-fi horror stories by using the combination of scientific and prose language. A style of which I have yet to see in most modern authors. Undoubtedly, Lovecraft is a great writer, and his stories are good. It is enough to send chills up your spine, and make you want to lit small lights while you are sleeping at night.

My thoughts:

What are my thoughts are Lovecraft's stories?

Well, to begin with. I am quite offended by the racist remarks and quotes in Lovecraft's writings. I have no doubt that Lovecraft, is obviously xenophobic and racist at the same time. This is evident in his stories where he continuously degraded people coming from non-English or non-white backgrounds.

However, if you are going to delve in HP Lovecraft's writings, and you are a Christian it might be worthwhile to note that there is a recurring theme in all of his writings. See, all of Lovecraft's horror stories are based on one concept. That human beings are created as a joke, an accident by an ancient alien species that ruled the earth millions of years ago. As Lovecraft described in "At the mountain of madness". An alien species came to this planet eons ago, and created life as an experiment, and through evolution, life have reached the diversity that exist now on the face of this planet. In "The Call of Cthulhu", Lovecraft have created this fictional race of aliens, who were rulers of the earth until a major disaster struck them that caused their decline, and in the story, it was said that one day, their high priest Cthulhu shall rise again to rule over the world, and destroy human kind on his ascension.

Therefore, I sensed that Lovecraft had embedded his atheistic belief that the universe, is a cruel place and that our existence, is but a joke and a freak accident. Nothing more.... Another theme I detected in Lovecraft's stories is that, in most of his stories, Lovecraft often create fictional occult groups that worships the evil alien race that created life on earth. I wonder if Lovecraft was trying to compare religious groups with the occult groups in his stories.

Overall, I sensed a lot of atheistic undertone in Lovecraft's stories. Furthermore, I detected that Lovecraft is out there trying to mock religious people. However, it is interesting to see that a lot of elements of the modern "neo-atheist" belief was already flourishing back in the 1930's.

As a Christian, while I did appreciate Lovecraft's horror tales, and find them worthwhile reading because of its undeniable literary values, but at the same time. I have to make my stand and point out the illogical view of atheist thinking, and I disagree with Lovecraft's atheistic view presented in his writings.

How can people really believe that the universe is a cruel place, and all that ever existed is nothing but a joke?

Can you really believe that? Can we really believe that? To take on this atheistic worldview, will mean that love, for example has no meaning at all. The love for your family and friends, will be nothing but a sick joke if our existence is an ultimate sarcastic joke with no purpose nor meaning.

The universe, was not meant to be a cruel place with no purpose nor meaning. In Genesis chapter 1, it said "God" created the universe. It is a creation process with structure, purpose and meaning, with every step of creation, the bible says "And God saw that it was good". See, when God created everything, it was meant to be "GOOD", with "good" purpose and "good" meaning, not cruel and meaningless as the neo atheist view want us to believe.

Unlike Lovecraft's evil alien race who created life on earth, who sees human beings as nothing but playthings and a joke. The God of Christianity, is a loving and just creator who loves His own creations so much that He even gave his only son, Jesus Christ to the world, to save the those who believe in Him for eternal life (John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life).

So what do you believe? Do you believe that the universe is cruel and our existence has no meaning? Or are you unsure and don't want to think about it, only focusing on the things of the present? I implore you to use your common sense, which belief is right ? To believe that life, love, family, friends, and everything has no meaning, purpose and will end with aboslute nothingness, because it's all an accident? Or to believe that everything has meaning and purpose because there is a God that loves us so much that he even gave us his only son, Jesus Christ and there is hope, with something true and eternal?

This, is I think, the most important question and decision that we all have to make, at some stage of our lives. I can only pray that you will make the right one before it is too late. For the space-time continuum for us creatures, is a one way arrow, with our lives fading away but as glimpse of the blurring past millenia from now. At the end, only what we believe will matter at the end of this seemingly everlasting continuum, when we meet our creator.

Book rating: 4/5

Movie review: Conan the Barbarian 3D

Robert E. Howard, the founding father of sword and sorcery literature, is also the creator of one of the most iconic characters in modern literature. Conan the Cimmerian, since the first Conan story was published in the weird tale magazine back in the 1930's. 80 years after the author's death, Conan has appeared in hundreds of different media productions: books, movies, comic books, video games, TV series, and even board games.

In 1982, John Milus directed the movie "Conan the Barbarian", starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although Arnold's Conan movie was not faithful to the original material, and was somewhat dull. The movie is considered as a cult classic today. The 1984 sequel "Conan the Destroyer", once starred by Arnie was, to be honest, a joke of a movie that was almost not watchable.

Almost 30 years later, big Hollywood studio decided to throw in big budget to reboot the Conan franchise. After a few would-be directors dropped out of the project, they finally settled with Marcus Nispel to direct a new film for the world's most legendary barbarian.

In order for me to review this movie, I will have to talk about Marcus Nispel a little bit more. To be brief, this man's entire movie directing career consist of remakes of horror movies. And so far, Mr. Nispel has yet to come come up with a movie that is even half decent.. I remember seeing an action epic movie, "Pathfinder", directed by Marcus Nispel, and I have to say that although the movie is action packed, but it bored me to death. So when I first heard that Marcus Nispel was going to direct the new Conan movie, immediately I thought the movie was going to be nothing short of a disaster. So having introducing this background, now I can go into the actual review.

The story of Conan the Barbarian is a very simple one. The bad guy is looking to re-assemble an ancient, evil relic that will give him power to rule the world. He comes to young Conan's village with his lackeys to seek a piece of that relic. They slaughtered the entire village, and killed Conan's father in front of him. Young Conan escaped, grew up big and strong, and by chance stumble upon the bad guy again. Vowed for revenge, tracked down the baddies and his lackeys, and killed them all.. barbarian style..

As a promotion strategy, the movie studio even released the movie novel a month before the movie's release. I happened to have read the movie novel of Conan the Barbarian, and I thought it actually had a half decent story. Therefore, my expectation about the movie went up a little bit despite the fact that Marcus Nispel was the director.

Then I saw the movie in the cinema, in 3D... and guess what? Being a Conan fan, I am very disappointed at how the movie turn out to be. No, it is actually not a very bad movie, but it certainly wasn't a good movie at all. From my opinion, there are only two redeeming qualities about this new Conan movie, with everything else bad, so let me talk about the good stuff first:

Firstly, the new actor who plays Conan (Jason Momoa), has done a terrific job portraying Conan. I am glad that they finally chose the right guy to play Conan. Gone is the brutish blonde haired, blue eyed, body building, viking (Northern European) look alike Arnold with unnatural sized biceps, clumsy sword play with awkward immobility problems.

Instead, the new Conan (Jason Momoa) is almost exactly what Robert E. Howard described Conan to be in his books. Black haired, bronze skin, powerfully built but athletic with incredible agility. Jason Momoa portrayed Conan as an anti hero who is dark, brooding, intelligent but not overly sophisticated, barbaric yet not primitive. Just like Robert E. Howard wanted Conan to be when he created Conan in front of his typewriter in 1932.

The second thing I like, are the action scenes and the aesthetics of this movie. The action scenes are very well done, the sword fights are great. This is attributed to Jason Momoa's physicality and the well rehearsed choreography. Conan moves with great fluidity, and the action scenes really brought to life Howard's description in his books that "Conan moves with the speed of a panther and strikes like a wounded lion". The aesthetics, although with heavily CGI effect, looks great in this movie.

Other than choice of actor, action scenes and aesthetics. Everything else about this movie is bad..

Marcus Nispel, has talents when it comes to directing action scenes and has a good taste for aesthetics. However, he has no idea how to make a movie flow smoothly. This two hour long movie has non-stop actions, but jumps from one battle scene into another, with a formulaic 30 seconds dialogue in between to connect the fight scenes. The result is an extremely fragmented, choppy movie that has zero character development, and laughable story progression.

All of the character development, background stories and character interactions present in the movie novel (pre-released by the movie studio) are all absent in the actual film! This movie feels like a 1980's video game with 30 second dialogues between boss fights that serves as mission debrief! Personally, I think Marcus Nispel is coming very close to Edwood in terms of bad directing.

Or perhaps, the movie studio has decided to cut out all the story stuff so they can make the movie shorter and fit into the standard 2 hours running time. Hence more screening time and more sales turn over.. if that is the case, I hope they will release the uncut version because I am willing to give this movie another chance.

In terms of violence, sex and nudity. This movie has some sex scenes and nudity, but it is not very bad. However, in terms of violence, it is definitely quite heavy. In Australia, this movie has MA15+ rating. However, I think it should have been R-rated due to heavy violence. There are a lot of bloood and gore as Conan engages on his personal vendetta. So I don't think this is a movie for everyone, especially if you are very sensitive about heavy violence.

Important things to think about:

There is one thing that I think is worth mentioning. In one of the scenes in the movie, Conan's romance interest asked Conan if he thinks the gods have purposes for people in this world. To Conan replied, he is not concerned about after life, and said "I live, I love, I slay, and I am content".

Now let's think about what Conan is saying here for a moment. Do you really believe that human beings serve no higher purpose other than to "live in the moment"? Note that existentialism and Nietzsche's philosophy is heavily embedded in all of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories. Although I am a Conan fan, but I have always disagreed with Howard's view of existentialism. This is because I am a Christian, and I believe that the Bible says human beings are created by God with a special purpose, which was lived out to the full in the life of Jesus Christ in his 33 years on earth. So if you are reading this, do you really think that we have no special purpose in this world other than being content with all the material things of this world and our own works? See, Robert E. Howard, a master story writer with excellent command of English, created Conan, the world's most legendary Barbarian. Their works and stories are stuff of mythical proportion, yet both Howard and Conan will not be here forever. They are like flowers that blooms and will fade away into the sands of time, one day be forgotten. Just like this attempt to reboot the franchise will eventually fade in a few years time.

So where do you invest your life in? In the material things of the present? Or will you invest your life in the things that are eternal? Maybe it is time to think about this question before it is too late.

Final verdict:

Story 3/10: Marcus Nispel, is pretty close to Edwood as a terrible director. The plots are so choppy and fragmented that the film feels like a 2 hour long UFC pay-per-view. The only redeemable part of the story is Jason Momoa's portrayal as Conan.

Cinematography 9/10: The action scenes are great, once again attributed to Jason Momoa's ability to carry the physical role of Conan. The aesthetics are beautiful, the color contrasts, designs, production values are all top notch. In terms of cinematography, this is one of those style over substance movie. There is probably no need to watch this movie in 3D, as the 3D effects are not spectacular.

Sex and nudity: medium - There is about 30 seconds of sex scenes, and some nudity scenes, but it is not very explicit, compared to many modern day films.

Violence: Very high - There are a lot of blood and gore, the violence level is pretty high and the body count is high. If you don't like movies with a lot of violence, then I would suggest skipping this one for your own good.

Final score: 6/10 - Conan the Barbarian 3D, is a really average movie, a typical action flick and a classic example of how the movie producer, studio and the director has ruined great potentials of a concept in favor of capitalizing cash earning. Only Jason Momoa's acting, the action scenes and the aesthetics saved the movie from being a total disaster.. A sequel is probably coming in a few years time, I sincerely Mr. Nispel won't be the director again.. until the day when Hollywood decide to grow up and make a Conan movie worthy and faithful to Robert E. Howard's books, I would remain to be a fan of Conan because of those 80 years old Robert E. Howard tales.