Games of the Year 2011

Second Place - Deus Ex: Human Revolution

There were a couple of major concerns for the games industry this year. Would BF3 outsell MW3? Would Valve announce Half-Life 3? Would anyone ever complete Dark Souls?

However, all we really cared about was whether or not the folks at Square Enix would manage to deliver a Deus Ex game that lived up to the calibre of the original classic. As it turned out, they did.

A prequel to the original Deus Ex, Human Revolution casts players as Adam Jensen - a security guard for a company providing mechanical augmentations and robotic limbs for anyone who can afford them. Critically injured in what is apparently a terrorist attack that sees his ex-girlfriend kidnapped, Adam is rebuilt as more machine than man, then tasked with uncovering a massive conspiracy.

Despite its clear successes, Human Revolution remains a divisive title in several regards. Some will tell you that the augmentations don't offer real choices, or that the game has been dumbed down for consoles. Others will claim that it's only good because it works on a similar template to the original game. Pretty much everyone agrees that the boss fights are a jarring low point for the experience.

Hardly anyone, however, will claim that it's a bad game on the whole, or that it is not a worthy follow-up to Ion Storm's original.

'Halfway between Deus Ex and Invisible War, the boss fights might be a bit crap, but the vision and plotting is solid,' said Dan Grilipoulos. 'Human Revolution gives us a genuinely well thought through view of the near-future mingling of man and machine.'

'There's just no denying Human Revolution's epic nature,' agreed Gareth Halfacree, albeit while also lamenting the ropey voice acting - a problem that plagues our Game of the Year too, now we think about it...