Book Review: Deus Ex: Human Revolution Collector's Edition Guide

The Deus Ex: Human Revolution guide is published by Future Press, and it's up to their usual high standards in terms of comprehensiveness. It covers the walkthrough, upgrades to player and weapons, maps, side quests and enemies.

Walkthrough

The walkthroughs are split into Stealth, Stealth Combat, and Combat path. They are detailed and good to refer to when stuck. The walkthroughs are great for subsequent plays when you want to change your style of play.

If you're the type who refers to the walkthrough only when stuck - to avoid spoilers - I recommend reading in advance the "Optional Exploration", side quests, and trophies so that you don't miss them out. For the first mission on rescuing hostages, I wasted too much time in the checking out what this guide has to offer while the game was still running and forgot all about the hostages (and they got killed - Oops!).

Maps

The maps are great and they serve different functions. First, there's a general schematic overview with all the items, vents, computers and security panels. Those are the spoiler-free maps. You can use to find items sneakily hidden under movable boxes.

Then there are the maps in the walkthrough with marked out paths. Finally, the maps with all the security codes - you can imagine how useful this is.

I realised that not all items listed on the map are in the actual game. It seems that there's a different version of the game with those unlocked items. There's no mention in the book about that or I've missed that info.

Upgrades

The way to getting maximum XP is different for each play style, and they are all laid out in the walkthrough. The various augmentation are well explained and there are a few recommended paths to upgrading them as well. Same for the various weapons, on their recommended usage, statistics, upgrade paths and what they are capable of.

Side Quests

They are as detailed as the walkthroughs, complete with maps. More importantly, you're presented with the information required to access them.

Extras

The extras consist of character profiles, a summary of the story, achievement and trophy guides, locations of weapon sellers and their inventory. The information on what weapon dealers are selling is very helpful.

Additional 32-page art section

This section features the concept art and interviews with the game creators. It's an interesting read. The artists fired real weapons to help design more realistic weapons in the games. The illustrations are very beautiful. Unfortunately, they aren't credited to artists so I can't find out more on them online. I'm not sure if they are all drawn by the art director.

Price disparity

This is about the price disparity between the collector's edition and standard edition. On some Amazon sites (e.g. the US site), the collector's edition cost more than twice the standard edition. The difference? The collector's edition has the hardcover, additional 32-page art section and the bookmark ribbon.

If you don't want the art section, you can save quite a bit of money by getting the standard edition.

Conclusion

Highly recommended if you want to know and get everything out of the game. This is a helpful guide, even more so if you're planning subsequent plays after completion.

The next guide from Future Press is for Dark Souls. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution Collector's Edition Guide is available at:
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The Official Guide (paperback) is available at:
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution (game) is available at:
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