Overdue Reviews is an occasional series in which I pretend to be a videogame journalist. This week: Deus Ex: Human Revolution on PC.
There was a moment in Deus Ex Human Revolution where I was so engrossed in the game that my ability to reload a previous save transcended from common mechanism to time travelling super power.
Spoilers ahead.
We'd had a lead on one of the missing scientists and Malik was flying us into Hengsha. I knew Belltower didn't like what I was doing, but I wasn't ready for what happened next. Out of nowhere we were shot down over a construction site. I bailed at the last second but Malik went down hard with the bird.
They had us right where they wanted us. I tried to get to Malik but there were too many of them. She begged me to save myself, to finish the mission. The only way out was an old freight elevator back up to the street. The last thing I saw as the doors closed was them dragging her out of the wreck and putting a bullet through her head.
I work alone. She was never supposed to be a part of this. I blamed myself. It should have been me, not her.
The lift reached the top. Pritchard was on the comm. I told him what had happened. He actually showed some emotion. Told me I was right, that I had to get out of there, that Belltower was looking for me hard. That there was no going back.
But there was. I wasn't going to take this lying down. To hell with them. I was going to make them pay, even if it killed me. Because I could do something no one else could do.
I could save my game.
Suddenly, I wasn't playing the character of Adam Jensen anymore. I was a Jensen who had become self-aware; who understood that he was inside a generated world, one that could be manipulated, stored, retrieved, or even restarted. I was super-human.
I got back in the lift, went back down, and killed the men who'd killed Malik. And then I went back and did it again. And then I went back to before they'd killed her, and killed them all again, and this time, she lived.
She thanked me afterwards. It was strange, hearing her voice after watching her die. But of course, none of that had happened. I was the only one who knew. Her world had continued. But mine would never be the same.