Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

The main way I used to play games was via demos on magazine coverdiscs, and the demo I remember most fondly was for Hitman: Codename 47.

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Shower scenes seldom Make You Think, unless it’s about what exactly you’re getting for that Premium Netflix subscription, but if anything sticks out for me about the impressive yet oddly unexciting Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site], it’s the sight of Adam Jensen washing his hair. Eidos Montreal’s latest presentation begins in Jensen’s new Prague apartment – a casually affluent man-den where you can phone other characters, watch newscasts that track your decisions through the story, answer emails, tinker with crafting resources, and generally get acquainted with the sleek, cadaverous sort-of-human in your charge.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Human Revolution has myriad faults, but they hardly matter to me. Square Enix Montreal’s first crack at replicating Deus Ex is a perfect example of how the right creative decisions can make up for any number of constraints.

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Any time a new Hitman [official site] game rolls around, I need to know the answer to one question: can I royally screw basically everything up and get away with it? Not for me the Silent Assassin, but more a series of pratfalls, murders performed inadvertently in plain sight, panicked costume changes and awkward scuffles, inevitably culminating in a desperate sprint to the exit with a chain of armed and extremely angry guards pursuing me. So I am delighted to discover that the new Hitman game supports this kind of rolling disaster.

I even managed to complete a mission which began with me choking a man unconscious in front of roughly 200 people who I somehow hadn’t realised were watching me.

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After Hitman: Absolution, Agent 47 is in need of another subtitle. Redemption, perhaps, or Contrition. His upcoming adventure has already made headlines thanks to its now-confirmed episodic release schedule but it also seemed to be a game made with the awareness that the previous hadn’t given fans of the series quite what they wanted. I was eager to get my hands on it after seeing a promising demo at Gamescom last year and now that I have, I’m in two minds.

Hitman [official site] contains just about everything I want from the series but all of the ingredients have become a little muddled.

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When I received definitive confirmation that Just Cause 3 [official site] wouldn’t have any multiplayer support out of the box, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. If memory serves, I was talking to one of the game’s producers at the time so it’s entirely possible that I left the room wincing, with a wounded expression on my face. Later in the day, when I’d recovered, Avalanche told me that their dedication to modding support would allow for all manner of enjoyable shenanigans and, sure enough, the team behind the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod have released the first footage of Just Cause 3 Multiplayer. Delicious.

… [visit site to read more]

When I received definitive confirmation that Just Cause 3 [official site] wouldn’t have any multiplayer support out of the box, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. If memory serves, I was talking to one of the game’s producers at the time so it’s entirely possible that I left the room wincing, with a wounded expression on my face. Later in the day, when I’d recovered, Avalanche told me that their dedication to modding support would allow for all manner of enjoyable shenanigans and, sure enough, the team behind the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod have released the first footage of Just Cause 3 Multiplayer. Delicious.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

We’d remember Deus Ex: Invisible War more fondly if it weren’t named Deus Ex, wouldn’t we? So let’s imagine that.

Released in 2003 by Ion Storm, Invisible War is a flawed but pretty fun FPS action-RPG, where we get to be a swanky cyborg larking about in that grim cyberpunk future.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Just Cause 2 [official site] doesn’t have a great mission in its entire running length, although it has some pretty OK ones. What it does have is a beautiful, diverse open world in which to wreak havoc of the most over the top kind, with land, sea and air vehicles, a re-usable parachute and a grappling hook.

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Everything looked rosy when I traveled to Montreal to take a look at Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] earlier this year. The areas I played improved on Human Revolution in every way that matters and Adam Jensen controlled better than ever. All was well and I was looking forward to playing the game in February, right around my birthday. Moments ago, word arrived of a six month delay – the game will now be coming out on August 23rd.

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