Jason Moyer on 11/10/2014 at 03:44

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Finally got around to playing this. I have to agree with the general consensus that it's a great tablet game that loses it's appeal when played on a PC. The biggest pros, of course, are the story and the fan service. It's also pretty neat that they managed to capture the general look of DXHR on a portable device.

The biggest negative, discounting the design aspects that were clearly made with a tablet in mind (disappearing bodies, tardis store, limited movement) is how glitchy certain things are. The interface is an unresponsive mess, forcing you to wait a moment before selecting menu items or it simply refuses to acknowledge your clicks. The way talking to NPC's will take priority over picking up the object you're staring at is annoying. I had a few cases, in what is a short game, where I fell through the level geometry. I've had the AI see me through a solid wall (which is kind of odd, since they're normally as blind as the AI in the first DX). The difficulty is almost insulting (beat the entire game without using a weapon except for the tutorial), and that includes the use of the personality augment which directly tells you how to deal with the NPC you're talking to (in DXHR, you still had to think a little bit about what you were doing in conversations). And of course, there's the cliffhanger ending with no sequel in sight.

<Username> on 22/4/2023 at 11:04

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Is there a way to play The Fall on iOS in 2023? The game appears to have been pulled from the App Store.

<Username> on 25/4/2023 at 05:51

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That is a cool find, henke! I might end up opting for the PC port if the mod fixes major problems that weren't there on Android and iOS.

<Username> on 20/1/2024 at 09:56

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Ultimately, I opted for emulating the Android version with BlueStacks 5 on a Windows laptop with a touchscreen. BlueStacks made it possible to add WASD controls and mouse aiming, which was awesome.

I was surprised by how much I liked The Fall. Completing the whole game with all side quests, taking my time to explore each area, took about 10 hours. I enjoyed every single one of them.

Elements I liked:
* The small-scale conspiracy around the Neuropozyne shortage in this episode of the planned series is embedded into a larger story about the Tyrants and the Illuminati.
* The producers were able hire the original voice actors of Bob Page, Jaron Namir and Lawrence Barrett. Having their voice talents makes The Fall feel connected to earlier titles in the Deus Ex series.
* The aesthetics from Human Revolution are carried over into this mobile experience. The texture fidelity is much lower of course, but my brain mostly tuned that out soon enough. The graphics look very decent for a mobile game from 2013.
* The soundtrack is fantastic. I have been listening to it as ambiance since around 2018.
* There are several instances of non-obnoxious fan service you can find, like an email by Gunther Hermann about his coveted skull gun.
* There is now an explanation why the mercenaries call themselves "The Tyrants" if you find it in the prologue.
* The scene with the brutal assassination of the WHO inspector is perfectly choreographed and timed. This was the most exciting scene of the episode and it would have sold me on the rest of the series.
* I feel the developers managed to find a good balance between non-linearity and streamlining the experience.
* I snuck by all the guards in the Belltower Hangar and hacked the robot. It felt awesome when it absolutely eviscerated the Belltower guards.
* I was also able to win the final rooftop confrontation without firing a single shot by hacking the Boxguard droid. Being able to do that even in this scene felt very much like Deus Ex.
* There is a new game plus. If you restart the episode after completing it, you get to play to play on a higher difficulty, but you keep your abilities and equipment from the first playthrough.

Could be improved:
* If you haven't read the book Deus Ex: Icarus Effect, you get thrown into an ongoing story. There is an exposition scene between Ben Saxon and Anna Kelso at the beginning, but it feels stilted. My experience would probably have been better had I read book first and were already familiar with Operation Rainbird and our two main protagonists.
* The controls are functional, but feel rather awkward. Enabling WASD controls and mouse aim in the Android emulator significantly improved my experience.
* In the Android version, the menus were frequently unresponsive, but I got used to it.
* The models of more important NPCs like Alex Vega are nicely modeled despite the platform limitations, but some of the minor NPC models look pretty bad; for example, the female junkie who is looking for Luis in the slums of Panama.


After I finished the game, I decided to complete it a second time on new game plus.

<Username> on 28/1/2024 at 09:36

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I knew the game would end on a cliffhanger, so I did not feel disappointed. What a shame it did not find its market on mobile. The Windows port got savaged online by people who expected the production quality of Human Revolution. I feel sorry for the developers. The Fall is a pretty good game.