Deus Ex GO review

Deus Ex GO is Square Enix's latest installment in the mobile game puzzle-fication of popular console and PC games that started with the beautifully minimal Hitman GO, followed by the excellent Lara Croft GO. While there's nothing terribly new added to the formula with Deus Ex GO, the game still presents some smart and beautiful puzzle design.

If you're unfamiliar with what makes a GO game, it's essentially a relatively simple turn-based puzzle game where you move a character along predefined points one turn at a time with the goal of reaching the exit. Of course, there are obstacles and items along the way which can help or hinder your ability to get where you need to go.

The real key to these games though is how they manage still mange to capture the look and feel of their more intricate and grandiose source material. In the case of Deus Ex GO, this means that there's a ton of hacking, augmentation powers, and more as part of the puzzle-solving, all set against a cool cyberpunk backdrop.

Deus Ex GO's primary new addition to this series of games is its story. While Hitman GO only had a narrative in terms of "kill that guy," and Lara Croft GO had a narrative concerned primarily with nonverbal exploration, Deus Ex GO has a full script and cast of characters that -- while it's not the most compelling storyline -- help keep you pushing forward.

Of course, this game also introduces a large number of new mechanics to reflect the techno centric world of Deus Ex, all of which are remarkably fine-tuned to allow for some mind-bending puzzle action.

One of the biggest weaknesses of every GO game is that they have a limited number of puzzles. Deus Ex GO addresses this in the form of providing weekly puzzles to give you reasons to revisit the game after completing the story.

If the first week of puzzles is any indication, these should provide a good amount of variety and challenge, making Deus Ex GO feel like an even greater value proposition.

Deus Ex GO isn't too different from the GO titles that came before it, but that's not a bad thing at all. And, the changes to this installment make it feel like the most substantial GO offering to date.