Deus Ex™ GOTY Edition

Having been a gamer for decades; calling something "The best game of all time" is a huge claim, and that title goes to Deus Ex.

If not, it's in the top 5.

Deus Ex was a game made in the year 2000, and boy does it feel like it. It's not just in some of the political commentary feeling a bit quaint; the game is very buggy on modern systems . Had to mess around with renderers quite a bit to actually be able to see things, and even then, I had vanishing textures everywhere. As for the game itself, it's somewhat lacking in focus due to the developers not knowing how to properly balance things. The game isn't as open ended as it appears; there are often multiple ways to complete an objective, but in practice there is only one way available to you because of the way you've built J.C. This extends to the weapon balance, where all nonlethal options other than the stun prod are generally nonviable (and pointless, as there is a human enemy type that explodes on defeat, not to mention certain story events that canonically make J.C. a killer) and meanwhile you would be a fool not to carry around a GEP gun. The game may have stealth, but it's often much more trouble than it's worth (sometimes it's barely even possible), and explosives are your friend. Other gameplay foibles include the enemy patrol being seemingly random and ladders being a complete pain. Where the game really shines is its atmosphere. The modeled textures, the cyborgs and robots, the synthwave soundtrack, the bums huddling around fire barrels all the same, the beep boop sound effects, it knows how to do cyberpunk well. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a lot of the soundtrack was compressed in such a way that it could have come straight out of an SNES Final Fantasy game. Guess that's Square Enix for you. I won't comment on the story so much other than to say that it probably will railroad you more than you might want and it does have the Endingtron 5000 problem, if a bit less pronounced. Solid espionage thriller stuff otherwise. It's a good thing this game is more than the sum of its parts. Some of those parts are showing age.

Just perfect

I usually find a lot of these older games to be at mediocre at best, but Deus Ex is not one of them. It has an engaging story that's all about conspiracy, the powerful, and their objective to control the entire world. It also dabbles into some interesting perspectives and philosophical arguments that were enjoyable to ponder about and listen to. For the gameplay, it's really enjoyable and does not have this obtuseness that other old games have while still having enough depth to keep me entertained and engaged. I also enjoyed the flexibility that it had, so while I focused on stealth and taking out guards relatively silently, I could still get my hands dirty if so needed. The graphics are rather poor which I understand may be a deal breaker for some people, but I do recommend to tolerate it if you can since the rest of the game is tons of fun. There are also third party launchers and rendering engines for people who may need or want it for improved modern support. Overall I recommend it to try, especially on sale where it's only $1.