Deus Ex™ GOTY Edition

This game (and to a lesser degree the sequels) totally revolutionized gaming for me. I've been playing first person shooters since Wolfenstein 3d, but this brought a new element: Choice! There are multiple ways to accomplish almost any objective in game. Often the path you choose changes the outcome of something further down the line... which means you can play this game multiple times and it will be a different experience. Sure the graphics are a bit dated now, but the gameplay and story still stands up. If somehow you've never played Deus Ex, install it now and thank me later. If you have played it, re-install rinse and repeat.

I tried Wolfenstein 3D for an hour or two back when it came out, didn't like it much (in part due to the violence), and since then hadn't tried any FPS games until I picked up Deus Ex last month. And I loved it, particularly the stealth / nonlethal aspects. I did download the Deus Exe version, the OpenGL 10 support, and the New Vision textures, and thought it looked really good. My kids really enjoyed watching me play, too. :-)

Awesome game. On top of the gameplay(which gave the player an unprecedented amount of freedom), it's also got one of the most well built, deep, intriguing game worlds I've ever seen.....With things like global electronic surveillance, shadowy groups manipulating entire governments for mutual benefit, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and... Wait, are we still talking about a game here?

It is strange that a game that is so obviously a product of it's time can be so timeless. Soaked in the paranoid conspiracy theories of the '90s, Deus Ex manages to perfectly capture the mystery and feel of the classic X-Files series, mix it with pulp cyberpunk inspired by William Gibson's work, and to form this into one of the greatest action RPGs, nay the greatest game, of all time. And this is no action game with RPG elements, this is an RPG through and through; much like it's predecessor System Shock 2. This game does not hold your hand, you are free to play the game how you want to, with all the consequences that might entail. You can be a stealthy sleuth who leaves his enemies unharmed, moving about the masterfully crafted levels undetected. You can be a manly rambo killing everything in his wake. Graphically it could use a bit of a facelift, but the gameplay and story are enough for anyone to look past it and sink into the world it creates. My sole complaint is that it should not be Game of the Year Edition. It should be the Game of Every Year Edition.

A immersive simulator. Don your sunglasses and trench-coat and fight against the conspiracies that threaten your nation and the world. The game was never stellar in the graphics department, the voice acting is usually laughable, though it has a pretty great soundtrack at least. The AI and stealth system work well enough, though they have their own quirks. The world portrayed is interesting and learning about it from wherever you can is engaging. It feels like it had a lot of thought put into crafting it. In this world, all (well at least a lot of the major) conspiracies theories are true, and this has all sorts of interesting effects on its plot and how it unfolds. Politics and philosophy that relates to governance are also central to the game's themes, and it's exploration and discussion of such things are intriguing, in spite of how things like the voice acting can be. The game is big on allowing you to solve problems in different ways. The skill system helps drive this, with skills generally dedicated to making you more effective with weapons, and thus allowing more direct assaults against enemies to be more feasible, skills that instead assist with your ability to bypass security, which allows you to find more and more alternate routes, and some in between, that influence your survivability. As your main character is a kind of cyborg, you also have the ability to augment yourself with different abilities, that in turn augment different styles of play. Areas are full of alternative paths, extra resources, exploitable environmental objects and the like, some more well hidden than others. Exploration is exciting and very much encouraged here. The game also acknowledges what actions you decided to take in various places, which makes things even more fascinating. In spite of its flaws it's still a great experience overall, and would highly recommend it to fans of cyberpunk and games that offer an abundance of choice.