Deus Ex™ GOTY Edition

This is the first game I ever considered "perfect," and have replayed probably more than any other

buy it now..

But not great either. Even with the revision, controls are hard to get used to, jumping in the tutorial is a royal pain... this could benefit from controller support, but I have yet to find it if it even has it. Graphically, it's dated but still good for it's age. Audio quality is great. If the controls were a little easier and the lighting better, I'd give it a higher rating... unfortunately even Gothic 1 is easier control, and that's saying something, as Gothic 1 is the hardest I've had to get used to! Going to have to search for mods if there's anything that gives controller support and better lighting. Otherwise, yeah...three stars because even skipping the tutorial I only managed to make it off the dock in the first mission! Tutorial was just plain PITA.

Supposedly this is a game where you can do all kinds of different things, and all builds are viable. In reality there's only two options, sneaky hacker or rambo. Sneaky Hacker mode is where you have a few similar skills that might as well be 3 different colors of DOOM keys, and it's ruined by relying on the godawful stealth mechanics. Rambo mode is ruined by the bad shooter mechanics; early game enemies have way too much HP, deal way too much damage, and you'll use 25% of your entire ammo cache anytime you fight someone. Ammo and HP pickups are far too scarce for a game balanced like this. It seems like the only fun way to play is to look up cheese strategies and rely heavily on quicksaves.

I finished this game twice. First when I was 19 years old back in 2001 (easily 4.5 star game back then, it really was great), the second time I finished the game was in 2014, 13 years later. After much thought, Deus Ex today doesn't deserve more than 3 stars. Why am I giving you my personal history I have with this game? It's to tell you to read the reviews which claim DE is 'one of the best games of all time even today' reviews with a grain of salt. It simply isn't true. I suspect many of these reviewers have nostalgic feelings towards this game and will not acknowledge the faults this game has. How does the game play today? First off, the story is ridiculously bad. DE is set in a near future reminding me of Neuromancer. It is a quite interesting world, really, and if the writers weren't crazy, they might have been able to tell us something interesting. Instead, the story is full of cliches and boring conspirational theories. It is neither original, or believable. The shooting and fighting mechanics are bit clumsy, but passable. The levelling system is old school - you get experience by completing tasks and getting to hidden or hard-to-reach places and I liked it. You can also level up by upgrading your body with special technology that you find throughout game and it's also well done. What is not so great though, is the AI. Enemies are brain-dead and their incompetence will often ruin your immersion in the game. Also, while you have many ways of solving problems, sometimes the game is just dumb. Why are ventilation systems big enough to fit a human? Why are the cameras so big and noisy? Why put 'electrical' boxes within my reach so I can disable security systems? WTF? So, why it give 3 stars? The atmosphere is great, ambient sounds and graphics (although very dated) pull you into the game. You have a lot of freedom moving around and solving problems. The game is big and you will visit some very cool places. Overall, I had fun playing DE and I recommend it.