Deus Ex™ GOTY Edition

The best game of my childhood...Somebody, return me to this time...

Deus Ex is an innovative First Person RPG that immerses you in a dynamic world that adapts and changes based upon how you play the game. The overall game structure is episodic and each chapter unveils an open environment that provides an unlimited number of choices or methods for completing your objectives. Similar to modern RPGs, NPCs have a life of their own by engaging in dialogue with one another and adjusting their scripted behavior to match your actions or dialogue choices. What you say and do will determine what aspects of the storyline develop or what areas of the map you can access. Even seemingly innocuous decisions can result in major narrative changes later on, and the game designers have anticipated every possible choice or action you could imagine; try and see for yourself. There are enough variety in story telling and multiple endings to keep you coming back to play again and again. The skill and augmentation system allows for each player to customize their character without defaulting to traditional archetypes (though these are also possible to construct). Although you cannot change your skills or augmentations once they are assigned, the game is fluid enough to allow you to modify your play-style and successfully finish it. Aesthetically, the game is littered with information you can find by reading a book, picking up a newspaper, or hacking an email account. These fictional inclusions are mixed together with references from actual literature/philosophy that results in creating an unprecedented sense of reality. While reading everything is unnecessary to completing the game, it significantly enriches the experience and finding all the chapters to “Jacob’s Shadow” is rewarding in itself. The award winning soundtrack reflects the cyberpunk/conspiracy theory atmosphere without ever becoming repetitive or awkward. Even though this game was released in 2000, the political and social commentary is provoking and uncomfortably relevant over a decade later. This is game is not a mindless romp in a sandbox, but an intellectually stimulating experience that rewards you with something new to discover each time you play it. Even if you already purchased this game, buying it again for $9.99 is a steal when considering it doesn’t require a third party software to run and you no longer have to remember where you put the CDs. If you enjoy a game that allows full customization, rewards innovation, tells a compelling story, and provided an unforgettable experience, then this is the game for you.

I understand that you might be looking at this veritable antique of a video game and wondering if it can truly be worth it. To many, this is not only the best immersive sim, or the best RPG - no, this is the best game ever made. This last statement is not one I'd make myself. However, it is a most worthy competitor for the title. Yes, even today. I've played this game without the benefit of nostalgia, well after its release day. Yet, I still came out astounded. In its day, Deus Ex was a game unlike any other, and although many have taken its mechanics and story beats, iterating and refining upon them, the game yet remains worthy. What's so good about it? The level design in sublime, polished to a mirror-sheen, with so many ways to approach any given mission. The story touches upon themes few other games consider. It is often clumsy in its execution, but it hits nonetheless with topics still relevant and themes worth a great amount of deliberation. The game is long, longer than I anticipated, and only rarely did the length not feel justified. The soundtrack is plain sublime - more upbeat than you'd expect for this type of game, yet it feels just right. Deus Ex is also not a perfect game. The shooting mechanics rely heavily upon the skill system, and with the benefit of decades of game design, there are better ways to penalize low training than Deus Ex's approach of sluggishly zeroing in on targets. Balance, in general, is a bit off, with the often memed swimming skill and the tranq dart presenting a few comically underwhelming examples. The voice acting... look, if you're reading this review, I dare say you've seen the videos. In many ways, yes, Deus Ex has been outpaced, outmatched, obsoleted. However, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For the price of a somewhat-fancy cup of coffee, it's more than worth to try. If the game doesn't suit you, you won't lose much. If it does, it's an Experience, one worthy of the capital letter.

I'm surprised that no one heard me moaned when first booted up Deus Ex. Actually it's my second attempt playing this game because storylines based on diseased ridden society is a total copout. Now add government cover up to this equation then you'll have a totally worn out model. This time though I've done a little more investigation (especially to the meaning of Deus Ex Machina) and like a good soldier, marched on to complete the game. Now looking in hindsight my apology goes to developer Warren Spector and his team as Deus Ex, even though the 'disease – government - cover up' is used extensively in many other fictional stories, this idea was more sinister than I realised. Initial impression of this game is your typical first person shooter. You know – aim, shoot and whatever else. However all of this changes in a blink of an eye as Warren brought RPG elements that encourages players to play their style. That said the game caters for all walks of life ranging from stealth approach to all out gun a blazing using the heaviest weapon/s available. Not only this, even though the game follows a linear pattern (e.g. go from point A to B) there are many paths to take. For instance: a heavy bot is blocking your path; you can activate your augmentation to stealth your way past it, search for a terminal to hack and disable it or simply show who the real boss is. As you can imagine, people love being in control and this game enforces this rule. Yet the key element to this is the character creation. It's a pretty bazaar concept for a FPS however it's very simple to understand. Without going into details, the game has an excellent training module that eases the learning curve. Also through out the game you are awarded experience points (XP) for completing missions and if you go for a little exploration you can also be rewarded for locating hidden rooms. Of course spending XP will increase your character skills and yes even the swimming skill has a role to play – you have been warned! Yet being a cyber dude there are augmentations that increase your human abilities like run faster, absorb more damage or even have infrared vision. Lastly the game uses damage indicators around your body meaning that if your arm is severely wounded, it will be harder for you to aim and so forth. Visually is the game's weakest point. By all means it's certainly not ugly at the slightest however because it uses the Unreal Engine I expected more. Right from the get go, the game play takes place at night. Actually it's one very long night so the colour palette is dull looking with greys, blacks and whites with the occasional colour splashes. Naturally there's nothing wrong with that however being in the future, I was hoping more of those flashy neon signs, graffiti abound or something similar to that effect. Yet the entire cast ranging from the local prostitute to the bar tender to the soldiers are all top-notch with believable motions like walking, running et al. Sound wise the game really shines. From the main title screen with its catchy tune to the entire locations all presented with the appropriate scores to match. So in Hong Kong you'll have a certain Asian flavour or Paris with a slight European tang. Environmental sounds like birds flapping, footsteps, cats meowing or even a jackhammer bolstering (yet I cannot locate the person doing this) all bring immersion to that melancholy backdrop. The voice acting, even though convincing enough with excellent speeches, is a little too stereotypical for my liking. For example, your alter ego Denton sounds like your typical gruff type, the German cyborg Gunther Hermann all too Arnie like and even the foreigners (for example residents of Hong Kong) way too American. Yet because of the impressive storyline this can be forgiven. I didn't realise how long this game was. X-Fire stated a whopping seventy six hours of game play therefore you'll certainly get your dollars worth. However this can also be on the negative side as there are some gamers who want results real fast. So to counter this long game, you can easily divide the game in five chapters (for which I did) so ending one chapter rest a while before embarking the next. Just think of it as 'DLC' upgrade for every chapter. Considering the game was made for single player only, the multiplayer component didn't arrive until later in the form of patches. Yet the multiplayer only supports three game play modes being death match, team death match and advanced team death match. But all is not lost as Ion Storm (the publishers) also released the self development kit (SDK) that even today the modding community is still strong. So strong, that the award winning 'The Nameless Mod' was made specifically for Deus Ex. Like all conspiracy theories, on the surface it all seems hogwash bogus stuff however when start digging further, new beliefs will arrive on the surface for which entices further questioning or conspiracies. Naturally this will cause a spiral effect where the loop doesn't really meet at all. And as human beings, we are always looking for answers to these uncertainties, no matter how outlandish they are. Dues Ex is just like that: the more you progress into the game, questions will be answered but only poses further questioning. That said Deus Ex will start off slowly however once digging into the storyline, and just like a spiral, you think it's going to end only poses further questioning for which expands the curiosity. Yet in this game, there are three possible endings all which are too real not to ignore…

Got it when it 1st came out. 1st game install on every new system/Build/reinsatll every time. This was the game changer back in the day, it made me fall in love with dystopian sci fi genre and i have never looked back. Yes its old Yes its not 4/8/100000 k graphics It is one hell of a story an it sucks you in and its all there No dlc No pay extra Im old school an they do not make games like this anymore.