I loved the old games and played them a lot. To this day i'd still rather go back and play them, than play the new ones. I know a lot of people like this game, but for me it is just a complete sh!t show right from the start. In stead of starting from scratch you get thrown in to a chaotic scenario where way to many things are going on all at once. In the old games you had time to learn, time to build/upgrade, time to do everything and prepare yourself slowly for what was to come. Here you have zero time for anything. New missions and the like are constantly popping up, so you never get to finish what you were doing (which i absolutely hate). Despite having a tutorial the game doesn't tell you half of what you can do and how to do it. As always with these games your "soldiers" can't hit anything, even if it stands right in front of them. 85% chance of hitting really means 25%. But the aliens will rarely miss. This is just braindead, and will not accomplish anything but save scumming to avoid the unfair advantage they have even on lowest difficulty. It's just not an enjoyable experience in my opinion.
If you thought the first game was buggy, then prepare to meet it's superior. This game is riddled with bugs, some of them game breaking, from start to finish. On several occassions i was forced to use the console to advance any further. This is just not good enough to be honest. It's a big game, lots to do, lots to explore, plenty of companions and npcs to interact with and a decent story (if not nearly as good as the first game). It also has a fair share of humor, which is one of the better things about it. It just doesn't seem like they finished it properly. Your control of the party is also a huge problem. Unless i want to chose "puppet mode" and issue every single order manually, the party members will just be all over the place. If they haven't decided to just stand still in some random corner. If you can live with these things, there is still a decent game somewhere inside the chaos. But don't expect it to live up to the first game.
There is a lot of different opinions about Beamdogs revival of these old classics. Let me just start out by saying: at least they have made it possible for us to play these games on new machines with new monitors and i'm grateful for that. I also think they have done a pretty decent job tbh. The only real criticism i have is that there could have been a bit more work on various bugs (cause the game still have quite a few of them). Besides that i enjoy playing this game exactly as much as i did back when it came out. I know there is also different opinions on this, but it is one of my personal favorites from Bioware. It just holds a special place in my heart and in this EE it still holds up today. Be aware though that this is a SLOW paced rpg, with a lot of reading, exploring and looting (if you want the full experience). So if you don't have the patience for that, it might not be for you.
Ok, i get it. This is a classic and i did play it myself way back when. Playing it today however there is some things that i don't enjoy. As my headline suggest, all the walking back and forth. It's like it was a mission itself from the programmers to make this happen as often as possible. You go from A to B, do one thing, then back to A, do one thing, then back to B etc (and especially in part 3 there is a lot of travelling. The figuring out how to do things can be tedious as well though, as it has to be done a very certain way for it to work. And as it always is with these games there is not always much logic to it. It's good nostalgia, a fun story with funny characters, but the gameplay itself is kinda tedious tbh.
Somehow i couldn't get into the first game. But this one is much more interesting. Good old classic dungeon crawler but with a lot more variation than the first game. More interesting areas, enemies, loot etc. Only problem is that the puzzles are often very hard and sometimes i just didn't have a clue how to find out what to do, hence a lot of googling. At times it can be pretty hard, but this is one of those games where you actually feel stronger and stronger the further it goes, which i love.
Great art style, great atmosphere, great soundtrack. Wether it is scary is always a personal opinion. Psychological horror is always more intense and scary for me and some of the jump scares did get me, even though i'm very used to them. The HOW to play it is probably the most interesting thing about this game. Cause it doesn't tell you anything about what to do and how it affects your playthrough/ending. And i will say, for your first playthrough you should definitely go into it blindly to get the best experience.
The new Deus Ex games are some of the most immersive games i've ever played. If these things are what makes a game for you, then don't hesitate getting them both: -Great story, both main quest and side quests. -Great voice acting. -Incredibly rewarding exploration. -Great soundtrack. -Several ways to play the game, and it doesn't punish for choosing 1 or the other. -Good replay value. I could probably add more, but these are some of the key elements. I only have 2 negatives to put on and they don't stop me from handing out 5 stars: -The hacking. It is very punishing in this game. Despite upgrades it tracks you way to fast (was better in HR). -A Criminal Past DLC, this mission has some crashing issues halfway through that should have been fixed. But all in all i can't recommend these games enough. I know this is not a popular opinion, but i think they are waaaay better than the original.
For context i have played games since the 80es and also played many older games in recent years. So that isn't the reasoning behind me not being as impressed by this game as most people seem to be. With that being said i can easily see why people would love this game back in 2000, it does a lot of things that you didn't see much of back then. Does it do it well though? In some areas yes, and in others not so much. The stealth part, which is a big thing in these games, has been done so much better in later games. For me it was just frustrating and i decided on violence instead. The story, characters and voice acting is wildly inconsistent in quality. Weird bugs and crashes was also part of my experience (i played the original game, no mods) Still it was a brave game for it's time and it tried a lot of interesting things. For me it is more like a diamond in the rough though. Not one of the greatest games of all time.
The story and setting is there for something interesting. But the gameplay is just very poorly made. The fact that you don't have any idea what you are targeting with your action button or what you can interact with just doesn't work. Especially when being chased and you open a door instead of locking the latch. I also found it stupid that the progression of your followers depended on your actions instead of just time passed (meaning that a perfectly executed escape would never get you further from them). I might watch a youtube for the story, but not playing it again.
Had i been able to give it 4,5 stars that would be my rating. The game just good fun to play, even in 2024 (my first time playing it). Fun, challenging and engaging gameplay is the games major strength. And you get to care about the characters throughout the story as well. Sure the game suffers from some issues, where the camera is probably the most annoying (and no controller support for a console game?). But remember this is a game from 2003, you got to expect and accept some of these things. I had surprisingly much fun playing it and even though i'm not the best at these types of games i made it all the way to the final boss. Ended up without any energy refills, so a quick advice to new players: Have plenty of refills before the last fights.
