I played the first two Deus Ex games years after they both came out, but I played DE2 only a few months after DE1. I played Deus Ex on PC, and I don't think I'll have too much opposition if I say that it's one of the best games ever made. Then I played Deus Ex 2 on XBox, and overall, I enjoyed it more than the first game. But considering popular sentiment, I'm obviously going to have to qualify that statement. People say that the areas are smaller, the skill system is dumbed down, and the game is much shorter. All of this is true, as far as I'm concerned. The core gameplay mechanics have almost all been nerfed, when compared to the first game. If your favourite part of the first game was getting the better of your martial enemies by stealth, tactics, and sheer cunning, then this sequel was going to be a huge disappointment. Those elements are still present, but in a much smaller way. So, why do I have such fond memories of this game? The organic narrative. In DE1, your multiple options seem almost entirely limited to how you're going to acheive your current goal. The issue of why that's your goal is set firmly on rails, and considering whether or not it should even be your goal is never on the cards. Various conversational options exist only to steer you clearly and directly back onto the "correct" path. Your story arc through the game is a foregone conclusion, and the multiple endings are almost all selected from a menu at the end of the game. Perhaps the dev team on DE3 returned to the "Endingtron 3000" because no-one seemed to mind it too much in the first game. Of course, you can argue that DE2 shares many of these features, and on the surface, it does. Creating a lot of content that potentially won't be seen by players is not an option on a big-budget game, so the story must be constructed such that everyone goes through more or less the same areas. But that's where the similarity ends. There are multiple factions in DE2, and at every turn of the story, they all have an interest in what's happening at the same place. But whether you go somewhere to join a faction leader, kill them, steal their stuff for another faction, or just spy on them for your own interest, is up to you and your previous actions in the game. I find DE2 an incredibly masterful example of interactive storytelling, in the way that the story seems to twist itself around your actions, rather than the reverse, as in most games. Later in the game, when a husband and wife team of manipulators are revealed, the wife is kidnapped by a rival faction. Now, of course you can go and rescue the wife to ingratiate yourself. A little surprisingly, you can also actively decide not to rescue her (as distinct from just leaving a side-quest incomplete), and move the story on another way. The real genius shows through when you fight your way through to the wife, and then take this rare--and completely unsuggested--opportunity to kill her. The faction you fought through will hate you for removing a powerful bargaining chip and potential source of intel from the field, but if you have the guts to return to the husband (and talk to him through a pane of foot-thick reinforced glass), he tells you through gritted teeth that you are more important to their plans than his revenge... for now. You could probably play like a psychotic madman and have the narrative structure show some cracks, but if you play it honestly, the characters in this game will react to the motivations you reveal through your actions and conversations, from beginning to end, in a way which I have not experienced in any other game; not even the wonderful DE3, which in my opinion carries on the series' legacy with ease.
