Deus Ex

So I just finally played through the original Deus Ex on Steam (GOTY) and wanted to tell the internet about how it was.

Deus Ex is a WRPG Sci Fi punk game based on conspiracy theories and the foooootureee, ooooohhhhh ahhhhhHH! You play as JC Denton, brother of Paul Denton both nanomachine augmented with razor edge technology, in his quest to do whats best for society even though they are surrounded by bad odds and misery. The adventure will take you across America and Hong Kong in search of a cure to “The Grey Death” a suspicious plague that’s destroying society and toppling power structures. Along the way you will meet a whole cast of other people trying to push their own agendas and satisfy their own wants. Made by Ion Storm, the same people who made the disaster Daikitana, at the time is was pretty innovative combining stealth, action, and roleplaying and allowing players to decide their play styles and was received much better than Daikitana.

Story

While the story does start out strong a little over half way over it begins to fizzle out until the end which revives it just enough to leave you a bit disappointed. You get to choose the minor events, such as who dies in certain situations or small choices you don’t even know your making but the main story line is generally pretty set in stone. You can join the rebels,NSF, now or you can join them later. It makes it feel like you have a choice but in the bigger picture you dont. Though the choices would make for more replay value if you so decide to replay. The story builds up slow but gets on its feet soon but a little after half way it becomes a jumble on conspiracies that you will have to sort out in your head. I thought it seemed to be trying to push a serious and deep story a little to much considering they bring the Illuminati in which feels like a real cop out.

Your choices don’t really affect the ending you get as the last mission you get decides it. You have three choices and objectives accompanying these choices at the end and these can be alot more difficult then in DX:HR where your ending literally depends solely one what button you press. And after making your choice you don’t really get to see what happens to the world afterwards. You just get what the game tells you will happen before and the ending cinematic which is short. It would have been nice to have a fallout esque ending sequence that tells about the real consequences of your actions summed up.

To really get an idea of the world around you your going to have to read newspapers, books, news machines, and datacubes to get current events and just all around data. If you don’t you may for example end up confused when a character refers to something you as the player have no idea about. Though it becomes a trial to read all the writing in game as much of it is useless or relating to technical stuff and sorting out useful from it is more trouble then just skipping most of the books altogether and figuring stuff out after the fact. Though it is fun to read about the game world around around you.

Some of the writing and voice acting can really be cringe worthy though or just bad. Great quotes such as “A bombs a bad choice for CQC” though it is funny is pretty bad or “I like men with lots of zippers”. It can evoke a chuckle though I’ll give it that.

Gameplay

Gameplay revolves around what the player wants. You can go in guns blazing or sneak in through air vents and shadows. It sounds great and its not to bad. This was the first or one of the first to let the player decide his playstyle unlike even HL1 where you have to go in shooting in this game you can try to not kill anyone or be as stealthy as possible.

With its age though obvious problems arise. AI are quite stupid to the point you can run right past them with them not responding or just saying something along the lines “Damn Bums” or in other cases where they are to good and will 360 no scope you with a sniper rifle thus killing you in one shot. This becomes a real pain later on where you will be sneaking and will just die for no reason only to find out later their was a sniper somewhere. Other cases the enemies will one shot you with all kinds of weapons from pistols the SMGs. It adds difficulty though in these cases where at least you have a chance to either sneak past or kill the guards its not ludicrous like snipers inside buildings.

Unfortunately for stealthy players if you decide you want to sneak you will often find yourself in air vents and at a certain point it becomes mind numbing to be in air vents so much and so often while taking longer to progress then just going in guns blazing. The AI being kinda stupid as it is will often not react to gun fire if they are a certain distance away even if they are visible to another gun fight and should be within hearing range. Also AI will try to rush past you or by you trying to get to an alarm completely ignoring you in the process even though your the reason they are going to the alarm. On top of that alarms arn’t all that deadly. Just run past them or any turrets if need be.

One tactic I found that worked the best is once you get the dragon sword use that for melee. Upgrade your melee all the way and you can take the common enemies out in one hit and even kill 3 of them before they have a chance to shoot you if your good without worrying about ammo or accuracy. It does seem a bit OP but it was fun to jump around and pretend I was a nanite powered jedi.

There are a few different enemies but the most common are normal troopers which are easy to kill and infact the only common enemies I found to be of any difficulty is the later Matrix guys in suits. With the upgrades and dragon suit they take only two hits to kill but they explode upon death which is the real problem with them. Guns take more shots and are more difficult to hit NPCs especially when they strafe or run around so melee is just comparatively much better.

There isn’t real bosses so much but you do face enemies that, to not spoil anything, arn’t normal enemies but you can kill them relatively easily if you get the right information. Such as kill phrases. You also can disobey some orders and kill people you wouldn’t expect the game to allow you which adds to the RPG elements in a great way but unfortunately you can’t kill everyone or anyone at your leisure as they may be invincible except for when the game is at a point your allowed to.

The mapping can be hap hazard. Some maps are pretty well designed while others are confusing and difficult to navigate. I spend what felt like hours on some maps trying to find the right door or keycode and had to look up a walkthrough at some points. One part that stuck out is I was supposed to read something that told me where to find the key in a locker but I missed it and was lost because of it. That was my own fault but it was an interesting detail. On the ship level I was lost in the lower decks because I was unable to find how I got down there and there was only that way in and out. Some maps also feel very empty but thats due to the age and negligible.

WRPG elements are nicely implemented and easy to understand. Simple enough to still be an RPG while still adding some depth and making decisions matter atleast for stats. Classic WRPG . You can choose various augmentations for you character to use depending on your play style and you find them by searching levels. Unfortunately augs rely on your battery level and I didn’t use them much anyway aside from regeneration. Most should have been passive instead of active I think. Cloak and regen are very usefull except later game when cloak stops working against most enemies.

Combat is repetitive and sneaking is extremely boring by the time you are about 3/4 or 2/3 through the game with the same enemies you have been fighting all game being the only ones you fight over and over but no enemy is as annoying as the mech spider things. They zap your hp and batteries away and are hard to hit on top of that. The poor AI doesn’t help with the combat either but it can be difficult so I recommend learning the quick save and quick load keys early but the levels and missions are varied and the RPG decisions story wise are quite good and give you the feel your deciding the story while in reality your just simply pushing it on a bit faster then had you simply gone along with everything but you have the ability to make smaller decisions that affect the game in interesting ways that make multiple playthroughs possible.. RPG decisions character wise can be the road to ruin if you put your points into stats you don’t need or getting augs you dont use. So take your time in deciding these things.

Graphics

Graphics are good looking especially if your using Deus Exe which lets the game use Dx10 and you get some other advantages from it such as better textures and more supported resolutions if not your stuck with older DX. Though you can update the graphics to a degree technically they are pretty bad being around HL1 graphics but its an old game and is to be expected. But the graphics do make the games atmosphere. They look good enough to give you an idea what the world around you is like without putting you off about anything. Though simple, they get the job done well enough.

Glitches and Quirks

There exist some game breaking glitches in this game. The obvious ones are at the ending, if your game is updated, some doors will be impossible to get through with a keycode. Its strange that this happens after an update but it does and you are forced to either cheat or have enough multi tools. Also burning barrels if you bump into them catch you on fire. Its annoying and weird. I cant tell if this was on purpose or an accident. That said this game is relatively stable for its age and who made it. Ion Storm the same people who made the infamous Daikitana made the first two Deus Ex games unrelated to the newer one, Human Revolution which is quite good and takes a good bit here and there from this game.

Summary

While playing this game for a little over the first half I was being really immersed and interested and enjoying the game but over time I started get annoyed with it and kinda hate it but looking back it wasn’t to bad. Enemies for the most part are reused over and over and it feels longer then necessary, especially later in the story when it seemed to me the stories logic was ripped apart time after time and they introduced some stuff just to keep the game going then ending in a anti-climatic decision and event.

That said its a solid game with a mostly solid story especially if you can get past the poorer points and indulge in it. To best thing I can say is that its a product of the times. The game being a decade old though its not going to be as good as it was in its hay day. The aspect is just different now. Its still a solid game that’s better than even some new games that try similar game play aspects like Hitman Absolution. Very much worth a playthrough and even a purchase but not as great as some may work it up to be. Individual parts suffer alone but the sum of all the parts is better then any single detail.

Score: 8/10 Pretty Good

Definitely worth getting it for a good deal or on sale and should run on a toaster.