Deus Ex is one of those games that once you play, you get sucked into its enjoyability.
In the game, you, as JC, progress through the game as a person completely ran by nano-augmentation, you being the second person to go through this process (the first one being Paul). In Deus Ex, you’ll find ways to improve the character, which primarily work by these augmentations, such as ones to make you run faster and jump higher, ones that make you stronger, protective shields, automatic healing and cloaking. However, these are things that will deplete your bioelectric energy, which you refill periodically with bioelectric cells or with a robot that recharges bioelectric energy.
The game gives you a choice; you have the option of stealth or action. However, that’s the game’s main problem: you can’t play this like you play Half-Life or Quake, you’d barely last five minutes. You seriously have to think more logically, taking things slowly. This may put off the first-person shooter players who have itchy trigger fingers, but if you’re patient enough, you’ll get through just fine.
In the game, there are many ways to get through areas, by asking around for assistance, looking at info found on “datacubes” strewn throughout the game, and even use force. You can use lockpicks to open doors, and use multitools to stop an electrical shortage to continue forward. Since the game primarily works on stealth, you have to find ways to get through areas without causing too much of a ruckus. The game gives you an arsenal of lethal and non-lethal weaponry, but as you get further and further into the game, you’re sacked with hard enemies that you have no choice but to use lethal force if you expect to live. There’s also an amount of items such as candy bars, soda, among other things that can be acquired and used in your inventory.
Also, at times, the game can be pretty hard, sometimes you’ll have to get through an area full of guards with barely any ammunition and literally crawling around on the floor because your enemies killed all health in your legs.
One good thing the game contains is an open-ended nature. You can do things a certain way, or a different way. Make a character live, or kill him. You can sometimes find many different ways to get to the area you want, how you get there is up to the player. This is good, because this warrants having to play through the game several times, making different decisions, which makes the game a little less repetitive. Deus Ex also features a good amount of interactivity, with bulletin boards, ATMs, vending machines, among other things. Computers can be used to help find critical information or can be adjusted to have enemy gun turrets shoot at your enemies rather than you, or to turn off cameras.
There’s cutscenes in the game, and they’re decent, even if its just random camera shots every time somebody speaks. With these cutscenes, you’re also given choice, which means that what you say can affect the situation, just like what you do in the rest of the game.
The levels themselves bring to be somewhat believable locations. JC goes from Liberty Island in New York to Paris, Hong Kong, and a few other areas in-between, which gives the game a bit of atmosphere. The only problem is that all the areas take place at nighttime or dusk. While this shows the dystopian attitude the game brings, it just would’ve been nice to play a portion of the game in the daytime.
Deus Ex, being released in 2000 with what was back then top-of-the-line Unreal engine technology, had decent graphics for its time, but they have a hard time holding up here. Most of the player models (mostly JC and Paul, among others) look too chunky and thick, and most of the characters have little variety in looks. In addition, mouth movements look very weird (and this was around the time Half-Life had revolutionized that front). Also the game’s physics were somewhat problematic, where sometimes the player would slide for no particular reason. In addition, doors have the problem where they’ll close, but they’ll clip right through you.
Since the game was not really made for very high-end computers that would only exist in the dreams of computer owners everywhere in 2000, the game tends to glitch the graphics a little when you get to certain distances. In addition, there were two occurrences in the same level where the game literally crashed my computer hard, and I was forced to restart the computer. This shouldn’t really happen, the game should be utilized with the driver much better.
From an aural experience, Deus Ex doesn’t disappoint. All the weapons have distinctive but not too obnoxious noises. Items make noises that would make perfect sense, and there are lots of computer noises everywhere. The voice acting itself is fantastic, only with a few characters does it sound weird, such as some of the Hong Kong guards sounding like they have Australian accents instead.
Deus Ex does something that I wish more games did, and that’s having music that changes with what’s happening on screen. Enemy spots you? The music changes to reflect this. After everything dies down, the music resumes. There’s a separate track for when there’s cutscenes, when the player dies, and sometimes when the player is transferred to a new area. The music itself is fantastic, fitting most of the mood, and some of tracks using the “Deus Ex theme” that appears on the title screen. All the music fits the mood, except some of the action themes, which are a bit too loud.
The Game of the Year edition features a multiplayer component. The multiplayer in Deus Ex is a simplified version of the single player game, with deathmatch and team deathmatch. Now, I say sometimes a game needs a multiplayer component, but Deus Ex could have worked without one. If it needed one that badly, I personally would’ve opted for a co-operation mode instead. Maybe not go through the game, since it is incredibly long, but maybe special side-missions that would affect the single player campaign, or something.
The game itself takes a while to beat (anywhere from 15-40 hours, depending on if you rush through or take your time through things), so it’s a good and lengthy game that you could play a few hours and have fun with. The only thing that makes this game annoying is the frustration factor. But seriously, it’s a good game. It’s one of those games that if it’s mentioned, you’ll likely be sucked in for a good week or two on this game. It’s that good.
Pros: Open-ended storytelling, change to upgrade your character like a role-playing game, good sound, believable environments
Cons: Certain graphics such as player models don’t hold up well, graphics tend to glitch up, player can clip through doors, not for first-person shooter players who have itchy triggers, unneeded multiplayer.