Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition

Rating:
Summary: Best. Game. Ever.
Review: It all happened about an hour ago...

Liberty Island, New York City. The near future, 2055. A fatal wasting disease called the Gray Death is decimating the world. About an hour ago, terrorists highjacked a shipment of the only known treatment for the ailment, a substance known as Ambrosia. The terrorists are part of a group known as the National Secessionist Force, or simply NSF, a group who have long been rebelling against the U.S. government, a government that has begun to stray from the core of the U.S. Constitution, eliminating personal freedoms and reshaping society in the name of safety and security. Faced with a swelling tide of worldwide terror, American President Phillip Mead supported a charter to create a worldwide police force to combat terrorism, a force that knows no geographical boundaries, that answers to no one but itself, a force called the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition, or UNATCO. UNATCO's worldwide central headquarters is located on Liberty Island, on ground donated by the United States, fittingly situated in the shadow of a shattered monument to freedom: the headless, crumbling Statue of Liberty, victim of a previous terror strike. It is a time of widening arcs between classes, a time of ambiguity and of teetering on the brink of societal collapse, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is becoming unbreachable. Even as technological advancements and scientific breakthroughs make the wonders of far-flung science fiction a reality for the chosen few, the common man sinks lower and lower into poverty and obscurity as the middle classes are systematically eliminated. Six million American citizens are on an undesirable list and due to be rounded up and put into "reeducation" camps. Many more Americans are already there. Nonconformists and those who question the motives and actions of the government are summarily arrested and sometimes just disappear. Citizens are encouraged to spy on their neighbors and report any behavior that could possibly be deemed questionable or sympathetic to the terror cause, such as visiting national monuments, spending time on the internet, debating politics or speaking with a foreign accent. Big business-spearheaded by the likes of renown entrepreneur Bob Page and his Page Industries-has a stranglehold on the world, even inching its fingers onto the control pads of world government. There exists the worldwide mining and profiling of all communications. And behind it all, like omniscient, invisible puppetmasters pulling strings from dark alcoves, are the whispers of grandiose conspiracies and shadow organizations and ancient secret societies that are finally making a grab for world domination: Majestic 12, the Illuminati, the Templars. And combating these forces, aware or not of how deeply the strands run, is the NSF and its allies around the world, such as the Silhouette faction in France; dismissed as common terrorists by UNATCO, they see themselves as freedom fighters fighting governments grown corrupt and diseased on an incomprehensible scale.

You are a newly appointed, nano-augmented UNATCO agent named J.C. Denton. You arrive on the Liberty Island docks via a New York City Police boat, tasked with the removal of the NSF forces who have taken refuge inside the Statue of Liberty. Nano-augmentation is a new science-you are only the second augmented agent-and its implementation consists of the placement of microscopic machines inside the body that can enhance certain elements of an individual's natural senses-vision, strength, lung capacity, healing abilities-or create altogether unique, distinctively unnatural abilities far beyond what a non-augmented person could imagine. Nano-augmented individuals have a slightly altered appearance from regular people, with a telltale glowing of the eyes and strains of raised bluish-silver lines crosshatching parts of their skin. Previous UNATCO experiments with enhancing field agents before nano-augmentation evolved bore a more archaic signature: removing natural body parts-such as arms, legs, or even parts of the skull-and replacing them with purely mechanical, robotic, metallic pieces that enhanced abilities, yet sometimes were uncomfortable and rendered the subject something of an outcast by appearance.

Via InfoLink-a communications device implanted inside your head-your liaison inside UNATCO HQ, Alex Jacobson, informs you to hook up with your brother, Paul Denton, who happens to be the first UNATCO agent to have been nano-augmented. Paul is nearby on the dock. With him, you're able to ascertain the background and tactical situation of the terrorists at Liberty Island and the missing shipments of Ambrosia. You briefly sidestep into some detailed personal reminiscing about your parents and upbringing centering around the shared fact of the augmentations, then bid Paul a transient farewell as you begin to formulate a plan of action. The charcoal night sky is teeming with ominous, cold, grayish-white clouds in steady, unrelenting motion. The moon, the remote vault of stars, the wind, the fluttering seagulls-all are indifferent observers to the folly of men. Live or die, succeed or fail, it's all the same to them; the world will still roll on regardless of the outcome. Harbor waves lap at the dock moorings, a surprisingly delicate sound. Across the water, on either side, the distant brilliance of the New York City night skyline twinkles on the periphery. There are people there in those buildings, you know there are, real people going about real tasks in their real lives-working, eating, sleeping, loving, dying from the Gray Death, hoping for a better tomorrow-and even as they are unknowing of you and your current dilemma, you must carry on just the same. As a UNATCO agent, it's your job. To protect them from the forces of terror and evil in the world, to protect them from threats they don't even realize exist.

And really, after maybe 15 hours of playing, this is just the beginning. Deus Ex launches from here into its prolongation of winding, protracted, expansive gameplay, a springboard into theretofore uncharted realms of the interactive medium; a living and breathing gaming universe that mirrors our own in so many ways, so compelling and immersing that the experience can become ingrained in your very psyche. You spend the rest of the game unraveling a complex and multifaceted storyline woven together with a deft conspirator's touch, globetrotting repeatedly to various world locations-New York, France, Hong Kong, the American southwest-in an effort to bring down the machines trying to twist and mold the world to their own purposes. At the top, in the end, sits billionaire Bob Page, yet he is representative of only one of three distinct factions vying for world control by the end of the game. And you must choose amongst them.

The game itself is a hybrid of genres: part first-person shooter, part role playing game, part adventure game. To that end, gameplay itself reflects a given player's personal choice of progression, anything from dawning the guise of a pitiless killing machine to morphing into an invisible shade on the wall who employs surreptitiousness and cunning and eradicates nobody-or anything in between. Level designs are ingenious and inspired, offering the player the illusion of nearly limitless strategic and tactical options to approach the completion of each objective. And they're calculated in such a way that they make you feel clever for discovering some new way of doing something; no betraying neon arrows are in place pointing you in any particular direction. Worlds turn within worlds in this game, large orbiting story arcs-as great as the world itself with Tracer Tong, Bob Page, Morgan Everett, Nicolette DuClare and Helios, the construct AI revealed late in the proceedings-supporting smaller and smaller story arcs turning within, as exemplified by the reoccurring minor characters of Harley Filban, Joe Greene, Sandra Renton, Maggie Chow, Max Chen, Juan Lebedev, Jock and Smuggler. Conversation trees appear during key NPC interactions, and in the choosing you're able to directly affect NPC loyalties and sometimes the chronological order of unfolding events. I've played the game to completion at least six times over five years on two different platforms, and I've never gotten tired of the experience. Indeed, even today, I'm still discovering new things here and there I'd somehow missed all the times before. The graphics, state of the art in 2000, are understandably beginning to show their age now, five years later. But they're still darkly striking and engrossing at 1280x1024x32 and offer some of the longest view distances and largest wide open levels ever seen in gaming. Deus Ex continues to astonish and boggle me at every turn. I don't just play this game; I'm captivated by it.

Skill points are acquired at measured intervals as rewards for achieving certain objectives or discovering new areas. These skill points are used to enhance regions of a player's profile: a particular type of weapon (heavy weapons, melee weapons, rifles, explosives and so on), lockpicking skill, computer hacking skill, swimming ability, and much more. Each area of expertise can be upgraded through four tiers of enrichment. But there are only a limited amount of points distributed throughout the game, so the choosing of which area of performance to upgrade becomes a fundamental part of the experience, effectively conferring upon the player the ability to create their own strengths and weaknesses. Working hand-in-hand with these skill point upgrades are your nano-augmentations, physiologically altering enhancements to various portions of the body: Arms: Combat Strength or Microfibral Muscle, Legs: Speed Enhancement or Run Silent, Subdermal (1): EMP Shield or Ballistic Protection, Subdermal (2): Cloak or Radar Transparency, Torso (1): Aqualung or Environmental Resistance, Torso (2): Regeneration or Energy Resistance, Torso (3): Synthetic Heart or Power, Recirculator, Cranium: Aggressive Defense System or Spy Drone, Optics: Targeting or Vision Enhancement. Only one upgrade in each category can be chosen, and once upgraded the process is irreversible. Used in combination with skill point upgrading, you have complete control as to the nature of your character and-by extension-which particular pathways through the intricate webs of each mission scenario are best suited to your abilities. The audio potion is itself a further star; the ambient music behind the scenes alternatively bounces with irresistible futuristic techno rhythms or lays low and refracts the atmospheric surroundings. Sometimes, as in the main Hong Kong market theme, the music itself is worth just stopping and listening to it. During conversation cut-scenes, the background music alters to appropriately intriguing themes that underscore the mood and implications of the dialogue.

Deus Ex was released by developer Ion Storm in the summer of 2000 for PC and later ported to the PlayStation 2 under the revised title of Deus Ex: The Conspiracy. The world prophesized by this game, evidenced before you, on the monitor right in front of you, didn't exist in 2000. Yet after 9/11/2001, it has begun to exist: the terror, the paranoia, the American government that chooses to lead its people with hollow slogans and the perpetuation of fear, that implores you to give up personal freedoms-the cornerstones the country was founded on-in the name of security in this, the bravest of new worlds. Throughout the game, you see it time and again; what were futuristic science fiction dream concepts in 2000 are hard realities in 2005, are indeed torn from the headlines of tomorrow's newspapers. And the game plays out in real-world locations, places that exist today, places with their own inherent sense of reality. It makes Deus Ex more than a game world, it makes it a real world, three dimensional, tangible, a place you can step into and become lost inside of. There has never been a game like it before, and there may never be one like it again. Without question, my favorite game experience ever, a place where I can go time and again, year after year, and become something more than I am, a real character created within the realms of real world, a place capable of supplanting other realities.

Rating:
Summary: Great Game!
Review: This is simpy one of the best games out there, ranking right up alongside Half-Life and other notable games. I found myself actually caring if an important NPC would make it or not, which is rare in many FPS. What makes this game great is the quality of gameplay and storyline, not the eye candy. The graphics are a dated (it's an old game) but the excellent and engrossing plot line overshadows that fact. This is hands down one of my favorite games, because it is strictly a PC game. Too many PC games today are also being made to run on the console, and so in my opinion the quality of these games goes down. Not in graphics but in gameplay overall; they make something that looks great but lacks soul. DE may look dated, but it has more soul than any other eye-candy game on the market will ever have.

Rating:
Summary: A great action and adventure hybrid, a must buy
Review: Well it was 4 years ago so I can forgive the bad graphics. But straight away I felt uncomfortable with the character motions. When you run forward you seem to bob up and down. Its bloody irritating. Motion should be smooth and fluid. Instead it feels slow and sticky. Then there's the appalling AI. I mean come on guys. I'm a C++ programmer and I could program better AI than that. The characters in the game are constantly running around in circles bumping into each other. Its pathetic. It looks ridiculous. One of the elements of this game is supposed to be stealth. You can sneak past you enemies. Damn right you can, because the AI is so poor that you can literally walk right toward them while they are staring right at you and they will not even see you until you get about 10 feet away from them. So long as you stay more than 10 feet from them they cannot see you even if you are in their direct line of sight. Is that realistic? The creators of this game are the same dudes who brought us System Shock 2. Well SS2 was infinitely better than this garbage and was better in every department, from motion, to AI, to gameplay, and even graphics, even though SS2 was earlier than this title.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest game of all time
Review: Deus Ex was the funnest, most realistic video game I've ever played. Though the graphics are dated, the storyline is phenomenal, and the character controlled by the player, JC Denton, is by and large one of the coolest game badasses ever to grace the screen.

But to me, the best part about this game was the myriad of different possible methods which you can use to accomplish your goals. This is truly a game that you will never play the same way twice because there are so many different choices to be made, each one having great affect on the overall outcome.

For fans of sci-fi, action, role-playing, politics and philosophy, this game is sure to please.

Rating:
Summary: By far the best game that has ever been created...EVER!
Review: I'll start if off short. The thing that makes this game what it is is it's immensly deep storyline. The storyline will absolutely blow you away. It is so detailed and so intricate that even playing the game dozens of times straight through, there are still parts I cannot understand or comprehend. The game follows more of an RPG than a FPS, you will find most of your time running around trying to solve clues, find contacts, and so on without even having a weapon drawn. It is nothing like the shoot-em-up Quakes, Dooms, and Half-Lifes. The game has content, it has gameplay, an excellent musical score, and, once again I'll say it, the best storyline anybody has ever come up with. This is the kind of storyline that could, with the right people, make the best action/mystery flick ever devised. I am so enticed in the storyline even this many years after its release (and I first bought it the day it was released after playing the demo) that I even converted the music to listen to on my home stereo. THAT is how addicting the game is. If you have any brain at all, you will definately LOVE this game. Just don't go for the sequel after beating this, you will be terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly dissappointed.

Final message to the developers: make a REAL DEUS EX sequel!

Rating:
Summary: Best PC Game Ever. No, best game ever.
Review: If you want a truly immersive game, this is it. This game is a work of art, a masterpiece. This game was made many, many years ago, and no modern game has ever caught up with Deus Ex's top notch gameplay. Never in the game will get that all too common feeling of being led, the feeling that you experience in most of todays FPSs. No game can compare in the way that Deus Ex gives control to the player. Augmentations, skill upgrades, weapons, various ammunition and uses for each weapon, gadgets, hacking, electronic bypassing, various missions endings, it goes on and on. Hopping off the helicopter and leaping from one roof top to the other with the moon as the only source of light and the wind blowing, taking cover, pulling out my sniper rifle and picking a soldier off a mile down the block, I knew that this game was The One.

Rating:
Summary: Warning: playing this game will ruin other games for you!
Review: As someone who enjoys FPS games such as Quake II & Half-Life, games in which the most succesful tactic is usually simply to shoot anything that moves as quickly as possible, it took me awhile to get into the rhythm of Deus Ex. But once I became used to the gameplay style, this game proved completely addictive.

Deus Ex has created an incredible world with a multi-layered storyline. Everything in the world can be interacted with. The choices available to the gamer during play actually change the way the game is played. Who does JC Denton (you) trust? As he gets more information, his choices become more complex. Do you choose to use your augmentation for invisibility to people, or do you opt for the radar stealth cloak which makes you invisible to cameras & spider-bots? Do you give Agent Gunther a pistol when he asks for it or tell him that you'll handle the situation? Should you kill every terrorist in sight, or sneak around them, or disable them with your stun gun? Do you want to break into the bakery to steal "zyme" for the drug dealer, thus putting some credits in your pocket while you're sneaking around in Paris? And what about your brother Paul? Is he telling the truth or a traitor?

The levels of this game are detailed & immersive. Hong Kong consists of canals (fully explorable), bars, tea rooms, a market, a Tong enclave, a secret military lab, penthouse apartments, secret areas...then there's Paris, with a chateau, the old Knights Templar tower and more.

Hacking computers is one extremely useful skill; talking to every single person in your environment will gain you information and sometimes additional missions or ammunition. Exploration is the key to this game, as there is never just one way to get to a location or to achieve a goal; you may find a sewer drain to swim into or a duct to sneak past your enemies. With all the multiple choices, the replay factor on Deus Ex is very high.

After playing through this game twice, and trying the different multiple endings, I decided it was time to play one of my other games. So far I've loaded 4 different ones; each one is a let-down after Deus Ex. The only other game I've played that has been as interesting was System Shock 2. I just wish the sequel to this, "Invisible War" used the same RPG style play!

Please make a REAL sequel to Deus Ex, please?!

Rating:
Summary: One of the best games ever created
Review: Deus Ex is a wonderful game unlike anything before it. Its amazing, unexpected, and twisting plot is twenty times as compelling as most of the pathetic, cliched, excuses for movies that hollywood cranks out. It has a level of open-endedness that surpasses any game before it. Unlike other open-ended games like The Sims, or Everquest, Deus Ex ties its story together with goals and a way that you can actually win the game. Speaking of winning, Deus Ex has 3 different endings, the choosing of which is up to you. Over the course of the game, many characters who you may even become attached to, can live or die directly based on your actions. The only problem that I have with this otherwise stupendous game is the substandard graphics. However, given the game's age, this is to be expected. There is no wrong way to play Deus Ex. You can choose to fight from the shadows, you can fight head on, you can simply sneak and avoid combat. The possibilities are limitless. Based on how you play the game, you can choose different abilities, weapons, augmentations (these are like super powers). Based on your style of play, innocents may die, enemies may live and the outcome of the world may be changed. Over 4 years since its release, Deus Ex continues to be a revolutionary experience that paves new ground for the future of video games. Forget Half Life. This is the best game ever created and deserves every bit of its Game of The Year 2000 award. Given its age, you can probably pick it up for under $15. You'll be glad you did, because Deus Ex is more than a game. It's an experience.