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The battle at the Statue of Liberty sets in motion a dizzying plot that takes the player to numerous real-world locations, including Hong Kong, Paris, Vandenburg Air Force Base and, ultimately, Area 51. New characters are introduced with regularity, ...
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With the launch of the third Deus Ex title, Human Revolution, younger gamers ? or those who don?t play PC franchises ? might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Gamers who have a history with the series tend to speak of the previous games, particularly the first, with hushed reverence, and have our fingers crossed to the point of cramp that lightning will strike again with the new prequel.
Deus Ex borrowed some of its aesthetic from The Matrix, released a year earlier.The first game was released in the summer of 2000 on Windows and Mac systems, with a PS2 port following in March of 2002. The sequel was released in late 2003 on Windows and original Xbox systems. A third almost-sequel, called Project: Snowblind, was released in 2005 on Windows, PS2 and Xbox platforms. Snowblind was primarily a multiplayer experience intended to exist in the Deus Ex universe, but was split off from the DX universe prior to launch.
If you?re one of the ones wondering why anyone should care about Deus Ex eight years after the last official release, let?s take a look back at what makes it so special.
Deus Ex and its sequel, Invisible War, take place in a near-future cyberpunk-themed world wracked by terrorism, disease and violence. The game looks like a first person shooter, but has numerous role-playing and exploration elements seamlessly into the experience. One of the primary design decisions was to give players wide latitude about how to solve most of the puzzles in the game ? FPS fans can go in guns blazing, stealth players can sneak by enemies or snipe from a distance, players with developed hacking skills can disable cameras or reprogram robots to defend them or, sometimes, you can just crawl through a grate. There are multiple ways to solve any given puzzle and each decision influences the game in unique ways.
The overall story is fairly linear, but the individual experience for a given player is unique depending on the decisions made. There are many conversations throughout the game with non-player characters, and players can often talk their way out of a fight or acquire information by choosing the right dialogue choices. Think Mass Effect, but seven years earlier.
Also similar to Mass Effect, players can upgrade their nanotechnology capabilities based on how you want to play the game. Want to be invisible? Want to be fast? Want to snipe from across the map? Want to be nearly invincible? However you choose to play, there?s an upgrade that?ll let you tailor the experience to your own method.
The game is overflowing with detailed touches, including email and logs that can be accessed from computer terminals within the game. If you take your time with it, the Deus Ex universe is richer and more nuanced than many good sci-fi novels.
Deus Ex was developed by Ion Storm and produced by Warren Spector who, before distracting himself with Epic Mickey, worked on some of the most unforgettable franchises in PC gaming history: Wing Commander, Ultima, System Shock, Thief. In the world of PC gaming, the man is royalty.
Decisions abound: do you help your brother? Avoid combat? Taser everyone unconscious? Or lay waste to everyone?Deus Ex has one of the richest, most intricate stories in video game history. You play as JC Denton, a cybernetically-enhanced agent working for UNATCO, a militaristic wing of the United Nations. As the game begins, the Statue of Liberty is under siege by terrorists and your brother, also enhanced with nanotechnological devices, tasks you with working your way to the top to question an informant. A virus called Grey Death is working its way through the population of the world and the control of a vaccine called Ambrosia is separating the living haves from the dying have-nots.
The battle at the Statue of Liberty sets in motion a dizzying plot that takes the player to numerous real-world locations, including Hong Kong, Paris, Vandenburg Air Force Base and, ultimately, Area 51. New characters are introduced with regularity, each with his or her own motivations. Depending on how you respond to them, they might help you, or oppose you, and you might find yourself with new allies and enemies based on the decisions you make. A decision tree very late in the game lets you choose between one of three distinct endings, each with its own moral gravity.
Invisible War was less well-received, but had, in some ways, more narrative flexibility. Chicago is destroyed in a terrorist attack at the beginning of the game, and your character, Alex D, barely escapes. There are various factions in the game, including a religious group called The Order, a shadowy organization called ApostleCorp and a third faction called the WTO. As the game ends, you face a familiar opponent and a similar set of decisions about which direction you want to lead the world.
By modern standards, Deus Ex feels primitive, especially on first play. The number of players who abandon the first game at the Statue of Liberty is legend, and there?s no getting around the reality that it takes a while to get into the feel of the game. As shooters go, it lacks the smoothness of the great FPS titles of even its day and to pick it up for the first time today feels clunky. The second game definitely looks more current, though the original Xbox lacked the horsepower to deliver a consistently smooth framerate. The PC is the place to play it.
The graphics are noteworthy for being among the first Unreal-engine based games to support moving lips for speaking characters. The lipsync effect is decidedly primitive, but it?s effective just the same. Texture work is passable, though a recent community project to dramatically overhaul the aging textures of the game stands to make it more palatable for new gamers. It?s worth noting that, even eleven years later, the game runs flawlessly on modern 64-bit Windows 7 boxes even without patching.
The other big, easy ding on the game is the voice work. Bear in mind that, at the time, Deus Ex had an extraordinary amount of spoken word dialogue. The voice acting, though, is often downright goofy. To be frank, the game experience would probably be improved more by a voice acting replacement pack than by replacing the textures, but decide for yourself:
Both games are available through Steam and, if you care anything at all about the history of computer and video gaming, you?re missing out if you don?t play them. Aging graphics and clunky shooter mechanics aside, the first Deus Ex game, in particular, represents a tremendous watermark in the history of gaming. Without Deus Ex, it?s hard to imagine that we?d have Splinter Cell, Mass Effect, Thief or any number of gaming experiences that we take for granted today. They?re often firesaled on Steam as a package deal, so you absolutely owe it to yourself to pick them up when they?re cheap. Even at full price, you?re getting a ton of gameplay for your money.
The new game takes place 25 years before the first game (the multiple endings of Invisible War would make a sequel hard to pull off) and looks to be a strong member of the franchise if early word is any indicator. Let?s hope so. And once you?ve finished it the first time, try finishing it again without killing anybody.
There?s a meme on the Reddit gaming forum that every time Deus Ex is mentioned, someone starts reinstalling it. I did exactly that last week and it was like putting on an old, comfortable pair of shoes. It?s a part of gaming history, and it?s genuinely awesome. Welcome back, old friend.
Lee Clontz Lee was born with a controller in his hands, cutting his teeth early on the Odyssey2 and Atari 2600 and most console and PC platforms since. He also owned a Vectrex, but we don't talk about that. He's based in Atlanta and is married and has two small children.