Variety Friday: Looking Back, Deus Ex

Okay, first off, yes, I didn’t put up a Variety Friday last week, but I doubt any of you actually look forward to these articles, so deal with it, people get busy.  Anyway;

There have been a lot of great games from years ago that have been overlooked or simply missed by a lot of people, while also loved by many others.  Well this article is to look back on one of those great, industry changing games, Deus Ex.  Deus Ex was released in 2000 for Windows and Mac, was developed by Ion Storm, and released by Eidos.

What makes Deus Ex so great is how it combined RPG and shooter elements, better than most games nowadays do.  Deus Ex’s main focus is giving the player the ability to choose how he would like to complete each objective.  You can lock pick your way around enemies and into rooms with some rare items.  Could use your computer knowledge to hack into cameras and find where enemies are located, as well as turning the cameras off, or even turn the enemy turrets and bots against them.  You could use your electronics knowledge to hack into other rooms and safes.  Sneak around the majority of enemies, pick them off from a distance with a silenced sniper, or just go in guns and explosions blazing!  The game gives you near unparalleled freedom to do what you would like. 

The main RPG element the game boasts is its skill system.  The skill system is made up of 11 different skills which you can level up with “Skill Points” which you get for playing the game.  They aren’t from solely killing enemies though, but also finding creative solutions and discovering new areas.  The skills you choose directly reflect the way you’ll end up playing the game.  Do you choose swimming and lock picking to try and get around most enemies?  Computers and Electronics to turn the enemies own security against them?  Or Rifles and Explosives to blow through everything and one in your way?  Those are just a few examples of how the skills in Deus Ex can be used, and what’s great about the game is experimenting with different trained skills.

The other RPG element is the augmentations.  Augmentations allow you to improve many different attributes such as being able to carry heavier items and taking large falls and jumping 10 feet in the air, to turning invisible and regenerating health.  You gain these augmentations by finding augmentation canisters throughout the game (a lot of which require you to use skills to get to) and then choosing one of two options from the canister, for a specific augmentation slot (which represent different parts of the body, such as eyes, arms, brain, etc.). But the real choice is how you will upgrade each augmentation.  Throughout the game you will also find upgrade canisters which you can spend on upgrading a single augmentation, a maximum of 3 times.  Since these canisters are limited you really need to choose which augmentations to upgrade depending on your play style.

Augmentation Screen

The game plays as a first person shooter, but is different from traditional shooting mechanics because you need to hover over your target for a few seconds (if using a ranged weapon that is) to lock on to him and to get better accuracy.  And the game also uses health packs instead of the lame “Wipe blood of face” method we have come to know today.  As far as weapons go, you have a large selection from shot guns, flame throwers, rocket launchers, pistols, smgs, and many different melee weapons (including the iconic crow bar, which is the first weapon you find lying next to you when you start the game).  But, due to your limited inventory space, you need to choose which weapon(s) are your mains, and then make sure to keep stocked up on the correct type of ammo.  You can also improve weapons with findable upgrades such as lasers, scopes, and silencers.  The game also throws in moral choices into the combat, because you have an array of lethal and non-lethal weapons, so you need to choose if you are going for the quick kill shot, or the more difficult non-lethal takedown.

As far as the story goes, it is like Bioware games in that there is a full dialog system, and that your choices do have consequences, but it goes more than that, because you can feel free to kill just about anyone at anytime, and sometimes choices aren’t clearly presented and you just have to try your idea out and see how it works out.  You play as a UNATCO (United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition) agent named JC Denton (though they never explain what JC stands for)who is first sent out on a mission to clear out terrorists from an island to try and find a vaccine for a deadly virus.  But as you progress you uncover many conspiracies and need to choose where your loyalties lie.  The other main character is JC’s brother who plays a large part in the story as well.  I don’t want to spoil anything, but it is government conspiracy heavy, also, you get to go to Hong Kong.

Ultimately this is probably the best game I have ever played, even surpassing DA: Origins and Heavy Rain.  But, even when you beat the game it doesn’t need to end there, because there are a few great mods for the game that are worth checking out, specifically the best which I found to ne the cleverly named “Nameless Mod” which is a completely different story spanning hours upon hours of gameplay.  The Nameless Mod takes place in a “physical embodiment” of an internet forum, similar to Tron or The Matrix.  The Nameless Mod is probably one of the best mods I have played for any game, since besides different story arcs and endings; it also features 59 maps, 20 new weapons, over 14 hours of voice acting, and near 100 unique tracks of music.  Hell, this mod would be a better sequel to the game than the actual sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War was.  But anyway, what I am saying is if you haven’t played Deus Ex yet, GO DO IT!  It is amazing even by today’s standards, 11 years later. 

You can find the complete collection including Deus Ex, and the (not as good) sequel, Invisible War for less than $20 physically, or for $20 on steam.

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Also, just to anger John Callahan (Who I just noticed has the initials JC like the character in Deus Ex) I would just like to point out I DID try Diablo 2 and it looked HORRIBLE and was near unplayable looking like that with its horrendously small resolution.  Deus Ex was released before Diablo 2 and it still looks perfectly playable and fine, and naturally supports higher, widescreen resolutions, while also having some nice mods to upgrade the graphics even more (which I am not sure if Diablo 2 has or not), so yea, Just Sayin.

Comments

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This is all very new to me and this article really opened my eyes.Thanks for sharing with us your wisdom.
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