- First-person, stealth RPG
- An excellent story that shifts smoothly with players’ choices
- Considered a masterpiece by many
- Strongly suggested for dedicated gamers
The shadows beckon. Enter a labyrinthine underworld of plots within plots to find the truth. Just try not to get lost yourself, and never get fooled twice.
Deus Ex, developed by Ion Storm’s Warren Spector for PC utilizing the Unreal Engine, was originally released in 2000 and revolutionized both PC gaming and gaming in general upon its release. The infamous game is both intensely loved and hated to this day. Often ranked as one of the best, if not the best PC game created, Deus Ex is at the very least to be considered a founding father for popular stealth, action, RPG and complex PC gaming.
For a particularly PC-oriented gaming experience, Deus Ex was surprisingly ported for the Playstation 2 in 2002. This is doubly surprising considering the near impossibility of impressing the oftentimes toxic hardcore PC gaming “master race” fan base that frequently laud Deus Ex’s PC-ported original. Don’t believe me? Just ask Warren Spector about his game’s hardcore fan base. But who knows? Maybe it’s just a conspiracy.
To call Deus Ex colossal can only be an understatement. The scope, depth, level layout, story and ambition of this game is incredible. For better or worse, you will get both figuratively and literally lost in it. This game has lots of playtime that even at its dullest is still substantially world building.
The game’s magnitude is accentuated in a skilled and nuanced manner with how the story changes and adapts to players’ decisions (be it a dialogue choice or even some seemingly random act) as well as the skill sets the player chooses to improve as the game progresses. The limitations enforced on a player for making certain decisions through a given run are never critical, rarely imprisoning, but always limiting just enough for you to notice that something was left untouched this time around.
For most players, this will invariably be both the game’s greatest strength and drawback. Deus Ex will be at first technically overwhelming to the new and casual gamer, and then conceptually overwhelming to the impatient perfectionist. But if you take the time and dedicate yourself to learning this game and accepting the flow of events as they happen in any given run through the game, it will be one of the richest and most rewarding gaming experiences of your life.
Love it or hate it, there is no doubt that Deus Ex puts gamers to a higher standard.
The year is 2052 and everyone dresses like they do all their shopping in the Matrix. Jokes aside, Deus Ex does a good job of creating a dark and dystopian atmosphere not only conducive to creeping and lurking in the shadows, but also for establishing the theme and mood of the game. No matter how much you discover with your flashlight in hand, there is only obscurity just outside the light’s reach.
However, in effect this does make the game undeniably monotone and ugly.
Landing on the docks at Liberty Island where you see the broken remains of the Statue of Liberty, bombed a few years before in a terrorist attack on New York, your brother Paul briefs you. A cell of the National Secessionist Forces, or NSF, have been chased into the statue after a high jacking and it’s your job to clean house.
While the layout of the Liberty Island level seems overwhelming at first, playing a more stealthy and exploratory route in the game quickly pays off as Deus Ex always offers a player lateral methods of getting around, fighting and scouting in nearly every scenario of the game. This is truly a feat of meticulous planning on the part of the developers. The strategy you end up committing to is oftentimes a highly personalized plan unique to your knowledge, your creativeness, your choices and the abilities you’ve invested into your character thus far.
After the mission you meet two fellow agents, Gunter Hermann and Anna Navarre. Not being nano-augmented like you and your brother Paul, they resent you for their comparatively crude cybernetic grafts. They tell you how the NSF has started stealing the Ambrosia vaccines needed to keep alive the UN staff and their families infected with the Gray Death plague. Next on UNATCO’s agenda is finding out where the stolen Ambrosia shipment was taken.
To say that Deus Ex is a dialogue-heavy game is an understatement. While this can be quite tedious in many (if not most) games, in Deus Ex the dialogue is oftentimes deep, meaningful, developing, world building and captivating. Notably, the dialogue and reading is also almost always useful in one way or another and will come around to helping or even saving you in ways you’d never foresee.
Deus Ex does have voice acting and an interface that allows for quick reading and skipping, so that’s a plus. However, the voice acting is often atrocious and unfortunately one cannot afford to breeze through and miss details in a game as detail oriented as this.
As you begin your investigation, Paul goes missing and a battle erupts on the streets of New York City between UNATCO and NSF forces. Caught in the middle of it all, you begin to see the chaos of a city tearing itself apart and the effect it has on the civilians too destitute to flee anyplace else.
While limited in the number of weapons you can pick up and store, Deus Ex has a weapons modification system that allows you to upgrade specific weapons with modular items. This creates an added level of personalization in the game and accentuates the character’s skills and augmentation upgrading system. As all these upgrades are not in abundance, the game encourages you to specialize, which in turn changes the way you look at situations and decide to resolve them.
Because all the weapons improve as you do, even the most mundane weapon can become supreme in the late game.
Well, all the lethal weapons at least. The non-lethal weapons in Deus Ex (such as pepper spray, a baton, a tranquilizer crossbow and a taser) are pretty much useless and fatally hazardous to depend on in a pinch. Good thing you decided to grab the GEP gun!
After the mission you meet two fellow agents, Gunter Hermann and Anna Navarre. Not being nano-augmented like you and your brother Paul, they resent you for their comparatively crude cybernetic grafts. They tell you how the NSF has started stealing the Ambrosia vaccines needed to keep alive the UN staff and their families infected with the Gray Death plague. Next on UNATCO’s agenda is finding out where the stolen Ambrosia shipment was taken.
To say that Deus Ex is a dialogue-heavy game is an understatement. While this can be quite tedious in many (if not most) games, in Deus Ex the dialogue is oftentimes deep, meaningful, developing, world building and captivating. Notably, the dialogue and reading is also almost always useful in one way or another and will come around to helping or even saving you in ways you’d never foresee.
Deus Ex does have voice acting and an interface that allows for quick reading and skipping, so that’s a plus. However, the voice acting is often atrocious and unfortunately one cannot afford to breeze through and miss details in a game as detail oriented as this.
As you begin your investigation, Paul goes missing and a battle erupts on the streets of New York City between UNATCO and NSF forces. Caught in the middle of it all, you begin to see the chaos of a city tearing itself apart and the effect it has on the civilians too destitute to flee anyplace else.
The bloody street battles are delaying actions to stop your forces from making it in time to intercept the flight. Teaming up with Gunther and Anna to fight your way to the airport, they begin to respect your strength and ruthless efficiency, seeing you as a team player and not some kind of successor to make them obsolete relics fit for a scrap heap.
It must be noted that, for all its drawbacks, the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex does look and feel a lot better when it comes to playing the game as a first person shooter. The lighter rendering and somewhat more crowded feel to the port make the chaos of a street battle less of a disorienting mess.
After making your way to LaGuardia, you find that your brother Paul is already on the scene. Plot twist: It turns out he’s been working with the NSF forces! He tells you that UNATCO are the real bad guys and says you should go to the hangar and talk personally to the NSF boss Lebedev. Strolling through security you have the NSF chief in your sights when he tells you that a global cabal created the Gray Death to control population growth and consolidate their power over the world’s elite. Just then Anna Navarre catches up and begins making her way to you and Lebedev, and she’s got orders to kill.
Deus Ex is truly an RPG in the sense that it demands the player learn how to use a specific weapon to its fullest, and doesn’t usually let you simply run around shooting any esoteric firearm like you’re Seal Team 6, the SAS, Spetsnaz and Solid Snake wrapped into one. But one of the charms of Deus Ex is that there are always enough opportunities to get through situations with any combination of them you may be limited to. And you will be often tested in your limitations, be it for want of experience, access to a particular weapon or even ammo shortages.
Luckily the game has a huge variety of weapons and weapon types, ranging from non-lethals, EMPs, and CQC weapons to grenades, sniping weapons, and traditional firearms. Sadly though, without careful usage, ammo can run out quickly, leading many to consider the game biased against automatic weapons.
After making your way to LaGuardia, you find that your brother Paul is already on the scene. Plot twist: It turns out he’s been working with the NSF forces! He tells you that UNATCO are the real bad guys and says you should go to the hangar and talk personally to the NSF boss Lebedev. Strolling through security you have the NSF chief in your sights when he tells you that a global cabal created the Gray Death to control population growth and consolidate their power over the world’s elite. Just then Anna Navarre catches up and begins making her way to you and Lebedev, and she’s got orders to kill.
It must be noted that, for all its drawbacks, the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex does look and feel a lot better when it comes to playing the game as a first person shooter. The lighter rendering and somewhat more crowded feel to the port make the chaos of a street battle less of a disorienting mess.
After making your way to LaGuardia, you find that your brother Paul is already on the scene. Plot twist: It turns out he’s been working with the NSF forces! He tells you that UNATCO are the real bad guys and says you should go to the hangar and talk personally to the NSF boss Lebedev. Strolling through security you have the NSF chief in your sights when he tells you that a global cabal created the Gray Death to control population growth and consolidate their power over the world’s elite. Just then Anna Navarre catches up and begins making her way to you and Lebedev, and she’s got orders to kill.
Deus Ex is truly an RPG in the sense that it demands the player learn how to use a specific weapon to its fullest, and doesn’t usually let you simply run around shooting any esoteric firearm like you’re Seal Team 6, the SAS, Spetsnaz and Solid Snake wrapped into one. But one of the charms of Deus Ex is that there are always enough opportunities to get through situations with any combination of them you may be limited to. And you will be often tested in your limitations, be it for want of experience, access to a particular weapon or even ammo shortages.
Luckily the game has a huge variety of weapons and weapon types, ranging from non-lethals, EMPs, and CQC weapons to grenades, sniping weapons, and traditional firearms. Sadly though, without careful usage, ammo can run out quickly, leading many to consider the game biased against automatic weapons.
After making your way to LaGuardia, you find that your brother Paul is already on the scene. Plot twist: It turns out he’s been working with the NSF forces! He tells you that UNATCO are the real bad guys and says you should go to the hangar and talk personally to the NSF boss Lebedev. Strolling through security you have the NSF chief in your sights when he tells you that a global cabal created the Gray Death to control population growth and consolidate their power over the world’s elite. Just then Anna Navarre catches up and begins making her way to you and Lebedev, and she’s got orders to kill.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Unfortunately, this does not end well for you. Infamous for your loud and violent approaches at conflict resolution in delicate situations, even an NSF cell isolated on the other side of New York City knows well enough to keep hidden weapons trained on you in Lebedev’s presence. In your arrogance you pounce and are quickly gunned down by the NSF.
Know though that while you were unlucky this time around, confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means.
If you haven’t gotten the impression yet from playing this Deus Ex adventure review, the stars of the game have believable motivations and Deus Ex’s multiple and variable scripts all have a literary depth to them. There are few simply black and white issues at stake and the game forces you to make heavy decisions on the fly.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Going back outside, Anna Navarre deactivates her crude cloaking augmentation and asks for a sitrep, presuming you’ve already scoped the area and are waiting for an opportune moment to make the final strike. She turns out to be no match for your superior nano-augmentations and new found skills in the UN’s blunt, new age diplomacy. You eliminate her quickly and quietly.
Confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means. That said, there is a deep satisfaction in testing your improving skill one-on-one and coming out on top.
Heading back to UNATCO HQ, Director Manderley debriefs you and tells you what you already know: Paul has gone rogue since the battle for New York City broke out. He tells you that the 24-hour kill switch embedded in Paul’s nano-machines have been activated. You leave in search of Paul. You find a sickly and deteriorating Paul just before a UNATCO fireteam begins an assault on his hideout. He tells you he is a lost cause and encourages you to run out the back door.
If you haven’t gotten the impression yet from playing this Deus Ex adventure review, the stars of the game have believable motivations and Deus Ex’s multiple and variable scripts all have a literary depth to them. There are few simply black and white issues at stake and the game forces you to make heavy decisions on the fly.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Ever the idealist, Lebedev let your sincerity in dealing with the war in New York City get the better of him. He is quickly neutralized at the hands of your formidable nano-augmentations and new found skills in the UN’s blunt, new age diplomacy.
Confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means. That said, there is a deep satisfaction in testing your improving skill one-on-one and coming out on top.
Heading back to UNATCO HQ, Director Manderley debriefs you and tells you what you already know: Paul has gone rogue since the battle for New York City broke out. He tells you that the 24-hour kill switch embedded in Paul’s nano-machines have been activated. You leave in search of Paul, but not before hacking the UNATCO net and discovering a kill phrase for Anna Navarre. You find a sickly and deteriorating Paul just before a UNATCO fireteam begins an assault on his hideout. He tells you he is a lost cause and encourages you to run out the back door.
If you haven’t gotten the impression yet from playing this Deus Ex adventure review, the stars of the game have believable motivations and Deus Ex’s multiple and variable scripts all have a literary depth to them. There are few simply black and white issues at stake and the game forces you to make heavy decisions on the fly.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Unfortunately, this does not end well for you. Cautious of you and your motives and skillful in stealth and infiltration, Anna Navarre uses her cloaking field to get the jump on you. Even with your state-of-the-art nano-augmentations, you are untrained and unprepared for a crudely mechanical yet veteran operator such as her. Through your actions, Anna has come to learn nothing but contempt for you, your brother and your kind. She remembers the joy of her line of work as you crumple like burnt newspaper under the rising stream of her flamethrower.
Know though that while you were unlucky this time around, confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means.
If you haven’t gotten the impression yet from playing this Deus Ex adventure review, the stars of the game have believable motivations and Deus Ex’s multiple and variable scripts all have a literary depth to them. There are few simply black and white issues at stake and the game forces you to make heavy decisions on the fly.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Unfortunately, this does not end well for you. Infamous for your loud and violent approaches at conflict resolution in delicate situations, even an NSF cell isolated on the other side of New York City knows well enough to keep hidden weapons trained on you in Lebedev’s presence. In your arrogance you pounce and are quickly gunned down by the NSF.
Know though that while you were unlucky this time around, confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means.
If you haven’t gotten the impression yet from playing this Deus Ex adventure review, the stars of the game have believable motivations and Deus Ex’s multiple and variable scripts all have a literary depth to them. There are few simply black and white issues at stake and the game forces you to make heavy decisions on the fly.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Unfortunately, this does not end well for you. Cautious of you and your motives and skillful in stealth and infiltration, Anna Navarre uses her cloaking field to get the jump on you. Even with your state-of-the-art nano-augmentations, you are untrained and unprepared for a crudely mechanical yet veteran operator such as her. Through your actions, Anna has come to learn nothing but contempt for you, your brother and your kind. She remembers the joy of her line of work as you crumple like burnt newspaper under the rising stream of her flamethrower.
Know though that while you were unlucky this time around, confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means.
If you haven’t gotten the impression yet from playing this Deus Ex adventure review, the stars of the game have believable motivations and Deus Ex’s multiple and variable scripts all have a literary depth to them. There are few simply black and white issues at stake and the game forces you to make heavy decisions on the fly.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Going back outside, Anna Navarre deactivates her crude cloaking augmentation and asks for a sitrep, presuming you’ve already scoped the area and are waiting for an opportune moment to make the final strike. She turns out to be no match for your superior nano-augmentations and new found skills in the UN’s blunt, new age diplomacy. You eliminate her quickly and quietly.
Confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means. That said, there is a deep satisfaction in testing your improving skill one-on-one and coming out on top.
Heading back to UNATCO HQ, Director Manderley debriefs you and tells you what you already know: Paul has gone rogue since the battle for New York City broke out. He tells you that the 24-hour kill switch embedded in Paul’s nano-machines have been activated. You leave in search of Paul. You find a sickly and deteriorating Paul just before a UNATCO fireteam begins an assault on his hideout. He tells you he is a lost cause and encourages you to run out the back door.
If you haven’t gotten the impression yet from playing this Deus Ex adventure review, the stars of the game have believable motivations and Deus Ex’s multiple and variable scripts all have a literary depth to them. There are few simply black and white issues at stake and the game forces you to make heavy decisions on the fly.
In an age where any “fact” you can dream up can be casually justified with a library of dubious sources floating around the internet, Deus Ex forces you to make commitments on constantly incomplete information and hunches. In doing so, you often act not as you would yourself, but as your perceived role in the game (the essence of a good RPG), oftentimes putting you into a bit of pickle. This creates a feeling of needing to resolve situations you have created through your actions, turning the gamer from a passive observer, to an active participant, and then even a formative driver.
Ever the idealist, Lebedev let your sincerity in dealing with the war in New York City get the better of him. He is quickly neutralized at the hands of your formidable nano-augmentations and new found skills in the UN’s blunt, new age diplomacy.
Confrontations with the more powerful enemies in Deus Ex (I hesitate to call them bosses, as you do not battle them in closed and linear confines as is typically the case in a boss fight) do not usually lock you into a set path to proceed upon, and can’t escape from, and you can often continue in the game by all kinds of means. That said, there is a deep satisfaction in testing your improving skill one-on-one and coming out on top.
Heading back to UNATCO HQ, Director Manderley debriefs you and tells you what you already know: Paul has gone rogue since the battle for New York City broke out. He tells you that the 24-hour kill switch embedded in Paul’s nano-machines have been activated. You leave in search of Paul. You find a sickly and deteriorating Paul just before a UNATCO fireteam begins an assault on his hideout. He tells you he is a lost cause and encourages you to run out the back door.
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, you rush forward into the breach spewing a volley of heavy-laden legalese terminology referring to the inalienable rights of the individual and the blamelessness of human agency in a world bereft of free will under the inexorable machinations of historical determinism. Due to Deus Ex’s unfortunately two-dimensional voice acting, the people in the game aren’t the only casualties of JC Denton’s monotone delivery, with even fans citing it as lamentable at best. Imagine if Ben Stein, Henry Kissinger and Neo were spliced in a secret government lab.
The UNATCO fireteam is not impressed. Perhaps to avoid being caught falling asleep on the job or scratching their heads hard enough to lobotomize themselves into defeat, the fireteam neutralize their resisting targets in a hail of gunfire.
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, complete chaos ensues. One of the strongest arguments against Deus Ex is the plain fact that the game’s AI is hopelessly idiotic. While a gullible and non-attentive opposition is nice in a stealth game at times, you’ll be frustrated when NPCs inexplicably ignore you, call in the genocidal cavalry out of the blue or lob grenades at themselves in their red-shirted naïveté.
Breaching the front door, the UNATCO fireteam proceeds to immediately charge forward until colliding with your brother, subsequently playing hot potato with an impressively diverse arsenal of high explosives. The entire building goes up in flame, and as you invested in hacking, pepper spray and “Coexist” bumper stickers instead of combat armor or augmented shielding, you and Paul do as well.
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, complete chaos ensues. One of the strongest arguments against Deus Ex is the plain fact that the game’s AI is hopelessly idiotic. While a gullible and non-attentive opposition is nice in a stealth game at times, you’ll be frustrated when NPCs inexplicably ignore you, call in the genocidal cavalry out of the blue or lob grenades at themselves in their red-shirted naïveté.
Breaching the front door, the UNATCO fireteam proceeds to immediately charge forward until colliding with your brother, subsequently playing hot potato with an impressively diverse arsenal of high explosives. The entire building goes up in flame, and as you invested in hacking, pepper spray and “Coexist” bumper stickers instead of combat armor or augmented shielding, you and Paul do as well.
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, you rush forward into the breach spewing a volley of heavy-laden legalese terminology referring to the inalienable rights of the individual and the blamelessness of human agency in a world bereft of free will under the inexorable machinations of historical determinism. Due to Deus Ex’s unfortunately two-dimensional voice acting, the people in the game aren’t the only casualties of JC Denton’s monotone delivery, with even fans citing it as lamentable at best. Imagine if Ben Stein, Henry Kissinger and Neo were spliced in a secret government lab.
The UNATCO fireteam is not impressed. Perhaps to avoid being caught falling asleep on the job or scratching their heads hard enough to lobotomize themselves into defeat, the fireteam neutralize their resisting targets in a hail of gunfire.
You make a break for the back door and hear heavy gunfire behind you. But accused of colluding with your brother, you end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door. There you discover the body of your brother in the UNATCO laboratory.
One of the aspects in which the achievements of Deus Ex shine most brightly is the way in which a player’s choices have consequences throughout the game and how they, in many ways, influence how the game makes its steady way toward the multiple endings the designers had in mind for players. This becomes more and more obvious to players as they progress and begin to notice all the lost possibilities. The game’s designers were brilliant in their ability to use our sense of “what if…” to fuel replaying the game over and over.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
You are caught sneaking away by none other than your cyborg coworker Anna Navarre. She tells you your kill switch has been engaged, but that she is looking to finish the job herself. How do you choose to confront her?
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, you rush forward into the breach spewing a volley of heavy-laden legalese terminology referring to the inalienable rights of the individual and the blamelessness of human agency in a world bereft of free will under the inexorable machinations of historical determinism. Due to Deus Ex’s unfortunately two-dimensional voice acting, the people in the game aren’t the only casualties of JC Denton’s monotone delivery, with even fans citing it as lamentable at best. Imagine if Ben Stein, Henry Kissinger and Neo were spliced in a secret government lab.
Luckily, you’ve become so good at smooth talking your way out of needless bloodshed that the UNATCO fireteam agrees to bring in you and your brother Paul peacefully. But accused of colluding with your brother, you both end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
You are caught sneaking away by none other than your cyborg coworker Anna Navarre. She tells you your kill switch has been engaged, but that she is looking to finish the job herself. How do you choose to confront her?
You make a break for the back door and hear heavy gunfire behind you. But accused of colluding with your brother, you end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door. There you discover the body of your brother in the UNATCO laboratory.
One of the aspects in which the achievements of Deus Ex shine most brightly is the way in which a player’s choices have consequences throughout the game and how they, in many ways, influence how the game makes its steady way toward the multiple endings the designers had in mind for players. This becomes more and more obvious to players as they progress and begin to notice all the lost possibilities. The game’s designers were brilliant in their ability to use our sense of “what if…” to fuel replaying the game over and over.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
Director Manderley and his shady conspirator discover your spying. The holographic G-man tells you your kill switch has been engaged. How do you choose to confront them?
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, complete chaos ensues. One of the strongest arguments against Deus Ex is the plain fact that the game’s AI is hopelessly idiotic. While a gullible and non-attentive opposition is nice in a stealth game at times, you’ll be frustrated when NPCs inexplicably ignore you, call in the genocidal cavalry out of the blue or lob grenades at themselves in their red-shirted naïveté.
Breaching the front door, the UNATCO fireteam proceeds to immediately charge forward until colliding with your brother, subsequently playing hot potato with an impressively diverse arsenal of high explosives. The entire building goes up in flame. Luckily, you came armed to the teeth with weapons, combat armor and augmented shielding to keep you and Paul alive. But accused of colluding with your brother, you both end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
Director Manderley and his shady conspirator discover your spying. The holographic G-man tells you your kill switch has been engaged. How do you choose to confront them?
You make a break for the back door and hear heavy gunfire behind you. But accused of colluding with your brother, you end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door. There you discover the body of your brother in the UNATCO laboratory.
One of the aspects in which the achievements of Deus Ex shine most brightly is the way in which a player’s choices have consequences throughout the game and how they, in many ways, influence how the game makes its steady way toward the multiple endings the designers had in mind for players. This becomes more and more obvious to players as they progress and begin to notice all the lost possibilities. The game’s designers were brilliant in their ability to use our sense of “what if…” to fuel replaying the game over and over.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
You are caught sneaking away by none other than your cyborg coworker Anna Navarre. She tells you your kill switch has been engaged, but that she is looking to finish the job herself. How do you choose to confront her?
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, you rush forward into the breach spewing a volley of heavy-laden legalese terminology referring to the inalienable rights of the individual and the blamelessness of human agency in a world bereft of free will under the inexorable machinations of historical determinism. Due to Deus Ex’s unfortunately two-dimensional voice acting, the people in the game aren’t the only casualties of JC Denton’s monotone delivery, with even fans citing it as lamentable at best. Imagine if Ben Stein, Henry Kissinger and Neo were spliced in a secret government lab.
Luckily, you’ve become so good at smooth talking your way out of needless bloodshed that the UNATCO fireteam agrees to bring in you and your brother Paul peacefully. But accused of colluding with your brother, you both end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
You are caught sneaking away by none other than your cyborg coworker Anna Navarre. She tells you your kill switch has been engaged, but that she is looking to finish the job herself. How do you choose to confront her?
You make a break for the back door and hear heavy gunfire behind you. But accused of colluding with your brother, you end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door. There you discover the body of your brother in the UNATCO laboratory.
One of the aspects in which the achievements of Deus Ex shine most brightly is the way in which a player’s choices have consequences throughout the game and how they, in many ways, influence how the game makes its steady way toward the multiple endings the designers had in mind for players. This becomes more and more obvious to players as they progress and begin to notice all the lost possibilities. The game’s designers were brilliant in their ability to use our sense of “what if…” to fuel replaying the game over and over.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
Director Manderley and his shady conspirator discover your spying. The holographic G-man tells you your kill switch has been engaged. How do you choose to confront them?
As the UNATCO fireteam blows down the front door, complete chaos ensues. One of the strongest arguments against Deus Ex is the plain fact that the game’s AI is hopelessly idiotic. While a gullible and non-attentive opposition is nice in a stealth game at times, you’ll be frustrated when NPCs inexplicably ignore you, call in the genocidal cavalry out of the blue or lob grenades at themselves in their red-shirted naïveté.
Breaching the front door, the UNATCO fireteam proceeds to immediately charge forward until colliding with your brother, subsequently playing hot potato with an impressively diverse arsenal of high explosives. The entire building goes up in flame. Luckily, you came armed to the teeth with weapons, combat armor and augmented shielding to keep you and Paul alive. But accused of colluding with your brother, you both end up caught and imprisoned in a cell below UNATCO HQ until the mysterious “Daedalus” remotely opens your cell door.
Sneaking out, you eavesdrop on Director Manderley having a holo-conference with a men in black-type bigwig and discover that UNATCO is in truth a the repressive, militant arm of a secret committee named the Majestic 12 that controls the UN leadership at the highest levels.
Deus Ex loans heavily from a rather rich collection of notorious crack-pot conspiracies in a way that adds a flair of fiction, fantasy, history and epic scope to the story. Additionally, the theme of conspiracy encourages the player to take pretty much anything in the game with a pound of salt and snoop as much as often. You never feel bad rummaging through your allies’ emails when the game pushes you to Alex Jones-levels of paranoia.
Director Manderley and his shady conspirator discover your spying. The holographic G-man tells you your kill switch has been engaged. How do you choose to confront them?
Director Manderley asks for your forgiveness, noting he thought of you like a son during your training for UNATCO. As you turn to leave, he shoots you in the back.
For better or for worse, instead of the kind of abstruse and gamey morality alignment spectrums found in games like Fable, KotOR or Mass Effect, Deus Ex judges you primarily by your actions. This means that while you may suffer greatly for one bad choice made at just the right (or is it wrong?) time, you aren’t constantly rated over minutiae like eating crunchy chicken.
Even with your state-of-the-art nano-augmentations, you are untrained and unprepared for a crudely mechanical yet veteran operator such as her. Your emphasis on stealth thus far have left you less than a first rate fighting machine. Through your actions, Anna has come to learn nothing but contempt for you, your brother and your kind. She remembers the joy of her line of work as you crumple like burnt newspaper under the rising stream of her flamethrower.
For better or for worse, instead of the kind of abstruse and gamey morality alignment spectrums found in games like Fable, KotOR or Mass Effect, Deus Ex judges you primarily by your actions. This means that while you may suffer greatly for one bad choice made at just the right (or is it wrong?) time, you aren’t constantly rated over minutiae like eating crunchy chicken.
Even with your state-of-the-art nano-augmentations, you are untrained and unprepared for a crudely mechanical yet veteran operator such as her. Your emphasis on stealth thus far have left you less than a first rate fighting machine. Through your actions, Anna has come to learn nothing but contempt for you, your brother and your kind. She remembers the joy of her line of work as you crumple like burnt newspaper under the rising stream of her flamethrower.
One of the aspects in which the achievements of Deus Ex shine most brightly is the way in which a player’s choices have consequences throughout the game and how they, in many ways, influence how the game makes its steady way toward the multiple endings the designers had in mind for players. This becomes more and more obvious to players as they progress and begin to notice all the lost possibilities. The game’s designers were brilliant in their ability to use our sense of “what if…” to fuel replaying the game over and over.
Even with your state-of-the-art nano-augmentations, you are untrained and unprepared for a crudely mechanical yet veteran operator such as her. Your emphasis on stealth thus far have left you less than a first rate fighting machine. Through your actions, Anna has come to learn nothing but contempt for you, your brother and your kind. She remembers the joy of her line of work as you crumple like burnt newspaper under the rising stream of her flamethrower.
For better or for worse, instead of the kind of abstruse and gamey morality alignment spectrums found in games like Fable, KotOR or Mass Effect, Deus Ex judges you primarily by your actions. This means that while you may suffer greatly for one bad choice made at just the right (or is it wrong?) time, you aren’t constantly rated over minutiae like eating crunchy chicken.
Even with your state-of-the-art nano-augmentations, you are untrained and unprepared for a crudely mechanical yet veteran operator such as her. Your emphasis on stealth thus far have left you less than a first rate fighting machine. Through your actions, Anna has come to learn nothing but contempt for you, your brother and your kind. She remembers the joy of her line of work as you crumple like burnt newspaper under the rising stream of her flamethrower.
One of the aspects in which the achievements of Deus Ex shine most brightly is the way in which a player’s choices have consequences throughout the game and how they, in many ways, influence how the game makes its steady way toward the multiple endings the designers had in mind for players. This becomes more and more obvious to players as they progress and begin to notice all the lost possibilities. The game’s designers were brilliant in their ability to use our sense of “what if…” to fuel replaying the game over and over.
Director Manderley asks for your forgiveness, noting he thought of you like a son during your training for UNATCO. As you turn to leave, he shoots you in the back.
For better or for worse, instead of the kind of abstruse and gamey morality alignment spectrums found in games like Fable, KotOR or Mass Effect, Deus Ex judges you primarily by your actions. This means that while you may suffer greatly for one bad choice made at just the right (or is it wrong?) time, you aren’t constantly rated over minutiae like eating crunchy chicken.
You put an end to the old bureaucrat with a flick of the wrist and leave the UNATCO premises post-haste, but not before raiding the HQ’s augmentation and weapons mod arsenal. While skills and weapons mods can make you more effective and accurate with weapons, the game’s augmentations can give you simple upgrades like more health and armor, but mostly empower you in more lateral and creative ways, such as giving you super strength for dispensing refreshing justice with hand-hurled vending machines…
My favorite.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
You put an end to the old bureaucrat with a flick of the wrist and leave the UNATCO premises post-haste, but not before raiding the HQ’s augmentation and weapons mod arsenal. While skills and weapons mods can make you more effective and accurate with weapons, the game’s augmentations can give you simple upgrades like more health and armor, but mostly empower you in more lateral and creative ways, such as giving you super strength for dispensing refreshing justice with hand-hurled vending machines…
My favorite.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Director Manderley asks for your forgiveness, noting he thought of you like a son during your training for UNATCO. As you turn to leave, he pulls his gun. You hear a loud thud and the UNATCO director collapses to the ground unconscious at the hands of Paul. You both leave the UNATCO premises post-haste, but not before raiding the HQ’s augmentation and weapons mod arsenal.
While skills and weapons mods can make you more effective and accurate with weapons, the game’s augmentations can give you simple upgrades like more health and armor, but mostly empower you in more lateral and creative ways, such as giving you super strength for dispensing refreshing justice with hand-hurled vending machines…
My favorite.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Playing on the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex, making a bee-line for the closest of the innumerable loading areas helps wonders in giving the game the flexibility of allowing mismatched characters (namely, stealth builds) to get away. Doing just that, Anna’s sluggish in-game AI struggles to keep up with your frantic scramble for the door. That said, you may have similar luck in playing the PC-port, where damage is divided up into separate areas of JC Denton’s body (for example his legs) that allows for an interesting system of distributed damage, healing, and adverse damage effects. Clearly for simplicity’s sake, this system was not included in the Playstation 2-port.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Playing on the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex, making a bee-line for the closest of the innumerable loading areas helps wonders in giving the game the flexibility of allowing mismatched characters (namely, stealth builds) to get away. Doing just that, Anna’s sluggish in-game AI struggles to keep up with your frantic scramble for the door. That said, you may have similar luck in playing the PC-port, where damage is divided up into separate areas of JC Denton’s body (for example his legs) that allows for an interesting system of distributed damage, healing, and adverse damage effects. Clearly for simplicity’s sake, this system was not included in the Playstation 2-port.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Playing on the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex, making a bee-line for the closest of the innumerable loading areas helps wonders in giving the game the flexibility of allowing mismatched characters (namely, stealth builds) to get away. Doing just that, Anna’s sluggish in-game AI struggles to keep up with your frantic scramble for the door. That said, you may have similar luck in playing the PC-port, where damage is divided up into separate areas of JC Denton’s body (for example his legs) that allows for an interesting system of distributed damage, healing, and adverse damage effects. Clearly for simplicity’s sake, this system was not included in the Playstation 2-port.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Recalling the kill phrase, you look Anna dead in the eye and casually remark, “Flatlander Woman”. With a look of incredulity slapped on her face, Anna’s exploding cybernetic implants spice up the bland UNATCO office décor with her squishier, non-cybernetic parts.
Indicative of the standard this game put its players to, in the PC-port of Deus Ex gamers were expected to memorize and manually type in just about every password. The Playstation-2 port of the game automated the process. While I appreciate the hardcore gamer’s sense of dedication, I’ll have to side with the casual gamer on this one for once and say the Playstation 2-port is better in this respect.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Playing on the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex, making a bee-line for the closest of the innumerable loading areas helps wonders in giving the game the flexibility of allowing mismatched characters (namely, stealth builds) to get away. Doing just that, Anna’s sluggish in-game AI struggles to keep up with your frantic scramble for the door. That said, you may have similar luck in playing the PC-port, where damage is divided up into separate areas of JC Denton’s body (for example his legs) that allows for an interesting system of distributed damage, healing, and adverse damage effects. Clearly for simplicity’s sake, this system was not included in the Playstation 2-port.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Recalling the kill phrase, you look Anna dead in the eye and casually remark, “Flatlander Woman”. With a look of incredulity slapped on her face, Anna’s exploding cybernetic implants spice up the bland UNATCO office décor with her squishier, non-cybernetic parts.
Indicative of the standard this game put its players to, in the PC-port of Deus Ex gamers were expected to memorize and manually type in just about every password. The Playstation-2 port of the game automated the process. While I appreciate the hardcore gamer’s sense of dedication, I’ll have to side with the casual gamer on this one for once and say the Playstation 2-port is better in this respect.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
You put an end to the old bureaucrat with a flick of the wrist and leave the UNATCO premises post-haste, but not before raiding the HQ’s augmentation and weapons mod arsenal. While skills and weapons mods can make you more effective and accurate with weapons, the game’s augmentations can give you simple upgrades like more health and armor, but mostly empower you in more lateral and creative ways, such as giving you super strength for dispensing refreshing justice with hand-hurled vending machines…
My favorite.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
You put an end to the old bureaucrat with a flick of the wrist and leave the UNATCO premises post-haste, but not before raiding the HQ’s augmentation and weapons mod arsenal. While skills and weapons mods can make you more effective and accurate with weapons, the game’s augmentations can give you simple upgrades like more health and armor, but mostly empower you in more lateral and creative ways, such as giving you super strength for dispensing refreshing justice with hand-hurled vending machines…
My favorite.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Director Manderley asks for your forgiveness, noting he thought of you like a son during your training for UNATCO. As you turn to leave, he pulls his gun. You hear a loud thud and the UNATCO director collapses to the ground unconscious at the hands of Paul. You both leave the UNATCO premises post-haste, but not before raiding the HQ’s augmentation and weapons mod arsenal.
While skills and weapons mods can make you more effective and accurate with weapons, the game’s augmentations can give you simple upgrades like more health and armor, but mostly empower you in more lateral and creative ways, such as giving you super strength for dispensing refreshing justice with hand-hurled vending machines…
My favorite.
Meeting up with Paul’s old collaborator, a black (stealth) helicopter pilot named Jock, you travel to Hong Kong to seek out Tracer Tong. Hong Kong is by far the most iconic locale of the game that most fans of Deus Ex will recall best. This is likely due to an excellent combination of the area’s openness mixed with one of the best overtures the game’s formidable soundtrack has to offer.
Compared to the PC-port, the environments in the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex are cleaner and modernized with greater structural detail and crowding. That said, the textures are noticeably blurrier, leading to something of a tradeoff between the two ports. Would you rather have a sparse and darkened asphalt desert, or a crowded and colorful concrete jungle? Unfortunately, the demands of a stealth game make that question harder than is typically the case.
While casual gamers looking for the next meme theme to take the internet by storm will likely be disappointed with Deus Ex’s soundtrack, critics have typically praised it. Personally, I find that it catches a good balance between ambience, subtlety and not looping the overture too excessively. Notably though, the Playstation 2-port apparently had to compromise parts of the soundtrack, to the undying ire of the hardcore fan base.
The Chinese Triad boss and tech genius Tracer Tong deactivates the kill switch and tells you he’s found out the Gray Death virus has the Illuminati’s fingerprints all over it. Going to Paris to speak to an Illuminati contact there, you find out they know who is really responsible for spreading the Gray Death and need you to sink a stored shipment of the virus kept in a supertanker ship. Tong ends up tracing the production of the virus back to the Versalife Corporation Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Sneaking into the Versalife Corporation Headquarters is no easy feat. Luckily, you are aided by the ability to pick up and toss objects. Years of training with the UN really does push the limit of what’s possible…
From cardboard boxes kicked into place to help scale a wall to entire vending machines hurled through reinforced doors, Deus Ex’s utilization of the Unreal Engine allows for the open-ended and creative use of object stacking and physics to help any player aggressively investigate a compound. While perhaps not comparable to the Source Engine, and prone to the occasionally humorous glitch, for its time the Unreal Engine was more than sufficient.
Making your way through the compound you locate and destroy the universal constructor, the source of the Gray Death virus.
Your contact in the Illuminati tells you that the virus, originally cultivated by the organization for augmentation development, was repurposed and weaponized by Bob Page. The wealthy industrialist led the Illuminati breakaway faction that formed the Majestic 12. Even the Illuminati fear them now. It is also revealed that your jail breaker Daedalus is in fact an Illuminati AI, derived from the ECHELON surveillance program.
At this point you may as well say “Half-Life 3 confirmed”. This game is so thick with conspiracy theories that you could pour it on waffles. With that though, there is something to be said these days for a game made before 2001 revolving around themes of surveillance, rising income inequality, terrorism, violations of oversight, unrestricted globalization as well as political apathy, cynicism and mistrust, and even emerging post-humanism.
Ironically enough, although in the game the Statue of Liberty was the showcase of a terrorist attack on New York City, on viewing the city skyline you’ll see the twin towers were not included due to software limitations. I have to pause to state that it would be embarrassing to lump this peculiar factoid into many of the game’s other conspiracy theories and claim some kind of real life conspiracy revolving around the game or its plot. But hey, from what I’ve seen on the internet, it’s apparently your right to be stupid.
The greater shame to this game and its thoughtful developers would be in letting hackneyed and dated conspiracy theories lead you from what this game really has to teach anyone in any era where technological, economic and political consolidation are accelerating at unprecedented speeds.
Rant over.
After relocating the team to Vandenberg Air Force Base where the Illuminati have their own brand-new constructor capable of manufacturing ambrosia in bulk, the Majestic 12 send over an attack force of nano-augmented men in black and military robots. Meeting stalwart resistance, the surgical strike stretches out into a protracted battle and Bob Page, in desperation, has a nuclear missile launched toward Vandenberg from his primary compound at Area 51.
You make your way to the supertanker. By not using the environmental nano-augmentations that allow you to breathe underwater, and even cross canals of radioactive waste, you simply end up going to a lever and pulling your arm downwards. The nano-augmented hand that is grasping the lever in turn pulls the lever down. Pulling the lever subsequently lowers the platform that allows you to simply walk onto the ship. Your nano-augmented legs practically walk themselves as your nano-super-brain busies itself wondering why you invested your meager collection of augmentation upgrade canisters on the game’s environmental augs.
Seriously though, the environmental augs pretty much useless throughout the game. This problem was addressed somewhat going from the original PC game to its Playstation 2-port. So that’s nice. That said though, a serious limitation of the console port is that it no longer benefits from the many newer patches, mods and upgrades the dedicated gaming community have contributed to Deus Ex over the years since its release.
Placing explosives charges at key points, you scuttle the supertanker and stop the Gray Death onboard from being distributed around the globe.
Your contact in the Illuminati tells you that the virus, originally cultivated by the organization for augmentation development, was repurposed and weaponized by Bob Page. The wealthy industrialist led the Illuminati breakaway faction that formed the Majestic 12. Even the Illuminati fear them now. It is also revealed that your jail breaker Daedalus is in fact an Illuminati AI, derived from the ECHELON surveillance program.
At this point you may as well say “Half-Life 3 confirmed”. This game is so thick with conspiracy theories that you could pour it on waffles. With that though, there is something to be said these days for a game made before 2001 revolving around themes of surveillance, rising income inequality, terrorism, violations of oversight, unrestricted globalization as well as political apathy, cynicism and mistrust, and even emerging post-humanism.
Ironically enough, although in the game the Statue of Liberty was the showcase of a terrorist attack on New York City, on viewing the city skyline you’ll see the twin towers were not included due to software limitations. I have to pause to state that it would be embarrassing to lump this peculiar factoid into many of the game’s other conspiracy theories and claim some kind of real life conspiracy revolving around the game or its plot. But hey, from what I’ve seen on the internet, it’s apparently your right to be stupid.
The greater shame to this game and its thoughtful developers would be in letting hackneyed and dated conspiracy theories lead you from what this game really has to teach anyone in any era where technological, economic and political consolidation are accelerating at unprecedented speeds.
Rant over.
After relocating the team to Vandenberg Air Force Base where the Illuminati have their own brand-new constructor capable of manufacturing ambrosia in bulk, the Majestic 12 send over an attack force of nano-augmented men in black and military robots. Meeting stalwart resistance, the surgical strike stretches out into a protracted battle and Bob Page, in desperation, has a nuclear missile launched toward Vandenberg from his primary compound at Area 51.
As your comrades in arms begin to waver, you take on a veritable army of Majestic 12’s soldiers, robots, turrets, nano-augmented men in black and even transgenic monsters. Though trained for stealth, your skills and weapons augmentations at this point are more than enough to take on just about anything. However, your ammunition stores can’t seem to keep up. But that’s not a problem. You’ve got the Dragon’s Tooth.
The seemingly continuous dearth of ammunition in Deus Ex can be a bit annoying at times. A big drawback of the game’s diverse array of weapons is that there are so many different types of ammo that you’ll often see yourself finding lots of ammo, but never for the weapons you need it for. The solution for this is simply resorting to the low tech melee weapons the game has to offer when the need arises.
Most notable of all of these is the Dragon’s Tooth sword, a Triad-honored nano-forged vibro-blade laser sword. This thing is only slightly less impressive than the Masamune sword Frog uses to cut a mountain in two. The Dragon’s Tooth is given to the player around halfway through the game and can easily be abused to get JC out of pretty much any sticky situation. Love it or hate it, the sword is definitely OP’d. I can’t complain though, any player can simply toss it for a more challenging and meaningful play through.
Threshing Majestic 12’s goons in waves with your lightsaber, you’re having a blast. But you lose track of time and Bob Page’s missile detonates over the Vandenberg Air Force Base. Who needs a knife in a nuke fight anyway?
As your comrades in arms begin to waver, you take on a veritable army of Majestic 12’s soldiers, robots, turrets, nano-augmented men in black and even transgenic monsters. Though trained for stealth, your skills and weapons augmentations at this point are more than enough to take on just about anything. However, your ammunition stores can’t seem to keep up. But that’s not a problem. You’ve got the Dragon’s Tooth.
The seemingly continuous dearth of ammunition in Deus Ex can be a bit annoying at times. A big drawback of the game’s diverse array of weapons is that there are so many different types of ammo that you’ll often see yourself finding lots of ammo, but never for the weapons you need it for. The solution for this is simply resorting to the low tech melee weapons the game has to offer when the need arises.
Most notable of all of these is the Dragon’s Tooth sword, a Triad-honored nano-forged vibro-blade laser sword. This thing is only slightly less impressive than the Masamune sword Frog uses to cut a mountain in two. The Dragon’s Tooth is given to the player around halfway through the game and can easily be abused to get JC out of pretty much any sticky situation. Love it or hate it, the sword is definitely OP’d. I can’t complain though, any player can simply toss it for a more challenging and meaningful play through.
Threshing Majestic 12’s goons in waves with your lightsaber, you’re having a blast. But you lose track of time and Bob Page’s missile detonates over the Vandenberg Air Force Base. Who needs a knife in a nuke fight anyway?
While your comrades in arms are dying in droves holding the line for you, you slip back to the computer terminal, grab some Mountain Dew and a bag of Doritos, and proceed to hack. Even to your own surprise, you find you’re able to get control of the nuke and, in a stroke of genius, click the “return to sender” button and fly it right back to Bob Page at Area 51. Centralizing and coordinating all the base’s cameras, doors, laser trip wires, turrets and attack robots via your hacked terminal you help your teammates clear the base with ruthless efficiency. Before logging out you naturally rummage through everybody’s emails and find out that Jock’s helicopter mechanic is an undercover Majestic 12 agent who has orders to plant a bomb onto the black helicopter. All in a day’s work at the office.
Considering JC Denton has his sunglasses permanently grafted onto his face, you couldn’t possibly look any cooler right now. Deal with it.
It must be noted that the hacking system in Deus Ex is truly wonderful. The game got a lot of flak for its simplistic breaching mechanism. After clicking a “hack” button a bunch of numbers and letters cross the screen dramatically and you’re allowed access to the hacked terminal until you are forced out via a countdown timer. While I understand the frustration with this system, what are you going to replace it with? A jigsaw puzzle mini game? You can’t expect your casual gamer to code and know the ins and outs of 2052’s cutting edge hardware. What makes the system great is that hacking creates an astounding depth to the game, firstly in the world building and useful intel you get from snooping and reading, and secondly in the situational awareness and creative traps you can spring with this awareness and your access to system’s security hardware.
After the battle, the Illuminati retaliate by sending the Daedalus AI into the military network Bob Page has control of. Daedalus comes head to head with Majestic 12’s own Icarus AI, but the two end up merging together to create a super-entity calling itself “Helios” that takes control of most of the planet’s data streams and hardware. It turns out this is all to plan. Bob Page has been investing in nano-technology for years in order to merge himself with just such a super-entity, becoming an effective totalitarian digi-dictator.
Bob Page survived the nuclear strike on Area 51 by hiding deep underground. Can you guess which Area 51 hangar he’s been hiding under? If not, you need to start listening to Megadeth.
To Bob Page’s lament however, the Helios AI doesn’t seem to want to take orders from anyone, and simply starts helping people around the world get on with their lives as usual. You go with Jock and his black helicopter to Area 51 in order to try to stop Bob Page before his forced AI merger. You make sure to find the helicopter bomb first. You reunite it and Majestic 12’s saboteur with a bang on your way out the hangar doors. You make your way to the depths of Area 51 before the merger. After dealing with his security, a helpless Bob Page stands floating in a bacta tank at your mercy. Your Messenger app blows up with friend requests as three factions now implore you to do what’s right.
The Helios AI contacts you directly and tells you the ruthless Bob Page was a poor match for the merger. However, with your nano-augmentations and balanced sense of humanism, you are a perfect match to merge with Helios and create a post-human global leadership entity capable of fostering humanity and ensuring it does not inevitably destroy itself.
During the battle, the Illuminati retaliate by sending the Daedalus AI into the military network Bob Page has control of. Daedalus comes head to head with Majestic 12’s own Icarus AI, but the two end up merging together to create a super-entity calling itself “Helios” that takes control of most of the planet’s data streams and hardware. It turns out this is all to plan. Bob Page has been investing in nano-technology for years in order to merge himself with just such a super-entity, becoming an effective totalitarian digi-dictator.
To Bob Page’s lament however, the Helios AI doesn’t seem to want to take orders from anyone, and simply starts helping people around the world get on with their lives as usual. You leave the others behind as you scramble for the hangar.
Stealthily navigating through pitched battles is a lot easier than you’d imagine. The fighting forces do all the dirty work for you anyway. This is yet another point at which a comparison of the two ports of Deus Ex can be made. The Playstation 2-port couldn’t handle the huge layouts and needed demarcated areas for loading. With no need for bottlenecking corridors that allow for loading screens, the PC-port’s level layouts tends to be not only larger but much more open, giving the player much more room for creeping and crawling. Naturally, this is best for stealthy play styles. Notably though, the PC-port is so dark you can only really see anything if you play it in your Mom’s basement’s wardrobe closet.
You go with Jock and his black helicopter to Area 51 in order to try to stop Bob Page before his forced AI merger and just barely make it as the helicopter goes down in a fiery explosion seconds after Jock dropped you off. You make your way to the depths of Area 51 before the merger. After dealing with his security, a helpless Bob Page stands floating in a bacta tank at your mercy. Your Messenger app blows up with friend requests as three factions now implore you to do what’s right.
The Helios AI contacts you directly and tells you the ruthless Bob Page was a poor match for the merger. However, with your nano-augmentations and balanced sense of humanism, you are a perfect match to merge with Helios and create a post-human global leadership entity capable of fostering humanity and ensuring it does not inevitably destroy itself.
While your comrades in arms are dying in droves holding the line for you, you slip back to the computer terminal, grab some Mountain Dew and a bag of Doritos, and proceed to hack. Even to your own surprise, you find you’re able to get control of the nuke and, in a stroke of genius, click the “return to sender” button and fly it right back to Bob Page at Area 51. Centralizing and coordinating all the base’s cameras, doors, laser trip wires, turrets and attack robots via your hacked terminal you help your teammates clear the base with ruthless efficiency. Before logging out you naturally rummage through everybody’s emails and find out that Jock’s helicopter mechanic is an undercover Majestic 12 agent who has orders to plant a bomb onto the black helicopter. All in a day’s work at the office.
Considering JC Denton has his sunglasses permanently grafted onto his face, you couldn’t possibly look any cooler right now. Deal with it.
It must be noted that the hacking system in Deus Ex is truly wonderful. The game got a lot of flak for its simplistic breaching mechanism. After clicking a “hack” button a bunch of numbers and letters cross the screen dramatically and you’re allowed access to the hacked terminal until you are forced out via a countdown timer. While I understand the frustration with this system, what are you going to replace it with? A jigsaw puzzle mini game? You can’t expect your casual gamer to code and know the ins and outs of 2052’s cutting edge hardware. What makes the system great is that hacking creates an astounding depth to the game, firstly in the world building and useful intel you get from snooping and reading, and secondly in the situational awareness and creative traps you can spring with this awareness and your access to system’s security hardware.
After the battle, the Illuminati retaliate by sending the Daedalus AI into the military network Bob Page has control of. Daedalus comes head to head with Majestic 12’s own Icarus AI, but the two end up merging together to create a super-entity calling itself “Helios” that takes control of most of the planet’s data streams and hardware. It turns out this is all to plan. Bob Page has been investing in nano-technology for years in order to merge himself with just such a super-entity, becoming an effective totalitarian digi-dictator.
Bob Page survived the nuclear strike on Area 51 by hiding deep underground. Can you guess which Area 51 hangar he’s been hiding under? If not, you need to start listening to Megadeth.
To Bob Page’s lament however, the Helios AI doesn’t seem to want to take orders from anyone, and simply starts helping people around the world get on with their lives as usual. You go with Jock and his black helicopter to Area 51 in order to try to stop Bob Page before his forced AI merger. You make sure to find the helicopter bomb first. You reunite it and Majestic 12’s saboteur with a bang on your way out the hangar doors. You make your way to the depths of Area 51 before the merger. After dealing with his security, a helpless Bob Page stands floating in a bacta tank at your mercy. Your Messenger app blows up with friend requests as three factions now implore you to do what’s right.
The Helios AI contacts you directly and tells you the ruthless Bob Page was a poor match for the merger. However, with your nano-augmentations and balanced sense of humanism, you are a perfect match to merge with Helios and create a post-human global leadership entity capable of fostering humanity and ensuring it does not inevitably destroy itself.
During the battle, the Illuminati retaliate by sending the Daedalus AI into the military network Bob Page has control of. Daedalus comes head to head with Majestic 12’s own Icarus AI, but the two end up merging together to create a super-entity calling itself “Helios” that takes control of most of the planet’s data streams and hardware. It turns out this is all to plan. Bob Page has been investing in nano-technology for years in order to merge himself with just such a super-entity, becoming an effective totalitarian digi-dictator.
To Bob Page’s lament however, the Helios AI doesn’t seem to want to take orders from anyone, and simply starts helping people around the world get on with their lives as usual. You leave the others behind as you scramble for the hangar.
Stealthily navigating through pitched battles is a lot easier than you’d imagine. The fighting forces do all the dirty work for you anyway. This is yet another point at which a comparison of the two ports of Deus Ex can be made. The Playstation 2-port couldn’t handle the huge layouts and needed demarcated areas for loading. With no need for bottlenecking corridors that allow for loading screens, the PC-port’s level layouts tends to be not only larger but much more open, giving the player much more room for creeping and crawling. Naturally, this is best for stealthy play styles. Notably though, the PC-port is so dark you can only really see anything if you play it in your Mom’s basement’s wardrobe closet.
You go with Jock and his black helicopter to Area 51 in order to try to stop Bob Page before his forced AI merger and just barely make it as the helicopter goes down in a fiery explosion seconds after Jock dropped you off. You make your way to the depths of Area 51 before the merger. After dealing with his security, a helpless Bob Page stands floating in a bacta tank at your mercy. Your Messenger app blows up with friend requests as three factions now implore you to do what’s right.
The Helios AI contacts you directly and tells you the ruthless Bob Page was a poor match for the merger. However, with your nano-augmentations and balanced sense of humanism, you are a perfect match to merge with Helios and create a post-human global leadership entity capable of fostering humanity and ensuring it does not inevitably destroy itself.
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Like the true Snake Plissken you are, you throw a wrench into the cogs of authority and give “The Man” the biggest and most deserved middle finger in history. It’s high time we give this planet back to the people. You don’t look behind you as you as the entire Area 51 complex explodes in a giant fireball. People as bad ass as you just keep walking forward and never look back.
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth…” — Kahlil Gibran
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Taking Bob Page’s place at the heart of the machine, your body’s nano-machines interface your mind directly with the most powerful and far-reaching computing network in history. You are no longer JC Denton; no longer Helios: You are something more. Your consciousness transcends to a level where achieving “enlightenment” could be compared to the feat of discovering dirt under a fingernail. But the enlightened despot, you are not. Only a human could be so petty.
With ubiquitous nano-technology embedded in people all over the planet, they can sync with you directly and join a transcendent post-human society, free of limitations such as the body, the mind and even the self.
“If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.” — Voltaire
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Like the true Snake Plissken you are, you throw a wrench into the cogs of authority and give “The Man” the biggest and most deserved middle finger in history. It’s high time we give this planet back to the people. You don’t look behind you as you as the entire Area 51 complex explodes in a giant fireball. People as bad ass as you just keep walking forward.
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth…” — Kahlil Gibran
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Taking Bob Page’s place at the heart of the machine, your body’s nano-machines interface your mind directly with the most powerful and far-reaching computing network in history. You are no longer JC Denton; no longer Helios: You are something more. Your consciousness transcends to a level where achieving “enlightenment” could be compared to the feat of discovering dirt under a fingernail. But the enlightened despot, you are not. Only a human could be so petty.
With ubiquitous nano-technology embedded in people all over the planet, they can sync with you directly and join a transcendent post-human society, free of limitations such as the body, the mind and even the self.
“If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.” — Voltaire
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Destroying Bob Page and finally eliminating the rogue Majestic 12 faction while reining in the Helios AI, you have restored peace and helped minimize the global damage the recent turn of events has caused. Resilient and enduring as the human race is, it doesn’t take long before international trade, social progress and technological development are back on track and productive as ever.
But the people of the world will never know they have you to thank for it all. You stopped Bob Page and worked tirelessly thereafter to restore order and distribute the Ambrosia vaccine worldwide. But you didn’t deign to seek credit, recognition or fame. You were never about that. You always work in the shadows after all.
“Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.” – Paradise Lost — John Milton
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Taking Bob Page’s place at the heart of the machine, your body’s nano-machines interface your mind directly with the most powerful and far-reaching computing network in history. You are no longer JC Denton; no longer Helios: You are something more. Your consciousness transcends to a level where achieving “enlightenment” could be compared to the feat of discovering dirt under a fingernail. But the enlightened despot, you are not. Only a human could be so petty.
With ubiquitous nano-technology embedded in people all over the planet, they can sync with you directly and join a transcendent post-human society, free of limitations such as the body, the mind and even the self.
“If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.” — Voltaire
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Destroying Bob Page and finally eliminating the rogue Majestic 12 faction while reining in the Helios AI, you have restored peace and helped minimize the global damage the recent turn of events has caused. Resilient and enduring as the human race is, it doesn’t take long before international trade, social progress and technological development are back on track and productive as ever.
But the people of the world will never know they have you to thank for it all. You stopped Bob Page and worked tirelessly thereafter to restore order and distribute the Ambrosia vaccine worldwide. But you didn’t deign to seek credit, recognition or fame. You were never about that. You always work in the shadows after all.
“Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.” – Paradise Lost — John Milton
While most people would balk at making such an epic decision on the spot, luckily the Playstation 2-port of Deus Ex has a streamlined interface that cut the pork out of the PC-port’s complicated menu system while keeping the menu’s log system. In it, every code, login, password, conversation and piece of text you came across in the entire game is recorded for easy reference. This is very useful in a game as literature heavy as Deus Ex.
For its time, Deus Ex was unprecedented and may well still be to this very day. It has a nuanced but monolithic world, filled with a comprehensive and multifaceted social strata, made up of an occasionally infuriating yet often endearing cast of characters, pawns in a mysterious but captivating story, in a game that is both vast in its construction yet linear in its focus.
All in all, what truly makes Deus Ex an exceptional game, if not one of the most exceptional games ever put together, is that it brings you into direct contact with some of the most important questions we as human beings can ask ourselves. What are we? How are we changing? What are we to society? To what end is society developing? It goes to show you the strength of the human mind when an idea addressing our entire experience of reality can spring from playing a simple game on a simple machine. To many players, Deus Ex will allow them to realize their views on things they had never thought they had considered before.
Taking Bob Page’s place at the heart of the machine, your body’s nano-machines interface your mind directly with the most powerful and far-reaching computing network in history. You are no longer JC Denton; no longer Helios: You are something more. Your consciousness transcends to a level where achieving “enlightenment” could be compared to the feat of discovering dirt under a fingernail. But the enlightened despot, you are not. Only a human could be so petty.
With ubiquitous nano-technology embedded in people all over the planet, they can sync with you directly and join a transcendent post-human society, free of limitations such as the body, the mind and even the self.
“If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.” — Voltaire