Deus Ex Review

Game: Deus Ex
Year (s):  2000
Company:  dev.  Ion Storm Inc.
            pub.  Eidos Interactive
Engine:  Unreal Engine (modified)
Type:  FPS RPG

Price (as of 11/15/2011)

Regular price on Steam:  $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  $13

Game Time:  30 hours

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpEoLH0cUSw


Plot

You are among the first prototypes for a nanite-enhanced special agent of UNATCO (UN Anti-Terrorist Coalition).  A plague is threatening humanity, and terrorists have stolen a shipment of the vaccine.  You have to recover it.  Along the course of events, the plot evolves into a secret organization's vast conspiracy to take over the world.  Game is set in 2052.

Secondary objectives and other options throughout the game allow for some deviation from linear gameplay, and three different endings. 


Then and Now

I actually had a blog entry about this game before.  When I first played this game in college, my definition of a shooter game was defined by Doom, Quake, Half-Life, and a few other similar games.  Deus Ex is not like those.  Taken from the original (now deleted) post, "I got this game from someone that didn't care for it, for free.  I didn't enjoy it and gave it to my brother.  He didn't care for it and gave it to a friend, who didn't care for it and threw it away, or possibly set it on fire."

I just replayed this game and thought it deserved a better review.  I enjoyed it this time around.  There were a lot of elements that had not been used in shooters before (at least from what I've played), which made this a great game from the creative stand point. 


Modified Unreal Engine and New Stuff

Graphics are as can be expected.  The immediately noticeable result of engine modification is the amount to which the player can interact with the environment.  Break boxes, talk to people, read notes, enter codes, pick up items, a GUI inventory, hack computers, pick locks...  Most of these ideas went on to be embraced by other games.  This game also introduced me to sneaking around, which I generally don't have the patience for.


Skills and Augmentations

Lockpicking, weapon classes, swimming, and various other skills can be leveled up by spending experience points.  Experience is gained by progressing through the game and by exploring.  At master level for Rifles, the sniper rifle has no bob and 100% accuracy.  At the untrained level for Rifles, your sniper rifle bobs all over and can miss point blank.  There is not enough experience to level everything all the way, not even close.  Deciding what to spend the points on allows different ways to play through the game.

Augmentations are nanite super powers.  The energy to activate these is independent of ammunition.  Each augmentation allows only one of two choices.  For example, you can have an ability that increases your resistance to toxins, or an ability that increases lung capacity.  Once you pick one, you can't get the other.  Further, augmentation upgrades are occasionally found.  Again, there are not enough to max out everything, so this, too, allows different ways to play the game.


Combat

Each weapon has its own class.  Some weapons are silent, which is good if you want to sneak around.  Ammo scarcity forces players to use more than one weapon, while the inventory system only allows so many items/weapons to be carried at a time.  Furthermore, modifications can be added to increase a weapon's range, recoil, accuracy, clip size, or to add a silencer (these stack).  Many weapons have more than one type of ammunition, another first for me.


Expansions / DLC / Sequels

A sequel titled Deus Ex: Invisible War released in 2003.  Deus Ex: Human Revolution, was released in 2011.


Final Thoughts

I didn't like this in college because I refused to sneak around and didn't like problems that couldn't be solved with bullets.  Now I have more appreciation for the varied ways to complete objectives and progress throughout the game.  Still not my favorite PC game of all time (though it consistently ranks extremely high in publication lists for that), but there really are a lot of innovative gameplay elements considering when it came out.  This game is cheap with long game time and reasons to play it more than once.  If you don't mind dated graphics, this is considered by critics to be a benchmark of the genre. 

An article about the company, Ion Storm and some of its employees, will be forthcoming.