The ravages of old age betray a game with no hint of senility (BB W/O)
Written: Mar 12 '04 (Updated Apr 23 '04)
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| carl_lazarevic's Full Review: Deus Ex For Windows |
I remember reading up on Deus Ex long before the game was actually released, or at least I thought I was when I should have at least realized that you'll never find an up to date magazine in a dentist's waiting room. Still what I read intrigued me, it was a game that remained ambitious in its promises for the advancements of the FPS genre despite beliefs that this is a genre that will never leave its formulaic roots behind. Of course that in itself was a long time ago, before I had a PC to call my own and so was being deprived of the gaming joys that this particular award winner was offering up. Since then I've had the chance to own the game, obviously, and have witnessed what most believed would only ever be possible on the most powerful PC get converted over the the lowly Playstation 2, and with improved graphics no less. I guess what I'm trying to say is that by now Deus Ex is a game that anyone with even a minimal PC should be able to play. Yet despite its age I would still say that the game falls into the Must Play area and remains one of the best experiences that any gamer can partake in.
The reason that the game has managed to withstand the test of time without so much as a loss of interest is that the advancements made in Deus Ex were so revolutionary that I have yet to play anything similar. Even the achievements of both Goldeneye and Half Life combined pale into insignificance when compared to the wonder that is this game.
What it does is to recreate a genuinely living, breathing world. It dumps you straight into the story of J.C. Denton, a special agent for UNATCO (United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition) who, along with his brother Paul, is fighting a terrorist organization known as The NSF (National Secessionist Force) that claims UNATCO are intentionally holding back the development of Ambrosia, a cure to the Grey death, a worldwide plague that is working it's way through the poor and unarmed. However J.C. soon discovers that Paul is a double agent for the NSF because of some global conspiracy that he believes UNATCO to be involved in.
The thing is that while the central story is very linear, you couldn't, for example, decide to become a mass murdering terrorists until the game decides that it's time for you to do so, you still get to choose how to act toward people and how to live your life.
So during a mission you need to decide whether or not you want to use lethal force, non lethal force, or even the non combatant stealth option, and then move through the level based on your own choice. This is much more than just a fancy addition though as, while you can not change the stories outcome, you could still have a major impact on it's progression based on who lives and who dies. On the first level alone you are required to catch up with a high ranking terrorist, of course how you get there is up to you, but even once you find him you have to choose your words to decide whether or not you offer him a way out and get his information; or whether you decide to threaten him and get involved in a fight to the death. Of course the really sadistic, namely me, will offer him the prison option and then once he has revealed what he knows shoot him while he's defenseless. It saved me a lot of energy in the fight, gave me the information I wanted and also prevented the guy from escaping from prison and coming after me. Win win right? Course I felt kind of bad when I realized he wasn't actually the mega evil terrorist I always thought, but what what could I do by then.
Throughout the game you will find decisions like this at every turn, from the relatively simple choice of whether or not to kill the enemies in a level, right the way through to much more important choices like which missions to take or which characters to kill (Yes you can kill your boss, but the guards will not let you get away with it so it's not the best idea while you're actually working for him). The simplest way for me to explain this is to liken it to the amount of freedom that you had in the classic space sim Elite, only with similar gameplay to the Thief series and all tied together by one of the best conspiracy plot lines ever to grace the world of video games.
That freedom comes at a cost though, namely that you can not possibly keep switching styles at will. You see Denton is an experimental agent who has been modified using a sort of nanobot technology that can be upgraded as you move through the game. So maybe at the start of the game you decide that a stealthy approach would be more fun than an action approach. In this case you would decide to upgrade your legs to enable more silent footsteps, but unfortunately this means that you have less points to spend on other things and so you'll need to use them on abilities that will compliment your silent footsteps. On the flip side of the coin are the action fans who would obviously choose to upgrade their strength and weapon handling abilities, but this would leave them making as much noise as a super soldier firing his rocket launcher at 3 guards in a room full of oil, which by coincidence is what was actually happening. That's the beauty of the game though, it literally appeals to all tastes and styles, from all out stealth to all out action and whatever middle ground you can think of, if that's what you want then that's what you get.
This then proves to introduce the gamer to further tactical decisions since Denton can hold only a very limited number of items. This is totally different to the approach of games like Resident Evil, where both a lock pick and a bazooka will take up the same amount of space in a characters back pocket, because in Deus Ex the size of an item dictates how much space it takes up. So if you were to upgrade your stealth abilities then there would be no point in placing a machine gun into your coat and hoping for the best since you could use same amount of space on a few lock picks, medi pacs; and a crowbar which works to both get you into the ventilation and as a very effective emergency weapon. Of course if you decided on the action approach and upgraded your strength then a lock pick would be pointless since small wooden doors present surprisingly little resistance against your big bad rocket launcher, it's all about the management.
Unfortunately as much as I love this game I do find some flaws. Now they are pretty major flaws that would ruin most games, it's just that with the sheer depth on offer in Deus Ex you become so completely absorbed into the gameplay that they fade away into minor gripes.
The worst is in the control system of the PC version. I usually find FPS games work better on a mouse and keyboard, but in this game I would have preferred the less sensitive joypad option because without the need for cat like reflexes I found the mouse too sensitive for easy aiming. However the keyboard still works because of the sheer number of buttons available for assigning each item its own individual button, something that keeps the game flowing much smoother than a joypad system could ever allow.
The other 2 problems though are merely the ravages of old age. As I said, the PS2 version of the game had the superior graphics and even that was not up to the standard of the average PS2 game of the time. Basically I'm trying to say that the graphics suck, there are too many glitches to do the seriously involving gameplay any justice. Background items see an almost insufferable amount of clipping, and character models are extremely blocky. Though none of that is really helped by the kind of robotic animations that stone age games were always known for.
Finally there's a problem with the games sound. Now let me set this straight, I am not complaining that the game sounds bad. It doesn't, it actually sounds excellent. Background noises, such as cats leaping into trash cans and doors slamming shut, are genuinely effective in setting up the mood of the game and the music is extremely atmospheric. It's just that the voice acting is poor, characters all sound extremely cool, particularly JC whose rough whisper brings back memories of a post Die Hard Bruce Willis, but there's never any emotion. You'd think that when a prostitute is thanking you for saving her from her pimp, while simultaneously warning you his friends will not be happy at the death, that she'd have a little gratitude or concern to her voice but instead she, and all characters, has this monotone drawl that quickly begins to grate.
However it's a testament to the games quality that you can ignore all of these faults and still find yourself unable to put the game down. You will become completely addicted with the game, so absorbed with it that you will forget to eat, sleep and wash in your efforts to discover the truth. Definitely a game that has remained unmatched until its sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War that I am currently loving my way through.
This has been my entry into rice75's Bargain Bin Writeoff.
Recommended:
Yes
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carl_lazarevic
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Member: Carl Lazarevic
Location: UK-(pure blood Brummie)
Reviews written: 228
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Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.
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