The first time that I had heard of the Deus Ex series was through the middling reviews of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided that were being written around the time that game first came out, and while I had no interest in playing that game (or most of the games in the series, for that matter), the amount of praise that went towards the very first game in the series made me curious about eventually giving it a shot. As my tastes in games began to form with age and my love for Western RPGs began to blossom, Deus Ex ended up being one of those games that I wanted to play as soon as I possibly could, and because playing video games on a Mac is an absolute nightmare, it ended up being easier for me to emulate the PS2 port of this game than it was to actually play the original release due to the former option having significantly less hoops I'd need to go through just to get the game to work. Despite me playing it on a technically worse version of the game than around 99% of the population, Deus Ex was able to blow me away in every aspect, and I knew that this deserved its status as one of the best games ever made long before I was finished with it.
One problem that a lot of WRPGs face is that the gameplay ends up being a lot less interesting than the story or characters, but that thankfully isn't the case here at all. Deus Ex is an absolute blast to play thanks to how much freedom of choice the game gives you right from the very beginning, and your options only increase as the game goes on. The sheer amount of vents to crawl through, systems to hack into, and people to talk to in each of the game's 13 missions end up making Deus Ex feel like it's constantly rewarding your curiosity, and having all of the game's interactable elements work alongside each other (i.e. helping a character out so that they can give you useful information or avoiding confrontation by climbing through some vents that you reached by building a stack of boxes) makes exploration feel natural. The dystopian cyberpunk setting was another aspect of why each level was so engaging to traverse, as seeing the grimy, moody, and hellish depictions of New York, Hong Kong, and Paris (as well as the amazing and eclectic music that they were paired with) not only made me want to see what these areas had in store for me, but also what was going on behind the scenes. Deus Ex is a stealth game at its heart (and an immensely fun one at that), but it gives you the tools to really carve out your build and play any way you want, as the limited nano-augmentations, weapon modifications, and skill points always made me careful about choosing what to upgrade and how to take advantage of my new abilities with my current roster of weapons.
From a gameplay standpoint, Deus Ex was already an absolute knockout that was designed in such a way where no two people's playthroughs are the same, but this game also features some of the most enthralling, fascinating, and thought-provoking writing I have ever experienced in a video game. Before the game even starts laying its twists and turns on you, Deus Ex gives you a sense of how bad the world's gotten through the propagandistic newspapers and terminals that are scattered around the levels, and even with the answers that the characters and various organizations give you throughout your playthrough, the atmosphere of mystery and secrecy still manages to linger all the way to the end. The game strikes an excellent balance between riveting gameplay and philosophical food for thought, and it ends up posing a lot of interesting questions regarding morality, politics, capitalism, and human nature whose answers are still being debated by fans to this day. By the time the credits of Deus Ex rolled, I had a giant smile on my face, because while I was admittedly a bit let down that I wasn't able to play the original PC version of the game, I'm still glad that I got to experience what is easily one of the very best games of all time.
One problem that a lot of WRPGs face is that the gameplay ends up being a lot less interesting than the story or characters, but that thankfully isn't the case here at all. Deus Ex is an absolute blast to play thanks to how much freedom of choice the game gives you right from the very beginning, and your options only increase as the game goes on. The sheer amount of vents to crawl through, systems to hack into, and people to talk to in each of the game's 13 missions end up making Deus Ex feel like it's constantly rewarding your curiosity, and having all of the game's interactable elements work alongside each other (i.e. helping a character out so that they can give you useful information or avoiding confrontation by climbing through some vents that you reached by building a stack of boxes) makes exploration feel natural. The dystopian cyberpunk setting was another aspect of why each level was so engaging to traverse, as seeing the grimy, moody, and hellish depictions of New York, Hong Kong, and Paris (as well as the amazing and eclectic music that they were paired with) not only made me want to see what these areas had in store for me, but also what was going on behind the scenes. Deus Ex is a stealth game at its heart (and an immensely fun one at that), but it gives you the tools to really carve out your build and play any way you want, as the limited nano-augmentations, weapon modifications, and skill points always made me careful about choosing what to upgrade and how to take advantage of my new abilities with my current roster of weapons.
From a gameplay standpoint, Deus Ex was already an absolute knockout that was designed in such a way where no two people's playthroughs are the same, but this game also features some of the most enthralling, fascinating, and thought-provoking writing I have ever experienced in a video game. Before the game even starts laying its twists and turns on you, Deus Ex gives you a sense of how bad the world's gotten through the propagandistic newspapers and terminals that are scattered around the levels, and even with the answers that the characters and various organizations give you throughout your playthrough, the atmosphere of mystery and secrecy still manages to linger all the way to the end. The game strikes an excellent balance between riveting gameplay and philosophical food for thought, and it ends up posing a lot of interesting questions regarding morality, politics, capitalism, and human nature whose answers are still being debated by fans to this day. By the time the credits of Deus Ex rolled, I had a giant smile on my face, because while I was admittedly a bit let down that I wasn't able to play the original PC version of the game, I'm still glad that I got to experience what is easily one of the very best games of all time.