In 2013, when I was a grease faced teenager I walked into a used games store and found a copy of the original deus ex, priced at an absurd 95 cents (really). I thought "Hey, thats that really famous game thats supposed to be a classic" so I went ahead and bought it. I had just played Half Life 1 and really liked it, so I wasnt a stranger to games made before my time.
I think I got as far as the subway level. I let the terrorist leader live and listened to his spiel. I cant remember what made me drop it but I suspect it was getting blown up repeatedly in the subway.
Years passed and I revisited games that gave me trouble in the past, most of them I was able to break through with my hardened gamer tm skills, as I was wiser and older. Deus Ex however, was the exception. After playing through one of the worst tutorials ever designed by a human being I played through the statue of liberty and this time smoked the chubby man in the trench coat. I was scolded for it. I guess that reactivity is the big selling point? Im not particularly impressed. I lost interest and played something else.
I was still haunted by it, everyone sings the praises of this cyberpunk masterpiece; I knew I had to somehow break through and find the good stuff. This time prompted by the Hbomberguy essay on Deus Ex Human Revolution (which Ive played through twice) I gave it another shot. I didnt even make it through the tutorial, it is so unbelievably tedious and boring. "Just skip it" you say! Well this game has a lot of systems (stealth, combat, upgrades, rpg elements, augmentations etc). How the hell am I going to know what to do if I dont atleast know the basics?
Truly this has been the biggest monkey on my back. I dont know why of all the classics from this era this is the one I just cant get into. Its not the visuals, Ive played games that looked much worse. Its not that combat is discouraged, I got that pretty soon after discovering how to aim. I guess its just the general clunkiness and design philosophy from a time before more modern sensibilities. Idk, maybe Ill give it a fourth try (which is more than Ive ever given any game) but for now it will remain the monkey on my back.
So yeah, get it all out of the way Deus Ex fans : "Filtered", "Stupid zoomerbrain", "Soylent Green eater or whatever" etc but you are right, truly Deus Ex is too big brain for me, cause I just dont get it.
Edit : Alright. I gave it another shot without playing the tutorial and clearly that was the right choice, cause it sucks really hard. Anyways I actually made it to Hells Kitchen. Its weird cause the actual shooting/sneaking/hacking etc generally works fine (except for a bug where I couldnt switch weapons or put away my weapon) but there is a whole lot of Jank. I was impressed when I went into the Unatco womens toilet by accident and my boss commented on it. That being said jesus christ why is this game so dark? I cant see a fuckin thing and the bioelectric light makes the game drop frames. Even quake 2 had better dynamic lighting. I dont know if Ill finish the game but Ill definitely play more of it. If I cant warn newcomers then, my advice is to skip the dumbass tutorial and just figure it out by fucking around. The AI is braindead anyways, youll be able to mess up and not be totally fucked. Also this game has basically no autosave, so save often.
Final Edit : Okay. I finally finished all of Deus Ex. I actually really enjoyed it. The multiple ways of doing everything and level design achieves (for the most part) that sweet spot between not just being too obvious that you feel condescended to but not too obscure and stupid that you feel frustrated.
I did a very murder heavy run, cause I suck at stealth and unlike Dishonored im not aggressuvely punished for it. That being said I came close to quitting during that dumb superfreighter level, the lack of any autosave had me once redo a massive amount of progress cause I forgot to save, and at the end when I was already kind of tired of the Area 51 level and the game as a whole, I nocliped from the computer terminals to the Helios A.I so I could finish the game and I have 0 shame in that.
Anyways this game is actually really good but the earlier more open ended "real world" levels like Hong Kong, Hells Kitchen etc were a lot more enjoyable than the later corridor heavy facilities.
Even Finaler Edit : I am on my second playthrough. I just killed a child with the GEP Gun to get my soy food back. 10/10
I think I got as far as the subway level. I let the terrorist leader live and listened to his spiel. I cant remember what made me drop it but I suspect it was getting blown up repeatedly in the subway.
Years passed and I revisited games that gave me trouble in the past, most of them I was able to break through with my hardened gamer tm skills, as I was wiser and older. Deus Ex however, was the exception. After playing through one of the worst tutorials ever designed by a human being I played through the statue of liberty and this time smoked the chubby man in the trench coat. I was scolded for it. I guess that reactivity is the big selling point? Im not particularly impressed. I lost interest and played something else.
I was still haunted by it, everyone sings the praises of this cyberpunk masterpiece; I knew I had to somehow break through and find the good stuff. This time prompted by the Hbomberguy essay on Deus Ex Human Revolution (which Ive played through twice) I gave it another shot. I didnt even make it through the tutorial, it is so unbelievably tedious and boring. "Just skip it" you say! Well this game has a lot of systems (stealth, combat, upgrades, rpg elements, augmentations etc). How the hell am I going to know what to do if I dont atleast know the basics?
Truly this has been the biggest monkey on my back. I dont know why of all the classics from this era this is the one I just cant get into. Its not the visuals, Ive played games that looked much worse. Its not that combat is discouraged, I got that pretty soon after discovering how to aim. I guess its just the general clunkiness and design philosophy from a time before more modern sensibilities. Idk, maybe Ill give it a fourth try (which is more than Ive ever given any game) but for now it will remain the monkey on my back.
So yeah, get it all out of the way Deus Ex fans : "Filtered", "Stupid zoomerbrain", "Soylent Green eater or whatever" etc but you are right, truly Deus Ex is too big brain for me, cause I just dont get it.
Edit : Alright. I gave it another shot without playing the tutorial and clearly that was the right choice, cause it sucks really hard. Anyways I actually made it to Hells Kitchen. Its weird cause the actual shooting/sneaking/hacking etc generally works fine (except for a bug where I couldnt switch weapons or put away my weapon) but there is a whole lot of Jank. I was impressed when I went into the Unatco womens toilet by accident and my boss commented on it. That being said jesus christ why is this game so dark? I cant see a fuckin thing and the bioelectric light makes the game drop frames. Even quake 2 had better dynamic lighting. I dont know if Ill finish the game but Ill definitely play more of it. If I cant warn newcomers then, my advice is to skip the dumbass tutorial and just figure it out by fucking around. The AI is braindead anyways, youll be able to mess up and not be totally fucked. Also this game has basically no autosave, so save often.
Final Edit : Okay. I finally finished all of Deus Ex. I actually really enjoyed it. The multiple ways of doing everything and level design achieves (for the most part) that sweet spot between not just being too obvious that you feel condescended to but not too obscure and stupid that you feel frustrated.
I did a very murder heavy run, cause I suck at stealth and unlike Dishonored im not aggressuvely punished for it. That being said I came close to quitting during that dumb superfreighter level, the lack of any autosave had me once redo a massive amount of progress cause I forgot to save, and at the end when I was already kind of tired of the Area 51 level and the game as a whole, I nocliped from the computer terminals to the Helios A.I so I could finish the game and I have 0 shame in that.
Anyways this game is actually really good but the earlier more open ended "real world" levels like Hong Kong, Hells Kitchen etc were a lot more enjoyable than the later corridor heavy facilities.
Even Finaler Edit : I am on my second playthrough. I just killed a child with the GEP Gun to get my soy food back. 10/10
3 Comments
Thanks man, Ill give it a try
I still haven't played this. I got into the games with Human Revolution which kinda blew me away. I bought this fairly recently in a deep steam sale so look forward to finally trying it.
snak
1 year ago
You want to get a custom renderer, either D3D9/OpenGL from here https://www.cwdohnal.com/utglr/ or D3D10 from here https://kentie.net/article/d3d10drv/
That being said, almost every one of them has some issues with gamma settings, a lot of the time the game just ignores the settings if you're playing on windowed or borderless fullscreen (exclusive to the Deus Exe launcher).