Definitely a game that started showing it's age a while ago, especially visually, both in a graphical sense and in a clarity sense, but it would be quite unfair to judge it based on this, as it's still a cut above a lot games that were released at the time.
Deus Ex is an immersive sim in the same vein as Thief or System Shock, all of which are structured into distinct levels and have a focus on offering the player a number of different solutions to obstacles presented throughout. A large part of where this game shines is just how well it does this, often you'll see a number of different paths available to get through any section of Deus Ex, encouraging exploration and experimentation. While you could lockpick a door, you could also hack a nearby power generator to find a key, or you could've found a code earlier that lets you bypass both of those options. This process is similarly applicable to combat throughout the game, absent is the focus on stealth from future Deus Ex games, so there is always the binary choice of approaching quietly or loudly and then further how you want to go about doing either. It's this freedom of approach that both makes the game replayable and allows for agency in how you skill JC without feeling locked out of any content or considerably weaker than if you had spec'd into other things.
Though often referred to as an RPG, the connection is tenuous at best, very little Role Playing is done throughout, having more in common with a title like Cruelty Squad than any actual modern RPGs. The closest thing is the skill system which more exists just to feed into the ImSim elements of the game than do anything by itself, and there is very little in how you play that affects the story outside of some small acknowledgments very early in.
That's not to diminish the writing here though, what's on offer is phenomenal, leaning heavily into conspiracies prevalent at the time, Deus Ex does an incredible job world building, both through it's environments and the story, and has an extremely strong narrative to go along with it.
Overall, Deus Ex was an incredibly enjoyable experience, and very impressive from both a game-design and story-telling perspective. Though maybe not as ground breaking as when it was first released, it still holds up unreasonably well for a 24 year old game.
However, I was promised you could fly when it was raining if you maxed out swimming and then was sorely disappointed to find out I had been gibed so it's basically unplayable.
Deus Ex is an immersive sim in the same vein as Thief or System Shock, all of which are structured into distinct levels and have a focus on offering the player a number of different solutions to obstacles presented throughout. A large part of where this game shines is just how well it does this, often you'll see a number of different paths available to get through any section of Deus Ex, encouraging exploration and experimentation. While you could lockpick a door, you could also hack a nearby power generator to find a key, or you could've found a code earlier that lets you bypass both of those options. This process is similarly applicable to combat throughout the game, absent is the focus on stealth from future Deus Ex games, so there is always the binary choice of approaching quietly or loudly and then further how you want to go about doing either. It's this freedom of approach that both makes the game replayable and allows for agency in how you skill JC without feeling locked out of any content or considerably weaker than if you had spec'd into other things.
Though often referred to as an RPG, the connection is tenuous at best, very little Role Playing is done throughout, having more in common with a title like Cruelty Squad than any actual modern RPGs. The closest thing is the skill system which more exists just to feed into the ImSim elements of the game than do anything by itself, and there is very little in how you play that affects the story outside of some small acknowledgments very early in.
That's not to diminish the writing here though, what's on offer is phenomenal, leaning heavily into conspiracies prevalent at the time, Deus Ex does an incredible job world building, both through it's environments and the story, and has an extremely strong narrative to go along with it.
Overall, Deus Ex was an incredibly enjoyable experience, and very impressive from both a game-design and story-telling perspective. Though maybe not as ground breaking as when it was first released, it still holds up unreasonably well for a 24 year old game.
However, I was promised you could fly when it was raining if you maxed out swimming and then was sorely disappointed to find out I had been gibed so it's basically unplayable.
Sslar
2 months ago