Deus Ex: 20 years of a cyberpunk classic

[Stormwatch]

— This plague — the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.
— Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches. Let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end, they'll beg us to save them.



IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY

On June 17, 2000, Deus Ex was released. It was a first-person action-RPG with a cyberpunk theme, revolutionary gameplay, and absolutely brilliant writing.

The year is 2052. The world is in crisis due to a devastating disease called gray death. The only treatment is the ambrosia vaccine. Due to its extremely limited availability, its distribution is handled by UNATCO, the United Nations' anti-terror division. But a shipment is stolen by the rebel group NSF - and this turns out to be a good opportunity to test out their new nano-augmented agent, JC Denton. Thus begins a journey in which you will discover not only the origin of the plague, but also a secular conspiracy of global political control. And in the world of Deus Ex, all conspiracy theories have some truth behind them.

THE ORIGINS

To understand Deus Ex, we must look at its roots. Its producer, Warren Spector, had worked on Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Cybermage: Darklight Awakening, and Thief: The Dark Project. And its designer, Harvey Smith, had worked on System Shock, Cybermage: Darklight Awakening, and BioForge. In all of these games, it is possible to see elements that would return in Deus Ex. Especially the design philosophy that Spector called "immersive simulation": systems that provide great freedom for the player to explore and accomplish his goals by different methods.

Thus, in Deus Ex, there are always multiple paths. For example, right on the first map, you can deal with the terrorists as a normal FPS using the pistol; eliminate the threat from afar with the sniper rifle; destroy a security robot with grenades; hack the turrets so they do the job; or rescue the captured agent so that he can help in the fight; or make some noise and lure enemies to where your security robot is patrolling. But you can also risk a non-lethal style with a tranquilizer dart gun, or advance in the shadows and sneak through tunnels to hit the enemies from behind ... or avoid them altogether.

In addition to the gameplay and the writing, Deus Ex does not disappoint in graphics, using the then very advanced Unreal Engine 1 quite well. And the same composers of Unreal provide an impeccable soundtrack.

PLAYING TODAY

Deus Ex is still a magnificent experience, and it is on sale all the time (right now it's less than a buck on GOG, go get it). In addition, there are collections of mods to "modernize" the game. The most famous are GMDX (which improves the game a lot with a subtle graphic polish) and Deus Ex: Revision (which is more radical and notably changes the layout of several environments).

THE SERIES

The sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, came out in 2003. However, it was not so well received. Made primarily for the Xbox instead of the PC, this game was praised for having good gameplay and an interesting narrative, but it was also criticized for having much smaller environments and framerate problems due to the limitations of the console, for the completely different interface clearly designed for gamepads, and bugs due to its rushed development.

Another planned sequel ended up dropping the name of the series, coming out in 2005 as Project Snowblind. Other attempts to create a "Deus Ex 3" just did not pan out.

Time passes, acquisition comes, acquisition goes, and the rights ended up in the hands of Square Enix, which finally released Deus Ex: Human Revolution in 2011. Rather than a sequel, it was a prequel, taking place 25 years before the original game. It was a tremendous success - although fans of the original Deus Ex will point out that the gameplay is simplified, and the writing is much inferior, even contradicting elements of the first game. Then came the sequel to that one, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which did not fare so well due to Square Enix's greed in exploiting the content locked in DLCs. There is also a spin-off, Deus Ex: The Fall, which was mostly ignored because it was primarily a mobile game.

[Marc]

Ah, the memories. My PC at the time wouldn't run this at a frame rate above single figures, so I ended up buying a PS2 to play it. Even that version with its simplified geometry and clunky menu screens, was an absolutely unforgettable experience, the likes of which I've very rarely experienced since. Threw a three-day sickie to play it beginning to end in one sitting. Upgraded the PC and did it all over again and was as enthralled the second time around.

I then bought an Xbox to play IW and enjoyed it almost as much if I'm honest. The smaller areas were a huge let-down, but there were still some great emergent moments of gameplay underneath. I should replay it someday.

Thought MD was brilliant and almost lived up to the original, but something about IW didn't grab me in the same way. The open-world thing maybe? I don't remember much in the way of actual 'stages' in that game, whereas even in the original, all the areas were their own self-contained playground. On the list of games I'd like to replay sometime, but probably never will.

A Deus Ex remake would sell one of the new consoles to me in a heartbeat, it was that good.

[ZellSF]

Ah, the memories. My PC at the time wouldn't run this at a frame rate above single figures, so I ended up buying a PS2 to play it.

It's one of the games that makes me really happy I'm not one of the people insisting on playing old games on period accurate hardware. I would rather have 4k@120FPS with 8xMSAA and 16xAF.

I like Deus Ex, but I hate the save scumming part of it. Headshots can be instantkill even on easy mode, so unless you're playing stealthy the entire game you have to rely on constant saves. Which sucks because when I replay other games like it (Prey, System Shock 2) I go for ironman runs.

That's not a problem in the PS2 version, but of course that version has plenty of other issues.

[drauch]

Still waiting for that dance...

[Marc]

Ah, the memories. My PC at the time wouldn't run this at a frame rate above single figures, so I ended up buying a PS2 to play it.

It's one of the games that makes me really happy I'm not one of the people insisting on playing old games on period accurate hardware. I would rather have 4k@120FPS with 8xMSAA and 16xAF.

I like Deus Ex, but I hate the save scumming part of it. Headshots can be instantkill even on easy mode, so unless you're playing stealthy the entire game you have to rely on constant saves. Which sucks because when I replay other games like it (Prey, System Shock 2) I go for ironman runs.

That's not a problem in the PS2 version, but of course that version has plenty of other issues.

Odd, I genuinely don't remember that from my last play through, and I usually have a very low tolerance for crap like that.
I think I still have a GOG account, might be time to pick up a cheapo laptop for this and some other period classics, either than or just buy the PS2 version.

[Mortificator]

I didn't actually finish it... Made it up to Hong Kong, drifted away from the game, and never got back to it.

I seem to recall going through multiple reloads to save JC's brother, maybe that contributed to burnout.

[Stormwatch]

I seem to recall going through multiple reloads to save JC's brother, maybe that contributed to burnout.

After you two are done fighting the cops, absolutely do NOT leave the hotel through the window. The game counts that as you running away from the fight so he dies.

[To Far Away Times]

The game gets into it's groove after the first few levels. It's dated as all hell but its admirable in what it sets out to do. The level design and open ended structure are definitely the selling points and it works for the most part. Deus Ex in some ways felt dated even when it came out, and I do think ultimately, with this being an early 3D game, it is a little hard to go back to. In particular the animation is not very good and can be pretty distracting.

If you like this game, it's worth checking out Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines as it is built off the groundwork laid by Deus Ex but was built after the early 3D phase so I think it holds up a lot better.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I found Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, narratively, strikingly reminiscent of Deus Ex, whereas I suppose both games had origins in about the same time. While somewhat lower-tech than Deus Ex (which at least displays pretty high resolutions out of the box), it's one of the mouse-and-keyboard gaming's little marvels.
About Deus Ex, I don't think so much of its writing as I think of its voice acting. Think Max Payne - this kind of lines delivered DEAD SERIOUSLY, yay.

Deus Ex in some ways felt dated even when it came out, and I do think ultimately, with this being an early 3D game, it is a little hard to go back to.

I've a problem with the above "early 3D" classification, considering how state-of-the-art first Unreal Engine was... two years before Deus Ex, admittedly, but still - to me, first unreal and QIII engines are not "early 3D" to me. Not these days anyway, when nothing special is required to play them with hardware 3D acceleration at good framerates. I mean - first Quake, Moto Racer, even Quake II - those are "early 3D", home computer-wise, to me. Deus Ex, or Thief: The Dark Project are just another gen, technologically. Plain Jane looks of Deus Ex is artistic deficiency rather than old tech (surely happens all the time to this very gen, with recent technologies).

See how good Anachronox looks in places, released LATER in the day, using even EARLIER engine - that's artistry for ya. (Pretty good 3D sound hardware acceleration too, unfortunately disabled in fan-patched version, for shame as the original version is otherwise very glitchy.)



Also, it's worth remembering that hardware-accelerated games can be played with forced anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing, even if those are not featuring in games' internal settings. Unreal Tournament, externally lollied like that, is quite easy on the eye still. Although older accelerated games, like Darkstone, look better to me with DISABLED texture filtering (while forced antialiasing glithes up the font, so that's no good either).