LogFAQs > #951537158

#3 Deus Ex (Microsoft Windows, 2000)

I am fascinated by conspiracy theories. I love reading about them, and learning how and why they came to be. Not a believer or supporter, but it's a wacky side of the world that I enjoy following. Deus Ex is a game that imagines what the future would be like if all the conspiracy theories were true.



This first-person RPG set in the year 2052, in a world that is being ravaged by a deadly pandemic. A vaccine is in short supply and provided only to the rich and powerful, which has given rise to terrorist groups attempting to steal it. JC Denton, the player character, is an operative of UNATCO, a UN anti-terrorist organization. He is one of the first people in the world to be augmented with nanomachines, which give him superhuman abilities. This system of augmentations is one of the bases for the game's character progression, the other being skill points that can be allocated to areas such as weapon accuracy or hacking. JC starts out very limited in the beginning, and has trouble dealing with the most basic of enemies, but is able to grow very formidable by the end of the game.



The game is rich in story, with a variety of characters to interact with, sidequests to undertake, and secrets to find. It's presented semi-linearly through a series of areas; some areas are connected together and visited many times, while others are seen only for a single mission. I call the game an RPG, and that is what it is first and foremost, but much of the combat is handled through first-person shooting. You can also opt for melee weapons, if that is more your style, or much of the time combat can be avoided altogether. Deus Ex was innovative in that it was purposefully designed to accommodate many different styles of play, and the open-ended levels encourage exploration and strategy in planning your approach. You could stealthily infiltrate a building, hacking the security to attack your enemies. Or, enter through the front entrance, guns blazing. Countless games have done this since then, I know, but Deus Ex was a pioneer here and it really impressed me when I first experienced it.



Each part of JC's body can be upgraded with nanomachines, and with each initial upgrade, there is an irreversible decision to be made between two abilities. For example, you can upgrade the legs to give either extra running speed, or silent running. The speed will help in combat, but the silence might help you skip combat situation altogether. An upgrade could make JC invisible to the naked eye, or the other choice would make him invisible to cameras and electronics. In some cases, the choices aren't perfectly balanced, but by and large you can choose the pieces that specialize in your preferred style of play. Alternatively, you can mix and match to be more well-rounded.

Deus Ex goes a lot of places. The first act is confined to locales in and around UNATCO headquarters in New York City, but as JC finds himself involved in global conspiracies, he begins visiting cities all over the world, each rendered in blocky low-res late-90s glory. The game touches on all sorts of crazy conspiracies, including aliens, the Illuminati, one world government, man-made disease, vaccines, and Area 51. Given certain recent events, a lot of Deus Ex feels relevant today, which is kind of incredible for a 20-year old game.



JC Denton is a strange character. His voice actor was instructed to give an emotionless, deadpan delivery, and yet the character is written to wisecrack constantly. The result is a kind of dissonance that is unique to this game. It's kind of goofy, and bad, but also quite endearing.

The game does not hold up perfectly now. As noted, other games have taken the concepts that Deus Ex introduced and improved on them. The voice acting was not even that good for its time, and now is pretty laughable. The graphics have also aged quite poorly, even with numerous and impressive mods that do a decent job of helping in that respect. But I have incredible nostalgia for this game, and I am in love with its premise and characters, as cheesy as they can often be. I do acknowledge that it was kind of a hard game to get into in 2000, and much more so now. But this is my list, and it was very hard to find even two games that I love more than I love Deus Ex.

Deus Ex also is responsible for some of the best memes and stupid stuff out there on the internet. An all-time favorite of mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmOCsiZgAbg

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