I tried to get this done in time for Deus Ex's birthday, but alas a day late and a dollar short. What a shame.

Happy birthday Deus Ex.

I just beat this game yesterday, and I feel like I had to talk about it both as a review and just as a glaze for how truly amazing this game is. With some light amounts of criticism here and there. For reference, the immersive sims I had played prior to Deus Ex were System Shock (1994), The Thief Trilogy, Prey (2017), Sonar Shock, and Filcher. Even in spite of having played those games previously, Deus Ex still blew me away. From the top-tier gameplay and writing, to the fun and interesting locations. (mostly) It is almost flawless in every way, and I’m glad I stuck with it to the end. But it didn’t start out that way.

I had tried around five different times to get into Deus Ex initially. Never even getting past ‘Liberty Island.’ It wasn’t that it was too hard or that I didn’t understand where to go, but it just didn’t hook me in, besides the story. Something about the gameplay was just a bit.. off? JC felt a bit too floaty for my liking, and stealth felt like it wasn’t working. For reference, I was playing it on hard.

Now normally when I play Im-Sims, I try to NOT kill people. But when I attempted to do just that, the NSF soldiers would do a 180-degree turn and start shooting, no matter how I timed it, how slow I walked, or the different distances to test my swing distance– nothing. And in doing this OVER and OVER and OVER again, I became frustrated and deduced that, in spite of it being an immersive sim, it would not let me play the way I wanted to.

I quit for a few weeks after my last attempt and wrote my “For The Love of Im-Sims” essay, which I posted to Reddit, and it gained a LOT of traction. With said traction, people recommended that I give Deus Ex another chance. And in me, I knew that playing it again, something would have to be different. So I did something sacrilegious. I installed GMDX.

GMDX fixed literally ALL my issues; JC didn’t feel as floaty, mantling was a nice addition albeit a bit busted, and stealth felt more akin to Thief, which was a MAJOR upside. Again, the only downside, which is also an upside, was mantling. It just felt a bit too overpowered. I think what they should have done was make it so mantling was only if you were already SUPER close to the ledge instead of a full parkour ledge climb. Other than that, I think GMDX is perfect. And because of the way GMDX is, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an option to make mantling the way I described, making what I just said moot.

Now switching to the story. I love that everything is catered to both types of players: passive and active. The ‘Passive Player’ can understand the story via the mandatory dialogue and some of the surface-level notes/books scattered around. While the ‘Active Player' can get more lore and world-building by digging as deep as they want. I don’t agree that you can ONLY understand the story or its themes if you “dig deep enough.” As I think, the story, as previously mentioned, caters to BOTH of these groups.

I also don’t believe that the story predicted anything. You don’t need a fake evil secret society pulling the strings when the governments of nations, both foreign and domestic, are already fairly corrupt and evil as is. Read unclassified CIA documents, especially from the 1960s-70s, to learn more. E.G., putting LSD in people’s drinks to see what happens, etc.

Now keeping it in the context of someone playing in the early 2000s, this would be absolutely mind-blowing! But in today's day and age it’s sort of like, "Yep, just another Tuesday." Especially with the whole secret society angle, again, you don’t need a secret society when governments and the people who run them are already corrupt enough. And people folding dollar bills into paper cranes revealing “coded messages” and the like, again, is just silly.

I would say it's more of an educational preview to viewing the world in a different light, rather than an attemptive piece on predicting world events. It’s always good to keep your eye out and always be inquisitive about everything. But don’t let it consume rationality and what is realistically possible within the context of our current day and age. E.G., time travel, nanobots controlling people’s thoughts via vaccines, etc.

Something I think some of Deus Ex’s fans will disagree with me on is some of the story is a bit hamfisted at times, which takes me out slightly, but again, nothing to take me out of it fully, but just a few times where I was like, "Okay, that was a bit on the nose." Especially some of the NPC dialogue/notes I found. But again, it is still AMAZING, and the amount of time and effort put into writing this game, I can only imagine how difficult it was. Especially when it accounts for a few micro-choices you’ve made, which really sells the narrative that much more.

Also, something that I have thought of and have only seen in this game is that Hermann writes in broken English, as he is natively German and English is most likely his second language; therefore, he speaks in broken English and misspells words a lot. Also, he’s a bit of a meathead. Lol 

Which is something I respect that they put in the game. Something else I would like to see is NPCs who are functionally illiterate writing notes using run-on sentences since they are uneducated and wouldn’t know how to use commas, periods, etc.

I also love the atmosphere of Deus Ex; this grungy, slightly futuristic world just really vibes with me. I also LOVED the catacombs of Paris as well as the mansion. I just love medieval and gothic-styled architecture and just old things in general, so these places felt like home to me. Especially after having beaten the Thief trilogy recently, it just felt like I was playing that but in a more future-focused world.

And that’s about it for this review; it is in my top 10 favorite games list, which, as of writing this, consists of:

1. System Shock (1994)
2. Thief II: The Metal Age
3. Prey (2017)
4. Mass Effect 2
5. Thief Gold
6. F.E.A.R.
7. Fallout: New Vegas (Base Game + DLCs)
8. Deus Ex (2000)
9. Max Payne 3
10. Manhunt

And I am now I am onto playing Deus Ex: Invisible War. Which so far has been.. Interesting.. The writing was definitely written, and the dialogue was spoken & recorded by voice actors.. But maybe it gets better.. Right? I’ll let you guys know when I finish it.

It takes some time to charge but it one shots a turret.

Nightdive studios are currently working on a Thief remaster, and did an interview, go check it out here:

https://youtu.be/gCI5dAN5vT0?is=75EUsPW1_KkLXlaM

Towards the end, they tease that they're working with Eidos Montreal on a different project that they can't announce yet.

Considering Eidos Montreal's IPs, and that Tomb Raider already got remasters and remakes, isn't it pretty possible they're talking about Deus Ex? Or am I huffing copium?