Deus Ex Game Review

In such a crowded genre, First person shooters are one of the most competitive genres in modern gaming. In a genre that is usually so simple as run here, shoot that, collect this, run to next place it is imperative to modern games to have a good deal of variety in weapons, locations, enemies and in some cases, objectives.

Deus Ex has all of this and in quite a turn around from most FPS', has a decent story to boot, so much in fact that with the upgrades, which will be explained later, this is actually an FPS-RPG cross. The plot has quite a few twists and turns in it so to comment on the story would essentially give it away. You play JC Denton, an agent fresh from the academy and now a UNATCO (United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition) agent in the future. You are also special as you are the 2nd operative to be given "Augmentations" along with JC's brother, Paul (more on augmentations later). You have the option of training before jumping into the game proper, I STRONGLY advise doing this. This may be a FPS-RPG cross, but the RPG elements strongly affect your abilities, not to mention that the control system is rather unusual (R3 is actually the reload button) as is the inventory system (you carry med packs and have to use them using the inventory unlike most fps games that simply use them as you pick them up).

After the training mission you can start the game proper, you are give 5000 points in which to tailor your agent how you want. You are given various skills in which these points can be spent. Do you opt for the silent option and go for swimming, lock picking and low-tech weapons skills? or do you opt for the "Arnie" approach and upgrade your demolition and heavy weapons skills? This game is about choice and while the beginning mission can be rather hard if you don't know what you are doing, it gets easier as you progress and upgrade your skills. Each objective you complete will earn you additional skill points to which you can spend on your upgrades, each upgrade having 4 levels and affecting various factors, for example heavy weapons at its starting level allows you to use heavy weapons such as rocket launchers, but they seriously slow you down in the process as well as not being too accurate with them and the reload time is enough for them to run at you from 300 yards and stab you in the face, level 4 however allows normal movement with heavy weapons, you gain exceptional accuracy and the reload time becomes very short even by rocket launcher standards. Amongst these personal upgrades you can pick up various upgrade Modules for your guns, these come in the shape of giving the gun a bigger clip, a scope and even a silencer. However only certain ones can be attached to certain weapons (a silencer cannot be attached to a rocket launcher but can be attached to a sniper rifle giving you a long distance stealth advantage) and these can be quite rare so you are forced to make decisions.

Something else that sets this apart from other FPS' is that when in key conversations you have a variety of options you can choose from, that can not only give you side quests and additional missions, but can also alter how characters feel about you that can even make them become friends or enemies.

Also this game gives you special abilities that are your "augmentations". These are abilities that give you various strengths. You start off with your light augmentation which is very useful in dark places. You can obtain additional augmentations via augmentation canisters, and in a difference from the pc version, you can acquire an ability anytime you like, so long as you have the canister. When you have decided you want a new ability and use the canister you can take one of the abilities that the canister holds that will become permanent and irreplaceable. You usually get two fairly similar abilities (the leg abilities are a good example of this, Run silent which when activated allows you you to create less sound when walking up to enemies, perfect for stealth kills, or the speed enhancement, which allows you to run away from enemies faster and jump higher than normal when activated but creates a lot more noise) and each part of you body has only one slot (except for you torso which has three). The body part the ability goes in is predetermined by the canister.

As you have probably noticed I keep saying that the ability has to be 'activated'. The game makers have made a good decision in making the augmentations consume "bio-energy" and the more advanced and useful an ability, the more bio-energy it consumes for example the light ability lasts a long time and you would have to have it on forever for your bio-energy to run out where as speed enhancement can only be used for about 3 minutes before it runs out, or the absolutely brutal consumption of the cloak ability which can only be used for up to 30 seconds without your bio-energy draining to empty even when it was full.
Luckily there are two ways of recharging your energy, you can pick up 'bio-cells' that recharge 25 points of your bio energy, or you can find repair robots which fully recharge your bio-energy but need to recharge for a length of time before they can be used again. The augmentations themselves can be upgraded to not only enhance their effects and sometimes give additional abilities to the standard modes but the higher the level of augmentation, the more energy efficient it becomes.

The inventory system is very well done and is a vast improvement over its pc counterpart, you can carry a maximum of four firearms and a lot of other items (up to 20 med kits among other things). The decision of four firearms was genius. This forces you to consider which weapons to take, whilst giving you enough of a varied arsenal so that you have a firearm for all situations. It is also very easy to use which will no doubt please fans of the PC original.

Onto how the gameplay handles. The guns have been reasonably well made and each one is distinctive in its own right and some have additional ammo types that can be either quite useful or if you want to have a laugh. Movement has been tailored well and the pace of the game is basically your choice. This games allows you to take a stealthy option and a guns blazing option or a mix of the two. You are never confined to one way of playing. The only possible confinement is if you personally make it that way through your skill points distribution and weapons load. The accuracy of the guns are judged by your skill level with that weapon type, (the higher it is, the better you aim) accuracy modifications on that weapon, your stance (crouching is better than standing) and whether you are moving or not (if you move slowly your aim worsens, if you move quickly with a weapon that you haven't got a good skill level with, you won't be able to hit a barn door with a bazooka). That being said the shooting approach has been handled well and its very satisfying to have blasted your way through a guard filled corridor or room. You can also save anywhere, meaning that if your antics go slightly awry, you can just load a previous save from just before it happened. No more 'back to the start of the level' shenanigans on this game.

The stealthy approach can be quite fun but it is also ultimately one of the things that let the game down. In this game close combat weapons are better for silent kills than even silent firearms, even better if they are none lethal. However to get silent kills with these weapons you have to sneak up behind a guard so that he doesn't notice you are there, and because the guards can hear you, you have to crouch unless you have level 4 silent run augmentation turned on. This can present a bit of a problem as can the guards positions. The last thing you need is a shotgun wielding guard to turn round to notice you are less than two feet away so that he can give you a buckshot sandwich that you won't forget in a hurry. Another problem with the stealth approach is highlighted when you used silent firearms (especially with a silence mod on the sniper rifle). If you aim at a targets head, it can be entirely random if he dies or if he runs around looking for cover or the nearest alarm. If you shoot someone in the head they should drop like a sack of spuds! Not decide to run off and alert half of the place. This is a very frustrating part of the game and although they are some bugs with it, it is also has the best stealth system in first person shooters (No One Lives Forever was absolutely abysmal when it came to the sneaking missions, so much that it nearly became a Frisbee). The use of lighting and shadows can determine how easily you can be spotted, not to mention the distance and amount of sound you make, and although it is almost impossible to sneak past some places (there's an instance in the first level with two guards talking to each other) for the most part you can do a stealthy approach to the games levels.

Now to the graphics. For a PC game that came out ages ago and was remade as a PS2 title, the graphics hold up surprisingly well, the detail on the faces for a first person shooter is impressive as is the variety of the enemies. The one thing that does let the graphics down is the textures, some seem bland and for the most part its a copy and paste job. However with that being said you will very rarely notice as you will usually have so much on your mind and to do that you probably won't bother about it.

The sound of this game is superb and really gets you in the mood. The music amps up when you get into a fight and dies down again afterwards. The music also fits the future setting of the game very well. The voice acting is superb, there are some accents with a couple of characters, and although usually in games they are ridiculously over the top, these add to the personality of the characters, Gunther Hermann for example, has a German accent but when you consider he has mechanical augmentations, half of his body is steel, has an admittedly German sounding name and is usually the type that's 'shoot first shoot later', it only reinforces his personality.

The lifespan of this game is great, thanks largely to the multiple paths and sub-missions that you can take. This means that depending on how you played the first time through, if you play a different way you might discover whole new areas or ways around problems that you didn't realise in the first place. Multiplayer was not put in because I suspect that the PS2 version wanted to focus on being a brilliant single player FPS. Also the lack of firearms makes it almost impossible to have a good shootout (there are only about 9 firearms in the entire game) so I suspect that they decided it was a good idea to leave it out.

On another note, there is one more gripe that I have with the PS2 version and that is the amount of loading times. Although I did expect quite a few in a game of this scale I never expected it to be so swamped with loading points. The first level must have in the region of 7 or 8 loading points and it is like that all the way through. Although for a game of its size you can forgive the amount of points as well as the fact that the save anywhere option means that you won't be going through all of them for a second time in the same level.

Overall this is a game of amazing scope, replayability and fun. Deus Ex provides a world that once you are sucked into, you may lose months of your life to. Despite its downfalls it really is a great game. It isn't a classic, but its not far off. If you are in need of a FPS that requires you to use your head then I highly recommend this. For those who are fans of FPS' this is a solid FPS with enough variety to keep you going, just don't expect to wander through without engaging your brain.

Gameplay 9

Explanation: Great for the most part, only the stealth and headshot niggles keep it away from being a full 10

Graphics 9

Explanation: Variety in enemies, locations and good graphic detail for the most part but the backgrounds can look dated. Still surprisingly good for a game made a good 5 or 6 years ago (or even more) that was originally a pc title.

Sound 10

Explanation: Great voice acting, Good music to put you into the mood and the guns sound great too.

Lifespan 9

Explanation: The game world is vast with multiple paths, taking a strictly stealthy route can frustrate as can the amount of loading times. Also no multiplayer but its better that way.

Influence: +3

FPS' are probably one of my favourite type of genres, however some FPS' get ridiculously hard at the end or a have samey platforming puzzles or try to have a mismatch of gaming styles. FPS' are generally good games but there is the odd bad egg.

Overall 9

Explanation: Almost achieved classic status. If it wasn't for the little niggles this would have been quite possibly one of the best FPS ever made. However it still means that this is an exceptional game in its own right.