Deus Ex was a lucky accident.
It was from a company that- let's face it- wasn't very good.
Ion Storm were ambitious and imaginative and some of their games sold for those reasons
alone, but underneath the surface they were a buggy mess that had been rushed out of the
door years before they should have been.
But then there's Deus Ex, a game that has no equal.
A game with a thousand mini-games and gameplay elements that SOME HOW, against all of the
odds, work together in harmony.
It feels like there are forces going on behind the scenes that you're powerless to intervene
with.
It's as though the world is alive and that the developers have always thought one step
ahead of you, teasing you with difficult decisions.
Sometimes you don't even know that you have one to make.
Yep, Ion Storm's titles had a way of making YOU feel stupid.
It's kind of hard to explain but it's as though they were designed in an alternate reality
where everything's slightly different.
It's almost as though they skip certain tutorials or assume that the player knows something
when they simply don't.
Deus Ex makes you feel as though you're at fault.
It drops you in the deep end.
The tutorial becomes a level in its own right, briskly sweeping you through the game's main
game play mechanics.
I'll be damned if I can remember all of that the first time I play it!
And I think that's the beauty of Deus Ex.
You are a fumbling disaster, jumping between play-styles, clinging to everything you know
how to use, trying to solve puzzles with only half the pieces you're meant to have, yet
ultimately solving it with stuff you weren't supposed to use.
And that, I believe, is the beauty of Deus Ex.
It's the vast unknown the surrounds your character.
You learn to fear every step, knowing that the developers could drop a massive robotic
killing machine around any corner.
Objectives seem impossible until they're accomplished, then you can look back at them and wonder
how you ever found them hard.
The confusion of being thrown into places I didn't truly understand made the world feel
alive, rather than a game that spoon-feeds the player at every opportunity.
The strangest thing is, no part of Deus Ex is particularly good.
The gun-play is terrible.
The stealth is approximate and the AI is mentally challenged.
And blind.
And deaf.
The game has more in common with Minecraft or Postal, where it's what YOU make of the
game play elements that defines your experience.
It's about being captured in a building, only to jump out of the window, losing both legs
in the process but managing to crawl to safety.
It's about alerting a guard who then runs to the alarm which you earlier planted C4
next to.
It's about containing the situation, even if that means bringing down the cleaning lady
who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You can jump off skyscrapers onto people below.
You can up your otherwise pointless swimming ability so that you can travel down that sewer
vent.
You can hit meat in a shop with a sword BECAUSE YOU CAN!
People will criticise the game for looking bad.
Personally I think it looks okay, but the simplistic graphics allow for large worlds,
which work in this game's favour.
The game doesn't make it obvious when you do something right.
Perhaps that's because everything's a shade of grey.
It gives the impression that you've broken the game and have been free to wander about
in a glitched world, only for it to spit it back in your face later and go 'HAHA I expected
you to do that!'.
It's hard to explain, it was as though there was this looming, dark presence watching over
me that could seemingly predict my every move.
With other games, once you master the gameplay mechanics you can see through the illusion
and the inner workings of the game are exposed.
For me, Deus Ex is still an unsolved magic trick.
The game's environments are SPRAWLING.
There was nothing else to compare with the Hong Kong level at the time.
This is a wondrous level that I spent an entire half-term at school exploring.
Just exploring!
In a world of Unreal Tournament, Half Life and other scripted or basic shooters, Deus
Ex was a breath of fresh air.
Finding little stories between characters, or discovering apartments that nobody else
had ever found before.
Other games try to make you explore every nook and cranny by giving you quests.
Deus Ex simply lets you explore it.
You might discover that you complete missions without even knowing, wiping out a secret
base in the sewers by mistake!
It's their fault for being down there.
I was young at the time.
I was told by a friend that I should play it but always got scared off by how COMPLICATED
and unforgiving it was.
And yet something about this bleak futuristic world kept drawing me back.
There was simply more to this game than anything else available at the time.
I got caught up in the bubbling under-currents of rival factions.
Secretive organisations behind two-way mirrors in night-clubs.
High tech laboratories that held terrible secrets and always seemed to have escaped
raptors in the vent systems.
Every time I played the game, I'd get a bit further, then get stuck.
I wouldn't know where to go.
This was in an era before I had the INTERNET!
I'd stop playing for a couple of months, then play it through again and get further.
I thought I would have mastered the early levels, but no- there were always new places
to explore, and new sub stories to get tangled up in.
I laughed when I explored the woman's bathroom, then felt ashamed when my boss brought it
up again later.
It was as though my record was forever tarnished and that these NPCs I shared my adventures
with could hold grudges.
They're still more human and real than the high polygon models in more recent games.
I couldn't believe that this game existed.
It was in a league of its own, and to this day it charts unexplored territory in videogames.
And I'm not just talking about the woman's bathroom.
At one point you lead a woman back to her chateau in France and she walks about the
place, telling you stories of her childhood.
It was such a deep and profound moment for me as I followed her about, almost forgetting
for a second that this was all a fictional world.
My interactions with NPCs before this game had always comprised of shooting them in the
face, or seeing them as an object to progress the game further for myself.
And yet, here I was, listening to an imaginary character talking about a fictional experience
within a place that doesn't exist!
Deus Ex has a powerful soundtrack.
It has an incredible theme song and numerous memorable backing tracks, something that's
missing from most modern games.
We have Alexander Brandon and Michiel Van Den Bos to thank for this, the guys who also
worked on Unreal Tournament.
Michiel wrote the UNATCO song, Lebedev's Airfield and the one within the Chateau I mentioned
earlier, as well as some of the most memorable songs for Unreal Tournament including Forgone
Destruction, the song on Facing Worlds.
He has been responsible for so many nostalgic memories from my childhood that I would hug
him right now if I arms long enough to reach him.
The whole thing sounds like it's recorded in low quality, a bit like it's being played
through a cheese-grater or has been stretched or spliced then rebuilt again.
It's electronic and futuristic, yet reminds me of 80's synths and drumkits at the same
time.
It really adds to the dark depressing future as you run amongst the tramps and ratmen of
this decaying world.
The sound effects and music of this game are a key part of what makes it so great for me.
It's a combination of the music and dark, eerie alley ways that makes this game memorable.
It means nothing by itself, but when you're caught up in the action around you, perhaps
wary of those guards around the corner, or the argument going on behind those crates
ahead you, the game becomes an alternate reality.
You flick your cursor over a steaming vent in the ground only to discover that it's a
door to another place, yet you don't have the key for it.
Many a time I've had to move on with the game, leaving such delights untouched.
Will I ever know what lies beyond those barriers?
Could it possibly be as exciting as not knowing?
Age must have taken its toll on Deus Ex.
I wouldn't know, since playing it still brings up nostalgic memories of how I first felt
when exploring the world.
But games have advanced and have likely trumped Deus Ex in every area.
The thing is, no SINGLE game has managed to trump it in EVERY area.
I can imagine that it's harder to get in to for new players, but I urge you to try.
It hasn't aged in the same way as other games because there are no games to directly compare
it to!
It's an odd and unique concoction of gameplay elements that make it incomparable to anything
else.
It's like what Bollywood is to Hollywood- it imitates and borrows certain elements but
adds a different culture and style to the mix, becoming something new in the process.
Imagine what people in the 18th century would have made if they could make a computer game
and how alien it would feel.
To me, Deus Ex is just as strange and unique as one of these hypothetical examples.
The game has left its mark on me.
It has made me use the numpad for quick load and save buttons in every title since.
I spent years making my own games, trying to capture the essence of what made Deus Ex
good.
I never managed it.
The fact that they didn't manage to capture the same sense of freedom with the second
Deus Ex shows that they probably didn't know what made it so good either.
It's a mystery!
Everybody likes a good mystery.
The opposite of Deus Ex would be Call of Duty- it's simplistic and polished, appealing to
the lowest common denominator.
Deus Ex, on the other hand, is deep and complex, but lacks balance and polish.
Imagine if it could be polished and refined as much as Call of Duty, and how monumental
the end result would be.
This gives me faith that at some point in the future, Deus Ex will be beaten.
It HAS to be!
It wouldn't be fair if gaming has already peaked and on such an unpolished, uneven title.
But until then, Deus Ex stands alone.
It's a mature and profound title, designed to break the mould and to confuse us simple
people with decisions and choices and then to punish and to reward us with their consequences.
It's a living, breathing tale that walks a fine line between freedom and story that few
have since attempted.
It was a game well ahead of its time when it was released.
In fact, I think it still is.
Who would scrap 20 hours of gameplay to reload an earlier file to try and save their fictional
brother?
Who would kill a supposedly innocent worker, only to be rewarded for it?
Who would ever ask for this?
Thank you Ion Storm, for a flawed but brilliant masterpiece.
The future has never looked so dark and yet so inviting.