Game Spotlight: Deus Ex

In a word, Deus Ex is an amazing game. It took the (basic) first person shooting gameplay of its time, and fused in an inventory system where you could carry around dozens of different weapons and equipment. It added RPG elements allowing you to customize your character and add upgrades to your weapons. It added the ability to approach any given situation in numerous ways. It took these fantastic gameplay elements, and put them into an entrancing plot, which takes place in tons of different locations around the globe, and it is long. Nowadays, shooters like Modern Warfare 2 clock in at around five hours. You could probably fit ten Modern Warfares into Deus Ex. However, Deus Ex does a great job of drawing you in with addicting gameplay and a great story.

            By now you probably realize that I really like this game. However, before I get too carried away, I’ll tell you that the game isn’t quite perfect. Most of the flaws are because the technology of the day really held back the game’s design. The graphics are pretty bleh. There’s a wide variety of interesting locations, and the character designs are fairly interesting, but the graphics are fairly uninteresting, even for their time. However, this can be forgiven, because the levels are huge. Every nook and cranny is filled with little bonuses that reward you for exploring the levels. You’ll revisit some of the locations throughout the game, and every time you return to a location you’ll notice tons of little changes. Someone might have refilled the soda in their refrigerator because you stole it last time. An establishment might have closed, or people may be gone. Little details like this really bring the world to life, in a way that all the realistic explosions in the world fail to do.

            Another flaw brought on by the technology is that the game is rather glitchy. Sometimes you may get stuck on a certain peace of geometry, or someone might become hostile against you for no apparent reason. For the most part, these are little things, and fail to hurt the overall experience.

            You see a lot of games these days which talk about giving the player the ability to choose their own destiny through the way they play the game. I’ve talked a lot of nonlinear elements like this in my previous posts, and Deus Ex pulls off this emergent gameplay far better than almost any other game I’ve played. Let’s say you’re supposed to attack an enemy building. You can probably find a way to get in underground. Maybe there’s some ventilation shafts in the ceiling. Of course, you can always blast your way in through the front door. The open ended levels really let you play the game however you want, in a way which you rarely see. This element of choice is what really sets Deus Ex apart from other games. If you haven’t played Deus Ex, I would strongly recommend it to anyone and everyone. It’s really something you have to experience on your own to experience its genius.