"A human being. . . An ingenious assembly of portable plumbing." - Christopher Morley (Deus Ex (PC))

Member Name: ILoveJackDaniels

Product:	Deus Ex (PC)
Date:	11/08/01 (277 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb Gameplay, Graphics, Theme

Disadvantages: Far too addictive, May require some kind of supercomputer

Nice suprises these days are few and far between, so finding something even more addictive than dooyoo was a shock to say the least. To say that Deus Ex is amazing would be to do it a great injustice.

The quote above (title) is quite appropriate. You play an agent working for UNATCO (the World's leading anti-terrorist agency), in a time of great strife (set in the not too distant future). UNATCO itself is at the forefront of technological advancement, and you are the product of these developments.

Augmentation technology has been used to 'improve' UNATCO agents for some time, generally by replacing limbs and body parts with mechanical alternatives. You, on the other hand, along with your brother, have been nano-augmented. Your body contains thousands and thousands of tiny robots, that make you stronger, faster, and capable of surviving much more than the average human, or even a 'normal' augmented agent.

Having completed your training, you are unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a battle ground. A plague is sweeping the Earth, and a large amount of the vaccine, Ambrosia (Devon knows how they make it so creamy ... ooh arr), has been stolen by the NSF (terrorists). The vaccine is generally only available to the rich and powerful, and the NSF claim to want to distribute it to the needy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help UNATCO to recover the vaccine and save the World (of course).

Obviously there is a lot more to the plot than this - a great deal of sub-plots run through the course of the game, and treachery and mystery are commonplace in your life.

The gameplay itself is astounding. I should mention my one and only criticism here. I have a brand new PC (1GHz processor, 256 Mb Ram etc), which should, in my opinion, be able to run most games perfectly, especially with a top of the range 3D graphics card, however I can't run the game with the best display settings.

T
he levels are massive, with hidden features everywhere. The graphics are astounding, and it's very easy to find yourself leaning to either side of your screen in this game in a vain attempt to look behind objects in view. I normally never do this, but sometimes the game just looks so realistic, it hard to stop yourself!

The actual gameplay, as I said, is amazing. It's a cross between Zelda and Goldeneye, a first person shooter with puzzles everywhere. That's where the fun really comes into it. You carry a selection of weaponry, including sniper rifles, assault guns and flamethrowers (loaded with napalm - a lot of fun). You can achieve skill points as you advance through the game, which can be used to improve your skill with weapons, computers, electronics and more.

To give you an example of how this part of the game plays, I'll talk about the sniper rifle (one of my favourites). You zoom in on a target (obviously), and take aim. When you start, you will find it very difficult to keep your aim still - the crosshairs will be moving all over the place and you will be lucky to get clean headshots at any significant range. Over time, as you upgrade your skills with the rifle, your aim becomes steadier and steadier, until you are able to choose which eye of a flea you want to take out from 20 miles away...

The damage you can sustain is worth mentioning to. Stealth is very important in this game, as it only takes a few shots to kill you. You can survive losing legs and arms, but more often than not, you will find yourself killed off by a measily 3 or 4 shots (at least to start with). Unlike Goldeneye, where you can sustain huge amounts of damage and survive, here you have to be very careful. Damage will affect your effectiveness as an agent - a couple of shots to the leg and you will be very slow, for example.

The puzzles and mini-quests are also quite original and entertaining. The game is very interactive, and you will
find that talking to one, seemingly random, person on the street will mean that the next person you bump into will give you a useful piece of information, which will in turn lead you to discover some secret that gets you loads of skill points or money ... you get the idea.

Hidden items are everywhere too. Every room you go in generally has something up for grabs, be it a datacube under a table or a lockpick hidden behind a cardboard box. The more time you take looking around, the more you will find. Most pieces of information will seem extraneous at the time you find them, but all will fall into place later. Codes and bank account details are generally always hidden, or it could be that you have to perform a task to get them.

As far as lastability goes, I am very impressed. I went insane when I started to play - every time I died, and that was often, I had to restart the level. Now I am in the habit of saving every few seconds (the + key on your number pad is quicksave) just in case I get shot when I stroll calmly round the next corner.

Each level can take up to 2 or 3 hours to complete, and the time flies by. Each level also generally has at least 2 or 3 endings, depending on what you do during that level. I'm now playing it for the 4th time round, and it still feels like a new game.

Aside from the game not wanting to run perfectly on my brand spanking new system, it is superb. Very few games can keep me entertained for long, but this has succeeded where others failed. Any game that can keep me up till 5am is impressive enough, but at the point I realised it was 5am, I thought it was about 11pm. I was so engrossed I managed to miss out 6 hours of my life. And I don't mind one bit.




(A reccomendation, by the way. If you haven't played before, do the training. Most people just skip it, but I highly reccomend you do it at least 2 or 3 times to get the hang of the controls and the way the game plays
.)

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