I've never really understood the love for it either - I came to it late so maybe it just hasn't aged well but was mind blowing at the time. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

I'd be interested to hear your objective thoughts on Invisible War and how it measures up relative to the first one - that game was panned from memory.

I think you're right about the nostalgia factor. I remember that X-Files was a huge hit back then at the same time that Deus Ex came out. Much of the plot in Deus Ex felt like X-Files stories. It would have been nicer to have Scully as my partner, though. Anna Navarre was a biatch!

I'm not going to convince you of anything but what the hell.

I played it on release and I played it over a decade later. It was great both times.

It's hard to remember what I thought when I played it the first time but since I loved SS2, Thief 1 and Thief 2 then it's not hard to see why I loved Deus Ex.

Large maps. Being no longer confined to coridors like pretty much every other FPS was a big deal whereas today it seems like every game wants to be an open world.
Freedom in accomplishing objectives - Very few games offered this whereas the games nowadays offer more freedom. I wouldn't want every game to be like that but if you played games in that time then you know games like Deus Ex were rare.
Ability to talk to NPCs in an FPS - This was very rare. I remember when Strife offered this and it was amazing. I play games for story and while shooting thngs in an FPS is fun it can get boring as hell when every game does the same thing.

Anyone who bitches at the graphics is an idiot. The graphics were horrible on release as well but they are perfectly fine for gameplay. I'd rather have 100 games today with Deus Ex graphics with equal gameplay than the alternative.

As for the "tired" story. Anything is "tired" if you've lived long enough.
I remember when the Matrix came out and it was just a rehash of scifi stories, I still watched and enjoyed the movie tho. If the gameplay holds up and the story is good enough to support the gameplay then you're good.

I've been toying around with doing another playthrough with the GMDX mod so mabye later this year, I don't see myself enjoying the game any less.

On top of Deus Ex's "bad graphics issue" there's also the now-missing context of the hardware of the time and the engine licensees available and the long period of time it took to develop the game (It had planning as far back as 1995 (and the '70s if you count Warren's D&D campaigns) and finally began production in 1998) and 98 was a rock and a hard place for engine licensing:
- Lithtech (unproven, but very clunky and would be worse in performance and graphics )
- UnrealEngine, pretty, modular and OOP and very flexible with multiple API support (at the time just 3dfx Glide and PowerVR SGL) with a relatively refined editor and tools
- TrinityQuake III. Unproven but solid, but would have restricted the scope of Deus Ex heavily anyway.
- Quake2 😜 Aracnharox's appearance gives a close enough estimate on how Deus Ex would've worked in that. It would've aged far worse.

DosFreak wrote:

I'm not going to convince you of anything but what the hell.

I might surprise you. I'm pretty open-minded.

DosFreak wrote:

It's hard to remember what I thought when I played it the first time but since I loved SS2, Thief 1 and Thief 2 then it's not hard to see why I loved Deus Ex.

I also have all three of those games, but I've never played them. Now I'm worried I might not like them because I definitely did not like playing Deus Ex as a stealthy character. SS2 in particular is intimidating to me because I've tried SS1 and absolutely hated the controls. I know it's a classic, but there's no way I'm ever going to play or finish SS1. Hopefully, SS2 can be enjoyed with a simple synopsis of the first game.

DosFreak wrote:

Large maps. Being no longer confined to coridors like pretty much every other FPS was a big deal whereas today it seems like every game wants to be an open world.

This is one of the things that bothered me in Deus Ex. It also bothers me in other RPGs like Fallout. I simply get lost or wander aimlessly on the huge maps. I know that's the point, but I don't enjoy it. I like to know where I'm supposed to be going. I really enjoy more linear adventure games like Full Throttle, Longest Journey, etc. That said, I particularly enjoyed the Paris Champs-Élysées levels in Deus Ex.

DosFreak wrote:

Freedom in accomplishing objectives - Very few games offered this whereas the games nowadays offer more freedom. I wouldn't want every game to be like that but if you played games in that time then you know games like Deus Ex were rare.

I really liked this about Deus Ex. Being able to do pretty much whatever I wanted was a good experience. However, I disliked that I was forced to kill Anna and Gunther. Even though they were murderous assholes, I would have preferred to let them live. I also didn't like that Manderley's fate was never fully explained. He really wasn't a villain, so I felt bad when it was revealed he was dead.

DosFreak wrote:

Ability to talk to NPCs in an FPS - This was very rare. I remember when Strife offered this and it was amazing. I play games for story and while shooting thngs in an FPS is fun it can get boring as hell when every game does the same thing.

I've played more RPGs and adventure games than 1st person shooters. To me, lengthy dialogue is the norm. To give you an idea of what I mean, Death Gate is probably my favorite adventure game. The conversations in that one go on and on and on and on... In hindsight, I see that you're right about the FPS genre. Prior to Deus Ex, I don't recall any FPS games having a lot of conversations. I skipped directly from Half-Life to Mafia, then TRON 2.0, and then Bioshock.

DosFreak wrote:

Anyone who bitches at the graphics is an idiot. The graphics were horrible on release as well but they are perfectly fine for gameplay. I'd rather have 100 games today with Deus Ex graphics with equal gameplay than the alternative.

The graphics were passable and weren't a distraction. I thought it looked just as good as Half-Life and better than Unreal. My mindset is still stuck in the late 90s when it comes to graphics. I still think the graphics in Black & White and Mafia are amazing. TRON 2.0 is just mind-blowing to me, and that game is now 15 years old.

DosFreak wrote:

As for the "tired" story. Anything is "tired" if you've lived long enough.
I remember when the Matrix came out and it was just a rehash of scifi stories, I still watched and enjoyed the movie tho. If the gameplay holds up and the story is good enough to support the gameplay then you're good.

This is where I'll disagree with you. I love golden-age Sci-Fi stories from the masters such as Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. True, they're extremely wrong about science because we now have 70+ years of hindsight, but the stories still hold up well. Deus Ex just felt extremely cheesy to me. I caught myself groaning more than once at the dialogue.

DosFreak wrote:

I've been toying around with doing another playthrough with the GMDX mod so mabye later this year, I don't see myself enjoying the game any less.

I considered playing with the GMDX mod, but I felt that it would be better to first experience the game as it was originally intended. Let me know what you think of it.

Deus Ex is an amazing game from many perspectives. It's definitely far better than the sum of its parts, if that makes sense. I won't attempt to discuss how and why in length, because I don't have the time at the moment, but regarding the conspiracy theories you are somewhat missing the point.

The idea was to find every crack-pot and conspiracy theory and put them all in the game to create this absurd world. In fact, I was watching a GDC postmortem on the game by Warren Spector and he said this was the aim right from the get-go. Funnily enough, through the years he has been approached by people claiming that Deus Ex is all about far right, fascist propaganda, but also by people who claim that it's all about far left propaganda!

In any case, the entire thing is very very interesting and definitely something to watch if you were ever into Looking Glass Studios' games and/or Deus Ex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tffX3VljTtI

Ironically, through smart dialogue and world atmosphere, a lot of the NPCs come off as far more natural and nuanced than many characters in modern games who feel like they were written and given very specific characteristics. Yeah, you'll laugh your ass off talking to the black barman in France who proceeds to analyze the entire world order structure to a complete stranger, all with an utterly terrible accent, but talking to Lebedev or Leo Gold was very stimulating.

Also, the voice acting in the game is golden and something I would never want changed, much like the original Resident Evil and Castlevania : Symphony of the Night among others (or The Dig for that matter 😀 ). It's hard to believe that you had no idea going into this that the voice acting is the way it is. Surely, you must have seen one of countless Youtube videos? In any case, " I spill my drink!!!"

F2bnp,

Thank you for putting things into perspective for me. As much as it may be strange to you, I went into Deus Ex pretty much blind. I'm mostly into flight sims, adventure games, and space sims. I had never been exposed to its voice acting quirks before.

I tried to re-start the game again, but I just can't do it. It was such a slog. There are other games I want to play before I die, and time is running out. Deus Ex was a good game, but not the best ever, in my opinion. Perhaps at some point in the future I'll revisit it.

I first played Deus Ex well after its original release, probably around the mid-2000's or so. I also felt it was overrated when I did play it.

For me the biggest let down was the combat. I remember the AI being pretty weak and there was nothing interesting about shoot-outs in that game. I can appreciate what they were trying to accomplish by letting players have multiple options for dealing with scenarios, but the game's action component was a let-down. Especially given the superior Half-Life action set-pieces that had come a few years prior.

I also felt the giant maps in Deus Ex were overrated. They were largely just big, empty spaces with nothing interesting about them.

Conversely, I played Deus Ex: Invisible War and felt it was underrated given all the hate it gets. One of the complaints it gets is the smaller environments, but I felt it worked better in the game.

Also tried playing Human Revolution, but couldn't get into it.

DosFreak wrote:

Large maps. Being no longer confined to coridors like pretty much every other FPS was a big deal whereas today it seems like every game wants to be an open world.

I felt like Unreal did this better TBH. There were a number of memorable set pieces in Unreal which made good use of its ability to render large environments. But Deus Ex, I can't remember anything memorable about its levels.

There's that long walk to and up the headless statue of liberty.

KT7AGuy wrote:

(I played as a stealthy pacifist. Anna and Gunther were my only human victims.) […]
Show full quote

(I played as a stealthy pacifist. Anna and Gunther were my only human victims.)

After 10 long months, I have finally completed the original Deus Ex; all three endings.

Is it the best game in the world? No.
Is it in my top 10 games of all time? No.
Is it a good game that's worth playing? Yes... but it relies heavily on tired and easily-disproven conspiracy theories. Also, the game's depiction of its Hong Kong characters is borderline racist. (Think Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's).

I can't help but feel slightly misled and cheated by this game's reputation and status. I remember when it came out and all the hype that surrounded it. 20 years later, and its religious-cult-like-following has not helped to smooth over the rough edges.

I think Half-Life was better. It's hard to compare because Deus Ex was really a 1st Person RPG. What can I compare it to? All of the RPGs of that time were isometric affairs. Fallout was definitely better too.

I must be missing something. I think I'll try again as a bloodthirsty weapons expert. Maybe the story isn't such a slog-through then. Perhaps playing as a pacifist is what made the game so tedious. I also have Invisible War and I'll try that after I give the first game another run-through.

I remember when Deus Ex came out originally...back then it was all about the Bullet Time baby!

Surely you're not confusing with Max Payne from a year later?

JC Denton resembling Neo similarly is only a coincidence. and there's a matrix scroller easter egg in the game anyway.

I agree that Deus Ex is no astonishing masterpiece, but it is an interesting piece of history for the genre. Fun to play in small spurts. I've been working my way through it for years. I did not play it in 2000. I do agree that the conspiracy theory stuff is not extremely compelling. I could see teenagers and 20-somethings being more enthralled with that stuff in 2000 though when the game was state of the art.

Wheel of Time is another Unreal Engine game that does some cool stuff with large maps. It's quite a bit like Unreal.

I can't see any reason to not play System Shock 2. It certainly isn't much like the original game or Deus Ex. It has excellent atmosphere. Though the weapon deterioration and enemy respawn are irritating (but can be tweaked.)

leileilol wrote:

Surely you're not confusing with Max Payne from a year later?

JC Denton resembling Neo similarly is only a coincidence. and there's a matrix scroller easter egg in the game anyway.

Oops my bad...God I get those two mixed up. What do I remember about DE? Maybe that it was a kind of cyber-punk version of Thief perhaps...and you could "hack" as part of the game. Yeah that was the big feature everyone was talking about if I now recall correctly.

OK, I was finally going to start Halo tonight, but I figure I should probably play Invisible War while the first game is still fresh in my mind. I'll reply here again, months from now, when I finally finish this one.

This time around, I'm not going to play as a stealthy pacifist. The picture of Alex Denton on the cover of the box makes him look like a douchebag, so I figure I'll play him that way.

A couple of mindblowers in there for the time. Scifi and urban RPG's were fresh, and the first-person 3D competition were mechanically mindless shooters, simple and bare.

I don't think any of their games really shine on their dramatic aspects. Gamers had great imaginations to help fill these worlds.

Deus Ex blew my mind when it just came out with the fact that you can complete levels un multitude of different ways. At least the first level.

I had only sporadic access to PC at that time and it was rather slow so I was limited to something 15 fps so I wrote off a lot of the drawbacks of the game to be computer-related. But it was still cool, because unreal engine had software renderer and I could at least play it in contrast to other games of that time which wouldn't even launch properly on my computer.

I knew very little English back then so story eluded me almost completely, but I loved the setting - it was very trendy.

leileilol wrote:

Surely you're not confusing with Max Payne from a year later?

JC Denton resembling Neo similarly is only a coincidence. and there's a matrix scroller easter egg in the game anyway.

That "look" was everywhere back then. I remember visiting a club where the bouncers were all dressed like that.

As for first person RPGs that might play similar to Deus Ex, how about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic? I haven't played either, but it seems they may play similarly.

Deus Ex is a game I've never played and can't seem to get excited about it enough to try it. There are other highly-rated games I feel similarly about - Planescape: Torment, the Thief series and Fallout 1/2 to name a couple. However, I LOVED the System Shock series, controls and all. 😉 Go figure.