Deus Ex (part 2)
Today I would like to continue the story about Deus Ex, such a significant game for the industry, which I love with all my heart. Who knows, maybe after reading both parts of the review, you will go to install the game on your computer. Since this is the second part of the article, please refer to the first part of the article.
Gameplay
In this part, I want to consider what the gameplay is Deus Ex. The genre of the game is Immersive sim, that is, the player is provided with a large number of various mechanics that contribute to immersion in the gameplay and the world around. The foundation is a first-person action game with role-playing elements. Under your control is a character with a deep possibility of “customizing” it to your style of passing. Like I said, Deus Ex is an action RPG. You are free to be both an insane death machine, breaking through into the camp of enemies with a fight, and a quiet, secretive saboteur, passing unnoticed behind the backs of enemies.
The game gives a huge number of possible solutions to a particular situation or task. The world is built in such a way that you can achieve your goals in different, unlike each other, ways (sometimes unplanned by the developers themselves). Moreover, the further development of events depends on the chosen method, for example, some of them can be delayed or completely avoided. You will repeatedly face the consequences his choice in the form of an additional reward, new phrases in the dialogues, or an instantly won boss fight just because you didn’t go ahead in battle, but spent time exploring the world!
Role system
As I said in the first part of the review, you play as a UNATCO employee who is a prototype nanotech agent. It is possible to install augmentations (increments) in the body of your protege that directly affect the desired way of passing the game. You can choose implants according to your tastes and needs. It can be both rather banal “Muscles”, “Speed”, “Quiet running”, as well as rather unusual “Ballistic protection” or “Aggressive defense system”. Unfortunately for the Munchkins, you won’t be able to stuff your hero with all of the augmentations at once, as some of them are interchangeable. Therefore, you will have to make a choice which set will be more useful for your style of play.
Do you think that’s it? No matter how! The game has a huge number of computer terminals, locked doors, surveillance cameras, hidden places under water, and let them deal with purely gameplay solutions, for example, a locked door can be blown up, hacked or opened with a found key; get access to information on the computer, having previously found the password somewhere in the location or, again, by cracking it; and you can get into the secret room at the bottom of the river using scuba gear. But often, to achieve the goal, it is much easier to pump the necessary skill. Already at the start of the game, you will be asked to distribute skill points, that is, to make a “base” for the future build of your character. So, by pumping the skills of using a weapon, you can greatly improve its accuracy, but this is not the only solution …
In stores, in caches, as a reward for tasks, you will find a variety of additions to weapons: a laser sight, a silencer, an enlarged magazine, and much more. All modifications can improve the characteristics of your weapon, for example, provide comfortable accuracy. Weapons are lethal and non-lethal. You are free to knock out your opponents without killing, or you can go like a Terminator, destroying everything that comes in your way. I note that even the chosen way of passing the mission (with or without killings) will entail, albeit small, but consequences.
But this is not the last factor on which the capabilities of your alter ego depend in the process of completing the tasks. Each part of the body (that of yours, that of your enemies) has its own health, which directly affects its functionality. With a wounded leg, the speed of movement will significantly slow down, and if both are damaged, you can only crawl. With a damaged hand, accuracy drops noticeably, but with a shot in the head … you will die))))
Well, we have pumped up the skills of our character, distributed his implants, picked up and increased the effectiveness of weapons, but where can we use all this? As with any self-respecting immersive simulation game, the game’s levels are built so that you can always reach the goals in any way you want. Do you want to pass quietly without raising an alarm? There is ventilation in the corner, which will allow you to cut the path, remaining “in the shade”. Do you want to get to the zone protected by lasers and cameras? Well, the game world is quite interactive, and you can easily build a “ladder” of boxes and safely climb over the fence, or block the laser beams with the same boxes. Game designers and level designers have made sure that the game can be completed in each of the ways that have both pluses and minuses, but no one forbids you to use your own tactics that are different from those intended by the developers.
Chip
If you think about everything I said, you can understand how gameplay and narrative this is a deep game, even for a modern, fairly sophisticated gamer. Can you imagine what the game looked like at the beginning of the 2000s?
Other games encourage you to explore the world through quests or questions on the map. While playing Deus Ex, I caught myself thinking that I was exploring it simply because I wanted to … I want to be in this, it feels like a really living world, I want to explore it and find something interesting, and the most pleasant thing is that the game rewards you for it.
Multiplayer
Finally, let’s talk about multiplayer.
I confess honestly, as in Europa Universalis 4 (by the way, on my channel there is a review on this addictive strategy), I haven’t tried the game over the network, so I can’t say anything specific. But it would be wrong to remain silent, because so many people still play it and say that the multiplayer in Deus Ex is unique and very interesting in its own way. I read a lot of positive reviews about it on the Internet. Thanks to implants, a huge number of weapons and items, the ability to assemble a build for your playing style is added, which means that the battles are very exciting.
Outcome
Despite the fact that the review of the game turned out to be very long, believe me, I did not say too much! I wish you yourself to plunge into this world, someone to return for a moment to the past and remember how cool it was, and someone (lucky bastards) for the first time to plunge into this gray and gloomy, but still so bright and alluring, dystopian world! There are really few such games even in our time, and it would be a big omission not to play it. Forget that the game is more than 20 years old, forget about the graphics and you will stop noticing its shortcomings after 30 minutes, but you simply cannot help but notice the impressions that it will give you.
I’ve been playing games for over 25 years and remember them exactly like that: heartfelt and addictive, with fun mechanics and interactivity, no in-game currency and no attempts to be anything but a game. In my Telegram channel you are waiting for not only reviews of games, but also current news, as well as discussions about game development. Subscribe, it will be interesting!
