Deus Ex

[Hyarion]

Okay, who's played it?
If you have, what did you think?
Why did you like it? (You DID like it, right?)
What is your most memorable moment?

For me... I played it WAYYYY after it came out, after Half Life 2. I actually enjoyed Deus Ex more than the so called "Best FPS ever". There was so MUCH... Playing through again uncovers things I never noticed the first time, and it's just as good as it was the first time.
Everything about it; the background conversations ("I asked for Orange. It gave me lemon-lime."), the little notes scattered around, the over-arching conspiracy theory-tastic plot... It's quite possibly the best game I've ever played.
The moment when you realise you can climb an apartment building and snipe the treacherous journalist through her penthouse window, then pick off the guards that come to investigate one by one. The moment where you ignore your brother as he tells you to flee through the window, and hold off the agents at the door with a rocket launcher. The moment where you... Hell, whatever you do or did, it'll probably be different to what I did. That's the best thing about Deus Ex. Half Life 2 boasted about its multiple solution puzzles, but it was just a set of choices about HOW you proceeded down the linear path that had been set for you. Deus Ex let you choose where to go.

[PyrosNine]

I enjoyed Deus Ex, aside from being unable to say it's name without anyone thinking I said "Do Sex." The perves.

It was truly a cool game, with splitting plot points and multiple endings. And the sorta RPG thing was really cool. Also, just thinking about what could be done to solve a problem other than what the NPC's tell you you have to do. like, they tell me instead of running into the heavily armed building (especially since I did it before and now they've beefed up security) I should take an alternate route through plumbing and what not, and I ignore them and plow my way through yet again.

There were also the ways you could use your "time travel" to solve problems that you failed before or wanted to resolve differently then as they turned out.

Let's say you visit a guy who is hiding out in a graveyard, and you are let in by one of his servants. After you talk, you are attacked by the military and you learn that he didn't have a servant. You then have to kill all the military peoples, and destroy a few hidden radio devices so you can leave. This naturally wastes alot of bullets, and is one of those "ZOMG THEY"RE ALL ON ME!"

However, by going to a previous save and immediately killing the servant, and destroying the hidden equipment after you talk to that guy you can just leave. Woot!

The only problems I found were that despite giving you a feeling that you can do whatever the hell you want, there are several situations where you can't. There's an "kill everyone" faq which tells you whom you can kill and who you can't, and there are several plot important characters you can't kill normally or at all. One of the bigger bad guys you meet in the very beginning and you can't even put a dent into him despite what you know. And in certain areas, you can only kill people by sneaking up behind them and tazering them. Else they kill you immediately.

Then there's the usual CyberPunk storyline. It annoyed me that no matter what the hell I did, there was no "happy" ending. The "kill all" probably was the happy ending, considering the enormity of evil people who want to rule the world. If I wanted to save the world and give people some choice in their future, noo. Despite what you are able to do, the game constantly shows you that in much of what you do there is a certain amount of futility.

But despite my normal dislike of plot, the game itself was a blast. GLOWY SWORD GO! Especially for a GTA-esque killing spree in which I save and then immediately kill everyone near me until I'm the only one standing. Especially in the Tokyo Dance club.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Two words:

Uber sniper

Yes I was the guy who played it through by killing everyone (when i could at least) from a mile away with perfect headshots, before hacking the computers and turning off the safety on all the auto guns and bots. Doesn't get more satisfying than that. That was a game you could really get into, and it let you experiment and try new things. Typical example; Terrorists have taken hostages and are hiding out in the subway. First time round I take the obvious stairs and try and take them out with my buckshot and sniper. Then I realise that the whole place is rigged with bombs and I accidently trigger them killing all the hostages and the terrorists. In most games at this point you get the "mission failed" screen and have to start again, but with Deus the only downside was I didn't get payed as much! It didnt matter if you failed an objective or not, you could keep playing regardless, which was really cool.

I later replayed that section, this time putting more time into lockpicking and found a secret way down into the subway through the ventilation shafts. I now came up behind the guards and took them all down without firing a shot, and thus the hostages were saved and I got my paycheque. No other game (at least that I can think of right now), has ever given me so many ways to do things. Stealthy infiltration with silinced pistols and melee weapons or run in guns blazing and unload countless machine gun bullets? Learn enemy patrol routes and set mines for them or slowly creep forward and chuck grenades? Put more points into rifles, spend cash on rifle upgrades and augment your vision to become a crackshot sniper (like me), or grab a rocket launcher, upgrade artillery skills, become impervious to bullets, upgrade your speed and set up magnetic fields around yourself so as to disable incoming missiles and become a walking tank!? Stealth from biologic organisnms, or stealth from cameras? Or perhaps upgrade your swimming stats and get yourself the ability to breath under water for the "amphibious" invasion.

So many possibilities, so little time. Brilliant game.

Oh and Pyros, you do know that it's pronounced "Day Us Ex" and not "Do Sex" right?

[PyrosNine]

Originally Posted by Hawk of Battle

Oh and Pyros, you do know that it's pronounced "Day Us Ex" and not "Do Sex" right?

I know how it's said. It's just that anyone listening will always think I said 'sex' and ignore any other part of the sentence. My friend's mindset is saturated in perversion, and my relatives think i'm saturated in perversion as well.

The game was also pretty indepth. You could heal 1 point by spending money on vending machines and drinking water from water machines. (Which was useful when you got your legs badly injured and are crawling everywhere) There were pool tables which used the unreal engine to play real pool. An easter egg was that you could pick up a basketball and if you made it through a hoop you'd get a congratulations based on how far away you were.

And the conversations were pretty good. What JC says usually depends on what you did, and for the most part if you were only doing things towards one way of thinking, JC would say your thoughts exactly.

[Captain Hat]

My favourite part of the first two levels was that I didn't actually have to kill anybody.

I'm serious: No other game has got me quite as enthusiastic about not killing people as Deus Ex did. I was just disappointed I couldn't carry on not killing people for longer. I don't think it's necessary to so much as taser anybody in the first mission, though you might need to if you want to rescue the other guy.

(I don't think that's a spoiler, as it's given in your mission objectives right at the start of the game).

[Hyarion]

Actually, not ONE person in the entire game has to die. You can make it through with only non-lethal takedowns.

[Random Ninja]

It's true. I spent an entire game using nothing but tranq darts and tasers.

...robots don't count as people.

[Captain Hat]

Well, I know it's technically possible, but I, personally, lacked the skill to pull it off when I last played the game.

So, yeah, I'm not exactly a videogame ninja. I'm a generalist, I play everything, but much to my shame I'm not the best at anything.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Originally Posted by Random Ninja

...robots don't count as people.

True, but they don't neccesarily have to be destroyed either, you can always just turn them off. Or make them fight each other. At least you didn't pull the trigger!

And it's always funny when you come to a corridor that's guarded by two ED-209 lookalikes and you then hack a nerby computer terminal, set them both to hostile and watch as the both turn to face each other (perfectly in-time) and unload hundreds of rounds at each other!

[Random Ninja]

Yeah, I was playing through the game, all ninja like, becoming one with the shadows, hiding all the unconcious bodies of my fallen foes, wielding the ever awesome beam katana Dragon Fang, leaping from rooftop to roof top, cloaked, silent, deadly.

Then, I tried to tranq a doggy and he died. ='(