“You cannot fight ideas with bullets.” Such a powerful phrase. The understanding of one’s world, and his/her interaction with it, changes in time and certain outside elements create the ground for this transformation. Books, movies, famous quotes, memorable events, tragic happenings. For me, Deus Ex was one such thing. When it came out, I was merely 18 years old and I was naive. Thank you Deus Ex, for showing me how rotten things may become. Let us take a journey back in time and re-discover the reasons of why Deus Ex was a masterpiece.

Deus Ex Trilogy (well, we have to wait until August for the third one) is my all time favorite series, together with Baldur’s Gate. Deus Ex was also a definitive game in means of FPS games with RPG elements. When it first came out, no one had any idea about what it will do. Ion Storm was one of those unlucky companies that managed to do all kinds of marketing failures (like releasing a RTS game on the day of StarCraft’s demo release) but one thing they did right was to create Deus Ex. Still, after System Shock 2, the game was a genre definer.

Deus ex was successful. It wasn’t one of those blockbusters that sell 10 million copies in a year, but it was successful. Today, the game is still being seen as one of the best games ever released through various sources.

But, why?

OH BABY, WHY?

Deus Ex is a FPS game with heavy RPG elements involved. You are playing the role of a newbie UNATCO agent, named JC Denton, and you are fresh out of the boot camp when they assign you for a peace keeping operation at the Statue of Liberty. Unlike standard agents though, you have nano-augmentations and you are one of the few hi-tech agents the government has, like your brother Paul.

Now, I will try to avoid spoilers as there may be people who want to explore this gem and its beauties (and story is everything in Deus Ex). Throughout the story, you will face with many twists and turns, meet with many memorable characters, discover lots of conspiracies and conspiracy theories linking to today’s real life events, realize lots of “potential” future references that is coming true day by day (when this game was out, most of those references were fantasies but now, you can see a path towards what the game had suggested a decade ago).

This is why Deus Ex was brilliant in means of story telling. This is why Deus Ex was awesome in means of roleplaying. Deus Ex had so many beauties in it, like cause and consequence scenarios. Except for a few sequenced battles, you were able to avoid most of the combat. In one game, you were able to kill an important character at point A and change the course of many little things where as in another play through, if you had decided to let that character live, things would shape differently and you may have had other confrontations. I remember discussing the game over ICQ (MSN wasn’t even useful back then) with friends and more than one time, we managed to shock each other like “WHA?! You can avoid that battle?” or “WHA? Can he be saved?!”.

GAME PLAY, PLAY THE GAME

Gameplay of the game wasn’t a typical FPS. Players had a skill system that they were able to upgrade with XP points gained over completing the mission objectives at each level. Certain missions had optional side missions as well as unexpected twists and turns. We were able to interact with NPC characters, talk with them, trade with them and get into the feeling of this dystopian future.

The game also had a sneaking system. Shadows, noise, alarms, guard reactions were all linked to our actions. We were able to act as a violent gung ho agent or we were able to sneak past each and every enemy, fooling them with our skills, hacking their computer networks, stealing from their depots and such. Deus Ex meant options.

By options, I am not only talking about mission objectives, weapons or the course of action. There was an augmentation system, where we could find different augmentation canisters and upgrade canisters to further develop the skills. The game had more than one option for each augmentation slot and once we installed an augmentation, it was permanent. This gave a huge replay value to the game. The augmentations were also quite varied. Aggressive Defense System (which detonated incoming missiles prematurely) or Spy Drones (where we were able to use a spy drone to see what is going on around) were some. This game was a gem and gamers acknowledged it.

Though with great power, comes great responsibility.

DOWNFALL?

Deus Ex was successful. It wasn’t a blockbuster but it was a cult game. No matter what people thought about the genre, they had respect for Deus Ex. The game’s story was deep, gameplay was fun, and replay value was huge. Graphics wise, Deus Ex was not the neighbor’s beautiful daughter, but it had so many nice features, people didn’t even care about graphics.

When Deus Ex 2: Invisible War was announced, everyone was excited.

I remember buying my first GFX card, nVidia fx5200 (the one and only nVidia card I have ever bought – sorry, but it was terrible) because the second game asked for one. I was very excited about Invisible War. Did it feed my hunger? Well, that is hard to answer.

HARD AS A ROCK

Invisible War was a huge graphical improvement over the first game. It looked “big” and “polished” and it had been developed with one serious mistake. That was, developing it for consoles near to the PC version. This limited the game a lot (we are talking about earlier consoles here). Graphics were huge for that time, yes, but there were many engine related issues, weird physics applications, bugs and similar stuff. These weren’t the case for Invisible War’s failure though. Today’s new gamers may not remember those days but we, old timers had experienced “The Daggerfall Incident”, so these were minor issues for the fans. We didn't care much about the bugs (for those who are wondering what is The Daggerfall Incident, it is the second game of Elder Scrolls and it was probably the most buggy, and yet, one of the most addictive games of all times).

What Invisible War did wrong was that Ion Storm had dummied the game. That unique “cause and consequence” feeling was gone. We were able to alter many things until the very last moment of the game, which turned the game into a “save & load to see” failure. The game’s story was actually quite good. However, they had lost the feeling of Deus Ex 1. Today, I still enjoy playing Invisible War, but every time I do, I realize why it is a good game but not a masterpiece like its predecessor.

Invisible War had many weird choices that sealed the fate of that game. One was the “universal ammo” idea, removing any and all strategic applications coming with the usage of different weapons and ammunitions. This was a terrible design idea. Another thing was the augmentations. They were pretty much useless except for a few obvious choices. The game’s duration was also much more shorter than Deus Ex.

Was Invisible War a bad game? No, it is actually one of the very good RPG games with sci-fi settings out there. However, when you have a game like Deus Ex as your predecessor, things tend to change shape. What Ion Storm did wrong was not being able to fully analyze why the first game was great.

HARDER THAN A ROCK

Both Invisible War and the original Deus Ex had different sub plots that players may see or avoid according to their choices. Both had their moments. I have to give Invisible War some credit certain things though. For one, the introduction movie of the game was awesome. I can’t remember how many times I watched that intro. Some of the levels had a huge intensity and danger feeling, I still remember trying to sneak in inside a particular apartment, while trying to avoid attention. Music soundtracks of both games were great. Alexander Brandon (Unreal 1-2, Thief Deadly Shadows and such) did a tremendous job on both titles. I still have both of the soundtracks on my mp3 player, listening to them on a frequent basis.

There are also mod communities who created really good mods for these titles. Though many of the mods are Deus Ex 1 oriented, you can still find lots of resources to enhance your game. Also, especially after completing Deus Ex 1, players re-experienced lots of historic moments throughout the gameplay of its sequel.

One thing I also want to criticize is that, Deus Ex 1 is much more “down to earth” while Deus Ex: Invisible War being a little bit more “futuristic”.

YES, IT’S HARDER THAN A ROCK

If you are a roleplaying lover, if you are interested in science fiction, if you have curiosity about conspiracy theories and organizations like Illuminati, Majestic 12 and such, Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War are gems for you.

Today, people get excited with the references of Assassin’s Creed about our era’s conspiracy theories. Well, LONG before that, we had Deus Ex.

I REMEMBER YOU

What I loved about Deus Ex;

• The charisma of JC Denton
• The treachery of Miss Chow
• New York mission when we meet with Paul in his apartment
• Twists and turns
• Oh man, what a great soundtrack!
• Made me read all kinds of documents about Illuminati and Majestic 12...
• ...and made me realize that some of those things are actually true or close to being true.

NOW LISTENING

• Daft Punk – Shuffle

Written by Oganalp Canatan

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