Deus ex,finished my 12th play through of the game with the cannon Helios ending on hard diffculty
Save count:
1000+
There are two types of games.
A challenging game where the difficulty and resource management creates engaging game play.And a game where the amount of choices and their interaction creates engaging gameplay.
Deus ex is the champion of the second one.
Pros:
-Game play systems interaction.
Most elements interact with each other to create "emergent" game play that Spector talked about.
Locked door?
Pick it,blow it up,alert the guards to open it,hack a computer to open it,use lam wall tricks to bypass it,etc...
There are so many interactions which are just fun.And this is just the doors.When you factor in turrets,npc,enemy types,level design,the sky is the limit.
It is a beautiful toybox.
Did you know what you can use the gep gun as a take down tool if you throw it at enemies?
-Skill system
Deus ex skill system seems basic.4 levels and the are all passives.Until you dig deeper.
Have a sniper?Well master rifles enables you to one shot cameras and turrets.
The passives work together to give you even more options.
Also probably the best balance in terms of skill points you get in a fps/rpg. It feels just right in giving you a small amount to max out while keeping the rest for you to experiment with.
Also bonus points for not giving exp for killing enemies,but for exploration and completing goals.
-Early level design
The pre Honk Kong levels are quite different from their late counterparts.
The early levels are a great blend of hub and side areas for you to explore.There is a certain verticality to them that coupled with augs opens up more gameplay options.
They never feel like a theme park or human revolution's vent connection to everything.They also look and feel much more grounded and that gives them a certain charm.
Personally my favorite location is hell's kitchen because of the rooftops.
-Aug system
The augs are your primary toys to play with.
The brilliant thing is that they activated and not passives.This gives a additional resource management angle which is great.And it kind makes your character feel like a machine.
Also each body slot has a specif amount of slots so you have to choose which augs you want.Limitation breeds creativity.
They are also all extensions of gameplay systems and some can be used in multiple ways.
Jumping/resistance/strength are tied to exploration.
But they also allow you to run around enemies before they can shoot you while shooting them and the resistance can be used to lower damage dealt by some enemies.
And strength can be used for stealth purposes.
The aug system creates its owns separate toybox to play with beside the levels.Also bous points for the ability to create a drone out of thin air,even though it is not the best aug choice.
-Writing
While the general theme is interesting the npc writing is actually the meat.
From the conversation with Morpheus to specific npc chatter(paris father talking shit about his fascist son) to just general philosophies behind the game writing.
Hell the writing is so strong that you can apply almost all what npc's say to this exact year and be shocked how much of that is actually possible/true.
Your first interaction with a enemy npc is literally talking about corporation taxation and the destruction of self employment.
People who dismiss this game writing as conspiracy theory bullshit are fools.
Cons:
-Balance
There is no way around this. Deus ex vanilla is fundamentally broken in balance.
From weapon,skills and augs everything has a optimal choice.
Not gonna list all of them but regeneration and the sniper break a lot of this game.
The only positive about this is because of the game's difficulty this really doesn't matter much.
-Difficulty
Whatever difficulty there was goes way around 1/3 of the game.
The ai being completely useless,overabundance of resources and alack of enemy difficulty increase make for a easy game regardless of difficulties.
The ai get's a special mention.It is just not functioning and its constant running to activate alarms/runaway gives you a easy way to create deathtraps.
The difficulty also only effects damage.
-Late game level design.
I am not angry that some levels were scrapped.The moon and the crazy civil war scenario probably couldn't be made.I am angry that instead of them we got a lot labs and small compounds instead.
The hub elements are mostly gone or insignificant.Side areas finally use non blowable doors but their design is just too much recycling.
Also,the vent systems are now like hr with mostly connection to most stuff.
The verticality is also extremely limited or nonexistent.
The levels aren't bad themselves. They are much more complicated and better balanced.It is just that they loose a big chunk of what the early levels actually good to me.
Did the stupid Honk Kong m12 base really needed to happen?Did Honk Kong really need so much useless water?
The naval base was just boring.Both in design and game play.The ship was the only decent element of it.
Paris was a big missed opportunity to return to the old design.
The entire labs/airbase shenanigans were samey in design.
Area 51 was decent ,but the final section kinda felt too small for a final confrontation.
-Swimming
Swimming gets its own section because it is not useless but disappointing.
Imagine another way through levels where you had to juggle your air and look for hidden shit underwater.
Well,that didn't happen.
Levels are not made whatsoever for swimming.All they give is a small shortcut that wasn't worth it and sometimes leads you into a worse situation.The chateau one for example.
And regeneration makes it even more not worth it.Should have been scrapped.
All in all i enjoyed the game a lot even on a 12th play through.
I personally believe that a a difficult balanced Deus ex would not be the same product and what we got was more then worth it.
If you wanna play difficult balanced deus ex,play gmdx.
If you wanna play a good deus ex mod,play revision.
