The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!
Let’s discuss the Deus Ex series. What is your favorite game in the series? What aspects do you like about it? What doesn’t work for you? Are there other games that gave you similar feelings? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let’s get the conversation going!
If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).
Previous entries: Stardew Valley, The Sims, Half-Life, Earthbound / Mother, Mass Effect, Metroid, Journey, Resident Evil, Polybius, Tetris, Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire
I just replayed the entire series over the last couple of months. The first one is the highlight of the series and laid the groundwork not only for the sequels, but pretty much founded the genre of immersive sims all by itself. This type of game is the rare lightning in a bottle that many have failed to capture since and it really hasn’t aged much since it came out over 20 years ago. Sure, the voice lines are cheesy, the AI is outdated and there are some pretty wacky characters in this otherwise serious game, but it all fits together extremely well and has a certain charm to it.
I don’t think there are any “bad” Deus Ex games, but the sequel Invisible War is definitely the weakest installment. It leans too much into the whole B-Movie theme and, with the exception of the last chapter, suffers from lackluster writing and forgettable characters. The gameplay itself is still fun but overall severely limited due to the hardware constraints of the Original Xbox.
Human Revolution did well to separate itself from the first title while staying true to the core gameplay and I do love the aesthetics that they went for. The story is very solid and I’d say there are more ways to approach a mission than the first game had. Adam Jensen is also a well-written character and a worthy replacement for JC Denton. The only thing I didn’t really like was the new melee system.
Finally, Mankind Divided turned out to be the most “Deus Ex” we’ve gotten since the first game came out. It’s a brilliant game through and through and I can’t really think of even minor criticism. It’s basically what the first game was, just all grown up. Even the DLCs are among the best missions in the whole series.
It’s so sad to see the great path this series was on before it was ultimately cancelled again. I felt like they had finally perfected the formula. And now we’re most likely stuck with the open ending of Mankind Divided for the foreseeable future.
Top-tier writeup. The original will always hold a special place in my heart but Mankind Divided was an excellent modern interpretation of similar systems of gameplay.
I never asked for this.
I like to pick em’ off at a distance
The GEP gun is the most silent way to eliminate Manderley.
I really want to like them. They are everything I want in a game. Open levels you are free to approach however you like, a possible stealth approach, nice attention to detail and one of the later games even had native Linux support. But I never could get hooked to the story like other people seem to be.
I came to the conclusion (based on other games and media as well) that I just don’t like cyberpunk dystopias. Maybe because we’re in one, Miss Turner.
You know, you bring up a really good point, honestly.
My friend had a similar complaint about Baldurs Gate III.
“Why so much body horror and gore? When I was growing up and playing DnD, we were never exploring that kind of stuff. DnD can be so much more than just body horror and gore.” Not verbatim, but you get the idea.
As much as I love BG3, I don’t actually disagree with his sentiment at all.
There should be an opportunity for people to play similar style of games that aren’t so gory or depressing or both. Not every stealth game needs to be cyberpunk and depressing.
Luckily I can replay Thief every few years.
Another series worthy of discussion!
Noted ;)
Just a heads up for anyone intrigued by the discussions, there’s a 5 game Deus Ex bundle on Steam that’s on sale for less than $10 right now!
Oh, nice, just realized I never played the first
Human beings may not be perfect but a computer program with language synthesis is hardly the answer to the world’s problems
I find myself appreciating Deus Ex more and more with the years…
… But also utterly unable to replay it because it’s too close to home now.
As a fan of HR and MD, I have the original purchased on GOG, but I’ve never played it. Are there any quality of life mods I should know before I drive in?
I haven’t played it properly either. But there’s a community mod called Deus Ex Revision (It’s also on Steam). Which improves some of the graphics, and looks to include a bunch of QoL features.
For HR, I think you’re good to go the way that it is. Hopefully you have the Director’s Cut - they removed the awful yellow filter that the game originally launched with.
I know the topic isn’t about HR, but as a huge fan of that game, I recently replayed the non-DC version and found myself really appreciating the yellow tint. It ties the aesthetic together, and the DC always looked a bit flat and unfinished without it. But that’s just me.
I only played the original. I didn’t really like it at first, thinking that the augmentation and mod stuff was needlessly complicated for this kind of game. Also the graphics weren’t all that great in comparison to other games using the same engine. There were a lot of attention to details in comparison to other games so I gave it a chance. The turning point came after completing the first part of the story and getting hooked. The story really carried the game and touches on some interesting topics.
A game with a similar feel would be Omikron: The Nomad Soul. It was released the year before Deus Ex, has worse controls and graphics, but the story and setting is somewhat similar.
here’s a good video essay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxOKEsBx4NU Ross’s Game Dungeon: Deus Ex
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgJazjz9ZsA Deus Ex: Human Revolution is FINE, And Here’s Why
Ross did videos on human revolution and invisibile war too. They were pretty good as well.
It’s been a while since I’ve watched these, his video on the original is spot on, but I really dislike his takes on Human Revolution, felt like he was mostly nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, especially the story bits.
A bomb!
I remember first trying the original when I was like 11 or something.
At the time, I didn’t really understand much beyond “shooty shooty” when it came to games with guns (it would be shortly after this that I’d find stealth games and have that passion ignited), so I was given guns, used them how I usually did at the time and proceeded to get obliterated in the first level and gave up.
A few years later, after I’d gotten into stealth games, my love affair with immersive sims began.
Along with playing the Thief series, I went back to give Deus Ex a try and it all just clicked. I think it and Thief II were instrumental in cementing my love for the genre.
After playing and enjoying the first one, I played them all over the next few years and Mankind Divided is probably my second favourite after the original. Loved every moment.
Then fucking Square Enix does their bullshit, and then fucking Embracer ruined it for good.
All in all, I love Deus Ex and I’m super glad I found myself getting into stealth games and immersive sims, otherwise I would have missed out on it so many other of my favourite gaming experiences, Deus Ex being one of them.
What’s weird is that it’s like the only Looking Glass/Ion Storm/Eidos Montréal immersive sim franchise that doesn’t have a clear spiritual successor. For System Shock we got not only BioShock, but Prey (2017) as well. For Thief, we got Dishonored. For Ultima, we got Arx Fatalis/Libertatis (and early Elder Scrolls to a very lesser extent).
But for Deus Ex, we’ve got… I don’t know, Cyberpunk 2077, maybe? But the whole open world thing doesn’t really fit in with the usual gameplay loop of Deus Ex. There are a fair amount of great cyberpunk games, but none seem to really scratch that immersive sim itch. I guess Prey is pretty close as well (in addition to its System Shock influences), if you consider some of the body/power upgrades, but it’s not all that similar thematically.
I’d love for someone to come around and pull a Thanos by just going, “fine, I’ll do it myself”. If the franchise is dead, maybe now there’s more motivation for that, since, before a few months ago, we were still clinging to what little hope remained for the third Adam Jensen game. Or maybe someone already has and I’ve missed it.
There’s an indie game called Shadows of Doubt that does the whole immersive sim in a big hub stuff pretty well. Kind of jank and unfinished, but I think it’s the closest thing I’ve seen in recent times to Deus Ex.
“Jank and unfinished” sounds like it fits the immersive sim MO to me! (I mean this with the utmost respect)
That’s that procedurally generated detective game, right?
I really need to try it because it seems right up my alley. From what I understand, it can get pretty intricate when it comes to the detective work which seems really interesting.
Yeah, that’s the one. And yeah, the cases can get pretty complicated at times, I’ve had one case for instance where I had to find a person by their description… Except the description was literally their job title and their first name initial letter (or something very similar). I had to go to a gubermint building, hack into a computer and manually cross-reference the health history of literally everyone in town to find the person. And that was just the first step of the case.
Yeah, that definitely sounds like something that I’d love to sink a bunch of time into. On to the wishlist it goes!
Check out Core Decay. It’s still in development but from what I’ve seen it follows the Deus Ex formula down to a T. Probably the game I’m most excited about at the moment.
Oh, now that looks interesting! Immediately wishlisted.
Thanks for letting me know about that!
Dishonored is the closest Deus Ex successor in my mind. Harvey Smith in the level design DNA.
The successor to Deus Ex is Deus Ex. Mankind Divided was released in 2016, so it’s roughly as old as the other games you listed as successors to the other IPs.
But for Deus Ex, we’ve got… I don’t know, Cyberpunk 2077, maybe? But the whole open world thing doesn’t really fit in with the usual gameplay loop of Deus Ex. There are a fair amount of great cyberpunk games, but none seem to really scratch that immersive sim itch. I guess Prey is pretty close as well (in addition to its System Shock influences), if you consider some of the body/power upgrades, but it’s not all that similar thematically.
Check out Cruelty Squad by Ville Kallio on Steam. Aesthetically and spiritually it scrys into the future on the same level Deus Ex did and delivers an even more dire prophecy that feels as disturbingly prescient. It takes the open ended levels of DX and adds insane verticality and mind bending traversal. It plays more tactically than Deus Ex but the augment system is really rewarding and enables the player to munchkin their way to their target.
You may notice it looks artistically like a 13th century Christian piece with a Jackson Pollock splotch of New Years Eve stomach soup all over the canvas. I retort that so did DX1 most of the time. The CS playerbase refers to our ability to parse and navigate this style of level design and eclectic color composition as the ‘CEO mindset.’
But seriously I am a big Deus Ex enjoyer and other than Thief nothing has come as close to the full breadth of experience that world evokes in me. It is both terrible and beautiful to behold.
Invisible War
I own it. I played it. I can’t even remember if I finished it. The rest I’ve played through multiple times.
I only played the two “new” ones. They were both good, fairly interesting, but not amazing. It’s hard to say, but it just felt like something was missing from them. Maybe it was a lack of things to do between missions beyond finding my way into a few random apartments for no real reason?
It’s worth noting that I’m generally not into stealth games, I get impatient and just want blood, or think I can sprint past a few guards without being seen. (I think I fucked up in the police station in HR, and the entire interior of the building was just corpses)
Out of the two human revolution was a bit better but there wasn’t much between them.
I did like the aesthetics and general mood of the games though, and cyberware will always be cool.
I still would have played the next one if it hadn’t been cancelled sadly.
Play the first one its amazing, and if you are wondering what it was that was missing watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgJazjz9ZsA
Make sure you apply the GMDX PC mod
I would suggest against GMDX for a first time playthrough, it changes A LOT. From the aesthetics, to the gameplay, to the sounds, the mood, the feel of the game, and the viable approaches in each level, there’s so much that’s changed it just isn’t the same game anymore.
You’re much better off with the Vanilla Fixer tool, Transcended, or Zero Rando (I’m the dev). You could also use Revision and toggle every setting to vanilla, but make sure you also disable the HDTP models, and disable Shifter and Biomod too, and definitely set the maps to vanilla.
I will add that New Vision completely changes the game a lot as well. I avoided that one
I feel the same way about the prequels, but I think the original game is the best game ever made.
Kind of overrated? I mean, it was cool to see a bit more of a palatable cinematic presentation in real time to go along with the late 90s PC jank, and that theme did kick ass, but it’s less groundbreaking in context than I think people give it credit for. And it doesn’t hold up nearly as well as System Shock 2, in my book.
it’s less groundbreaking in context than I think people give it credit for.
Are you seriously going to tell me that the open-ended structure of Deus Ex, coupled with the RPG elements and interactive environments wasn’t groundbreaking for the time? There wasn’t anything quite like it back then, so much so it basically created the genre of Immersive Sims as we know it today.
Hell, you could trace basically any first person shooter with RPG elements from after 2000 back to Deus Ex, it’s the gold standard for a reason. The closest thing we had to this kind of game back then was Strife, a Doom clone with a basic quest system and inventory, even System Shock 2 is less dynamic and open-ended than Deus Ex.
The closest thing we had was the System Shock duology, since both predate Deus Ex. Deus Ex was basically accessible System Shock. Having dialogue trees and NPCs without losing the open-ended nature of System Shock’s more dungeon crawl-y approach was the real selling point. Well, that and the trenchcoats and shades. The Matrix was such a big deal.
But even then, each of those elements were already present in different mixes in several late 90s games. Deus Ex by some counts was one of the early culminations of the genre blending “everything game” we were all chasing during the 90s. The other was probably GTA 3. I think both of those are fine and they are certainly important games, but I never enjoyed playing them as much as less zeitgeist-y games that were around at the same time. I did spend a lot of time getting Deus Ex to look as pretty as possible, but I certainly didn’t finish it and, like a lot of people, I mostly ran around Liberty Island a bunch.
I played more Thief 2 that year, honestly. I played WAY more Hitman than Deus Ex that year. I certainly thought System Shock 2 was better. Deus Ex is a big, ambitious, important game, for sure, but I never felt it quite stuck the landing when playing it, even at the time.
The closest thing we had was the System Shock duology, since both predate Deus Ex. Deus Ex was basically accessible System Shock. Having dialogue trees and NPCs without losing the open-ended nature of System Shock’s more dungeon crawl-y approach was the real selling point.
You’re clearly misremembering System Shock if that’s what you think. Those games were just Ultima Underground with guns, especially the first. Deus Ex was soooo beyond dungeon crawler, it was almost a full blown RPG by modern standards, it had big hubs with multiple NPCs that you could talk, quests with alternate endings that sometimes changed later sections of the game, highly interactive environments, level design with lots of verticality and hidden paths… System Shock had nothing of that.
Really, if anything Deus Ex owes more to Thief in the gameplay department than System Shock, the interactive environments and very detailed level design, even the stealth were straight out of Thief. It clearly has some inspiration from System Shock, especially with the augments, but even those were more useful in ways to allow you traverse the environment than the former. Calling it an “accessible System Shock” is reductive at best.
Hah. I almost wrote that I also think the two Ultima Undergrounds are better than Deus Ex despite being much older and having an objectively very clumsy interface. Then I thought that’d get us in the weeds and pull us too far back, so I took it out.
Look, yeah, Deus Ex rolled in elements from CRPGs and had good production values for the time. But all those things were nothing new for an RPG, they were just new for a shooter. Baldur’s Gate and Fallout were a few years old. The entire Ultima franchise had been messing around with procedural, simulated worlds for almost a decade at that point, which in the 90s was a technological eon.
And yeah, System Shock had created a template for a shooter RPG, they just applied it to a lone survivor dungeon crawly horror thing, rather than try to marry it to the narrative elements of NPC-focused CRPGs, which is admittedly a lot more complicated. And Deus Ex was fully voiced and had… well, a semblance of cutscenes. In context it’s hilariously naive compared to what Japanese devs were doing in Metal Gear or Final Fantasy, but it was a lot for western PC game standards.
But it wasn’t… great to play? I don’t know what to tell you. Thief and Hitman both had nailed the clockwork living stage thing, and at the time I was more than happy to give up the Matrix-at-home narrative and the DnD-style questing for that. The pitch was compelling, but it didn’t necessarily make for a great playable experience against its peers.
I didn’t hate it or anything. I spent quite a bit of time messing with it. That corny main theme still pops up in my head with no effort on demand. I spent more time using it as a benchmark than Unreal, which I also thought wasn’t a great game.
Also, while I’m here pissing people off, can we all agree that “immersive sim” is a terrible name for a genre? What exactly is “simulated”? Why is it immersive? Immerisve as opposed to what? At the time we tended to lump them in with stealth games, so the name is just an attempt to reverse engineer a genre name by using loose words that weren’t already taken, and I hate it. See also: character action game. Which action games do NOT have characters?
Man, I am a grumpy old fart today.
System Shock 2 is begging for a remake with actually functioning netcode for multiplayer way more than the original.
Bioshock would eventually iterate on this, but the RPG systems of System Shock 2 are so, so deep, and I always appreciated that you could still get attacked by enemies while trying to hack machines. It made doing things like hacking feel very dangerous. Bioshock literally pauses time for you it’s so weak by comparison.
I’m not of the opinion that more simulation and more “realism” are always better, but I would absolutely take a System Shock 2 remake, especially after the System Shock one (1 one?) turned out great.
