Game of the Month #3 - April: Deus Ex

The baton seems to be really picky about where you hit or maybe I'm just not close enough or something. But I have had a bit more luck with knocking guys out now (quicksaving right before also helps), also the crossbow with regular darts (that I didn't even try up till now for some reason) seems to be a one shot kill almost always if you get a headshot and I also equipped my sniper rifle with a silencer to get the ultimate in stealth weaponry.

It really is and it can be pretty frustrating because of it because some groups of enemies you need to deal that 1 strike knock out to avoid alerting them all.

Something else that's rather odd about the stealth system is explosions. For example, if you blow up a door with a GEP gun you will most likely alert everyone in the vicinity and they'll come looking for you but if you use a LAM, either thrown or planted and detonated by shooting it (with a silenced weapon), you probably won't alert anyone.

I actually tested this during one of the Paris missions, there's a few houses near the hostel and a neutral policeman just standing guard. Breaking into one of the homes with the GEP gun he started firing on me, with the LAM he never reacted. It's a bit counter intuitive but it seemed like LAM's are the ultimate stealth explosion.

According to the database and completion dates:
6 people completed Deus Ex in April, with an average rating of 88%. Majority logged a main story time, taking 25.2 hours to beat!

Just like many other people here have said I too had hard time to start the game because the first couple of missions were kind of boring and not that interesting. When UNATCOs true intentions are revealed and JC joins NSF couple hours in, the story starts to get interesting.

I tried stealth playthrough but I wasn't any successful. The stealth mechanics haven't aged well. So I went all guns blazing until I got Dragon's Tooth which I used as my main weapon with silenced sniper rifle until the end of the game. I just couldn't resist the 1-2 hit kills. :D

Overall I enjoyed the game a lot and beat it in about 19 hours with Helios -ending without any help from the walkthroughs. It was also my first time beating the game.

Didn't finish the game, but some quick words before we move on to the next game.

The game is amazing so far(more or less halfway through), enjoying a lot the atmosphere and the story.

I tried to do also a stealthy aproach but it didn't turn out very well.

The freedom of choice both story-wise and gameplay-wise is incredible.

So I persevered and have put in a few hours. I'm at Hong Kong right now. Definitely glad I pushed through the first few missions, but I still feel like the game is a little too ambitious without following through on all its promise. It's better than, say, the Fable games, but I am noticing that the illusion of choice is flimsier than it appears. Like, when I had to enter Castle Clinton I noticed there was a little window on the side where you could push heavy crates out of the way to enter through the back, but I had already used my Arm Augmentation on the melee upgrade. But it didn't really matter because Navarre had killed all the troops inside anyway.

It also bothered me when UNATCO raids Paul's apartment that you can't escape. Obviously from a plot standpoint it makes sense, but I spent probably an hour quick saving and quick loading trying to get out of that area only to discover it was futile.

I think Monolight's "budget System Shock 2" comment was pretty accurate... if I had played this before SS2 I imagine I would like it a lot more, but I can't help but compare the two, and SS2 will always come out on top. Just weird though, because I'm starting to think this is how my Human Revolution playthrough went as well--not even remotely fun until your augs and skills kick in. Maybe I'll replay HR to do a comparison.

It's been a while since I've played this game but i remember thoroughly enjoying this game.

I also agree with the concession that the first level is terrible. I felt it made you well to weak at the start especially when trying to use a sniper rifle and your scope going all over the place. Still it quickly picks up afterwards.

In the end I played it as a kind of long range infiltrator. Picking off enemies at a distance with a sniper rifle and then finding back door entrances to get through the level.

This is still my favorite dues ex game though.

Highlights:
The UNATCO turn
The hong kong level
Infiltrating the ocean base.

I will give a go again to this piece of classic again really soon. After training for 3 years and playing many old games I think I'm super ready to deal with all clunkiness and oldschool game design. Maybe even think that Deus Ex aged like wine which was kept in wrong cellar or something. Anyway I doubt that controls are actually as bad as I remember when I last tried it. I think it should be something as complex as Thief 2. I will tell my adventures and opinions about Deus Ex 2000 here next month. February is going to be cyberpunked.

I beat it earlier today and I'm not sure if I liked it or not. I liked the world and story, but the stealth could feel primitive, the darkness was annoying, and once you get the Dragon's tooth, combat became a joke.

I decided on going for the New Dark Age ending, but I'm curious what endings other people went for

I've been thinking about playing this game again, but I doubt I can deal with the clunky mechanics, I find the immersive sim genre to be mostly overhyped. I always found games that had both shooting and stealth to be generally sub par at both. Hell, this game was made because Warren Spector couldn't brute force his way in Thief and this game is mechanically inferior to Thief. Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided despite being worse written than this game have far better stealth mechanics than "immersive sims" that attempt stealth looking at you Arkane Studios. The "options" and "play your way" design philosophy of game design is something I was always against even if your game attempts stealth and action, the game will always favor one play style over the other.

I do think Bob Page is a pretty cool villain despite his rather limited screen time. I do think this cutscene is great:

When i think of deus ex i think of this song. Also my opinion about this game is very simple.
It has the greatest boss fights of all time as illustrated by the video i just linked!