Deus Ex

aka: DX1, Deus Ex: The Conspiracy
Moby ID: 1749
Windows Specs
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Add-on (unofficial) Special Edition

Description official descriptions

Some time during the 2050's, the world is a dangerous place as terrorists, drug czars, and outlaw states rule, using violence and subterfuge as tools in their push for global conquest. A deadly virus dubbed "gray death" is running rampant throughout the world and the only known cure is a chemical known as "Ambrosia" manufactured by the VersaLife corporation. However Ambrosia supplies are scarce and world governments, particularly the United States, carefully monitor and control who receives this cure. As protest against these events, French terrorist organization "Silhouette" bombs the historic symbol of friendship between French and American people, The Statue of Liberty. In response to this attack, the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO) organization is formed. Building a headquarters underground at Liberty Island, its mission is to attack terrorism and maintain peace around the world. JC Denton is a nano-enhanced agent who has been primed for UNATCO service. While JC's brother Paul is already an active agent, JC is beginning his first day of service when the National Secessionist Forces (NSF) suddenly raid a supply of Ambrosia at UNATCO headquarters.

Deus Ex is a dark cyberpunk game that combines gameplay styles of first-person shooter and RPG, with elements of stealth and puzzle-solving. The player assumes the role of JC Denton, UNATCO anti-terrorist agent. Pitted against an elaborate global conspiracy, he must interact with characters, pick up weapons and complete objectives. While JC is essentially fixed within the mission-framework of the game, he can be customized in areas such as weapons, technical skills and physical prowess. Completing objectives rewards the player with skill points, which may be distributed to increase JC's proficiencies in eleven different disciplines. The player can choose to increase the damage JC inflicts with various types of weapons, improve his lock-picking or computer hacking abilities, etc. Each such discipline has four levels of proficiency.

Another way of customizing JC is applying nano-augmentations to his body. These cybernetic implants bestow the hero with super-human abilities, and can be installed on different body parts, up to nine at the same time. Along with combat-related benefits, nano-augmentations also grant JC abilities that can be used to overcome certain obstacles within the game world. Examples of those are jumping to extreme heights, swimming, lifting heavy objects, etc. Weapons can be customized as well: their range, accuracy, and magazine sizes can be increased, and they can be enhanced by attaching scopes, silencers, or laser sights to them.

The game leads JC to various places all around the globe. The cities he visits, as well as most mission areas, are expansive and fairly open to accommodate different approaches to solving the same problems, depending on the player's preferred style of play. Most of the missions can be tackled in various ways, e.g. with brute force, stealth, or extensive usage of lock-picking and computer hacking abilities. At certain points, the course of the storyline can also be influenced by the decisions made by the player. Similarly to System Shock games, the environment is largely interactive, the player being able to pick up, use, and discard various types of objects.

Spellings

  • 杀出重围 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

184 People (144 developers, 40 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 78 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 530 ratings with 34 reviews)

Sweet Merciful Crap, This Is Good!!!

The Good
It was like living an episode of the X-Files. Lots of details to uncover, conspiracies to unravel, and allegiances to choose. Plus, there's a way for everyone to play the game out based on their tastes. Whether you want to sneak in through the shadows Bond-style or charge through with guns blazing Terminator-style, the game will accomadate you. Playing settings are detailed and varied, from New York to Paris to Hong Kong. Graphics are excellent, as long as you have a system with the cojones for it.

The Bad
Frequent, if necessary, level loads, since the levels are just huge. And even though the game is very deep and provides numerous ways to solve every problem, it really has a very linear plot, even if it's a line in disguise. The only choice you make that actually affects the direction that the plot takes happens at the very end of the game. That might not be a flaw per se, but it is something that you should know about if you expect a game that has wildly differing storylines based on how you carry out missions. People will react differently to how you deal with situations, but you get the same missions and go to the same places.

The Bottom Line
First and foremost, worth your money. Secondly, worth your time, because it will suck up a great deal of it. In a nutshell, (Half-Life's shooter aspect)+(Theif's sneaking around in the dark aspect)+(Any RPG's depth as far as character interaction and plot twists go)=One Hell of a Game (Working Title: Deus Ex)

Windows · by Jordan Samuels (2) · 2000

Good, very good, but could have been better

The Good
The Plot behind Deus Ex is solid. Stop the Evil COnspiracy from taking over the world, and it does work, the developers have obviously done their conspiracy story research, with a few literary License mistakes, but that cant be helped.

The Graphics are solid, and sound is good too.

The Bad
The Inventory system Sucks, majorly. If I ever encounter the person who thought that up, I will ensure he or she meets a fowl death.

There seems to be little use for money. Bribing guards is out of the question, which is what I would have liked to do, and some Augmentations just seem stupid (okay, why do I need Night vision when I have Torches in my eyes?).

I would have liked some more skills too, but that would require a bigger game.

The Bottom Line
Its very good, but could have been better. You run around NY, HK, Paris, and numerous other areas uncovering plots and counterplots, killing people, blowing stuff up, and its not senseless violence (unlike say, Doom or Quake) which is a major plus.

Seriously, Try this game out, you'll be caught up in it, while winging about the bugs.

Windows · by Chad Henshaw (27) · 2002

It is not the God of video games... but it comes close

The Good
You know how there are sometimes games everyone keep recommending to you, asking you to play them, and you resist stubbornly, perhaps without even realizing why, talk rudely to your friends, and say: "Gimme a break! I'm not interested! Got that?!"

Well, that's what happened between my game-playing buddies, Deus Ex, and myself. Nearly everyone spoke about this game as if it were a sacred object, almost an idol, worthy of zealous admiration and maybe even human sacrifices. Nearly every review was positive - no, positive is not the correct word. The game was praised up to the point of calling it the Messiah of gaming, the savior of sinful player souls, and the way to a new, enlightened gaming paradise.

Since I usually can't stand this kind of hype, Deus Ex annoyed me long before I actually laid my paws on it. But when I read some of the reviews more carefully and realized the game was a kind of a fancy mixture between FPS, sneaking game, RPG, and adventure, I understood I wouldn't be myself if I didn't try it.

I can't say I fell in love with the game from the moment I inserted the disc into the drive. In fact, the game was heating up pretty slowly. The intro sequence is rather unspectacular, and the first mission not particularly exciting. But times has passed, and it really grew on me.

It is interesting that the atmosphere in the game also develops gradually. The more I played, the more I got sucked into the game, and finally I found myself praising it for what I was already prepared to condemn: its atmosphere. It increases slowly, the more missions you get, and the more clear the relationships between the different characters of the game become. After you get your partner, and your brother appears on the scene as a really important figure, Deus Ex becomes more than just interesting - it actually gets captivating and fascinating.

One of the decisive gameplay elements here is the fantastic interaction with the world, which can be almost compared to Ultima-style "if it is there, you can use it" kind of gameplay. You can fool around with pretty much everything you see, and sometimes the results are more interesting and rewarding than you'd expect. I absolutely love this kind of attention to interaction and detail. I mean, which other game lets you take a break from the story, walk over to a playground and play some basketball?

Deus Ex is a spiritual successor to the fantastic System Shock 2, especially in the way it experiments with different genres. Like System Shock 2, it is also primarily a FPS with strong RPG elements; but it goes even further than its predecessor in merging various playing styles into a single coherent and immensely satisfying whole.

The magic of Deus Ex is that it allows you to play it the way you want to. The different genres are not "over-imposed" on each other, but are merged in such a way that you won't notice it; you'll simply feel that you can do whatever you want. The subtlety of this genre-mixing is astounding; but even more astounding is the fact the game actually works as a representative of any of the genres it contains, taken separately.

Basically, if you liked straight-forward shooters, you can play Deus Ex as one. If you liked Thief-style sneaking, Deus Ex provides it for you as well. If you like RPGs, you can focus your attention on that aspect when playing this game. The thing is that Deus Ex only rarely throws at you tasks that can be completed only in one way; it doesn't have "shooting missions", "stealth missions", etc. You don't need to disable every single alarm or to hack every single computer system to get what you need. The game conveniently offers you several ways of solving a problem. If it doesn't go with force, try using the brains; and vice versa. You choose the approach by yourself almost at any given moment. This is the greatness of Deus Ex.

I loved the RPG touch. You gather "experience points" which you can then allocate to make your character more skillful. You choose yourself how to do it, like in a true hardcore RPG. You can upgrade your weapon skills, or your ability to pick locks, or your swimming, etc. and all those skills are important, it really shows in the game and is a testimony of its fantastic programming. Then there are the bio-upgrades which work a lot like equipment or even like magic spells, you can protect your characters from various poisons and similar things, heal him, make him jump higher, and so on.

The locations of Deus Ex are, for the most part, interesting, large and detailed. You visit large urban areas such as New York or Hong-Kong (one of the best levels), there's no linear "go there, talk to that guy, take this" advancement; on the contrary, you wander around like in a RPG or an adventure game, talk to characters, gather objects, and so on.

The story is more than just a simple "good guys vs. bad guys" thing it seems in the beginning. And the characters are more than just anonymous voices who give you missions. Yes, it takes time to get into the story, but its development and the ending makes up for the long wait. And the final part lets you choose between three ways, each one of which leads to a convincing (in its own way), yet a problematic ending. Bravo! There's no "save the world, get the girl" stuff: you should apply your philosophy and your vision of the world to the game. It is like Shin Megami Tensei, only a bit more concrete.

The Bad
I could mention some obvious flaws such as the not-so-hot graphics in certain areas, the somewhat repetitive level design (too many "square" levels, vents are a bit overused), the length of the game, which is not always a plus (it starts repeating itself, and while some parts are brilliant and full of plot twists, others are just "missions" devoid of story), the average voice acting, the dubious AI (you drop an electronic grenade to disable an alarm two meters from the guard, but he ignores it completely; you run loudly towards a terrorist, and instead of turning his head back at the noise, he waits until you aim your gun at his skull, and says something like "Aha! An intruder, eh? I think you shouldn't be here! Or am I wrong? Maybe it should be so?") and so on. But to tell you the truth, those things didn't really bother me.

The story is not that great. Interesting, yes, with a couple of very good twists, and some fantastic moral choices in the end, but it couldn't help being a bit dry and uninvolved for a game of this scope. Also, the writing is definitely less than stellar; some of the dialogue seems to be taken straight out of a not particularly brilliant B-rated movie.

The Bottom Line
There is no doubt about that: Deus Ex is amazing. Incredible gameplay flexibility, marvelous interactive world, interesting locations and a good plot make it an outstanding shooter/RPG hybrid and an overwhelming, deeply satisfying experience. It fully deserves the praise it has got and stands out as one of the most remarkable achievements of video game design.

Windows · by Unicorn Lynx (181780) · 2014

[ View all 34 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Genres Cantillon (75912) May 7, 2021
20th anniversary Patrick Bregger (298879) Jun 22, 2020
First original US box design? sndwv Aug 28, 2016
Did you know? Donatello (466) Jun 23, 2013
Happy birthday! Patrick Bregger (298879) Jun 24, 2010

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The PC version of Deus Ex appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Alex Denton

Somewhere in Area 51 (the last stage of the game) you can see a number of containers with clones in suspension. One of them is called Alex Denton. Alex Denton is the lead character to the successor Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Books

Ever wonder about the books found in Deus Ex? The Man Who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton is a real book written in 1901, and takes place in a fantasy version of Victorian England, in which anarchists take names of days of the week it has some similarities to Deus Ex. G.K. Chesterton also wrote a book about St. Thomas Aquinas whom is referenced several time in Deus Ex.

One of the many books you can read in Deus Ex is the beginning of The Eye of Argon by Jim Theis. This is a real book, considered by many to be the worst fantasy book ever written. Information about the book and the full text can be found online.

Cancelled Linux version

The Linux version of Deus Ex was supposed to be ported by Loki Entertainment Software. Unfortunately, they went bankrupt back in 2001. Although their company website still exists, it (obviously) hasn't been updated. The status of Deus Ex in the website is "coming soon". Not likely.

Non-lethal

Due to the array of non-lethal weapon and the numerous stealth options, it is quite possible to finish the game having only killed three people. That's a pretty non-violent option for a first person shooter! With the explotation of glitches, the number can be dropped to one.

References

  • There's a register in the hotel at the Hell's Kitchen location... click on it and you will see that the last name is Hyppolita Hall... a character from the Sandman comic books.
  • One of the computer passwords used in the game, "reindeerflotilla", is actually a reference to the 1982 movie Tron, where it was used by Flynn to hack into the computer network and challenge the MCP (the time when he's actually inside the Encom building).
  • The helicopter pilot Jock with which J.C. Denton allies himself in the game is possibly a reference to the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the opening scenes of that movie, Indiana Jones makes a getaway in a biplane, flown by a pilot also named Jock.
  • Main voices of JC Denton and Agent Navarre are eerily similar to the protaganists of Nocture... as well as their general appearances.
  • A couple of tidbits. JC Denton was supposed to have a famous ancestor with the Initials J.C. If you look at the game logo, you see a very stylized J and C rotating around a tiny sphere.
  • Castle Clinton, as well as the Statue of Liberty, are real buildings represented in the game as playable maps.
  • In the hotel, in NYC, check the guest register. One entry is, Gabriel Syme, from London, England. Syme was the title character in the novel, The Man Who Was Thursday.

Special edition

Beware the "special edition" that's being sold for $9.99 in bargain bins at Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, etc. This is a one-level demo being passed off as a full retail version. Unlike other legitimate bargain bin software, the Deus Ex being sold in the bargain bin section is only a demo and not the full game.

Eidos has a nasty habit of releasing game demos disguised as full retail versions and pedalling them in bargain bin software racks (they've done this previously with Tomb Raider). Nowhere on the packaging is it mentioned the "special edition" is a demo and not the full retail version of the game.

Title

The title "Deus Ex" comes from the latin term deus ex machina. It means- 1. A god introduced by means of a crane in ancient Greek and Roman drama to decide the final outcome. 2. A person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.

Twin Towers

If you run around Liberty Island, you can see the New York skyline. The Twin Towers are missing because allegedly, they were destroyed by terrorists. This was a design decision for a game released before September 11, 2001.

Voice acting

Lots of Ion Storm employees were used as voice actors. Tom Hall plays the villain in the game; Jay Franke, a QA tester, played the protagonist. He used to be on the TV sitcom California Dreams.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2000 – Game of the Year
    • 2001 – #18 Top Game of All Time
    • 2011 – #3 Top PC Game of the 2000s
  • PC Gamer
    • 2000 - Game of the Year
    • October 2001 - #10 in the "Top 50 Games of All Time" list
    • April 2005 - #27 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Alan Chan, Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze, emanjonez, Entorphane, Jason Musgrave, jeremy strope, MasterMegid, PCGamer77, Ryan Prendiville, Scott Monster, Stephen Atkinz; Tomer Gabel and WildKard

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Related Games

Deus Ex: Invisible War
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution
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Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Benelux Edition
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Ultimate Edition
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by rstevenson.

PlayStation 3 added by GTramp. Macintosh added by Kabushi. PlayStation 2 added by NeoMoose.

Additional contributors: MAT, Adam Baratz, Unicorn Lynx, Shoddyan, Zeppin, DreinIX, Zeikman, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added June 25, 2000. Last modified March 16, 2024.