Deus Ex
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
Groups +
- 3D Engine: Unreal Engine 1
- Deus Ex series
- Eidos Premier Collection releases
- Gameplay feature: Body dragging
- Gameplay feature: Character development - Skill distribution
- Gameplay feature: Drowning
- Gameplay feature: Grid Inventory
- Gameplay feature: Multiple endings
- Gameplay feature: Radiation / radioactive poisoning
- Games with 451
- Protagonist: Cyborg
- Setting: 2050s
- Setting: City - Hong Kong
- Setting: City - New York
- Setting: City - Paris
- Setting: Country - France
- Setting: Ship / Boat
- Software Pyramide releases
- Theme: Hacking / Pseudohacking
Screenshots
Promos
Videos
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Credits (Windows version)
184 People (144 developers, 40 thanks) · View all
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| In-Game Text and Intro/Endgame Cinematics | |
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| [ full credits ] | |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 89% (based on 77 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 521 ratings with 34 reviews)
To stop the New World Order or to join it? This rests in the hands of just one man.
The Good
It's perhaps the only game that has treated conspiracy theories the better, using stuff from real theories and changing the name of some other more polemical things (like "The Grey Death" disease emulating a well-known disease of our times).
The upgrading and personalization of your character (like in an RPG) is one of the main keys why this game is so good: you can become whatever you want, a warfare machine or more stealthy than that guy from that Tom Clancy game.
The game also counts with lots of choices to be taken. Your actions reflect on how the game evolves. For example, important characters to the plot can die or survive depending on your actions (saving them from a planted bomb or helping them when the enemies overcome them, those are two of these situations in the game), you can also face problems in different ways, by talking or being unnoticed or by opening your way with fire power.
The character and plot development is also very good. In the beginning (and if you aren't aware of conspiracy theories) you would never expect one of the biggest plot turns in the game, so you never know who you can trust in the Deus Ex world (like in the real one, let's face it...).
The music is also one of it's strong points, the themes can be epic, relaxing or thrilling.
The Bad
I missed some things from the port to PS2, some of the music was changed and some levels are shortened, but well, can't complain, could have been a lot worse.
Also, some levels felt a bit empty and quickly built. Sometimes it results in a boring exploration experience for the player (maybe it's because I don't like shooters very much).
The Bottom Line
If you like conspiracy theories or a good RPG/Shooter with character and plot development, Deus Ex will be a wise choice.
PlayStation 2 · by Depth Lord (934) · 2005
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
The Good
The atmosphere of the game fits the plot well, the computer A.I. isn't bad, the RPG elements are great, the puzzles aren't hard enough to figure out that you need to resort to a strategy guide, the architexture of the levels are quite impressive, the overall graphics are very nice, the music fits the game well, the sound effects aren't bad, the weapons are fun to toy around with, towards the end the story becomes extremely exciting and the multiple endings are a great addition.
The Bad
The storyline is rather unoriginal and extremely predictable - who didn't know the truth of everything by the end of the second mission? While some of your actions can change the course of the plot, it doesn't change it enough for you to notice or really give two hoots. Too many of the missions they make you go through involve crawling through vents. Most of the quests you must go through have very little to do with the storyline, and you'll often finish a quest thankful that it's finally over and you can get back to the storyline, only to have to go through another pointless quest, and then another, and then another. While some of these quests aren't that bad, I was more interested in the advancing in the story than shooting up some bad guys and crawling through vents.
The Bottom Line
I thought the game tried to include too many standard shooter elements into what really was a great first-person RPG. The game is worth your money, and a blast to play through, but you'll get quite frustrated at times being everybody's errand boy instead of the hero. It's one of the better games I've played, but not as good as I had hoped it would be.
Windows · by kbmb (416) · 2002
Discussion
| Subject | By | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Genres | Cantillon (68659) | May 7th, 2021 |
| 20th anniversary | Patrick Bregger (290125) | Jun 22nd, 2020 |
| First original US box design? | sndwv | Aug 28th, 2016 |
| Did you know? | Donatello (453) | Jun 23rd, 2013 |
| Happy birthday! | Patrick Bregger (290125) | Jun 24th, 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 Sites +
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Deus Ex HDTP (High Definition Texture Project)
Deus Ex lives and will soon look cooler than ever in hi-res! -
Deus Ex Incarnate
Check up on Deus Ex news, walkthroughs, and tips on this site. -
Deus Ex Machina
See Deus Ex articles, interviews, polls, and screenshots at this site. -
Deus Ex Post-Mortem (1/2)
<moby developer="Warren Spector">Warren Spector</moby> and <moby developer="Harvey Smith">Harvey Smith</moby> speak about the development process of <i>Deus Ex</i> (Youtube, part 1/2) -
Deus Ex Post-Mortem (2/2)
<moby developer="Warren Spector">Warren Spector</moby> and <moby developer="Harvey Smith">Harvey Smith</moby> speak about the development process of <i>Deus Ex</i> (Youtube, part 2/2) -
Postmortem: Ion Storm's Deus Ex
Gamasutra article by <moby developer="Warren Spector">Warren Spector</moby> about the development process of <i>Deus Ex</i> -
Something Awful review
A humorous review on Something Awful (PC version) -
The Making Of: Deus Ex
A retrospective of <em>Deus Ex</em> at EDGE Online, provided by Warren Spector, which covers the game's development and struggles (September 11th, 2009). -
The Nameless Mod
A total conversion which features the main gameplay advantages of Deus Ex with a completely new plot. Also includes full voice acting and two mostly separate story branches. -
Wikipedia: Deus Ex
Information about Deus Ex at Wikipedia
Identifiers +
- MobyGames ID: 1749
- Wikipedia (en)
Contribute
Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history!
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 25th, 2000. Last modified September 28th, 2023.