Posted at 14:16 by Joe Martin with 37 comments
“What did I learn from Deus Ex?” someone asked me on the forums the other week. My answer? Tonnes.
The things that Warren Spector’s seminal FPS/RPG taught me can be broadly divided into three things; things it taught me about games, the world and myself. The very fact that I can definitely point to Deus Ex as something educational says an awful lot about the depth of the game itself and about how much I love it, by the way. When it comes to Deus Ex I’m fully willing to admit to being a totally biased fanboy.
Deus Ex taught me more about computer games than almost any game I’ve ever played and a huge amount of that is owed to the structured non-linearity of the game. If you’ve not played it (and I’ll accept no excuses) then you should know that although Deus Ex is a very linear game, it’s also very freeform. The storyline is best described as elastic as, although you’ll always go through the same levels in the same order, their content can differ hugely.
My favourite part of the game is the New York hotel your brother stays in, The ‘Ton. It’s an area that you only have to visit once or twice if you stick to the plot, but which has critical side missions based around it. The first time you get a chance to pay it a visit there’s a hostage situation, the next time there’s a problem with one of the guests, followed by a family feud. By the end of the game it can be abandoned, run by a skeleton crew, or the same as always.
Depending on what you say to the characters involved (and who survives) you can alter huge portions of the game. Will Sandra still be at home, ready to introduce you to her friend Vinny, who works at the Navy base? Will she be homeless and destitute at the gas station in Nevada? Or is she dead in a ditch? It’s up to you.
What this actually taught me about games though ties into another one of my passions in life; stories. I love stories. Telling them, hearing them, collecting them; they are great things and I’m constantly passing them on. Did you know I once knew a guy who…?
Before Deus Ex I’d loved games because of the stories they told – something mainly due to Monkey Island, which introduced me to the idea that games don’t always have to be brown, samey shooters. They can be colourful, semi-serious things with jokes and insults. Monkey Island showed me that not all games were about mad scientists and burly soldiers – they could be about scrawny, well-intentioned wannabes; people like me!
In many ways the most important thing that Deus Ex taught me was that games could do more than tell stories, they could actually let me create my own adventures that I could go on to discuss with my friends. I could mould the actions of characters to fit whatever epic plot I wanted and, thanks to the superbly layered writing of the game, I could play around with characters motives too.
Is Paul Denton going to survive the raid on The ‘Ton this time I play the game? Can Anna Navarre justify the slaughter of Lebedev, or is she left as a cold-hearted villain? What about me – am I following my destiny blindly by merging with Helios, or am I an anarchist trying to topple society? Again, it’s up to me, but when I’m done I can chat with my pals and tell them this story.
Deus Ex was why I used to love the bus ride to school, because I could turn to my friends and explain how JC Denton was a stealthy assassin who relied on his super-speed enhancements to get onto The Wallcloud undetected. I could tell them JC didn’t trust the Illuminati, which is why he didn’t grab the vaccine for Stanton Dowd when I had a chance.
When I’d said my piece, they’d share their own experiences. To them JC Denton was a goliath who wiped out swathes with his plasma cannon. He didn’t outrun Walton Simons – he outgunned him! He shot the pimp who was bothering Sandra Renton – he didn’t scare him off! And as for how he got inside Area 51 and tackled Bob Page…
That’s one of the most important lessons I learned from Deus Ex; that games are a more powerful medium than cinema, that they can become a social device even in singleplayer, that they can become a truly beautiful form of expression. I learned what games can be if they want to be – and what a shame it is that only a handful of titles since have been as educational in that regard.
Oh, and this is all disregarding the massively insightful hidden conversations you can have with Morpheus as well.
Joe, Out.
The things that Warren Spector’s seminal FPS/RPG taught me can be broadly divided into three things; things it taught me about games, the world and myself. The very fact that I can definitely point to Deus Ex as something educational says an awful lot about the depth of the game itself and about how much I love it, by the way. When it comes to Deus Ex I’m fully willing to admit to being a totally biased fanboy.
Deus Ex taught me more about computer games than almost any game I’ve ever played and a huge amount of that is owed to the structured non-linearity of the game. If you’ve not played it (and I’ll accept no excuses) then you should know that although Deus Ex is a very linear game, it’s also very freeform. The storyline is best described as elastic as, although you’ll always go through the same levels in the same order, their content can differ hugely.
My favourite part of the game is the New York hotel your brother stays in, The ‘Ton. It’s an area that you only have to visit once or twice if you stick to the plot, but which has critical side missions based around it. The first time you get a chance to pay it a visit there’s a hostage situation, the next time there’s a problem with one of the guests, followed by a family feud. By the end of the game it can be abandoned, run by a skeleton crew, or the same as always.
Depending on what you say to the characters involved (and who survives) you can alter huge portions of the game. Will Sandra still be at home, ready to introduce you to her friend Vinny, who works at the Navy base? Will she be homeless and destitute at the gas station in Nevada? Or is she dead in a ditch? It’s up to you.
What this actually taught me about games though ties into another one of my passions in life; stories. I love stories. Telling them, hearing them, collecting them; they are great things and I’m constantly passing them on. Did you know I once knew a guy who…?
Before Deus Ex I’d loved games because of the stories they told – something mainly due to Monkey Island, which introduced me to the idea that games don’t always have to be brown, samey shooters. They can be colourful, semi-serious things with jokes and insults. Monkey Island showed me that not all games were about mad scientists and burly soldiers – they could be about scrawny, well-intentioned wannabes; people like me!
In many ways the most important thing that Deus Ex taught me was that games could do more than tell stories, they could actually let me create my own adventures that I could go on to discuss with my friends. I could mould the actions of characters to fit whatever epic plot I wanted and, thanks to the superbly layered writing of the game, I could play around with characters motives too.
Is Paul Denton going to survive the raid on The ‘Ton this time I play the game? Can Anna Navarre justify the slaughter of Lebedev, or is she left as a cold-hearted villain? What about me – am I following my destiny blindly by merging with Helios, or am I an anarchist trying to topple society? Again, it’s up to me, but when I’m done I can chat with my pals and tell them this story.
Deus Ex was why I used to love the bus ride to school, because I could turn to my friends and explain how JC Denton was a stealthy assassin who relied on his super-speed enhancements to get onto The Wallcloud undetected. I could tell them JC didn’t trust the Illuminati, which is why he didn’t grab the vaccine for Stanton Dowd when I had a chance.
When I’d said my piece, they’d share their own experiences. To them JC Denton was a goliath who wiped out swathes with his plasma cannon. He didn’t outrun Walton Simons – he outgunned him! He shot the pimp who was bothering Sandra Renton – he didn’t scare him off! And as for how he got inside Area 51 and tackled Bob Page…
That’s one of the most important lessons I learned from Deus Ex; that games are a more powerful medium than cinema, that they can become a social device even in singleplayer, that they can become a truly beautiful form of expression. I learned what games can be if they want to be – and what a shame it is that only a handful of titles since have been as educational in that regard.
Oh, and this is all disregarding the massively insightful hidden conversations you can have with Morpheus as well.
Joe, Out.
Comments (37)
Discuss in the forumsthough my friends weren't really into gaming so i didn't have the discussion element, i thoroughly enjoyed how many times one could go through the game without really playing the same game.
yes as you say, the levels were played in the same order, but every time i play i have a different experience, i try different things just to see how it affects the story later on. i must have played through the game half a dozen times, and i still know there's so much more to do.
like the previous poster, it is a game i will continue to return to.. so long as i have my ps2, or a computer that supports the pc version (and yes i own it on both formats lol)
And each and everytime I have learnt, experienced, and played something different. It is amazing how much thought, care and attention to detail went in to crafting it. It was almost literally heart breaking when I played DE2. Sure, it wasn't a bad game, but it was a horrific sequel.
And after reading up on some released details on the new DE, I am not exactly holding my breath for a game that surpasses, or even equals, the original.
They sure don't make them like they used to.
hmm, so is Invisible War, should I?
Of all the games it deserves one.
And I remember you actually telling me about that on the bus and me telling you that you were stupid - I killed Anna as soon as possible, then hid the fact. I also killed the private at the top of the statue of liberty at the start of the first level, which changes a lot of the start of the game.
It's one of those games I can return to time and time again and ALWAYS find something new in the game that I never saw before, from a hidden room to a new a dialogue path or even something as simple as another newspaper on the ground.
On top of all that, with its stiff animations and relatively low-poly models, it's a triumph of content and gameplay over graphics and yet at the same time has its own gritty, immersive visual style that it pulls off beautifully.
"You know you've played Deus Ex too much when... You realise you can never play Deus Ex too much."
My experience of Deus Ex seems to be almost identical to Joe's, and basically taught me the same things - It's just that good.
I'm really enjoying these blogs, they're a great addition to the site.
But I'm still going to have to go back and kill the guy at the top of Liberty statue: I've always interrogated him! I never knew you could kill him! What have I missed!? And NOT saving Stanton Dowd? Oh my life... Me, and my dissertation, hate you. What a totally epic tribute, to a totally epic game.
Heh - you can kill the NSF leader instead of interrogating him, yep. That's not actually what I was referring to though. I was talking about the UNATCO guard that comes to collect the terrorist and who asks you to report back to base - you can kill HIM too. That lets you get more convo out of the terrorist, as well as making Manderley suspicious of you early on as he launches an inquiry into that soldiers death.
So re-installing it on my old PC! :D
But now, I am getting it on steam...
Just promise that you'll get to the end of the third level or so before you form an opinion. When I first played the game I found it really, really hard and ugly and obscure and I hated it. Only because I was told it would get better did I carry on trying with the first level until I found tactics I was comfy with, at which point I was smitten.
And remember:
http://motivateurself.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/deus-ex.jpeg
But, No one lives forever rocked :D I remember playing it a lot, and all my friends were like "what do you find in this game?"
I didn't even bother to explain, it's a game that you should instantly adore or not at all, no point in going into details what's so great about it :)
Yeah I did that on my first playthrough, I thought it was so cool that I could do that in the first place, but the fact that I got a good telling off from Manderley made me even more impressed by the game.
That's so true it's unreal. I would comply with that but I've just lent it to a mate! :( Is it wrong to run out right now and buy a copy just because of that poster??!!:o
Not tried it yet, it only arrived on Monday will probably have to wait till the weekend
Just gives more satisfaction when you can get through the whole level like a pro though. :D
If you want something hard to find, did you ever have the hidden phone call with Helios when you first go to France?
Super hard to find: What about the hidden safe behind Manderley's bookcase?
Did you ever find the funky, odd piece of equipment at the Mausoleum? IIRC, it explodes well. No idea what it's meant to be though.
You'll have to be a bit more specific than that I'm afraid, unless you mean the jammer that's in the gatemasters house. If you want to find out what it is then don't go anywhere near the gravekeeper until you've spoken to Dowd. Alternately, if you want Dowd to think differently about you then you can kill the gatekeeper on sight, which provokes a different outcome.
It's quite worrying: I didn't realise anyone could have played this game more than me. :p
I remember the day I bought Deus Ex... I'd bought a PC Gamer with the demo on the day before, installed and played that at least five times, so went and bought it on release day. (This was before the age of easily downloadable demos - the demo was something like 200MB and my dial-up was dodgy for any file larger than about 30MB so even trying to download it was foolish...) installed the game (didn't have room for a full install) and then my Phillips CD-ROM drive decided to break - in the process it sliced the bottom layer of the CD right off, then launched the remains of the disc into the top of the drive.
Took the drive (and the skinned game) back to the shop and got both replaced. At least that was easy - held up the dead drive, held up the skinned CD (which I'd managed to get out of the drive after some careful work with a pair of tweezers) and the guy replaced both without even trying to argue.
Even so, Deus Ex is one of four games to have sucked at least 200 hours out of my life; the other three being TIE Fighter Collectors CD, Civilisation II and Final Fantasy VIII.
I promise you'll still be amazed at what you find and how you find it. There's so much to find in Deus Ex it's unreal.
tie fighter was alot of fun too- remember that paradigm =]
Because it was an awful game? I always find it odd that Ion Storm had three teams and made three games of real note; Deus Ex and Anachronox which were good...and Daikatana.
For the record: I did re-install it last night. :o
Loved this article and the comments, really captures what gaming is all about.