Deus Ex Review | Active Augmentations, Stealth Exploration, A Reactive World

In the late 90s, John Romero convinced Warren Spector to join his studio in order to make the game of his dreams. This game was something Spector had been thinking about since 1993. It had a couple of names over the years – Troubleshooter being one, and Shooter: Majestic Revelations being another – but one thing remained the same: it was ambitious. We’re going back to 2000 to take a look at a first-person shooter, that is also a stealth game, that is also an RPG – so I guess we can call this one an immersive sim. We’re talking Deus Ex

On this episode of Stealth Boom Boom, we chat a little bit about Ion Storm’s origins, Daikatana, and how one developer was going to make you his bitch. We also look at how that Dallas attitude affected Austin, the difficulty in marketing a game that’s quite different to everything else out there, how being a pacifist is okay actually, and how single player games are not dead.

Here are some of the things you’re gonna hear us chat about in our review: the Revision mod; stealth systems that are reliable, but working underneath, meaning you have to mostly go on vibes; being seen is just part of your story rather than failure; THE QUICK SAVE; looking at every possible route to sneakily get around the world; the glorious lockpicking waggle; the invisibility cloak; weak small arms for those that want to kill quietly; the beast riot prod and the even beaster lightsaber Dragon’s Tooth sword; permanent a/b choices that really make you think about your build; draining bioenergy; remembering to turn off your augmentations; TORCH EYES; the GEP gun, the LAM, and all of this game’s wonderfully silly explosive weapons; managing the Resident Evil style inventory; boss encounters that don’t betray the game; kill phrases; your first encounter with the NSF on Liberty Island; buying drinks in Hong Kong’s Lucky Money club; conspiracy theories now vs conspiracy theories then; predictions that have come to pass (and others that have not); changing the course of its plot and how characters react to your actions and decisions in ways that never stop being brilliant; and that absolute stone cold classic of a theme song.

After all that, we take you through what some of the critics were saying about the game around the time it came out, and then we give you our final verdicts on whether Deus Ex is a Pass, a Play, or an Espionage Explosion.

For those who would like to play along at home, we'll be discussing, reviewing and dissecting Ghost of Tsushima on the next episode of Stealth Boom Boom.

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