October 2000 || Volume 01, Issue 03
Review by Erica J. Marceau

4 Smileys - 1 Smiley Poor, 5 Smileys Excellent

Title: Deus Ex
Version: 1.0.1
Developer: Westlake Interactive (released by Aspyr Media)
Price: $39.95
Contact Info: http://www.aspyr.com/
Genre: First-Person Shooter/Role-Playing
ESRB Rating: Mature (Animated Blood and Gore, Animated Violence)
System Requirements:

• MacOS 8.1 or later
• G3 processor at 266 MHz or faster
• 64 MB of Memory (128 MB recommended)
• 4X CD-ROM
• Hard drive, with 150 MB minimum free space
• Quicktime 4.0 (included)
• Hardware 3D acceleration, at least an ATI Rage Pro with 4 MB VRAM or equivalent (e.g., all Rev. B iMacs, etc.), or any 3dfx-based card (Rage128 or Voodoo3 recommended).

Platforms: Mac OS, Windows 95/98/NT 4.0/2000 (developed by IonStorm, released by Eidos Interactive)

Forward

So you think you're pretty tough at first-person shooters. You started out in Doom, moved on to the Quake, fragged online in Quake III, and finished up in Unreal Tournament. You think you know everything to do with weapons (both futuristic and modern) and can clear out any level in your sleep. Unfortunately for those of you that can relate to this description, Deus Ex from Aspyr Media isn't this kind of game. More of a cross between an first-person shooter (FPS) and a role-playing game (RPG), Deus Ex combines shooting enemies while accomplishing certain goals with improving and adding new skills and augmentations as well as choosing different ways to accomplish missions. Does this unusual combination of genres produce a winner? Read on to find out.

What Makes Deus Ex Unique

The biggest difference between Deus Ex and most first-person shooters is the realism. Most first-person shooters have basically unlimited ammunition and you can withstand enough damage to level most buildings. In Deus Ex the enemy can kill you by shooting you in the head just as you can do so to them. You also have limited ammunition and simply can't go around killing everyone and everything that moves. Even if you use melee weapons there is a great chance of you getting killed. So if you can't kill everyone and can easily get killed yourself, how the heck do you complete each level? The answer is by sneaking around and using stealth. You might not know how to sneak since not many games use the technique. The way that you learn is in an excellent tutorial that I recommend everyone goes through before starting a new game. You learn how to shoot, what benefits skills provide, how to use bombs, how to open locked doors, swim, and most importantly sneak past enemies. At the end of the tutorial, you will be well armed to take on the rest of the game.

At the Beginning

Once you start a new game, you will see the screen to the right. You have a limited amount of points given to you that you can spend on skills. You start out as being trained in the use of pistols but I downgraded that skill to spend on others. This is part of Deus Ex's role-playing aspect because you will be rewarded Skill Points as you go through the game. Some will be given because you found a secret area or accomplished a primary and/or secondary goal(s). I earned enough Skill Points by the end of the first level to get training in pistols and medicine. However, you have a great deal of flexibility in the skills that you concentrate in. I prefer to shoot enemies from a distance but others might want to get in close and use swords instead. From what I've heard of other people's experiences, there is really no wrong way to go in Deus Ex, there are simply easier and harder ways. You can also change your picture and your real name in this screen as well. Once you've customized your character as you see fit you are ready to start the game.

First Impressions

A lot of the first level involves sneaking and so it was hard for me to really get interested and involved for quite a while. Especially since I was playing Diablo II at the same time and we all know how trigger happy Diablo II is [Editor's Note: despite the fact that Diablo II has no guns :)]. However, once I actually got into the mindset of sneaking and sniping the enemy from the shadows, my opinion of Deus Ex changed. It requires a skill that I was simply not used to using. I went from thinking "Why can't I just kill them all?" to "How can I best sneak past these guys to get to the next safe spot?" and "Those cameras are going to transmit my presence to the enemy. Can I turn them off?" For me it wasn't an instantaneous transformation from hate to like but now I really enjoy playing Deus Ex.

Part of my joy involves the plot surrounding Deus Ex. You play as JC Denton who is one of two cybernetically enhanced members of UNATCO. UNATCO, or the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition, enforces international law in an impartial manner around the world. The main enemy is the NSF or the National Secessionist Forces which was formed when the Sporting Weapons Act was passed. The act prohibited rifles, grenades, land mines and other "collectibles." Now the NSF wants to occupy the United States and is aided by an encrypted network designed by computer scientists from San Francisco and Seattle. Add to the mix a plague that requires constantly taking a drug to avoid the horrible effects and a slow death and you have a perfect situation for mass hysteria and riots.

I also liked the ability to enhance your various cybernetic augmentations with augmentation canisters found throughout the game. In the picture to the right you can see the two choices that are given with the first augmentation canister that's found in the first level. I can choose to either become stronger or to increase the damage done in melee combat. Since I didn't see much point in becoming stronger and since ammunition is hard to come by, I chose Combat Strength. As always, you can choose the increase in strength if you think that will be more useful.

Controls

As in all first-person shooters, there are multiple keyboard commands that you have to remember in order to effectively play Deus Ex. It has the typical controls that most first-person shooters have including leaning left and right, strafing left and right, turning left and right, jumping, and moving around. I tried using the iShock from Macally but the view always drifted downwards even after calibrating the joysticks multiple times. I went back to the keyboard and mouse combination with the mouse controlling the view and using items and with the keyboard controlling movement.

Since I was doing a lot of sneaking, I had crouch as a toggle which meant that I didn't have to constantly hold the crouch key in order to crouch. In order to interact with anything in the world, like picking up a weapon that you want to keep, you can click the second mouse button or command click if you have a single button mouse. It's very annoying to have to move the hand from the arrow keys to the command just to interact with the world. Even more annoying is that to use an item, such as keys, you have to first equip the item and then press the return key. So if you're anything like me, you're left hand will be roaming all over the keyboard to use the various commands. Oddly enough, as difficult and unintuitive as this might seem I got used to it rather quickly and soon found myself having little difficulty navigating around the massive levels. Your experience will vary but just keep in mind that there is a learning curve to becoming fully comfortable with the controls.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are simply amazing with so many textures and animations -- it's no wonder that Deus Ex requires a G3, 128 MB of memory, and a 3D accelerator card. I'm sure that you can see evidence of this in the screenshots. It's even more amazing in the actual game with the reflections from the lights and the shadows that you perpetually hide in. Each level is also huge with a lot of large open spaces that really can put a burden on your computer.

There are also a lot of voice overs when you talk to people, the characters speak to each other and you can overhear their conversations from the shadows. You can also select what your response will be in conversations and what you say could affect the path Deus Ex follows. As you can see in the screenshot to the left, I'm telling the soldier that I'm going to clean out the place. He wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped him to be. Adding to the mix is the great music that goes along with each level. Overall I'd say that the graphics and sound are incredible but also incredibly demanding. Keep this in mind if you are considering running Deus Ex on

Overall

Deus Ex is a great game and I look forward to finishing the game and finding out just where the plague came from, why UNATCO has so much power, and just where to get more ammunition. If you have a powerful enough computer and the time to get absorbed into a new world, I recommend that you run right out and buy Deus Ex as soon as you can. If you aren't sold just yet and have a fast internet connection (or a lot of patience), a 135 MB demo is avalable on the Aspyr site. I haven't regretted playing it and I don't think you'll regret it either.

Erica J. Marceau - erica@macosjournal.com
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