Deus Ex : The Conspiracy for PlayStation 2

Deus Ex was released on the PC back in '99, and since then it has sort of a cult following. Fans of the game are loyal to it (I've seen pictures, multiple ones, of people tatooing the Deus Ex symbol on themselves), while people who haven't experienced don't really care to. Deus Ex is quite possibly the most brilliant game to grace the face of God's green earth. The gameplay design is great, the advacement through the game is genius, all the characters have deep personalities and are voice acted very well. The game simply goes beyond "game", as I believe Deus Ex truly demonstrates how art can be created through video game design.

Deus Ex is, for lack of better analogy, like playing a really good book or interacting with a really good, 30 hour long movie. The story weaved into Deus Ex is, withough a doubt in my mind, the best story created in the history of the world, be it book or movie or play. Deus Ex's plot revolves around JC Denton and his brother Paul. They are agents of the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition in the near future. JC and Paul are part of a program called "nano-augmenting", where they are born human and then wired with enhancing microscopic machines called "nanites", which turn them into government property for the most part. The story takes place in New York. There is plague going around called the Gray Death, which is killing off all of the bums in the city. The reason it is only effecting the bums is because middle/upper class citizens can purchase pills of "Ambrosia", which will make them incapable of getting the disease for approximately one month. That is the bare-bones of the story.

Throughout the game, the story gets more and more intriguing, and you will find yourself playing the game just to see what will happen next. You will no doubt think about the storyline while in school or at work or in your sleep. I have dreamt about this game. You could say I have a somewhat unhealthy asphyxiation with this game, buts I'm okay. I can't really stress enough how imaginative and totally intriguing this story gets. It would make a great movie, and possibly an even better book.

The game's main focus, gameplay-wise, is open-endedness. The game leans slightly more towards stealth then gun ho tactics, but it doesn't create many problems if you just go around wasting everyone. Throughout most of the game, you will spend your time infiltrating government property to gain information, and that means that you make all of the decisions. Shoot down a guard, knock him out, or slip past him. The cool thing about Deus Ex is that it really makes you sit back and think about what you are going to do next. For instance, early in the game, terrorists have taken hostages in a subway and lined the place with explosives. Your options are:
1. Trip the lasers, blowing everyone up, failing, getting yelled at by your boss, not getting payed.

2. Sneak in the vent shafts and pick off the guards one by one, then rush the hostages to the subway.

3. Chuck an EMP grenade into the lasers, disabling them, and then rushing everyone.

Most situations offer more than three solutions, but you get the idea.

The game takes many detours from the standing sneaking and shooting formula. Often you'll be walking around, weapon conceiled, talking to allies or total strangers, or simply listening in the conversations. These sessions are designed not only to give you a break, but to help you gain valuable information and entangle you deeper into the story. Deus Ex is a HUGE game, and you'll be wondering when it is finally going to end (but also hoping that is won't. Ever.) Figure about 40 hours on your first play through, assuming you explore everything.

Most people classify this game as an RPG, and while it does have RPG elements, it is most definitely a first-person shooter. You upgrade JC is two different categories: skills and augmentations. Whenever you complete an objective or explore a secret area, you will be awarded "skill points." These can then be used to upgrade various attributes of JC, such as swimming, lock-picking, hacking, or skill in different types of weapons. Each skill can be upgraded up to 4 stages, each one better than the last one and thusly costing more skill points. You can make JC a hacker, lockpicker, medic, or Rambo.

Augmentions are another aspect of customization that essentially grant JC superhuman powers that are only possible through nanoaugmentation. These powers are more impressive then average skills. Augmentations can make you invisible, run really fast, lift heavy objects, or even create a robot in your head and then launch it out, allowing you to control the robot to spy around the corner and knock out security and robots. You acquire these by finding augmentaion canisters. In the PC version, you needed a medical bot to install these. For the PS2, you simply click and install. Each canister contains 2 possible augmentations, but only one can be installed, and you can't reverse your decision, so choose wisely. I wish the designers could have made the canisters harder to find, instead of just giving you four of them in one blatantly obvious spot. Having to look in every nook and cranny for these augs would make them a lot more rewarding for having required them.

JC does, in a sense, run on batteries. His augmentations require bio-electric energy. Whenever he uses an aug, some of the energy drains. In order to restore the energy, you must either use bio-cells (batteries), or charge up with the help of a repair bot.

A great FPS has a lot of weapons, and Deus Ex doesn't disappoint. None of the weapons are particularly inventive, but there are a lot of them. Deus Ex can also carry around cool gadgets like multi-tools (to break into keypads), lock picks, and riot prods. Many objects, like soda and food mainly, can be collected for health reserves, and the rest of Deus Ex's world can be interacted with to a great extent, allowing you to amuse yourself if you need some ammusement. You pick up and throw around chairs and plants and stuff, turn on showers, flush toilets, open drawers, and whatever. You can even play the piano (catchy tune too).

From a graphical standpoint, Deus Ex isn't a beautiful game, but is isn't ugly either. It definitely looks better than the PC version, with better looking textures, and all of the characters have a new skeletal modeling system allowing more realistic movement. The lighting in Deus Ex is marvelous, and helps sets the mood for Deus Ex (in Deus Ex, there apparently is no such thing as "the Sun").

Deus Ex's music is very well done, as they all give the levels a distict personality and feeling, and are pretty good tunes in themselves. The voice acting is incredible, with some true talent in there.

Some of the levels have gotten a makeover since the PC version. Liberty Island has been rearranged, and well as Hong Kong. This is mainly to accomodate the PS2's attrocious RAM output, at a measly 32 MB. To put that into perspective, mine has 128 MB and it still kinda sucks.
This means that there are way more load times than in the PC version.

What surprised me the most about the PS2 port was that the controls were handled very well, considering how many keys you used in the PC version. If you have a USB keyboard and mouse, go with that definitely, but people with a controller aren't missing out that much, because the PS2 controller handles it pretty well. It will take a little getting used to, but soon you'll be upgrading and hacking and managing inventory in no time.

There are two main questions here:

1. Should I play Deus Ex?
A. It depends on what kind of person you are. If you enjoy a brilliant story and killer gameplay, then yah. If you don't like games that tend to drag out (which isn't a bad thing in Deus Ex's case), then you may have a hard time keeping up with story.

2. Which version is better, PC or PS2?
A. If your computer is good, then by all means go for the PC. None of the game has been significantly rehashed for the port. If you have a PS2 and a crap computer and want to know what I'm so spooged about, then dig in.

There is really one word that discribes Deus Ex, and that is Brilliance. Everything in this game reeks of brilliance, and no one can deny that. This game is art.