Deus Ex is a phenomenal game. I always thought that there was only me and a few other people who had played it and even now, seven years later, I’m stunned by the people who still reckon that it’s one of the best games ever. DX is a first person shooter but, like System Shocks 1 and 2 before it, features a heavy RPG element. But it makes even more of it than either of those two games do. It also has a fantastic story and sets up a rich, vibrant and heavily populated world.

That world is actually Earth in the year 2052. Traditionally cyberpunk in it’s outlook, the world has gone to shit - a new plague known as the Gray Death is ravaging the population but there is no cure, only a synthetic vaccine, known as Ambrosia, that’s in short supply. Terrorism is on the increase around the world and martial law has been declared in almost all major cities. You play J.C. Denton, a “nano-augmented” UNATCO (United Nations Anti-Terrorist COalition) agent - a super soldier with enhanced reflexes, strength and perception. (Yes, that’s right - they didn’t just have the ability to rebuild this man, they made it so he could be upgraded too).

From the outset, the game is absolutely stunning. The opening level takes you to Liberty Island outside New York where terrorists have taken over the Statue of Liberty and you get to wonder around a vast level, exploring all the nooks and crannies of the entire area before manning a one man liberation of Lady Liberty. The level sets the standard for all the subsequent levels which are fully realized and detailed. You get to travel the world, from Hell’s Kitchen in New York to Wan Chai in Hong Kong and a Parisian suburb. This world isn’t just populated with bad guys though but with bystanders too and the action will take you to bars and nightclubs, markets, hotels, abandoned subway stations and high tech laboratories.

The game isn’t all shooty, dakka-dakka, pew-pew either. At the time, I’d never played an FPS where there is so much dialogue and interaction with other characters. That’s what a lot of the game was - talking to people, finding stuff out, getting different perspectives on the story. You see, Deus Ex was all about the conspiracies. From the brief story background, you might think that the goal of the game was to find a cure for the Gray Death and you’d be partly right. Except that as the game progresses, you realise that, like the plague, it’s not that black and white. The more you progress, the more you get involved with different parties and factions and come to realise that there isn’t a clearly defined enemy. The mystery continually deepens and nothing is as it seems. By the climax to the game, there have been so many twists and turns, it’s hard to know what to think or who to believe. How does the game deal with this? By giving you a choice about how it ends - and there are three endings to choose from.

That’s the other beautiful aspect of the game - the freedom and the choice given to the player. Going back to the first level on Liberty Island, you soon come to realise that you can choose how to play the game. As soon as the game starts, you meet your brother Paul who offers you a choice of weapons: a tranquilizer dart gun, a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher. And that’s how you get to play the game: to enter the statue, you can go in, all guns blazing, through the front door or you can sneak in around the back and do it real quiet like. As you advance through the game, you get skill and ability upgrades that let you become more proficient at, say, hacking or explosives so that you can either disable a turret or blow it up. Simply put - there is no predetermined path by which you must finish a level or complete the game. The choice is yours. It’s even possible (but very, very tricky) to make it through the game without killing many people at all (possibly even killing nobody).

I will confess to remembering that the game could be a little up it’s own arse at times, was fairly humourless and that some of the conversations tended to drag a bit. I’ve no idea where I got this from as I fired it up again recently and realized how wrong I was. There’s a lot of humour in it which, while not as dry or as dark as something like Planescape: Torment, still works at lightening the atmosphere and providing a counterpoint to the more serious parts of the game.

What I loved most about Deus Ex, however, was the immersiveness of it all. The game world was huge but in no way required you to explore it all. There were definite incentives to, however. One of my favourite moments was being in a room in the Paris level when I happened to hear a phone ring. On a whim, I answered it (because you can do that in DX). I was rewarded with one of the creepiest moments in the whole game. The thing is that I didn’t need to be in that room and if I’d just aimed to complete the level as quickly as possible, I’d have missed it. That’s the sort of texture and depth that made this game so great.

A sequel was released but was a huge disappointment in comparison to the original - mostly because it had been simultaneously released on consoles and the interface, level design and general feel seemed to suffer because of it. Graphics were nice though. A few weeks ago, a second sequel was announced, accompanied by a teaser trailer that hints at an interesting story. I look forward to a game that provides an experience in a fleshed out world that is on a par with Deus Ex. I hope it’s number three, although I’m guarded but I wait with eager anticipation for the next generation of this type of FPS-RPG whether it be in the DX universe or not.