Deus Ex

My favourite ever games journalism quote:

"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.

I had a subscription to PC Gamer and saw it was named Game of the Year. I got it from Wal Mart, a beautiful shiny box, and inside was a fake newsletter about events in the game world, I think the paper that Joe Greene, an in-game character, wrote for.

I had no idea what I was in for, and as a 15 year old, I felt twists and surprises, and organic game reactions to things I did that blow my mind even today, and imo still haven't been matched. And leveling and skills truly mattered and were tied into the game. Inventory management and ammo was interesting, the interface was perfect. It also had a kind of intellectual curiosity in the dialog that I only ever felt in, say, Alpha Centauri and later, Disco Elysium. It's still the best PC game ever imo.

There's a lot to cover with the game, so I'm not surprised he doesn't cover the music. But the soundtrack is great! I still listen to it regularly. I like the UNATCO music best. Each track has a regular theme, and switches to variations on the theme for combat and other situations. Pretty unusual in 2000 and even today.

If anyone wants to play it again, dont forget the amazing mods available: https://www.moddb.com/games/deus-ex/mods

New renderers, new engines, The Purist Mod, GMDX, The Nameless Mod...

One thing that bugs me is the article explains the twin towers missing from the skyline as "rendering engine couldn’t handle any more polygons", but it turns out... it's way more complicated than that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpi5xUXPqok .

I'm working to make open-source the webgl port in a few days! I love this game.

Finally sat down and played this a few years ago. I didn’t think I’d be able to get into such an old game but it was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had.

The background behind the text makes it hard to read. Getting a bunch of horizontal lines that intersect whole lines of text

As always, someone has built a browser playable version:

> https://jarmitage99.itch.io/opende

what a great game! *nostalgic tears dropped*

Do you have a single fact to back that up?

Remains one of my favorite games ever, even as current events make it difficult to return to at present (it used to be a yearly replay over my winter holidays).

One thing strikes me however, as perhaps revealing my own naïveté:

> Lurking in the accusations against “wealthy bankers” is the oldest, ugliest conspiratorial trope of all, the idea — stemming from the 1903 forgery “The Protocol of the Elders of Zion” — that a cabal of Jews secretly run the world.

I never made that connection until literally reading this piece. Bankers weren’t all Jews, and not all Jews were Bankers. I had heard the stereotype, sure, but I never read said stereotype into such conspiracies or narratives. It just made logical sense that a newly-emerged global society formed around currency and trade would be manipulated by those people who specialize in said sectors, i.e. bankers and financiers. The fact said individuals continue having outsized import on daily news and current events almost cements the plot point as real prophecy instead of antisemitic nonsense, but I can also see how bad actors would tie hate speech to current events to boost their own platforms.

Just an odd bit of reflecting, is all.

First, GMDX it's amazing.

Second, there's Open Deus EX (I think not GMDX compatible yet) and DX-Rust, which it is.

I still play to that game, and it's my favourite among Slashem and some few interactive fiction ones.

OpenDE: Fast, vanilla https://github.com/jarmitage99/OpenDE DX-Rust: Slow, AI slop, but it can be improved. It supports GMDX https://github.com/Grissyelda/dx-rust

If you use Recomp Launcher you can install these with ease, even on Steam Decks.

Deus Ex was an amazing game. My only regret is that the more we see the real world impacts of late stage capitalism and technology enthusiasm, I've spent more time wondering if the Tracer Tong ending was the better choice for the world

[dead]