Review: Unbreakable

Warren Spector is a god. He created games such as Ultima Underworld and System Shock, and each of his game is an innovative and fascinating work of interactive art. But, in Deus Ex, a sci-fi FPS/RPG hybrid, he may just have created his crowning achievement.

The story in Deus ex is the main reason you play the game It is, plainly put, better, more complex, more thought-provoking and more intelligent that any other game I have played, and better than many Hollywood movies. The game takes place in the mid 21st century, a time of turmoil and anarchy. A devastating plague is spreading across the world, and thousands are dying. You play JC Denton, a rookie agent in the newly-formed UNATCO, an organisation formed to protect the government from terrorists. Throughout the course of the game, you gradually learn of secret organisations plotting evil plans, and of wheels within wheels within wheels. Nothing is as is seems, and while the diabolically complex plot unfolds through some excellent dialogue with NPCs and through movie-quality cutscenes, moral questions will be asked, and decisions will have to be made, decisions that shall lead you to 3 different endings.

Any game that wants to immerse you in its world needs to have at least a decent graphics engine, and Deus Ex does not dissapoint. Using the Unreal engine, the graphics are on par with the best of last year, and, while the textures and character models are not as good as Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament, the sheer scope and quality of the design is unparalleled. Also, it is important to note that at the time of it release, Deus Ex had major performance problems, but, with a patch, it runs smoothly on even a low-range system with a decent 3D card (e.g. AMD K6-2 with an original GeForce). The artificial intelligence is also extremely good with enemies attacking in packs, alerting comrades and running when wounded.

The sounds, music and voices are also quite good. The sound effects are excellent, detailed and high-quality, the voice acting is quite good, and the music, composed by Reeves Gabriels, is beautiful and on-par with most high-budget motion pictures.

But the real star of the show is the gameplay, which is the best I have ever seen in a computer game. The sheer freedom that the game gives you is stunning, and one of the main elements that create this freedom is the superlative level design. Many games have inspired levels, but invariably, these levels are linear: begin at point a, travel through fantastically desiged points b, c, d, to arrive at point e. Deus Ex is fortunately not like that. Instead, you are dropped at one location inside a realistically designed area and you are given a mission objective. How you solve this objective is up to you, and you can be sure that there is more than one solution. For example, at one point your secondary mission is to solve a situation: some hostages are being held inside a subway station whose entrance is fortified by proximity mines. Do you: a)Disable the proximity mines, take out the terrorists with your pistol, thus expending more ammo and health but saving the hostages; b)Infiltrate the station by the ventilation shafts, take the terrorists by surprise and kill them with white weapons, thereby putting yourself in danger but saving the hostages and expending 0 ammo; or c)Activate your armor, blast through the grenades and vaporise everyone in the station with your heavy weaponry;. The truth is, you can do all of this, and probably more, in Deus Ex.

But Deus Ex is more than just an accomplished FPS: it`s a full-blown RPG too. Throughout the game, you gain skill points by exploring and advancing through missions. You can thus upgrade your skills (there are 4 skill levels for each skill) in 12 different areas, including Rifles, Pistols, Demolition, Hacking, Electronics, Lockpicking, and Medicine. What`s more, you can augment your character with nanotechnological augmentations: implants that can give you everything from cloaking, reinforced muscles, to x-ray vision to toxic resistance to a spy drone factory in your brain. With all this to customise your character, you can guess that there is a lot of variety in this game.

Here`s an example of what I mean: my first character was a Sniper/Hacker: I specialized my skills in Rifles (sniper), and Hacking, and I installed cloaking, silent walk and enhanced vision augmentations. I advanced through the game slowly, carefully, always finding a sniper nest and picking off enemies from kilometers away. The second time I finished the game, I played as a ninja. I specialised in Pistols, Low-Tech Weapons (swords, throwing knives) and lockpicking and electronics. I also augmented my character with Enhanced Leg Muscles, Cloaking, and Enhanced Melee strength. By the end of the game, I was leaping from building to building a la Matrix, entering rooms totally invisible and whacking off soldiers with my bad-ass energy saber. Both times I found ways to finish the missions made for my characters, and both times the experience was awesome.

Finally, Deus Ex innovates in an area which I have always found lacking: atmosphere. Never have I been so immersed in a game before. The streets in the real-world levels such as Hong-Kong and New York abound with NPCs, both human and animals. In bars, you can buy beverages and cigarettes; you can access ATM machines; you can even flush toilets and invite women to dance! Such interactivity with such a detailed gameworld is unseen before, and can lead to some mind-blowing situations: one time, I alerted a whole level of my presence because in my traversing a court, I disturbed a flock of pigeons; and in one situation I will probably never forget, I was on the top of a building sniping an enemy at the other end of the level with my silenced Sniper Rifle when an enemy about 15 meters below me detected me. I thought this was a bug at first, because the guy who detected me couldn`t have seen me nor his fallen comrade, but then I realised that the shell casing from my shot with the sniper rifle had fallen next to him and had alerted him! These situations are the most wonderful moments a game could present.

Deus Ex is a masterpiece. Except for the performance issues, which have been addressed, there is nothing in this game that I disliked. Even though some parts of the game are not really state-of-the-art, the ensemble forms an game unmatched by any other game in existence. Get this game. You will not regret it.

Plot and Story	Diabolically complex, brilliant, intelligent, philosophical.	10
Graphics	On par with the best of last year`s graphics	8
Level and Art Design	Unmatched realism and superlative level design.	10
Sound and Voice	Fantastic dialogue, excellent voices, fantastic music.	10
Gameplay	Best gameplay in a computer game; unmatched freedom and depth;	10
Overall (Not an average)	Best. Game. Ever.	10

PC Gamer	94%
Gamespot PC	8.2/10
Daily Radar PC	4/4
Adrenaline Vault	5/5
IGN	9.4/10

Nominee, Best Story, Gamespot Awards 2000
Nominee, Best RPG, Gamespot Awards 2000