Deus Ex

The average player who spends long hours in front of the monitor having great fun in the virtual world, rarely interested in who contributed to its creation. Who would have time to read these long-scrolling inscriptions, when a thief is lurking there in the darkness of the city or an ancient sword is waiting to be discovered ... And sometimes it is worth it.

Do you remember the myth of King Midas? About an unhappy man who had the gift of turning everything he touched into gold?

Nowadays, in the world of computer game developers, there are as many as two such people. Usually, every game that was created by them or under their supervision turns into pure gold, although it is not always of the highest order. But the magic of their names is enough to sell these games in millions of copies worldwide.

Warren Spector, creator of "Thief" and John Romero (does "Quake" say something to anyone?), Because they are about them here, are two great individualities, even gurus for many young programmers entering the computer market.

But how it is life, good years are mixed with not the best. Spector's "Looking Glass" company collapsed despite the success of "Thiefa 2", and "ION Storm" Romero found itself on the verge of bankruptcy when the expected profits from the sale of "Daikatana" were not achieved. Then the heads of the company "Eidos" decided that the joint, prepared in great secret, the product of these gentlemen, would be the last resort for this giant among publishers. Fortunately, they were not mistaken and now they can count on colossal profits from sales.

And what made this game stand out from hundreds of others? A word of explanation.

In games referred to as First Person Perspective, i.e. after our speaking shooters with a view from the hero's eyes, the plot of the game usually did not matter much.

Who needs a pull-up story there, since it is known that the only thing to do in the game is to keep pushing forward, sweeping away anything that inadvertently gets in the way. But at some point, more ambitious players stopped being enough. There was even talk of the dying out of this species.

This forced game developers to take specific actions so as not to lose potential buyers of their products.

One such idea was to implant elements typical of FPP games, called Role Playing Game, into FPP games. RPGs, generally speaking as possible, are characterized by the development of the individual characteristics of the hero as experience gained. Timid attempts have been made before, but only the release of the game on the market under the title "System Shock 2" showed what is a perfect combination of all elements typical of these two genres. And who was the creator of this groundbreaking product? Our good old friend Mr. Spector.

So when on the store shelves appeared the game under the mysterious title "Deus Ex" signed just by the names of Spector and Romero, we could expect that both the plot, the development of character traits that we will manage and the elements of the usual shooter, i.e. all the ingredients that we were delighted in their previous works, they will be at the highest level.

You will find the answer to the question of whether this is the case after further reading of this text.

We have 2052, humanity is in terrible danger. A terrible epidemic of a mysterious disease, also known as the Gray Death, is spreading across all continents. Because the disease takes its bloody toll everywhere it occurs, it swallows millions of lives instantly. Thanks to the enormous effort of the whole world of science, it was possible to obtain some form of vaccine. Because production was extremely expensive and therefore vaccines were far too few to be made available to everyone, it was given the name Ambrosia, alluding to the food of the gods. Only the richest and most powerful authorities in the world could afford to buy it.

When it seemed that there was no more rescue for the little ones, then a terrorist organization called NSF began its activity, using all methods in the struggle to get as much Ambrosia as possible.

Concerned about the fact that terrorists have intercepted too much vaccine, the United Nations is creating UNATCO, or United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition. As the name suggests, this organization, based under the Statue of Liberty, was supposed to combat all types of crime, with a particular focus on the fight against NSF.

By the way, the idea of the work of such a UN agency, the authors of the game probably drew from the work of the immortal Alistair MacLean, who wrote several books, making them heroes of the agents of institutions of a similar name, UNACO.

But let's go back to "Deus Ex".

The UNATCO organization consists of hundreds of well-trained agents, but their most important weapon in the fight against terrorists is JC Denton, an unusual agent. Why extraordinary? Because it is a variety of a cyborg containing, thanks to the latest scientific achievements, some forms of implants that cause it to use technologies unavailable to other agents. Although several varieties of cyborgs operate at UNATCO, none in terms of the implants used can match Denton, including his own brother, Paul. Anyway, little brother will be a very important character during the further game.

And what? As for the FPP game, the plot is not even good, right? And I will leave some of the more interesting aspects of it without describing it so that it will surprise you.

JC Denton's first task will be to reach the Statue of Liberty, free our man and capture the NSF terrorist chief. At this point you, dear reader, are entering the game. You were told what to do, and how you do it is only your business. You can go shooting everything that moves, and you can also use the method of hiding in the dark of night and silent sneaking.

Difficult? And from where, after all, you went through training before going on a mission. No? Didn't you complete the training tasks? It's an immediate back turn and an immediate return to exercise. Don't move without it.

The training has been really well thought out and done. Thanks to the system of exercises and tips, you will be sufficiently prepared for efficient use of devices that you will come across later in the game, as well as the use of weaponry units, the use of which by a layman can cause him more harm than good. You will also train the skills of effectively avoiding guards, using all available elements of the environment.

And when it comes to all sorts of tools that you'll have to be able to use, there is plenty to choose from. Although, when we talk about weapons, we actually only use the most practical ones, i.e. a pistol, sniper rifle, laser rifle and possibly a crossbow. But in addition you will use, for example, multitools, grenades, protective suits and many other devices without which you will not go far.

During training, you also have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the game interface that you will use very often, and unfortunately it is not the simplest. Although anyone who has had a little bit to do with "System Shock 2" will feel like a fish in water after a while. It is worth taking a moment to not regret later that you did not notice something.

It should be remembered that our hero, due to his atypicality, was described in the health screen by the first factors and, for example, we treat using the first aid kits, healing robots or so-called augmentation not the whole body, but its individual elements. The interface also has an inventory screen in which we can view all the agent's acquired equipment, a log screen in which tasks to be performed (RPGs) are automatically saved, dialogs, maps, photos. A lot of it, but everything is important and extremely useful.

Denton, at the time of embarking on the first mission entrusted to him, is not yet finished, it requires significant improvements in all elements of his equipment and skills. And here RPG elements that I wrote about earlier bow to us. We can develop each of the skills adopted by our agent, depending on the number of experience points gained and the way in which we want to perform specific activities. There are ten of these skills, including handling explosives and swimming, and four possible levels of training - from untrained to master. We can put more emphasis on training in the use of different types of weapons, or increase the skills of opening locks or hacking computers. Full freedom. And how important it is to develop in particular areas, you will find out during the mission, when keeping the crosshair on the silhouette of a terrorist will be almost a miracle. Believe me, if you don't train any of these skills properly, you won't be able to complete the mission, because either an unopenable lock will stand in your way, or a badly used grenade will explode in your hands.

After completing the training and receiving the first experience points, it is worth spending a moment and seriously consider which agent's skills will be most useful to us in further activities.

Training passed, one of several levels of difficulty selected, all currently available skills properly trained, guidelines and weapons received, so we set out on the first mission and let fortune be with us.

And here, at the very beginning, the biggest, and actually the only, minus of this game is revealed. Fatal, completely underdeveloped, artificial intelligence of our opponents. In order not to be groundless a few examples. I run into the room, two terrorists run in from behind the corner, shooting at each other. I manage to take one off, the other escapes. Bad luck.

I thought, it will sound the alarm and I will have a dozen or so NSF boys on my neck. But nothing happens, so I'm going to check where my fugitive has gone. I look around the corner, and this one is standing with his back to me, no worries, as if nothing had ever happened and he had not lost a friend. What to do, one shot and after fun.

Another time, I took one of the terrorists off the sniper rifle while talking to another. Do you think something is happening? And from where, this survivor ran away a few meters and keep walking peacefully. And do you think that activating the alarm will have any effect, in addition to noise of course? None of these things. There are more such flavors in the game and I will let you discover them yourself.

I admit that at first it alienated me from the "ION Storm" product. I thought that if it was to go on, it would be better to give up this game right away. Fortunately, the other items below, more than compensated for these shortcomings.

A few paragraphs above I mentioned that in "Deus Ex" you have complete freedom of choice. And this is the undeniable advantage of this game. Here, no one forces you to do anything, the way you accomplish the mission entrusted to you is just yours and nobody's. Do whatever you want so that the result of your actions is satisfactory for the heads of UNATCO. You don't have to get to your destination as quickly as possible, you can easily wander around the city, asking whoever it will be or reading the newspaper. Remember, any additional source of information will allow you to perform the mission more painlessly. Here, everything we come across can be an important clue, it is worth opening every possible cabinet, hacking into every computer and opening each lock to look behind every door. It is worth checking the ATMs hanging there, to find some cash after finding the code, which is usually close to the code.

Nobody also dictates to you whether you will shoot everything that moves or rather use the method known from Thief and use shadow and darkness. Although, I advise you to think twice before pulling the trigger. In this game, not completing the mission in the way it has been defined will not cause you to start it again. You will get horseradish from the bosses, you will lose some of their trust and you will be given the opportunity to rehabilitate the next task.

I must admit that when you are doing tasks, you have to relax. All maps are perfect. New York, Paris or Hong Kong are, of course, the most beautiful and extensive, but not the only places on our globe where we will wander while completing the tasks entrusted to us. There will also be something for lovers of newcomers from outer space and the "Archive X", but let it remain a surprise for you.

Each connected mission is a well-made scene using a game engine. Then our hero is transferred to a new environment. In this game after reaching the set goal does not appear the words "Level complete" and that's it. Here you still need to get back to your means of transport, and most often it is a helicopter or a motor boat. And unfortunately, these returns are not always nice and pleasant.

Now, since I mentioned the game engine, a few words about graphics.

Everyone who has had the opportunity and pleasure to play at least once in "Unreal" will admit that despite the passage of several years, the graphics in this game are amazing. The abundance of details, the play of light and shadow, reflections in the floor are just some of the elements that delight to this day. And it was this wonderful graphics engine that the creators of "Deus Exa" decided to use. This resulted in an excellent representation of the environment in which current events take place. All kinds of interiors and locations are beautifully made. Lively streets in Hong Kong, reflections of light and reflections of silhouettes on the floor at the UNATCO headquarters, the sensational appearance of all the characters in the game are just some of these amazing graphic elements. If you add to this the full interactivity of the environment (taps from which water flows, moving crates and people, the ability to destroy almost everything we want), it will allow you to more or less understand what you will encounter when you start the game.

But unfortunately there is also a spoon of tar in this honey barrel. Of course, we're talking about hardware requirements. Not enough that "Deus Ex" does not like GeForce type cards (which I had the opportunity to see for myself), in addition without PIII and 128 RAM there is nothing to go to the game, because then we watch the slide show.

The quality of graphics is matched by the music layer of the game. The very theme that appeared at the beginning of the game made me feel that I would be dealing with a great action movie rather than a computer game. And the further the game was only better. Someone may not like this kind of music, but they will admit that it was performed superbly, sensational emphasizing the climate and events currently taking place on the screen. Add to this a great sound setting.

"Deus Ex" is a sensational game and I could probably write about its individual details for a long time. But, first of all, probably because of its richness and complexity of the story, I did not manage to discover everything, and secondly something must remain a surprise for you.

Let's summarize what we have found.

Excellent plot, cyberpunk climate, RPG character development elements, a wealth of equipment and weapons, handy interface, complete freedom in performing tasks, amazing graphics and sound design, full environmental interactivity, on the other hand, poor artificial intelligence of opponents and huge hardware requirements.

So how? Play? Also a question ... Play and play again! I personally rate the game at 95%, and I would give more if not for the unfortunate AI character.

Only one last warning, so that nobody would say later that I had not warned. This game draws you so incredibly that you can forget about the whole surrounding world. So you better watch it before you move to 2052, because later you may have problems back.

Bolesław "Void" Wójtowicz