Deus Ex, released to the general population on June 23rd, 2000, has been given excellent ratings by most reviewers.  However, I am going to be looking at it from all stand-points, and, as you will see, I will be judging this game based on every angle.

Throughout the game, I have looked for bugs, errors, unusual things, AI intelligence, and more.  By the end of this article, you will truly understand what Deus Ex is.

After installing, I went through the long process of setting up Deus Ex.  First comes video, which I set to Direct3D on 640X480X16.  I chose the lowest quality for all the other video aspects as well.  After having played the demo, I saw that Direct3D was not properly set up in the game, and neither was OpenGL.  OpenGL support seems to be rather buggy as of yet, giving you sometimes blocky, incorrectly colored textures, and extreme hard drive lag.  Until this is fixed, the options for people with Nvidia based chipsets are rather minimal:  Buggy and laggy OpenGL, Bad Quality Software, Ok Quality Direct3D with Moderate Lag.  I didn't like my options, but I didn't have much of a choice.  You will hear more about this in a later section.

After setting up video, I moved on to working with the controls.  This was lightning fast for me, because I use practically the same control setup for every game.  The menus were easy to read, and the set up process was all in all rather fast.

The training mission is the first thing any newbie player should do before commencing to the full game.  Remember, you have to walk before you can run, and that is exactly what this mode teaches you to do.  Unlike other training modes, this one moved rather fast, and gives the player some options, instead of orders, and because of that, you get to experiment a little more than you do with other games.

After going through the training mission, I felt that I was well equipped with the skills needed to play a real game.  I have to give a double thumbs up for this section's coordination.

Well, after doing the training missions, it was time to kick some ass in a real game.  After watching the beginning movie sequence, which did an excellent job of setting the storyline, while also giving away too much information at such an early state, I was in the game, and began playing.

My first thoughts were in regards to the graphics.  I ended up getting pretty laggy video at a crappy quality level.  What I didn't understand was why it was running so crappy in Direct3D when Unreal, the engine from which Deus Ex was based, ran great with Direct3D.  I could run Direct3D at 1024 X 768 X 32 on UT, and the graphics would be sweet as sugar and run as fast as hell, but then I would run Deus Ex on 640 X 480 X 16, and I would get a semi-laggy display with terrible quality.  For video, I have to say that, as of current, Deus Ex has compatibility problems, and therefore needs a lot of work.  However, via our Forums, I was able to fix this error by downloading these drivers and upgrading.  After that upgrade, I managed to get Deus Ex running at 1024 X 768 X 32. However, the game's graphics still didn't look as sweet as UT, so I have to give the graphics a 4 out of 5.

Next, I moved on to the actual Deus Ex environment.  While a little weird at first, the Deus Ex environment brought me back about a year, to when I saw and played Trespasser, a definite loser by Dreamworks Interactive, that used a powerful physics engine and a weak graphics one.  However, Deus Ex was by far better than Trespasser.  Unlike most First Person Shooters, in Deus Ex you have to manually pick up items as opposed to just walking over them.  Doing so can get aggravating though.  It's quite easy to miss your target, and not be able to pick up a certain item.  Although annoying, it ended up being something that I just had to get used to.  As shown in this image, I am carrying a box, and it is an obstruction.  For some reason, I can see through it, but I think that the designers are saying that "JC's augmentations give him minor X-Ray vision," or something like that.  Since the box consumes the entire screen, it would be a little difficult to play if I couldn't see through it.

After fooling around, I got to make my first decision in the game.  What weapon will it be?  The almighty GEP gun, the Sniper Rifle, or how about a crappy crossbow?  I instantly chose the Sniper, because that is what I love to do.  As in the demo, I was glad to see that while my skill with the sniper was still low, I was unable to aim perfectly with it in zoom.  This is a feature that I truly like about Deus Ex.  I had previously tried out the GEP gun, which is a weird kind of rocket launcher that has a lock on device.  I love the fact that explosives can really injure you for a change.  UT got close by making the Rocket Launcher almost a 1 shot 1 kill gun, but not nearly as good as this game.  If you are even in the vicinity of the explosion, you will most assuredly die.  The realism of the weapons is so thrilling that you just want to scream out in pleasure.  I give it a 5 out of 5 for weapons quality, and furthermore state that other games that are in development should follow the example set here by Ionstorm: MAKE WEAPONS REALISTIC!

Now onto items.  What I like about this game is that there is no set "list" of items that you can get.  Everything is either a usable thing, or it is an obstacle.  I realized quickly that about 80% of the things that you see in the game, you can pick up.  Those that you can't, you wouldn't be able to in real life.  For example, I liked how I couldn't pick up a huge barrel, but I could pick up a cardboard box.  The game has almost limitless possibilities.  From picking up the forty ouncer and getting blind drunk, to taking the equivalent of crack (in Deus Ex called Zyme), you can use almost everything.  For realism in items, definitely another 5 out of 5.

Now to gameplay.  The thing that I like most about this game has to be ones ability to do anything.  You aren't really locked out of any level, and there is never just 1 task at hand.  I remember reaching a later point in the game, where I was on a city block.  Normal games would make all the doors around the block inoperable, and just make 1 entrance available.  That way it would be like "leading a mouse to cheese".  Deus Ex doesn't do that to you.  You may have a primary goal, but you can experiment and go other places.  I really enjoyed the scene where I saved a girl from her pimp by telling the guy "How about I give you 10 seconds to get out of here before I add you to the list of NSF casualties."  That just was damn cool.  I then went to a hotel on the same block and saved some hostages.  After that I rescued a bum from 2 punks who thought they could boss him around.  The game has so much playability, that you could never truly win, but only get to the end, which will take you a good god damn long time.  If there is one thing I could ask of everyone, it would be to not cheat.  Just play the game out, and play it again.  Remember, you can never truly play this game exactly the same way all over again.  Try taking different routes, experiment with different answers instead of giving just the best one.  What I like about this game is that your decisions early on in the game will severely alter the outcome at the end.  Shooting enemies seems to be even better, because now they actually try to run away.  Although they are a little stupid, and try to run right at you and past you instead of doing a 180 and getting away, the enemies are still smarter than that of most games, where they will remain there shooting until the end.  I also am pleased to say that headshots actually kill.  I know this was seen in Soldier of Fortune as well, but I'm glad to see another game using that same tactic.  I must say that actual gameplay is kick ass, and that I give it a 5 out of 5 in that respect.

In the end, I would like to say that playing Deus Ex has been the most fun since Counter-Strike.  More skill is required than the ability to hit the fire key, and I have to give this game my all around applause of approval.  I agree with Daily Radar when I say that this is definitely 2000's first Game of the Year candidate, and probably the most likely to be so.

Final Ratings:

Video Quality & Performance:  4.5 out of 5 (pending a patch from Ionstorm).
Audio Quality & Performance:  5 out of 5.
Gameplay:  5 out of 5.
Weapons:  5 out of 5.
Items:  5 out of 5.
Environment:  5 out of 5.
Addictive Ability:  5 out of 5.
Overall:  4.9 out of 5.