Deux ex 1 was an exceptional experience for me. It lacked depth and complexity in some ways that modern games have, but overall feel and venues for character/equipment development fit my gaming style perfectly. Its the only game that I've come to repeatedly, long after its graphic was deemed ancient even with some modding.

What a legacy.

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xnorswap 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I loved the aesthetic of Deus Ex, but the Deus Ex in my head was always far better than the one in reality, and so I've deliberately never re-visited it, to keep that memory of a treasure.

Some games just impact me in a way that others don't, and I rarely go back to games for that reason. Another example is that I've probably spent longer thinking about Thomas Was Alone than I actually spent playing it, it's a very short game that had a tremendous impact on me.

Deus Ex was the right game at just the right time, and somehow the sequels never recaptured that magic. For me, a large part of that was precisely the promise the game had, even if upon technical breakdown it didn't really deliver on those promises. The idea that you were affecting and interacting with the world. The idea that you had a full gamut of options of how to achieve a mission. These were promises that weren't well kept, but they kept the imagination alive.

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LollipopYakuza 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> but the Deus Ex in my head was always far better than the one in reality

I feel like it's actually a sign of a good game. A masterpiece that relies on my imagination just hits different.

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jurgenaut23 2 days ago | parent [-]

I wonder what made it so magic.

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danbolt 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Part of me always felt the wacky setting helped with the player’s sense of anticipation.

Or, you’re always learning new things and encountering new elements, be it plot, interactions, or simply exploring. The replayability ends up feeling quite arcade-y too, trying for a particular outcome.

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aleph_minus_one 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> I wonder what made it so magic.

The conspiracy theories. :-)

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NoboruWataya 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The idea that you were affecting and interacting with the world. The idea that you had a full gamut of options of how to achieve a mission. These were promises that weren't well kept, but they kept the imagination alive.

Yes, looking back at the game in hindsight - having since played games like Morrowind - Deus Ex seems relatively linear in comparison, but at the time it felt completely different to any FPS I had played before.

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jurgenaut23 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Indeed, I played the sequels, and although they were great, they never quite captured the magic of Deus Ex 1.

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nonamesleft 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Also the speedruns for that game contain absolutely hilarious mechanics, like throwing the gas grenade to get the door opened faster at UNATCO HQ.

	▲	farlight 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The only game hack I've ever discovered by myself (by being too cowardly to proceed through the main route when I was little, wasting time instead on the unatco base, and mindlessly throwing grenades around). It doesn't work anymore in modern mods I've played through; they've patched it.

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Trasmatta 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> It lacked depth and complexity in some ways that modern games have

I would argue it has way more depth and complexity than the majority of modern games. There were so many systems that interacted in interesting ways, and so much player freedom that the devs actually accounted for. Just endless stories of "I tried this bizarre thing that I thought nobody would think of, and the devs actually wrote unique dialogue for this situation".

It's also a bit of a mess and cobbled together, but in a beautiful way.