Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game • Hacker News Board

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#31

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #16

mdrachuk wrote: post #2

I really hope they will make a remake of the originals. I loved Deus Ex: Human Revolution when it was out, but it’s a challenges to enjoy older games most of the time.

What's the oldest viable game to you, now? I just played the first Mass Effect for the first time, and was really impressed by how well it had aged for a game from 2007. I replayed the first Bioshock (also from 2007) not long ago, too, and it, too, holds up IMO. Could we get further back than 2007?

Probably not what you're really asking, but many of the Infocom text adventures are still pretty playable. Yes, the parser is quite dumb but the writing and plots are still quite compelling. Graphical games through at least the 1990s probably don't hold up as well, except as nostalgia.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#32

Post by clarry » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

411111111111111 wrote: post #12

akhilcacharya wrote: post #3

Like most people today, I attempted to get into the game a few dozen times until I finally was able to get past the first level "my own way" that didn't rely on the really finicky stealth mechanics (specifically using a GEP gun to destroy the robot, then walking through the front door). The rest of the game is an absolute marvel of design. Even for a modern game the level design and depth of the story is remarkable.…

I played it so many times around 2000... Fun fact about stealth mechanic rewards in the original: they don't vanish if you did the offensive approach! You could get the most xp by first killing everyone and then run around through tunnels and obstacles to get the other half of the xp I remember the escape from his brothers apartment in hells kitchen especially fondly because of that. First you slaughter everyone so y…

> then you run through the level for the discovery rewards such as enabling the turret which shots the now non-existing enemies

Whaat. I must've played DX at least a couple dozen times and I never found a turret in the hotel?

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#33

Post by trabant00 » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #13

trabant00 wrote: post #6

> ‘You can make any game you want, you can take as long as you want, and money’s not an issue’. > ‘Just run the studio, we’ll pay the bills and keep you isolated from anything that’s happening up here in Dallas’. I don't think this can happen today and I also believe this is the reason we don't see anything close to the original Deus Ex.

Anything close in what regards? There are amazing games coming out all the time.

The game pushed the envelope in a lot of ways. At the time I was simply shocked by how immersive the game was, from the backstory present in everything to the freedom you had as a player to approach situations. Sure, today we have those things in a lot of games, but they are formulaic, dumbed down and became stale with overuse.

Today you can really only see innovation in indie games - which have limitations because of their resources. Deus Ex was a innovative triple A.

Above thoughts are ramblings, I know. Truth is I don't know what I would like to see in a modern equivalent. And that's how I want it too, I want to be surprised, overwhelmed, I want to see the best in the business come up with something I can't even imagine.

Instead I get remakes and ubisoft like formula "open world" full of busy work and chores.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#34

Post by coldpie » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

notkaiho wrote: post #21

We need, in fact the industry simply REQUIRES, in-depth oral history journalism and retrospectives like this. The "gaming industry" is 40+ years old now, and there have been absolutely pivotal works in that time. They deserve to be interrogated and documented dispassionately and with rigor.

The Video Game History Foundation is probably the best organization pushing this forward today. Also, last year, Retronauts did a couple of 1-on-1 interviews with early PC game developers from the 70s and 80s (having trouble finding direct links to them now, sorry).

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#35

Post by laumars » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

> “We were very influenced by three games: Thief, System Shock 2 and Half-Life.”

Personally I got a lot more enjoyment from those games than I did Deus Ex. Particularly SS2 which still remains one of the most atmospheric games I've ever played and one of the few ones to make be jump and literally scared at times too.

Not taking anything away from Deus Ex, but at the time it didn't feel as genre defining as the others that inspired it.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#36

Post by smacktoward » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

trabant00 wrote: post #6

> ‘You can make any game you want, you can take as long as you want, and money’s not an issue’. > ‘Just run the studio, we’ll pay the bills and keep you isolated from anything that’s happening up here in Dallas’. I don't think this can happen today and I also believe this is the reason we don't see anything close to the original Deus Ex.

One reason it can't happen today is because it never ends well. Ion Storm was a huge disaster; it produced Deus Ex, but it also produced Daikatana, one of the truly legendary bad games. The studio mismanaged itself so badly that by 2001 the whole thing had collapsed except for Warren Spector's team in Austin, who soldiered on for a few more years before giving up.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#37

Post by eyerony » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

clarry wrote: post #29

leetcrew wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went back to human revolution a couple months ago. I loved it the first time, but I was really surprised how clunky a game from 2011 felt. I think there were also some scaling issues with my 4k monitor. it's really too bad; mankind divided had a much better "feel" to it, but the story was not as interesting or well developed.

I played HR for the first time last month and couldn't finish it, because it bored me to death and then gave me stupid boss fights. It's so dumbed down and just doesn't come close to the first Deus Ex. And yes it felt clunkier than the first game (I lost count of how many times I fell to my death trying to jump onto some platform to perhaps find a secret or hidden route, only to hit a stupid invisible wall)..

At launch the boss fights were much worse. They updated it to provide alternative solutions to most or all of them, at some point.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#38

Post by stevekemp » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

notkaiho wrote: post #21

We need, in fact the industry simply REQUIRES, in-depth oral history journalism and retrospectives like this. The "gaming industry" is 40+ years old now, and there have been absolutely pivotal works in that time. They deserve to be interrogated and documented dispassionately and with rigor.

https://www.filfre.net/ is a great example of such an examination - starting with the classic text-adventure games, and gradually getting more and more current.

The table of contents is impressive, the writing is wonderful, and you can download a series of ebook collections containing the individual blog posts.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#39

Post by Semaphor » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

asutekku wrote: post #4

mdrachuk wrote: post #2

I really hope they will make a remake of the originals. I loved Deus Ex: Human Revolution when it was out, but it’s a challenges to enjoy older games most of the time.

I feel the same. I want to play the originals, but they are just so clunky and even the mods do not fix the fundamental problem of how old the games do feel.

That’s funny, Deus Ex is probably the oldest game I re-played that I actually finished again (with mods) as it felt far less clunky than even some games only 10 years old.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#40

Post by ekianjo » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

trabant00 wrote: post #6

> ‘You can make any game you want, you can take as long as you want, and money’s not an issue’. > ‘Just run the studio, we’ll pay the bills and keep you isolated from anything that’s happening up here in Dallas’. I don't think this can happen today and I also believe this is the reason we don't see anything close to the original Deus Ex.

> anything close to the original Deus Ex.

Note that the original Deus Ex led to the pretty poor Deus Ex 2: Invisible War, that nobody talks about today. Deus Ex was more of an exception that anything else.