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

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

#71

Post by Uehreka »

kiddico wrote: post #64
laumars wrote: post #35

> “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…

I've been meaning to play SS2. Do you think I'd be confused to jump in there or should I play the first?

I’ve heard the first one is a totally different game and that System Shock 2 stands alone.

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

#72

Post by ryneandal »

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.

Lots of classic stories on gamasutra. But I agree, more documentation of historical work is needed.

There are some great reads out there about gamedev and gaming history, though:

- Blood, Sweat and Pixels by Jason Schreier

- Masters of Doom by David Kushner

- The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent was required reading for me in college

- Game Over by David Sheff

- Dungeon Hacks by David Craddock

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

#73

Post by laumars »

kiddico wrote: post #64
laumars wrote: post #35

> “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…

I've been meaning to play SS2. Do you think I'd be confused to jump in there or should I play the first?

The intro of SS2 does a pretty good recap of the first game and from there on SS2 is it's own game.

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

#74

Post by mrkeen »

Phenomenal loading times.

Large empty levels like liberty island.

Brilliant puzzles like picking the lock on an office (destroying the lock pick) so you can steal a lock pick from the office.

My favourite was the well-timed cache misses that would immediately freeze the game, e.g. the first time you fire a shot in combat, then restore interactivity after you die in fast-forward.

But it's all worth it because you're a badass cyborg with a flashlight, i mean, "augmented vision".

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

#75

Post by laumars »

clarry wrote: post #53
laumars wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue these days isn't so much time nor money but rather the difficulty in standing out from the pack when so much of game mechanics has already been discovered. Each breakthrough in technology has been followed by iconic "first of it's era" games, eg: - Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and others with their demonstration of how to translate a platformer to a 3D world - Tomb Raider with it's "even the scenery can be exp…

>> 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. > The solution to that is to look outside of the traditional gaming paradigm. I don't think indie & VR gimmicks are the solution to lack of games that are close to the original Deus Ex. It's not revered for original superb mechanics; most of everything it does was done before. It's that it…

> I don't think indie & VR gimmicks are the solution to lack of games that are close to the original Deus Ex.

I don't think flatly calling all indie and VR games as "gimmicks" does justice to some of the more innovative creators out there.

> * It's not revered for original superb mechanics; most of everything it does was done before. It's that it put them all together and did so many things right to create a polished, immersive experience with a compelling story (rather footed in reality as opposed to all out scifi/fantasy), strong plot focus (as opposed to disconnected mass-produced side quests), rich level design, lots of choice and player freedom, great music, replay value..*

I was gaming back then as well. It was mostly the mechanics people seemed to talk about at the time (and the graphics too).

In any case, story driven games have existed long before Deus Ex and still exist now.

> I just don't see anything that really compels me. Stuff is going on, and it's mostly not worth my time (or does a terrible job marketing itself).

I see these kinds of comments all the time and frankly a lot of it is rose tinted glasses. You will naturally favour the games you grew up with. As it was, I grew up with text adventure games and crappy 8-bit conversions of arcade games so as much as I enjoy modern games I'm often still going back to Pac-Man and it's ilk because 3D is too "modern" for me. Like with how people harp on about how cartoons aren't as good as when they were kids, people make the same arguments for computer games too.... but that doesn't mean it is true.

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

#76

Post by dageshi »

clarry wrote: post #53
laumars wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue these days isn't so much time nor money but rather the difficulty in standing out from the pack when so much of game mechanics has already been discovered. Each breakthrough in technology has been followed by iconic "first of it's era" games, eg: - Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and others with their demonstration of how to translate a platformer to a 3D world - Tomb Raider with it's "even the scenery can be exp…

>> 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. > The solution to that is to look outside of the traditional gaming paradigm. I don't think indie & VR gimmicks are the solution to lack of games that are close to the original Deus Ex. It's not revered for original superb mechanics; most of everything it does was done before. It's that it…

> Hardly anyone is doing that. But, evidently, a lot of gamers want that.

Not enough really, we've had the Deus Ex reboot (Human revolution), Dishonored, Prey and their respective sequels, they're all great games but they didn't do amazingly, they mostly did "ok", they're all now on hiatus with their studios working on other franchises.

I think these games (immersive sims) are actually pretty difficult to make and the reward just isn't there vs other genres out there right now.

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

#77

Post by ryneandal »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #69
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.

Probably mentioned elsewhere, but Masters of Doom is a great book that reads a bit better (for me personally) than an interview like this article.

If you enjoyed Masters of Doom, I highly suggest Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. Not as laser-focused on a single studio, but great reporting on the industry, both positives and negatives.

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

#78

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

technics256 wrote: post #19

The opening scene feels prophetic in the time of coronavirus: https://youtu.be/zStn70Ot4r0

To quote from the article:

>Smith: Every time the US shifts a little towards fascism or centralised control, somebody will send me a link to something from Deus Ex. It’s not that we were prescient – the sad part is that it’s on repeat through history.

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

#79

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

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)..

The director's cut provided non-combat solutions to some of the boss fights. But at launch, yeah, those were a huge miss if you had optimized stealth or hacking skills. It felt like a huge slap in the face to anyone that managed to bypass the boss fights in the original Deus Ex by finding the killswitch words.

Penny Arcade captured the sentiment at the time pretty well:

https://arewenewatthis.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/deus-ex1....

(Sorry this is not officially from their site--their archive search system is terrible)

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

#80

Post by kemayo »

justaj wrote: post #60

Does anyone here notice the stylistic similarity to The Matrix? Both featured a protagonist with a trench coat and black shades. I wonder if The Matrix inspired the design team of Deus Ex in some ways.

The Matrix came ~9 months before Deus Ex, so their productions definitely overlapped but they'd have had time to assimilate some stuff if they wanted to.

That said, it's more that they're both drawing on similar cyberpunk traditions. There's a clear line between the aesthetic of Neuromancer and Deus Ex / The Matrix both.

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