Gaming Masterpieces: Deus Ex

This is the first in a long series of re-reviews dedicated to some games who deserve the title of "masterpiece". Games that occupied our childhood spare time, made us think about them at school, made us waste countless hours of our lives with good, quality enternainment. These games serve as examples of what the simple human mind is truly capable of, and in my opinion, are as worthy of being called "works of art" as any Rembrandt or Van Gogh painting.
The idea came to me after i saw the recent teaser trailer for Deus Ex 3, and somehow ended up listening to the old Wan Chai theme of the first game. It's funny how much nostalgia came to me while i listened.
Deus Ex (literally translated "God From") is the first game in a series of two, with the third coming up somewhere in 2009, and unlike its sequel, it features impressive bits of philosophy about life, ideas and society, while maintaining a "corporate" atmosphere which is felt about everywhere. I've finished this game nine times (the last try was on the hardest difficulty), not counting the times when i just started it without finishing, and to this day, i still want to pop my CD in and reinstall it to play it some more, at times. Because it's not about the graphics, the gameplay or even the soundtracks: it's about the FEELING. That little tingle you get when you really feel like you're there, like the world transcends into the game and you take the role of the main character, "living" the game as nothing you've ever felt before. Deus Ex can do that.
The game is all about conspiracies: the intro presents 2 obscure characters talking about a new world order, and their role in it. The game takes place somewhere in the future, where the internet (most likely wireless internet) has covered the globe and everything is now much more dependant on it. It is a more technological era, but not much different from what it is now: an unbalanced urban-centered society slowly becoming a dystopia, while anti-terrorist forces struggle continuously to maintain law and order. You arrive in this landscape as the new special agent of the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO), and know yourself as having had several bionic implants and "upgrades" to your internal structure to support the use of what the game calls "augmentations", special upgrades which can be used to increase your effectiveness in the field. You have 3 at the start (though 2 of them are passive and always turned on), and will aquire more as the game progresses. The storyline focuses at first on you and the other operatives trying to put a stop to a terrorist movement called the NCR (New California Republic) but the game's many plot twists eventually put you through world-wide conspiracies, secret governments and world domination schemes, through places such as NYC, Hong Kong, and evenntually arriving at Area 51 where you will have a choice of 3 endings, neither of which is good or bad: they only depend on how you view them.
The depth of the storyline is amazing, there are several characters which you can choose to help or not, this will have no overall effect on how the game ends (i.e. the story is linear), but they are your choices, and will eventually leave a mark as you finish the game. The game's storyline vaguely reminds me of the general idea behind V for Vendetta (in it: "ideas are bulletproof"; in Deus Ex: "you can't fight ideas with bullets"), which in spite of having a different storyline entirely, focuses on the same general aspects: government, society, and one man making a difference.
Onward to the game mechanics: the game is a crossover between FPS and RPG, with a lot of elements previously found in System Shock 2: the brackets around objects which you can interact with, move around, or blow up, the general idea of having special "powers" which you can use with your special "energy", which once depleted needs to be recharged through special powerups that you can hold in your inventory. About the inventory, it also looks like system shock, meaning you can hold almost everything in it (even cigars and drinks), the size of an object requiring more or less space. There's also a skill point system which you can spend on general abilities (hacking proficiency, lockpicking, and increasing effectiveness with light weapons, to name a few). Once you have enough skill points, you can spend them immediately and without any requirements. Skill points come from exploring new areas, completing main and secondary objectives, or obtaining information. Speaking of information, the game is also heavily centered on dialogues between the main character and others, some of which require you to make choices in what to say (which affects the immediate future). The main character is JC Denton (the game lets you customise your nickname, with which you will be adressed in several e-mails and documents, and also lets you choose between a small variety of male skin and hair colors) the second of a new line of special "nano-augmented" agents (the first being your brother, Paul). The augmentations are special powers which you can aquire as the game progresses (they are also optional, the game never forces you to take one, and some are even hidden) and consume your bioelectrical energy when activated, letting you do things such as swim longer, become more resistant, regenerate, see enemies through walls or become invisible for a short time. For each augmentation canister you aquire, you are forced to choose between 2 augs (you may find them at more than one point in the game, but they're useless if you already made your choice) when you install it at a medical bot. You can upgrade the augs up to level 4 once you've installed them using special upgrade canisters, but they're rare so keep an eye out.
The game has a ton of secret areas, some being easy to spot, others not - i was surprised to find something new even on the 8th time i finished the game. I can very well say that i found them all, but... who knows.
Deus Ex holds a special place for me, being the first serious game i completed entirely without using cheat codes: after trying to finish it twice by using cheats, i found that i couldn't do it. The third time, i tried without cheats... it was much more fun, challenging and also, by the time i got to the area where i couldn't pass before, i was so used to searching dark corners and finding exits that i immediately knew where to go. As ironic as it sounds, this game is harder to beat by cheating than by normal means. Since then, i never used cheats in a game again.
I won't say anything about the graphics, those aren't the point of this article. The soundtrack is awesome however, and helps maintain that elitist "corporate" feel of the game.
So if you don't mind old graphics and haven't played this yet, go ahead and honor it by giving it some hours of your life. It certainly deserves it.

The MMORPGs' involvement in gaming and my life

I know this has probably been reviewed, considered and thought of a thousand times over, but i have no intention of being 100% original. This is just my opinion; my little perspective upon MMOs and how they affect your gaming life.
As a kid, i've always been a fan of a type of game called RPG: those little adventures where you could create your own customised character, start small, and grow into something powerful.
It was later, when i got access to the internet, that i came in contact with a new, evolving (at the time) breed of RPGs. Not to say that i didn't hear of them before: i've been reading reviews of Asheron's Call and the like long before i had any internet access. Back then, these games were basically a lower graphical quality, larger world - version of normal RPGs. I didn't know, or had any interest in the phenomenon which keeps many gamers playing: human interaction.
But my time for facing the world came with the introduction of internet access and a nice little game which seemed too much like a Diablo 2 copy (not to say rip-off): Mu Online. I first saw it at an internet cafe and the first thing that came into my head was "hey, a new Diablo 2! Great, i was getting bored of the old one". Not to say it looked that much like diablo 2: everything was a lot more "shiny" than your regular game, with impressive spell effects designed to astound and amaze. Hesitantly, i began a new life in that game while searching for something to fill my time with. It was then when i first came face-to-face with today's MMO's most common concepts: grind. MU is a grind-filled game, so much that you can leave your character grinding while AFK and still acheive one of the best times to a certain level.
I didn't get far in Mu, because i interrupted my gameplay after reaching a high level (about 340) and joined one of my best friends in another, more promising online game called Lineage 2. Lineage 2 is a pay-to-play game, which means you have to pay a monthly fee to play it (a thing which i'm mildly opposed to), but this was a "private" server, a server hosted on another machine whose administrator didn't ask for any fee as a requirement to play. It was low-rate too, so the time needed to get to max level was pretty close to that of retail servers.
It wasn't as flashy, but it sure was more complex than the previous game. And this is where things started getting complicated: the game soon became a race rather than a thing to fill my spare time with, i was running through the game, slowly but surely becoming too impatient. I stopped reading quest logs, instructions, item descriptions, lore... the game suddenly turned into a race to match and overcome the top 25 of my class on that server. I can't say i wasn't getting bored: i was forced to kill a limited number of monsters (aka mobs) over and over again, using the same spell, seeing the same shitty animation a million times, and i had to do that faster than the others could. Needless to say, all was in vain because the server wiped its database and everyone started from zero again with the coming of a new expansion. I was disappointed; i wanted to get the game out of my head and quit it for good. After 2 weeks of sulking on high-rate servers, wanting to see everything there is to see about this game so that i could finally get it out of my system... i came back to the same server i started. This time, with even more will to play and reach the top. And so, my second ascent towards the server's hall of fame started, this time more vigurously and more aggressive than before. I played 14 hours per day, sometimes 16, sometimes standing awake for a full day and more, always trying to catch up those 2 weeks in which the others had risen to a higher level. The "no-lifer"ness didn't really bother me, nor does it bother me now; i chose a support class, and had a lot more fun than i had on my old DD back before the wipe. Overall, i have good memories of that time, and i can say i did something, however minor and irelevant in the long run, that benefited me as a gamer. Yet it didn't do good for my psyche. While before having access to the internet, i was exceedingly meticulous and patient (gaming-wise), now i could hardly play an RPG without zooming through all its content and crossing the finish line like a horse in a race. That's how i finished KoToR 1 and 2: i didn't have the patience to see all the areas, talk with all NPCs and so on. I spent the game like a speed-runner wanting to finish an FPS. I did notice the change, but it was too late to go back now. The server had a pause (a long, 5-month pause) in which i caught up to finishing other games and played on other servers, then i was back, and more willing to get to the top than ever. And i did... joined the biggest clan (aka guild) on the server, and soon became one of the the most popular support chars there (also the highest level support char). Soon, that guild led the server, and was even banned for making it unplayable for lower levels due to constant pk and monopoly. A second wipe was anticipated this time, and probably needed too: i had seen most high-end content, and now needed to study for my high-school graduation exams. It was then when i realised what the so-called gaming spree had done to me. Now i struggle to get my patience back, but i'm afraid i won't be needing it with games becoming less and less complex nowadays.
Why "so-called" gaming spree? Because i still consider MMOs to be cheap, simple clones of actually good games. Some of the pristine gaming elements which i expect to find in a game are missing: the feeling, the atmosphere, the well-thought storyline. The gameplay is a joke (the grind is something no game should have) but the gaping hole in it is somehow patched with what most people treasure more than actual gameplay: interaction between human beings, making friends and so forth.
As for Lineage 2, it wasn't long before i got GM status and i could see everything i wanted about the game, and once its content expired, so did my interest in it start to rapidly fall.
I didn't only play these 2 MMOs however, otherwise i couldn't have afforded to post this. I spent more or less time in many MMOs, including (but not limited to) RF Online, RYL Online, Anarchy Online and World of Warcraft. I seem to have taken a liking to the former, having found in it several aspects other MMOs lack (and also because i play freely on retail servers, courtesy of MisterDevil's budget). I guess this is what a well-made MMO looks like: it has at least a slight, passing resemblance to a good RPG, with the sacrifice of some human interactivity, but i don't mind, honestly. Needless to say, i play it casually now, stopping to take a breath and explore every content i can find, both high-end and low-end.
So to everyone who didn't yet start to play MMOs (i pray that there still are such people): don't consider starting them if you want to maintain a gaming carreer. Yes, you could live some of the nicest moments of your life, but you'll be disappointed when you probably find yourself not having any will to play single-player games anymore. And with singleplayer, you'll miss out on 60-90% of what a game was designed to be. Your call if you want to do that, but i wouldn't call myself a gamer if i did.
Later edit: still need to play eve online...

Games VS Movies

And so it came to pass, that the gamers which once spent hours after hours of quality gaming, saw on the big screens the names of the games they have enjoyed so much .... being torn to shreds.
Maybe i`m just being just a little out of my mind right now, though i doubt that just two beers can do this to me, but this is just sick.
A few hours ago i saw a somewhat promising movie called "Hitman" and i`m only saying promising because ... heh .. the movie was supposed to be adapted from the game series : Hitman. Sure, the guy is bald, wears a nice outfit and so it happens to be an assassin but when it comes to adapting from the game series ... this is just crap. Comparing the two : game/movie the salty taste of dissapointment filled my mouth ... or maybe it was the beer.

First of all, 47 is supposed to be a big muscular mature guy with one goal in his mind, but in the movie 47 is more of an EMO batman wannabe kid with a few nice "toys". Second !!! The game was mostly based on stealth, but the nice movie showed the world otherwise. I don`t recall going in a room filled with enemies slaughtering them all using Matrix/Equilibrium skills as THE MAIN IDEA also i don`t recall having a Blood Rayne moment and use two fucking blades to cut to pieces the enemies... hmm Blood Rayne ... i`ll get to that later in this post. But enough with the crap, otherwise i`ll have to type here longer than it will take me to finish an MMO.
The movie used few features from the game, but still better than nothing, features like changing outfits, hiding bodies, and premeditating the target`s route ( muhahahaha in order to get max score for the mission :P ), and the classical laptop used to get info about the targets.

More about the movie. The main EMO *ahem* 47 is Timothy Olyphant, don`t know much about him ... and i don`t wanna know. Surprisingly there were two actors i liked from other movies/series like Robert Knepper or "T-Bag" ( from the Prison Break series ) in the role of some Russian agent who didn`t know when to give up.

To be honest, i think 47 is gay ... i mean ... if he let the Interpol dude live because of the girl ... why not just fuck the Russian bitch ?

More movies made after games

Let`s see now, ah yes .. Blood Rayne.
This movie was special, suffice to say that all the crap i can come with, the chick still is cool both in the game and the movie so it makes up for it. Simple and clean, the movie was about how Rayne turned from a circus freak into a killer using the blades and the game was about how using the blades to kill monsters, people and whatever can be fun.
No crap for this one because the movie didn`t manage to hurt the game in any possible way, even better .. the movie actually proved that Rayne could look good even in real life.





Almost forgot to add one more movie to this post :) The classical Doom

Ahhh ... Doom, the movie made after the well known Doom 3. This movie was quite unstable, often bouncing between GREAT and BORING. Crazy as it sounds, but this adaptation of the game ... just like the game, tried to be scary .... horror even :) but unfortunately for the fags who made the movie : alien brain-eating bone-crushing wall-hugging mutants aren`t new and neither original in the movie industry, and neither the idea of the almost dead hero who receives a last minute power`up which makes him strong enough to kill the insanely strong bad character ... thus ... saving the world. Overlooking the crappy part Doom had good parts as well, like the introduction of the Big Fucking Gun ( though any movie about a fps should have a BFG :P ) and the nice instant jump to first person view ... almost felt like playing the game, felt good. Come to think of it, the first thing i liked about this one were the soldier`s nicks/names : Goat / The Kid / Pinky / Destroyer / Razor ... etc ... nicks any FPS gamer would use :P