Deus Ex

Title
Developer
Publisher
Genre
ESRB Rating
Demo Release Date
Full Release Date
Platforms
Official Website
Demo Download Size
Review Date

Deus Ex
Ion Storm Inc.
Eidos Interactive
Action Role Playing Game
Mature
17th June 2000
22nd June 2000 Buy Now
Mac, PC (Reviewed), PS2
http://www.eidosgames.com/games/info.html?gmid=109
139MB
1st July 2008

What did I think before playing?
This is another one of those "must play, classic" titles that totally passed me by. I don't really have an idea of what this one is about or how it is played. I'm thinking it is something third person and tactical, such as Syndicate, or some futuristic cop story, a la G-Police.

What is included?
A training level and the first map. Interestingly, Ion Storm released an addon pack for the demo which included the second mission about a month after the retail release.

What did I think afterwards?
So this game is played from a first person perspective, but it isn't your typical FPS. It is much more based on stealth and RPG elements, which is rather disorienting after playing more tradition FPS fare for years.
I started out with the tutorial which takes a little while since there are a few different aspects to explain, (different types of weapons & equipment, movement and stealth,) and the characters explaining what to do speak pretty slowly. All of that was fine, although I had to repeat the sneaking section a few times because I kept getting caught by the guards. Parts of it reminded me of Half-Life, which is a title I loved.
Next I tried the actual missions. Very quickly you get the idea of what this game is going to be about. If I were to play the full title I have a feeling there is going to be a government conspiracy unraveled in front of me and I'll switch sides to the "terrorists" before long. There is a simple, multiple choice conversation system as part of that and seemingly large maps to explore which will give you multiple routes and solutions to problems. However, I soon ended up dying by getting caught in a firefight with multiple enemies. I was sneaking around just fine and was trying to hack a computer terminal. I suppose the enemy AI wasn't frozen while I did this and a mobile turret came and found me. Running from that just lead me to a crowd of others and I was soon overwhelmed. I would have to start over, but didn't have time.
Being an eight year old title you can easily crank up the settings on this one, but it is always going to look like an old Unreal game, (I thought it was the original Quake engine when I was playing.) It didn't take long for me to spank one of my allies with a crow bar mistakenly, (enemies are a kind of brown while allies are a slight green...) which didn't impress him; he soon stopped talking mid sentence and scarpered.

Would I buy the full game?
I think this game would be too slow for me to play. It would take quite a switch to go back to the days of sneaking without a mini-map on the HUD, in an FPS where I want to be shooting rather than picking locks.

Demo Pros
Not sure how long the first mission is, but I get the impression this is a pretty big game. I would expect there is enough story in there to get you hooked. Interesting addition of the second mission too.

Demo Cons
Nothing much. This is just a tough game with visuals that show their age.

Demo Rating 9 / 10

Thoughts after playing the full game?
If I play the full game I will put comments here about whether I feel the demo was representative of the final product and if I am happy with the purchase.

Sales Figures
If I can find sales information about a game after it has been released I'll add that here. It may be useful to track demos to sales performance.