I recently played all the way through the original Deus Ex again. It’s funny to think that the last time (also the first time) I played through it was in first year of university, at St. Jerome’s. My laptop couldn’t handle the game so I had to borrow Ryan’s computer to play it. Then I think Thai went away for reading week and let me use his PC, too. Pretty sure I played most of it on his computer.

Eight years after its release, it’s still a great game. The graphics and character models are showing their age and obviously nothing great. The locations are all pretty sparsely decorated. Offices have a desk, a shelf and maybe a plant in them. Interestingly, none of these criticisms take away from the fact that the core gameplay is still there and it is still awesome. I still got totally immersed into the world. The way that every situation allows for different solutions to the problem with varying outcomes is just so great. I have a hard time thinking of another game that allows so many options for every situation.

Now that I’ve finished the original, I’ve been playing the sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War. Last time I played that was when I was living in the basement room at 511 Albert, in Waterloo. I remember playing late into the night, by the orange glow of my Halloween lights, being so tired that I would jump up on my bed and nap during the 45-60 second level-loads. Of course, on the machine I’m playing it on now, those loads take 4-6 seconds.

I remember the sequel getting a lot of flak from people. I enjoyed it, back in the day, but not as much as the original. I think I was just happy to have ore of that gameplay, even if it wasn’t quite as good as the first. It really felt (and, playing it now, still feels) like they tried to simplify it too much in order to appeal to more people. Still fun, but now as excellent as the original game.