Deus Ex

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Deus Ex is a 2000 action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. Set in a cyberpunk-themed dystopian world in the year 2052, the story follows JC Denton, an agent of the fictional agency United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO), who is given superhuman abilities by nanotechnology, as he sets out to combat hostile forces in a world ravaged by inequality and a deadly plague. His missions entangle him in a conspiracy that brings him into conflict with the Triads, Majestic 12, and the Illuminati.

Deus Ex's gameplay combines elements of the first-person shooter with stealth elements, adventure, and role-playing genres, allowing for its tasks and missions to be completed in a variety of ways, that in turn lead to differing outcomes. Presented from the first-person perspective, the player can customize Denton's various abilities such as weapon skills or lockpicking, increasing his effectiveness in these areas; this opens up different avenues of exploration and methods of interacting with or mani[CENSORED]ting other characters. The player is able to complete side missions away from the primary storyline by moving freely around the available areas, which can reward the player with experience points to upgrade abilities and alternative ways to tackle main missions.

The game was released for Microsoft Windows in June 2000, with a Mac OS port following the next month. A modified version of the game was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2002. In the years following its release, Deus Ex has received additional improvements and content from its fan community.

The game received critical acclaim, including repeatedly being named "Best PC Game of All Time" in PC Gamer's "Top 100 PC Games" in 2011 and in a poll carried out by the UK gaming magazine PC Zone. It received several Game of the Year awards, drawing praise for its pioneering designs in player choice and multiple narrative paths. It has sold more than 1 million copies, as of April 23, 2009. The game led to a series, which include the sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003), and three prequels: Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011), Deus Ex: The Fall (2013), and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016).

Deus Ex incorporates elements from four video game genres: role-playing, first-person shooter, adventure, and "immersive simulation", the last of which being a game where "nothing reminds you that you're just playing a game".For example, the game uses a first-person camera during gameplay and includes exploration and character interaction as primary features.

The player assumes the role of JC Denton, a nanotech-augmented operative of the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO).This nanotechnology is a central gameplay mechanism and allows players to perform superhuman feats.

As the player accomplishes objectives, the player character is rewarded with "skill points". Skill points are used to enhance a character's abilities in eleven different areas, and were designed to provide players with a way to customize their characters;a player might create a combat-focused character by increasing proficiency with pistols or rifles, while a more furtive character can be created by focusing on lock picking and computer hacking abilities. There are four different levels of proficiency in each skill, with the skill point cost increasing for each successive level.

Weapons may be customized through "weapon modifications", which can be found or purchased throughout the game. The player might add scopes, silencers, or laser sights; increase the weapon's range, accuracy, or magazine size; or decrease its recoil and reload time; as appropriate to the weapon type.

Players are further encouraged to customize their characters through nano-augmentations—cybernetic devices that grant characters superhuman powers. While the game contains eighteen different nano-augmentations, the player can install a maximum of nine, as each must be used on a certain part of the body: one in the arms, legs, eyes, and head; two underneath the skin; and three in the torso.This forces the player to choose carefully between the benefits offered by each augmentation. For example, the arm augmentation requires the player to decide between boosting their character's skill in hand-to-hand combat or his ability to lift heavy objects.

Interaction with non-player characters (NPCs) was a large design focus.When the player interacts with a non-player character, the game will enter a cutscene-like conversation mode where the player advances the conversation by selecting from a list of dialogue options. The player's choices often have a substantial effect on both gameplay and plot, as non-player characters will react in different ways depending on the selected answer (e.g. rudeness makes them less likely to provide assistance).

Deus Ex features combat similar to first-person shooters, with real-time action, a first-person perspective, and reflex-based gameplay.As the player will often encounter enemies in groups, combat often tends toward a tactical approach, including the use of cover, strafing, and "hit-and-run". A USA Today reviewer found "At the easiest difficulty setting, your character is puréed again and again by an onslaught of human and robotic terrorists until you learn the value of stealth."However, through the game's role-playing systems, it is possible to develop a character's skills and augmentations to create a tank-like combat specialist with the ability to deal and absorb large amounts of damage.Non-player characters will praise or criticize the main character depending on the use of force, incorporating a moral element into the gameplay.

Deus Ex features a head-up display crosshair, whose size dynamically shows where shots will fall based on movement, aim, and the weapon in use; the reticle expands while the player is moving or shifting their aim, and slowly shrinks to its original size while no actions are taken.How quickly the reticle shrinks depends on the character's proficiency with the equipped weapon the number of accuracy modifications added to the weapon, and the level of the "Targeting" nano-augmentation.

Deus Ex features twenty-four weapons, ranging from crowbars, electroshock weapons, and riot baton, to laser guided anti-tank rockets and assault rifles;both lethal and non-lethal weapons are available. The player can also make use of several weapons of opportunity, such as fire extinguishers.

Gameplay in Deus Ex emphasizes player choice. Objectives can be completed in numerous ways, including stealth, sniping, heavy frontal assault, dialogue, or engineering and computer hacking. This level of freedom requires that levels, characters, and puzzles be designed with significant redundancy, as a single play-through of the game will miss large sections of dialogue, areas, and other content. In some missions, the player is encouraged to avoid using deadly force, and certain aspects of the story may change depending on how violent or non-violent the player chooses to be. The game is also unusual in that two of its boss villains can be killed off early in the game, or left alive to be defeated later, and this too affects how other characters interact with the player.

Because of its design focus on player choice, Deus Ex has been compared with System Shock, a game that inspired its design.Together, these factors give the game a great degree of replayability, as the player will have vastly different experiences, depending on which methods they use to accomplish objectives.

Deus Ex was designed as a single-player game, and the initial releases of the Windows and Macintosh versions of the game did not include multiplayer functionality.Support for multiplayer modes was later incorporated through patchesThe component includes three game modes: deathmatch, basic team deathmatch, and advanced team deathmatch. Five maps, based on levels from the single-player portion of the game, were included with the original multiplayer patch, but many user-created maps exist.The PlayStation 2 release of Deus Ex does not offer a multiplayer mode.In April 2014 it was announced that GameSpy would cease their masterserver services, also affecting Deus Ex. A community-made patch for the multiplayer mode has been created as a response to this.