Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition - 2/20 hours

This game and I are not getting off to a great start. I had to use a guide to get through the tutorial. It didn't explain how to move bodies or reload guns or exit the water after swimming. I didn't learn that guns were useless against robots until I expended my only clip. Luckily, I couldn't actually die, so I was able to muddle through.

The same can not be said of the campaign mode. I wound up losing my whole first hour of progress because I forgot to save. Deus Ex does not do autosaves. That's going to take some getting used to. There are a lot of similar little quality-of life-features that I wish were included. There's no minimap, and I really wish for context sensitive action buttons (I wound up shooting at least two friendly npcs that I wanted to talk to). There's also no objective markers, which is kind of a huge deal for me. I need to know where to go next. Wandering around aimlessly while I search for the particular location, item, or npc that will trigger the continuation of the game is one of my least favorite activities in gaming (off the top of my head, only escort mission rank lower). It's not a guaranteed disaster, of course. Level design and strong direction can make up for a lot.

I suppose it all comes with the territory. Deus Ex is an old-school game. It does not have the advantage of the last fifteen years of game design innovation and refinement. Yet I shouldn't view its age purely as a liability. While it may lack the polish of a modern game, it is likely also unburdened by the homogenous conservatism that can take hold of a solidifying genre. It will almost certainly attempt things that later games wouldn't dare, because "it doesn't know better." I'm sure that if I stick with it, I'll learn why this game has such a strong reputation.

The story thus far is minimal. Due to playing it twice, I have just now finished the opening mission. Terrorists have taken over the crumbling ruins of the Statue of Liberty (could this be a metaphor . . . nah), and the main character JC Denton, is an advanced cyborg who is used by the UN to enforce public order. Whether that's the right thing to do or not is up in the air, seeing as how the terrorists were stealing an important vaccine to distribute to the poor and disadvantaged (and according to the opening cinematic, the world of Deus Ex is inhabited by shadowy cabals who are not above exploiting, or engineering, a deadly plague and subsequent vaccine shortage to consolidate their hold on political power). I expect this means that JC is going to be thrust into a world of conflicting loyalties where the promise of technology is contrasted against its peril, and the tyranny of power is opposed only by the danger of anarchy.

Which sounds interesting enough, if I can actually survive the shooting and the stealth mechanics with my sanity intact.