RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

Hybrid-genre games have always been something of an experiment, even as they have grown more common throughout the industry. Going back as far as the Doom era, namely with a little-known title called Strife (which was built on the Doom engine) hybrids don’t often truly appeal to fans of one genre or the other. Too much a shooter, RPG fans get turned off; too much an RPG, shooter fans won’t like it. This is a gross oversimplification, but there is truth to the notion that a hybrid game can’t lean too heavily on any single aspect.

Enter Deus Ex, which proves this notion handily. While FPSRPGs certainly existed beforehand – the System Shock series being one of the most noteworthy examples – Deus Ex came from almost out of nowhere to be one of the most critically acclaimed titles of all time. Featuring a deep story, a large game world, versatile gameplay, and considerable leeway in character building, Deus Ex stacks favorably against modern action RPGs and remains popular despite its age.  Its disparate elements, individually topped by those of other games, are expertly threaded together by versatility from start to finish.

Like most hybrids, Deus Ex doesn’t excel in any individual category. The game’s action mechanics are serviceable, with some depth to enemy AI.  NPCs will call for help, flee from explosives, and investigate suspicious noises, but they pale in comparison to other enemies from the same generation.  Half-Life‘s human enemies were dangerous not just because of the hardware they carried, but because of their ability to coordinate their attacks and relentlessly track you down. Hostiles in Deus Ex will sound the alarm if they find a body or catch sight of you, but will calmly resume their patrols, walking right over their fallen comrades, if they can’t locate you.

China: cornering the market on neon since 2046.

Likewise, its RPG elements aren’t as fleshed out as in pure RPGs. You can build your character in a variety of ways, using a wide set of skills and augmentations, but they generally boil down to whether you prefer fighting or sneaking. Dialog options show up throughout the game, but your character’s development has no bearing on how much you can influence, persuade, or threaten others. Skill point acquisition is often arbitrary, and you’ll gain points just from poking around in every corner or picking a different route into an enemy base. Augmentations aren’t perfectly balanced either, with some options clearly more useful than others.

And yet, the interplay between RPG elements and first-person action gives the game considerable tactical depth. The augs do complement the skills well, and a player is free to pick opposing or related skills and augs at their discretion. Training medicine makes first aid kits more useful, freeing up the Regeneration slot for something else. Invisibility and silent running make avoiding human enemies relatively simple, and combined with a high lockpicking skill a player can get into and out of enemy territory with minimal fuss. However, the Invisible Man may want to bump up his skill with a shotgun or pistol for when things get dicey. A player who forgoes the aggressive defense augmentation, which detonates hostile explosives and traps, may wish to invest in demolitions, giving them precious extra seconds to defuse explosive traps. Or they may want both, or neither. Radar Transparency makes dealing with electronic surveillance a non-issue, but a player may still want to learn how to hack for the chance to reprogram enemy turrets, or they can just use scrambler grenades to create friendly fire and save the skill points for rifles.

Areas are built with this array of options in mind, and are typically large enough to encompass several entry and exit points. A heavily guarded warehouse might have a gap in its patrols, or a fire escape in a sniper’s blind spot. A classy Hong Kong penthouse can be accessed in many ways, from just ringing the doorbell to getting on the roof and breaking in through the skylight.  When security arrives, one can fight them off, make a run for the stairs, or take a suicide Matrix leap to an apartment across the road. Even in matters that don’t involve combat, the player usually has options in how to proceed: pay the hiked-up cover to get in a nightclub or crack open a backdoor; bribe a corrupt office supervisor for a door code or do a favor for a nervous temp; throw a few bucks to a bum for a password or poke through his few belongings when he’s not looking, and so on.

Equally impressive is the depth of scripting, which again is built to accommodate a variety of play styles. While some enemies are set as enemies or allies no matter what you do, it’s not always as simple as ‘shoot the red dots and help the green dots.’ NSF terrorists may surrender if you get to their leader first. The cavalry might arrive and do all the messy work if you get in quietly and accomplish your objectives. You may have to shoot someone who isn’t actually a threat to save someone else. Office security and police may pay you no mind until you start acting suspicious, or if they see you fighting it out with a friendly group. And if your goal is to rescue a hostage, the game doesn’t arbitrarily end even if you fail.

Man, secret societies and space aliens are one thing, but a powerful, competent UN? Now you’re just being silly.

Even simple dialog reflects the care in which the game is crafted. Some people will notice if you favor lethal or non-lethal methods, and praise or criticize you accordingly. You can disobey orders not to interfere with an interrogation, but expect to be chided later. Sympathizing with a marine at a bar may net you an alternate entrance to a key area. A tense confrontation with an unarmed hostile can be avoided simply by shooting him or her when you see them, and later conversations will change to reflect this. The game is geared so that killing one person in particular is practically unavoidable, but if you do figure out a clever way around this, it will not go unnoticed.

It would be remiss not to mention Invisible War, a sequel often regarded as a lukewarm followup at best.  One can make an argument that any factor, or combination of factors, left Invisible War lacking.  Without skills to balance out augs, the contrast between more and less useful augs became more stark.  Smaller levels meant less variety in how to get around.  Getting to choose which faction to play for, and which pilot to hire, meant little when they still brought you to the same areas for the same reasons.  Recurring characters were less welcome when they appeared to have abandoned everything they once stood for, for no obvious reason.  Or one could simply blame simultaneous development for the PC and the XBox, with no care given for each platform’s differing capabilities.  The one thing most agree on is that what Deus Ex had, Invisible War did not.

While it would be a stretch to call Deus Ex influential, it most certainly is a gaming milestone by virtue of its overall quality.  Such is Deus Ex‘s quality that the series has survived its less-than-welcome second installment and is expecting the release of a third game. Each individual aspect certainly has its flaws, but as a whole the game is one of the most memorable, intelligent, and well presented titles to date. That story and character aren’t sacrificed to achieve this makes it all the more remarkable, silly accents notwithstanding (‘Preased to meet you, JC Denton in da fresh!’) It’s highly replayable, packed with gobs of secrets, and above all a testament to what a smart, well-rounded game can do.