I was doing a search on my site and I was surprised to find that I had not written a review of this masterpiece.  The story is at least as good as Half Life, if not better.

 

The game is a little bit old now.  The game was released in 2000.  The game was released by ION Storm Austin Texas and should not be confused with ION Storm that produced that bastard Daikatana; a games so bad that it effectively ended John Romero's credibility as a great programmer.   The game has you playing a man called JC Denton.

 

This is his call sign.  I didn't know at the time that you named him and only a few people use his real name.  The reason for this game being limited to just a male is because ISA (see above) didn't have to time to implement a playable female character by the time of release.

 

He works for an organisation called UNATCO and there is a plague called Grey Death that is quickly killing off the population of world.   He is instructed on his first mission to take down some terrorists in the Statue of Liberty.   After that mission is completed.  He finds out that three cases of Ambrosia (the drugs needed to keep the plague at bay and actually turns out to be the cure.) has been stolen and he needs to retrieve it from the terrorists.   The government don’t even acknowledge that this medicine exists.   So what is going on?  Why would Terrorist steal a load of medicine?

 

 

 

What makes this game so interesting is the RPG elements.  You are introduced to the fact that all weapons can be augmented.  This means that you can effectively upgrade the weapon.  It can be more accurate, silent, doesn't jams as frequently, reloads quicker and anything else that might be of some use.  You’re given Nanobites to upgrade yourself and the weapons you use.

 

You have the usual group of weapons.    The pistol, pump action shot gun, crossbow, machine gun and many more.   What makes this game interesting; apart from the fact that the people who mainly made this game also made System Shock 1 and 2; was the fact that you had to learn skills required to break computer codes, pick locks and you had a special tool that could unlock doors using Nanobites.   Your brother Paul and yourself has been sent out to Retrieve the Ambrosia from a terrorist group called the NSF.

For some reason Paul decides to join the organisation that you’re meant to be taking down.  What reason would someone so dedicated to the firm want to join the organisation.  Is there a link between the plague and ambrosia?  You’ll have to play the game to find out.

 

What sticks out in my mind is how well this game has held up in what is almost a decade since it was initially released in the UK.   The only problem I have is the artificial intelligence in the game is poor.  For example.  Unless your enemy is looking directly at you; you can pretty much creep behind him and dispose of him without him or anyone else knowing you was there.   I like the fact that they can hear you.  So if you run about the place, someone will hear you and come to find out if you’re a spy.

 

I played this game on the standard difficulty setting and it suffers from the knowing the map problem.  So you may get your arse handed to you and then load up a save game.  Now because you now know the layout of the map of the level; suddenly the game seems a lot easier to get through.  That accusation can be made about all FPS though.

 

So far I’m having a ball and there have been quite a few interesting plot points and I’m only half way through the game.  I just hope that the ending is better than Bioshocks ending.  That was a little bit of a let down after a great game.

 

I read on the web that there are Mac versions of the game.  If you are running Windows XP or newer, you need to get the last patch for this game and you’ll be able to enjoy this masterpiece.

 

To get this to run on Windows XP, you need the latest patch which can be found here at 3DGamers website.  Imagine Bioshock with high level of skill required.

Description:   English retail v1.112fm single/multiplayer patch

File:   deusexmppatch1112fm.exe

Size:   37,399,552   bytes

Info:   About this file