Okay so i've been playing this game semi extensively since about 2015 to the point where i know a number of exploits and dumb mechanics to it, i've never actually beaten this game - matter of fact i've mostly only replayed the first 3 to 4 missions ad nauseum and well, i figured hey, i haven't beat this game in ten years, i'm probably not going to beat it this time around, i might as well do my due dilligence and recommend the damn thing.
You need to understand that this is a game of great, awe inducing mechanical density, that doesn't necessarily excel at any of the mechanical twists it offers, augmentations are a big selling point, right off the bat you may be fortunate enough to encounter an augmentation canister, of predetermined location and effects, whether or not you come to know its associated skill tree is a matter of prospection; indeed you may very well go on to play a game of deus ex devoid of augs if you don't explore bravely enough, or if you simply choose not to play into this system. Though exciting and a great motivator for progression, supporting a palpable sense of growth throughout the campaign, your satisfaction may vary dramatically upon realizing how situational some of these upgrades can be.
With continued tampering of your character's faculties, you'll amass a list of enumerated toggles that, at the rapid expense of your energy will temporarily enable any number of these effects simultaneously. Exciting effects such as lamp, and 'green filter on your screen', or the ever reliable, 'move increasingly larger objects'. All far outdone by the eventual inclusion of an invisibility effect that brings into question whether the whole system holds up or not, it somehow badmouths the game's own sense of fiction before it truly unveils itself before you.
Though through numbers and some basic formulas you may form the inkling ideas for what playstyle you'll pursue throughout your campaign, your inventory is the thing that actually instills in you a sense of how you'll play deus ex differently from other players. It's a layout strikingly similar to the one from RE4 actually, where your choice of tools will have to be neatly arranged in a grid.
With certain tools occupying far more space than others you must make concessions and decide what stays and what's left out, your insistent reliance of bazookas may lead you to carrying a much smaller arsenal, you could start the game with one idea of how you'll complete your missions throughout the game, and still be able to change your playstyle later on without much friction. Really it's a bag doing the heavy lifting in trying to fit together all the mechanics that struggle to work on their own, the rpg systems, the weird aiming, those silent takedowns that just aren't very reliable, leaving behind corpses too riddled with identical loot to ever let you carry them out of sight, its a fun hybrid mix of gameplay but it all clashes far too often, one system begets another, highlighting eachother's shortcomings.
The saving grace for deus ex is its flexibility, you get to be more and more pragmatic with your approaches as you gain clarity of how a typical mission plays out. go and kill everyone, hide in every vent, unlock every secret passage, blow up any entrances you're too tired to lockpick or hack into, all in one, the level layouts are like these 50kg meals that, if very well turn rather formulaic the longer the game goes on for, they never cease to amaze with how much thought goes into them, so brimming with skips, entrances and secrets, that subsequent playthroughs can look and feel very different, its an incredibly aspirational game on a game design perspective despite all of its shortcomings.
Writing is applaudable about deus ex. Suppose that it isn't incredible on its own, but it fits incredibly beneath the already crammed soil that every other element draws upon. An interest in politicking and fiction oozes in every spoken piece of dialogue, in any excerpts of history books that you come across, in private conversations, email exchanges and so on. Its a better choice of worldbuilding than the typical lore dumps seen in so many other rpgs, spouting little blurbs of nothing from a gumball machine after every minute action you take is a far cry from what this game does, here though text can vary a lot in form and genre, it soon adjusts its optics into select subjects, and creates a neat relation between speculation and imagination, this tapestry is something that i seem to have thought of repeatedly throughout the years, as more and more events and debates in real life end up resembling those seen in this game's fantasies.
I think sometimes, Deus ex's, abrupt shifts in tone from serious meditations about the types of violence lived under complex and flawed systems of governance, to sewer parrots that spew lasers can seem tasteless and chaotic, but i have grown less distant to them over time, i appreciate that despite everything it's a game that likes to dream and entertain dumb senseless questions in spite of its growing concerns about where the world was headed so many years ago.
