A slight shift of focus, and the future could still turn out like Deus Ex after all…
The reviews that greeted Ion Storm’s Deus Ex upon its release in June of 2000 ranged along a continuum from cautiously to wildly positive. Computer Gaming World, the Gray Lady of the hobby, came with one of the most nuanced takes. Reviewer Thierry Nguyen spoke of “loving” the game in the abstract, but lamented “deep flaws that sometimes frustrated me, as they detracted from its ambitious design”; these included performance issues, poor artificial intelligence on the part of the enemies, and a sense of contrivance that clung to some of the environments and plot points. The excitable lads at Australia’s PC Powerplay, on the other hand, placed no such qualifiers on their declaration of love for Deus Ex. In a special feature published when the game was not yet three months old, they declared it to be quite simply The Best Game Ever: “Every action within Deus Ex’s expansive environments has far-reaching consequences, making it seem like the player is ensconced within a living, breathing world.”
