Gameplay

Deus Ex popularized the concept of player choice in gaming. Playing through missions as JC, you often get to make dialogue choices that affect how NPCs respond to you later. How you approach each mission also changes certain outcomes down the line. Whether you choose a lethal or stealthy approach in taking out NSF terrorists, your superiors at UNATCO will take note of your decisions. You may even upset certain members of your team by taking either approach.

Though the gameplay is open-ended in terms of those choices, it’s easy to boil things down to what’s optimal and what’s not. You can assign skill points to the augmentations you’d like to upgrade, all of which can complement the playstyle you’re aiming for. Some of the augmentations are useless, like swimming, since you don’t get many chances to swim in the game, and proficiency with computers, as there are ways to get around hacking. You can’t reassign your points, either, so if you realize down the line that you’ve put skill points into pointless abilities, there’s nothing you can do except start over.

You’ll also find that running around with a melee weapon is usually the best approach. The gunplay is slow and clunky, stressing the importance of waiting to aim for headshots. Most of the non-lethal weapons are terrible to use, because there comes a certain point where enemies are outright immune to them, leaving you vulnerable without a way to fight back. Going into this game blind can be a huge disadvantage, as you wouldn’t know any of these things from the beginning.