More Deus Ex Demo

Finally finished downloading the demo today on my 28.8 modem (~200 hours of on and off over about 1 1/2 weeks).
Wow. I was impressed. I had to die three or four times before I got the hang of it, but once I did it was lots of fun. I think I'll be buying this one. The maps aren't that impressive, but the gameplay is great.
The engine seems to suck ass, too. My Celeron 2 566 @ 640mhz simply chugs sometimes when I look a certain direction (like towards the statue). Once I bump it back up to 800mhz most of the slowdown goes away but it still dips down into the 30's range. That's acceptable for a game like this, IMHO. But the poor bastards with <600mhz sytems have to be getting headaches from the chop, though. (BTW I have a TNT2 Ultra)
It uses the Unreal/UT engine right? It seems like it. Luckily 32bit works very well. I run 800x600x32bit and the performance hit going from 16 to 32bit seemed pretty small. Good thing because the maps are so dark that 16bit looks like absolute shit.

224: I tried Cheat-O-Matic (so I could get more skill points at the beginning) but it crashed my entire machine. Well, I only let it run for about 10-15 minutes. Depending on how much RAM Deus Ex is sucking up, it could take 20-30 minutes to scan it. Games that only take 20-25 megs of memory take around 5 minutes to scan with Cheat-O-Matic. I just didn't have the patience, but you might want to give it a try. Cheat-O-Matic is pretty easy to find and use. Starting out with full mastery in every skill would be nice... :)

This demo was excellent. As everyone else mentioned, its very close to SS2. My favourite move? Sneaking up right behind someone, hosing them with pepper spray, and then clubbing them with the crowbar when they're on their knees gasping for air.

Very much worth the download.

Heh. I just played the StarLancer prequel/demo last night. The voice acting in that is worse than Daikatana. One of your wingmen has this HORRID fake oriental accent. I'm trying to block it out of my mind, but they went something like this: "Me no rikey this.... Better Carr headquaters." "Jump coordinates set, waiting on you carr"

Wow. And the flight controls suck ass compared to Freespace2, no matter how hard I tweaked them. Sound quality was also horrid.

Heh. Why do people like this game again?

I enjoyed the Deus Ex demo more than that piece of trash and I don't even like the sneaky-shooter genre.

Well, played right through the demo now, and in a few words: I liked it.

By the way, I played it with my old Voodoo1 as I learnt my lesson with UT that my i740 (yeah I know) does not mix well with Unreal engine games at all. I'll have a nice and shiny new Geforce arriving soon though.

Install was fairly painless, it includes DirectX 7a which I chose to install since, like many I suspect, I simply haven't needed to upgrade to it before. I don't know for sure if it requires 7a as opposed to 7, but what the hell.

After a reboot, I was in. Standard UT selection of graphics card and so on, I took the default settings it suggested for the V1, basically medium everything I think. 640x480 of course.

Setting up keys and so on was fairly painless, there are a few other options, including cosmetic ones like changing the colour of the interface.

Off to the training course.

My initial reaction was 'whoa, the lobby from the Matrix'. Lots of columns, and a nice shiny floor - an effect that looks much better in the game than it did in some of the screenshots released. Moving around I found I was getting framerates about say 20-30 fps. I didn't have any mouse lag problems, probably since this was in Glide. Moving forward a little, I got my first message. This is something you must get used to, you get an awful lot in the game.

As many have remarked, the training course is a lot like the ones in Half-Life and Opposing Force, if more extensive. It is still overly long though, something the copious amounts of messages doesn't help. After learning 183 different ways to get through a door you get some weapons training with Gunther, who has somewhat amusing broken English, including an impressive demonstration of what difference higher skill levels can make when shooting. Like Opposing Force, you give your guns back between each training area, and unfortunately can't shoot the grunts performing this task.

It is then on to stealth training - getting past a couple of half blind guards to a door. However while humans may be half blind, cameras and other electronic devices certainly aren't, so it pays to take careful notice of your surroundings.

The final test involves getting across an area of water, and like the game as a whole, there are several ways to do this. I won't spoil how I did it, but I will say I had some trouble with the security droid roaming the area, which shot off my legs, and from the diagnostic display I think my arms as well, which had surprisingly little effect, apart from moving my viewpoint much closer to the ground and reducing my speed somewhat. After getting over the water you go up a ramp to a hall with some holographic displays of various soldiers, and also a secret.

After a final message in the next room, it is off to the game proper.

This is turning out much longer than I thought, congratulations for sticking this far. After selecting some skills (from areas such as hacking, tech, various weapons etc.), you start off on Liberty Island, on a pier under a somewhat worse-the-wear Statue of Liberty. You get a quick briefing and a choice of special weapon from your brother (you'll have an opportunity to acquire the other weapons during the game, so it isn't really a critical choice). I went for the sniper rifle, as one of the skills I picked was for that type of weapon.

I then moved to the grounds below the statue, here as everywhere it pays to be stealthy, to pick off enemies one at a time where possible. The cattle prod seems quite effective, but it can require more than one prod to knock someone unconcious, and charges are quite scarce, but there is at least one extra charge around. Conventional weapons can be quite difficult to get a kill with - headshots with the pistol don't seem to be always 100% effective, and it is hard to get a headshot in the first place with the aiming system. As I mentioned before, it seems important to take out enemies one at a time, others will come running if they hear a shout or a shot, and two or three enemies running at you after you missed a shot isn't good.

To the west of the island is the base of your organisation, with one soldier who tries to sell you overpriced ammunition, and the sniper rifle if you don't have it. There is also a van hooked up to a satellite dish that gives a good opportunity to get to know your way around security systems.

There were at least three ways that I saw to get inside the base of the statue that I found, and once you are inside you can persue the secondary objective of freeing ol' Gunther, which due to the presence of around four guards in the confined area is quite challenging. Then you proceed up the tower, avoiding or confronting enemies where you wish, before capturing the rebel leader.

After he gives you something to think about, it is back to the base, which presents a good chance to sneak about in the computer systems a bit. Eventually you should be able to get everyone's logins and passwords. Here the game itself is sneaky - when you are hacking, which is time limited, you can't save a screenshot, so having a pen and paper nearby is a must.

Finally I had poked my nose in everywhere I could around the base, and went back to the office for the briefing for the next mission, at the end of which I was also admonished having having a look in the female bathroom :). You then go back to the pier you arrived on, hop on the boat, and get a standard 'buy me' screen.

To sum up:
Sound - The sound effects and voice acting were of good quality, nothing too wrong here.

Graphics - The Unreal engine certainly has problems on non-glide cards, hence me dropping back to my V1, however the textures and environments were quite good - stark as you might expect inside the statue base, but quite detailed in the base.

Gameplay - Well it's no secret that this game is a lot like System Shock 2, but it does do what it does as well as SS2. Plenty of upgrade choices. However it adds the feature of having many ways to accomplish a lot of tasks - often one will be immediately apparent, then another that is easier to do with your current skills may come to mind.

Weapons - A difficult subject. Each weapon has its own uses and ideal situations, however at times you may be forced to use a less than ideal weapon. The poisoned darts are good, but the guard will often get off a shout. The pistol can take someone out with a headshot, but is inaccurate at basic skill levels, and can attract others with the noise. The cattle prod usually requires no-one else around to see you use it, and requires sneaking up behind. The rifle has good range, but again is inaccurate at basic skill levels and can take more than one shot to kill some enemies. Many other weapons, including various types of grenades.

Story - Very good, but can be a little slow to give information through lots of messages and a lot of dialogue. The desire to give the player many different ways to find out necessary information can seem over-redundant. It's not made clear that you can go back to someone and keep pumping them for information at times.

Overall I'm quite impressed - which actually is what I expected to be from this game. It has a few problems, but nothing too major, with the glaring exception of the issues with non-glide cards. While the training mission has echoes of Half-Life, the game itself is more of a combination of System Shock 2 and Sin to me. The voice acting reminds me of Sin, as does a little of the gameplay, and the third person cutscenes. Also your character's name (or rather initials) is the same as the sidekick in Sin - JC. There is enough action (if you desire) that fans of straight shooters may be pleasantly surprised, while those who prefer the softly-softly stealthy sneaking approach can also play the game that way.

Oh, personally I found the difficulty perhaps a little too high - even on easy it was quite a challenge.

Worth the download if you are on a fast connection; if you are on modem and are going to buy the game for sure, wait a few days and pick it up then, unless you can't wait. Plenty of gameplay time in there, a few hours especially if you take it slow and stealthy, plus you can go back and try playing it a different way.

Overall: 8/10.

Ah hell I can't be bothered reading back through now and correcting any mistakes, so forgive me. Probably a few things I meant to mention that I missed too, but hell this is long enough already.

I'm still enjoying Deus Ex demo. Fun Fun Fun.
Stuff I like:
"Law of the West" style character interation
Your PC is codenamed JC
Drag and Drop = GUN UPGRADE
Can you say, CRATES! - Me love crates, no palettes though 8(
XP Bonus just for doing what you always do, exploring and smashing crates!
Head shots = LETHAL. I've always wanted a shooter that keeps track of how damaged each limbs are, etc. Next, they'll have to do a game where they keep track of which limbs have been blown off, etc.
Real-time "Elite Computer Hacking"
TABLE DANCES

Stuff I don't like:
AMMO is more precious than a crack rock in Compton.
I weigh like 300 pounds, how stealthy am I supposed to be?
No frag frenzy feel to it, can't really run around like a postal worker and expect to win.

Thank you!

BP

I put on 4x FSAA with Deus Ex and there's still a helluva lot of jaggies...what a piece of crap, but it does make it much more easy to look at it. There needs to be more ammo weapons to be readily available and not go off to look for 'em.

Where's the next UT/Q3A game? And what was the name of that one game where you deathmatched on a tiny planet that only took 30 seconds run across and it used funny animals I think...Blast Zone or something?

Thanks,
Zilla

almost a 13 hour download on 56k... ow
I hope it's fun

someone said earlier in this thread "even the secretary in the bathroom is armed!"

i was expecting her to whip out an assault rifle or something, but it actually was realistic. she sprayed pepper spray in my eyes. how cool is that? :)

Btw, anyone else find the shotgun? I did. :D

I thought I had found everything and done everything in the demo after beating it like 5 times, but every time i come to the message boards I find something new I didn't know about.

once the game goes gold, steve should really have a mini-thread every day where people can talk about deus ex. i mean hell, if there are so many dope things in the demo to discuss, just imagine the full.

How many of you went into the ladies room? I did, and she says she will report you being in there. So, when talking to Manderley, he says: "And say out of the ladies room JC, that sorta thing embarasses the department more than it does you."-or something like that..kinda cool.

I played on my SLI setup(with glide)...worked way better than my Rage Fury

Heh, I was found out by 3 guards...and I didn't have any ammo. I ran up the down the stairs (or was it up?) with them close behind. I finally got to that room where you can leave on all four sides. I placed one LAM on the side then stood infront of the opening. They stood there for a second wondering about it but then came for me. BOOM. ahaha, there was nothing left.

lol...it's going to be funny as hell if they incorporate multiplayer.

if you jack up your strength implant really high you'd be able to toss big leather couches at people.

This is something that i found extremely interesting. After you do everything and you are in the statue next to the main boss, and a soldier comes up, kill him. you can get his gun. It only has three rounds but that isn't the cool part. When you go to talk to manderley he questions you about the soldier turning up dead and says that he is opening up an investigation into the matter! For those who haven't played through the whole game this doesn't usually happen and just shows you the depth that the designers have put into this game.

Another cool thing is when you go and rescue Gunther, I like to disarm the alarm system, then place a lam outside near the switch just incase i alert the guards. Then I like to either sneak in past the guards and hack the camera/turrent to kill all the bad guys, or rescue gunther and have him kill everyone.

Oh and nvidia card owners. Try looking up an UT tweak guide. I opened up the deusex.ini or whatever it was called and tweaked some settings. Aside from the outdoor parts of the level I can run the game at 1024x768x32 with pretty clean framerates. It seems that the default settings are really bad, i am surprised that they didn't incorporate some other settings like quake3 does.

The real statue does have very steep stairs.

Anyone notice that the computer hacker looks allot like John Carmack. Kinda of strange, if you ask me.

Egads you people are in desperate need of a good game if this one impresses you. I don't see how this can be impressive in a post SS2/Thief 2 society. Especially since both of those games not only came before, but handled every single gameplay element of DE far better and with more competence.

Would the real Captian Immy please stand up, please stand up? LOL

DUES EX CHEATS ! ! ! ! !

Are there any? I want to be able to fuck around without my 4fps and complete lack of skill getting me killed.

You know, I'd love to see a Windowblinds skin of the Deus Ex interface...

ok, i'm posting way too much.

here's my last comment in this thread.

I lept off the 3rd floor of the statue tower and landed on a guy's head, crunching him under my weight (most games you would just land on them and they would look up at you casually then shoot you in the toes/nuts). this is definately a game with endless ways to ninjack people :D

dropping TNT crates on people from above is fucking ridiculous, heh.

my only gripe with the game really pisses me off.
if you drop a metal box on someone from like 100 feet up, and it doesn't hit them directly on top of the head, it doesn't kill them or knock them out. ASDNJKFASNDN. i mean dammit, it smacks the guy in the fucking back, and he's like "WTF WAS THAT?" lol.

my gripe is the metal box not killing thing, not the tnt thing :p

oh yeah, and if anyone cares, i think the game rocks :p

heh, don't pick a fight with gunther in HQ at the end unless you have the disposable plasma pistol. apparently he equiped his flamethrower before going to get a soda. I haven't killed him yet (i want to try out the flamethrower), but I'm sure even if you kill him, that girl with kill you instead, so you might want to talk to her so she leaves the room first.

about alternate dialogue, etc...you can right click on some people multiple times and delve further into issues with them. especially your brother in the beginning on the docks.

also, if you don't meet the informant until AFTER you capture the NSF leader, he says something to the extent of "Why the hell did I even come down here? I've been sitting on my ass for an hour. I better get paid for this." heh.

Damn, I knew I shouldn't have sold my Monster II card. That's it, for now own, I don't sell ANY of my old hardware when I upgrade!

Uh, so no one knows that Warren Spector did preliminary design work on SS2? And designed SS1? I'm hardly surprised at the similarities between Deus Ex and SS2, nor do I care...Deus Ex runs better than SS2 ever did, at any rate, and it seems to be a bit more fun. Anyone know how many levels there are?

Anyone get OGL to work? Mine stopped recognizing mouse feedback on startup, and almost crashed the system...on a GeForce, latest drivers...

Hey, did anyone notice the description when you selected the soda can in the inventory screen? It said it was "labeled 'Product Placement Here', we're not sure if it's a product name or an invitation". LOL!

OT to anyone who cares:

Quake III timedemo demo001.

P3-500, 256 mb RAM

All bells and whistles turned up all the way [including high-quality sound - but no A3D]

Resolution: 1024x768

TNT2: 23.5 fps
Creative Labs GeForce 2: 61.7 fps

WOO HOO