My Favorite Game

So my favorite game of all time is Deus Ex: The Conspiracy. Of course, since it's me, it would be a lesser known interesting game full of flaws. Since I will be doing lots of praising of this game, let's get the flaws out of the way. Even for the time, Deus Ex had sub-par graphics. Shooting was actually a pretty weak element and this was a first person shooter... technically... I mean, they let you auto-aim, clearly shooting was not the focus of the game. The voice acting is not always top notch (oh Hong Kong...). Sorry to be so specific, but your brother runs like a retard (it looks like the animation was made for someone moving at least twice the speed he actually moves) and this happens about 4 seconds into the game, meaning someone should've noticed (and cared).

All right, so why do I love this game over all the other hundreds I've plopped in my consoles? Choice. Technically all games are about choice. That's why they're called games and not movies (Final Fantasy 13 might've forgotten this... but, you know, most "games" aren't movies). But the ideal of choice permeates every part of Deus Ex. I enjoyed playing as what I would call a commando type. You sneak in, headshot everyone you meet, knock out the computers, and when your cover is eventually blown, you run to an advantageous position, stand still, and kill everyone who comes to get you. I've completed three separate playthroughs. Just to give you an idea of the choice, in the other two I played a "run and gun" type and in the last I played a walking stun gun. By far the hardest was the run and gun playthrough. I say that because it's usually the easiest... Hell, in Assassin's Creed, I was just a psychopathic murderer. Stealth? Lol.

Choice is everywhere. In the level design, story, they facilitated many different play styles... That brings me to the story. If you're going to do sort of a multi-path story then FORGET ABOUT MORALITY. There is no "wrong" or "right" choices in Dues Ex. In fact, in my first playthrough, what? Ten years ago? I went with the rebels because I believed in them... when I played again recently I went with the government... because I believed in them. The game didn't change; I did. And it caused me to choose differently. Now that's profound. Would I have chosen differently if I played Mass Effect or Fallout ten years ago? Nope... because they're about morality and when they tried to be grey, it was just annoying that then some of my choices were arbitrarily good or evil. Sometimes I went with the "evil" choice because it was right. Tacking this arbitrary system on top of it only cheapens my choices. The Conspiracy has a story I felt vested in because my choices mattered and I had the power to choose over everything that mattered.

I actually have low expectations of Deus Ex: The Human Revolution (as I have low expectations of all games), but if they can keep the game chock full of meaningful decisions in everything that matters, while not just "following the model" like Invisible War did, I will be quite content. Hope to see good things from Eidos Montreal.