Deus Ex (2000)

I'm a bit worried that I'm not going to stick with this for very long. It's so revered and it's a game I'm really hoping I enjoy, but my experience with Ion Storm games so far hasn't been very successful.

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Well, I'm currently not able to get past the fucking stealth training section so it's not looking good. Perhaps I need to take auto-run off? Am I crouch-running? [People responded that this is right at the end of the tutorial and notoriously shit, so I was fine to skip to the main game.]

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I've finally got a few more hours in on this - I'm now on the mole-people level.

I'm kind of enjoying it, but it feels a bit clunky. I guess I feel like there's lots of cool stuff I'm supposed to be understanding or achieving but I'm missing lots of it. I managed to kill a load of hostages and then skip the canister mission simply because I didn't realise what I was doing, then I just kind of muscled my way through to the generator. I always feel like I'm getting half a clue, and I'm not sure if it'll actually help me or not. I feel like a map would really help out, so when someone tells me that to get to place A I need to go through place B, I can actually act on that rather than just bouncing around the level until I find a promising route. It pisses me off when tech nerd keeps talking about his blueprints and shit - how about you upload those into my cyber-brain so I know where everything is, genius?

I've been shooting my way through - I think that if the stealth was a little more transparent/forgiving, I might partake in that style of play more and that might in turn encourage me to sneak and investigate more in general.

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I started playing it again for a very short while until I got to another bit (the heli-pad) where no matter how careful and patient I tried to be, the clunky stealth/combat combined with a nerfed player-character led me to brute-force my way through, which isn't entertaining. Then it started crashing, so I'm giving up on this. I just don't think I get on well with the Ion Storm ethos!

Rating: Orange.