Other than I guess reading through the fan wikis? Watching youtubers recap the game?
Ross Scott of Stop Killing Games, before he was doing Stop Killing Games, was basically a longform game reviewer, he has a pretty good review of Deus Ex, imo. He’s Accursed Farms on youtube.
The game itself though is not very expensive, and, thanks to a still active modding scene, we have:
Deus Ex: Revision.
Very roughly, if you can handle the visual aesthetic of basically what is now the PS One / Retro look, well DX basicslly looks like that, with just a teensy bit more detailed models and slightly higher resolution textures.
And, the game does actually have difficulty modes that are actually meaningful.
Easy is pretty forgiving, if you mostly just want to experience it as a low pressure … scifi thriller roleplaying experience / well now i guess its just a ‘near future simulator’.
Or, you can cram the difficulty all the way up to Realistic, die from a single bullet to the head, snd have to really learn the gameplay systems and how to do your character build to well match your playstyle.
I think you can get the original DX on Steam for like $5-$10.
DX Revision basically acts as a kind of ‘super-mod’ and it also basically revamps a bunch of stuff so that it works better with modern pc hardware, supports 16x9 (instead of just 4x3) monitors, modern higher resolutions and such.
The super mod part basically amalgamates all the most popular gameplay and visual mods from over the years, and to the greatest extent possible, makes elements of them modular and work with each other, such that you basically get a bunch of different somewhat different ways you can make the sort of base ‘rules’ of the game work.
It does all this because the game never had a ‘mod manager’ as say people built for Bethesda and other games, so their approach is roughly -> shove it all into one giant mod, have the ‘mod manager’ part be in the game’s options menus.
You can even play as a woman JC now, with the fully (human) voiced Lady D mod!
The devs had originally wanted to have the game playable as male or female, but, did not have the time in the development budget.
Though personally… the extremely deadpan, gravelly, original male voice acting is … literally the stuff of legends, fair number of early internet memes based off of it.
… Oh, god, I also forgot that it essentially predicted COVID as well, or at least, portrayed a world that is radically reshaped, on the street, in politics, in people’s minds… by a pandemic.
Without spoiling too much… you might be able to see how a good amount of DX fans, such as literally Elon Musk himself… actually weaponized the way the pandemic comes to be in DX, to manipulate people in the real world.
Life imitates Art imitates Life imitates Art…
Elon of course thinks he is JC… when in reality, he is an even cringier version of the main antagonist…
Hah yeah sorry for the info dump, would you believe I have a bit of an autistic hyperfixation on this?
Presumably you were asking if there is something like a comic or anime or some other way of experiencing the story/world?
Yeah there’s nothing official, like that, I don’t think. There are a few old like, newgrounds/flash animations I think, from fans, that were pretty good? But yeah, no movies, no show, no comics, no franchised media universe… but that kind of makes sense with the themes of the games.
Another quote from the game:
‘We are our choices.’
… its not really meant to be something you are told about or shown… it is meant to be something that happens to you and that you respond to.
Don’t apologize, I really appreciated your thorough response.
I figured the way to truly experience the art would be the source material. But it’s been years since I played any videogame. I might just make an exception for this though. Thanks again!
I’m not a gamer, any other way for me to experience the lore?
you can probably find playthroughs on youtube
Nope.
Other than I guess reading through the fan wikis? Watching youtubers recap the game?
Ross Scott of Stop Killing Games, before he was doing Stop Killing Games, was basically a longform game reviewer, he has a pretty good review of Deus Ex, imo. He’s Accursed Farms on youtube.
The game itself though is not very expensive, and, thanks to a still active modding scene, we have:
Deus Ex: Revision.
Very roughly, if you can handle the visual aesthetic of basically what is now the PS One / Retro look, well DX basicslly looks like that, with just a teensy bit more detailed models and slightly higher resolution textures.
And, the game does actually have difficulty modes that are actually meaningful.
Easy is pretty forgiving, if you mostly just want to experience it as a low pressure … scifi thriller roleplaying experience / well now i guess its just a ‘near future simulator’.
Or, you can cram the difficulty all the way up to Realistic, die from a single bullet to the head, snd have to really learn the gameplay systems and how to do your character build to well match your playstyle.
I think you can get the original DX on Steam for like $5-$10.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/6910/Deus_Ex_Game_of_the_Year_Edition/
$7 bucks, apparently.
Then you can also get DX Revision for free.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/397550/Deus_Ex_Revision/
DX Revision basically acts as a kind of ‘super-mod’ and it also basically revamps a bunch of stuff so that it works better with modern pc hardware, supports 16x9 (instead of just 4x3) monitors, modern higher resolutions and such.
The super mod part basically amalgamates all the most popular gameplay and visual mods from over the years, and to the greatest extent possible, makes elements of them modular and work with each other, such that you basically get a bunch of different somewhat different ways you can make the sort of base ‘rules’ of the game work.
It does all this because the game never had a ‘mod manager’ as say people built for Bethesda and other games, so their approach is roughly -> shove it all into one giant mod, have the ‘mod manager’ part be in the game’s options menus.
You can even play as a woman JC now, with the fully (human) voiced Lady D mod!
The devs had originally wanted to have the game playable as male or female, but, did not have the time in the development budget.
Though personally… the extremely deadpan, gravelly, original male voice acting is … literally the stuff of legends, fair number of early internet memes based off of it.
Found Ross’ review, and it’s really good.
Yep, that’s the one!
… Oh, god, I also forgot that it essentially predicted COVID as well, or at least, portrayed a world that is radically reshaped, on the street, in politics, in people’s minds… by a pandemic.
Without spoiling too much… you might be able to see how a good amount of DX fans, such as literally Elon Musk himself… actually weaponized the way the pandemic comes to be in DX, to manipulate people in the real world.
Life imitates Art imitates Life imitates Art…
Elon of course thinks he is JC… when in reality, he is an even cringier version of the main antagonist…
Thanks!
Hah yeah sorry for the info dump, would you believe I have a bit of an autistic hyperfixation on this?
Presumably you were asking if there is something like a comic or anime or some other way of experiencing the story/world?
Yeah there’s nothing official, like that, I don’t think. There are a few old like, newgrounds/flash animations I think, from fans, that were pretty good? But yeah, no movies, no show, no comics, no franchised media universe… but that kind of makes sense with the themes of the games.
Another quote from the game:
‘We are our choices.’
… its not really meant to be something you are told about or shown… it is meant to be something that happens to you and that you respond to.
Don’t apologize, I really appreciated your thorough response.
I figured the way to truly experience the art would be the source material. But it’s been years since I played any videogame. I might just make an exception for this though. Thanks again!
In that case, have a JC meme of mine:
Currently around 4€ on GoG.
Hey there you go!
Though I’m not 100% sure, off the top of my head, if Revision has a non-Steam version.
https://dx-revision.com/
Aha! Revision works with / is available on/with the GOG version as well!