There are very few games that change your opinion of the whole medium. Titles that shape your view of the industry in general. Games that make you wish more games were made like them. Even fewer games have distinct themes and beliefs running through them; cyber-punk, post-modernism, mythology etc. However, in the year 2000 things were about to change; the narrative-driven first-person gameplay of Half-Life was about to meet its match when a Texas-based developer looked to meld the instant gratification of the FPS with the long term satisfaction of the RPG. The result would be Deus Ex…Unquestionably one of the best games of all time.

I remember the turn of the millennium fondly; the N64 still hovering around the console market and producing classics such as Perfect Dark and Conker’s Bad Fur Day; the Sega Dreamcast churning out hit after arcade hit. And then there was the PC (Personal Computer – you so already knew that). The platform of choice for any true aficionado, the PC is timeless; a never-ending waterfall of gaming goodness that you can bathe in anytime you like (as long as you’re prepared to upgrade every two years and accept the fact that not every game will install correctly). Back in 2001 I was still taking my first steps with the format.

A fourteenth birthday had yielded the welcomed (if not unsurprising) unveiling of my very own computer (made by ‘Gateway’ if I’m not mistaken- I don’t think they’re around anymore) and a copy of Tomb Raider II. Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear had followed as well as the memorable releases of Worms: Armageddon and GTA II. By summer ’01 I was starting to get up to speed with things and on the weekly Saturday visit to the local Special Reserve store (it was like Christmas came every weekend) I was curiously flush with cash. And what does any sexually perturbed teenager who isn’t comfortable chatting to girls do with a wad of money? That’s right, they spend every last penny on a lady of the night- I mean computer games! They spend it on computer games.

On this instance the games in question were Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption, System Shock II and Deus Ex. The former of the three was something of a letdown (the promise of fluid third-person combat and the man-management of a vampire team never truly delivering the right mix) but the second two…they were something special. System Shock was a game that had been floating under my radar for a while; an intense, intellectually superior RPG that put your protagonist on a (supposedly) derelict spacecraft fighting your way to survival and the aid of your female shipmate. ‘Shock II was exactly that; shocking. Actually it was too shocking. The game was so consistently terrifying that I could barely hold the mouse in my right hand and click the ominous ‘load game’ tab on the main menu. It was a brilliant title…but far too scary for that fifteen year old boy I remember. No, what I needed was the same sort of thing but with less horror. The fusion of FPS/RPG but with the scares turned way down and the cyber-punk intellectualism turned way up. Of course, unbeknownst to me…I already had just that.

‘God from the machine.’ For me this means our inevitable dependency on machines outright, the world shifting towards technology and away from religion and traditional means. These are definite undercurrents that Deus Ex looked to instil. Right from the get go things had a cerebral feel; dialogue zipped along at a swift pace (your favourite sci-fi film looking decidedly average in comparison). Combat ranged from slow burning to downright chaotic depending on your play style. And that’s what still sets DX apart from its counterparts: choice. Sure, many games have replicated the formula with varying degrees of success (Mass Effect being the most notable one) but few did it with same effectiveness.

I remember hearing that there were something like seven different ways to finish the first level alone. Whilst this may have been a tad exaggerated, the count is not that far off. Feeling stealthy and want to progress Solid Snake-style? Grab the ‘stun prod’ and enter buildings via the air vents. Want be a hulking tank of a cyborg and obliterate everything insight? Grab the ‘GEP launcher’, a few mines and go do your thing. Want to strut your stuff as an elite hacker? Upgrade the relevant ability and turn all the turrets on your enemies. It’s hard to dismiss the level of freedom that was offered to you as a player. There was a linear route to take for the most part, sure, but how you achieved your goals was completely up to you. The story twisted and turned frequently (the bit when a bus-load of soldiers break down the door to your brother, Paul’s apartment just as he’s told you all is not what it seems- priceless). Genuinely I’ve never been more excited at the prospect of getting home from school/college and double-clicking the icon to start a game.

The varied locations, the three possible endings, the excellent voice acting. And I haven’t even got to the best bit yet; the theme tune. Yes, Goldeneye’s intro was instantly recognisable, and you could easily sit there on the main menu just to listen to Halo’s soulful cords, but, for sheer hair-prickling energising when you really needed it, no one beats Deus Ex. It was just so…so cool. It sounded like something from the X-Men ‘90’s cartoon but more electronic, more modern. It essence it was the perfect way to start every playthrough. You globe trotted, incited an insurrection and eliminated suited up soldiers with cybernetic precision. What’s not to like?

And so we come to the sequel. Deus Ex: Invisible War divides opinion. On one hand it was a trendy, streamlined update that was ahead of its time. On the other, it’s not quite the sequel we were expecting. The storyline was there; for sure you were never in any doubt that this was the choice-laden, big-budgeted follow up to that classic we enjoyed three years prior, but, something was missing. The emphasis made by Ion Storm to keep one eye on the console market had meant that many concepts had been neglected or forgotten. The lack of skill upgrades was the real knife-turner for me. Why was it taken out? They’d kept it in for the Playstation 2 port of the original. The dismissal of the detailed menu system was another travesty; in the PC version of DX you could press the F1 key and be met with a collage of information and inventory management. Not in Invisible War. No, no…that was too much to ask.

But this is like having a go at Brad Pitt’s brother for not being as good looking as his celebrity sibling. Deus Ex: Invisible War wasn’t designed to be an RPG behemoth like it’s brother. It was made to be an accessible, interesting title that had appealing qualities of it’s own. The way the screen swivelled when you flicked through the menu screens, the fact that the menu itself was supposed to be emblazoned on your eyeball, the markedly improved graphics and myriad of awesome new augmentations; these were just some of things the game brought to the table.

Ultimately your enjoyment of the game was leveraged on two things: how much did you like the first one and how much did you love your Xbox? If the quantities were about right then Warren Spector (the game’s director) was even more of a hero for making a legitimate continuation that didn’t trample all over your nostalgia. And can I just say, the final quarter of the game where you fly to Alaska (I think) and meet JC and Paul for the first time (with the same voice actors)- brilliant (and the fact that the story kind of encompasses all three endings from the original- how is that even possible? Genius).

As you might have gathered Deus Ex is no ordinary game to me. It’s a cornerstone, a benchmark of the last thirteen years that you can wave in front of the people playing Angry Birds and exclaim: ‘This is what a real computer game looks like!’ I loved the first two, I loved what Eidos Montreal did with Human Revolution, and I love the prospect of potential sequel at some point in the not too distant future. I remember reading an article in PC Gamer UK back in 2003 where they detailed the top one hundred PC games up to that point, and the original Deus Ex came in at number two. That wasn’t high enough…