Deus Ex

Deus Ex's real achievement is that players are free to complete missions as they see fit. As the game progresses you can upgrade your character with a variety of bioenhancements that dramatically impact gameplay. Focus on your combat skills and you'll be the Terminator by the end of the game. Upgrade your computer know-how and you'll be the equivalent of Data from Star Trek: TNG, busting into computer and security networks with ease. We were expecting a game that let us role-play a little, opting for a brute-force approach or one that required a little more stealth, but we had no idea the designers would do such a fine job of pulling it off. The experiences of both methods are unusual enough that we found ourselves revisiting level to try different tactics.

The individual components of Deus Ex--like the targeting system, inventory controls, and enemy viewing radiuses--are a little clunky when viewed individually, but they converge into an overall game that is much greater than the sum of its parts. It's easy to compare the game to titles that obviously influenced it (Thief, System Shock, and Rainbow Six immediately come to mind), but Deus Ex really stands on its own as a unique title that should appeal equally to action games, adventure lovers, and role-playing fanatics. It's just too bad players without a Voodoo card will have a hard time getting playable frame rates, since the game uses the Direct3D-unfriendly Unreal engine. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Several ways to complete each mission, and all are equally fun
• Game world is highly interactive, and exploration is rewarded
• Ability to tailor a character to match your gameplay style is a huge plus

• Doesn't run well on non-Voodoo video cards since the game is optimized for Glide 3-D rendering
• Most of the voice acting is bad
• Enemies aren't very smart

In this thrilling role-playing adventure, you play the part of J.C. Denton, a powerful, nanotechnologically augmented antiterrorist agent. It's up to you to stop the conspirators from achieving their goals. But this world is full of lies and betrayal, a world where nothing is as it seems and entire nations can seemingly be turned against you at the push of a button. To succeed, you must travel the globe in a quest for knowledge, develop your character's nanotech augmentations and strengths as you see fit, build a network of allies to assist you, and determine when stealth and strategy are more important than action. And each time you think you've got the mystery solved, the game figured out, there's another, deeper mystery to be unraveled. You will never know whom to trust, who your friends are, who's in the conspiracy, and who's innocent. Maybe no one is.