Um Jammer Heather

i think what makes the original deus ex so timeless is its unrivalled dedication to foresight. you've played games like it right? where a dishonored or two show the very clear "hey here's an alternate choice wink wink" routes you can take? the sequels do this even, all but plastering vents and computers with flags and a bullhorn.

deus ex stands out not because of those options, but because it anticipates everything. its ridiculously difficult to sequence-break, glitch or cheat without something in the game acknowledging it. the developers anticipated possibilities that the player could invent, not just what their design intentionally offers. its a specific ethos i seldom see implemented to such a degree today, if at all frankly, and why people keep holding it up as a gold standard. i cant blame them, nobody did it quite like ion storm.

edit: i like to phrase it as most games being clever with its multiple choices, whereas deus ex seems to know how you'll play better than yourself

pc games really need to bring back the external launcher because i am NOT sitting through your elaborate cinematic opening for five minutes at half my resolution and no vsync.

edit: is 1440p cursed? come to think of it, i never had these issues on my old 1080p monitor. most current games choose either 4k or 1080p by default and seem to forget my one lmao.

Mankind Divided's DLCs are odd. there's three: Desperate Measures (a now-free preorder bonus that's about 10 minutes long), System Rift (a more involved bank heist) and A Criminal Past (very fleshed out prison break).

all three are accessed outside the main game's story, yet vaguely take place during, during and prior to it respectively. this isn't like Human Revolution's director's cut, which snuck its DLC in the last third and made sure to define a timeline.

no issues with Criminal Past due to a prequel-pass but the first two feel very out of place, especially Desperate Measures. it involves doing extra detective work on the opening train bombing, basically a few extra answers. it totally should've been in the game proper; excluding it adds to the main game's disjointed writing and is seriously underwhelming on its own. funny that the main complaint i had was actually hidden away in an old preorder download.

the only one i'd recommend is Criminal Past. handily the best level design in MD, all confined to a smaller, tighter playground of multiple paths and choices. System Rift brings back Pritchard but that's about it. too linear and has a crappy shoehorned breach section as the ending.

Deus Ex could always do with more levity, but it needs to be known that the Criminal Past DLC has a shop run by a stuffed fox plush.