What better prize could Deus Ex receive than to inspire something that doesn't simply revere it, but really dug down deep to understand and honour it in ways that no scores or breathless retrospectives can ever hope to match? That it's also a great game in its own right definitely doesn't hurt. It's a love letter to a great game, and a living testament to the fandom it earned. The Nameless Mod is more than just a mod. Didn't like the way Deus Ex railroaded you into going against UNATCO? Here, you really do get to pick sides, and chop and change a bit as you learn more about the situation.Īnd that's not even touching the ridiculous amount of stuff on the computers and in conversations, from the barman who'll play several rounds of "Guess the Quote" for the sheer hell of it, to the aforementioned fan-fiction store and its in-depth information on incredibly obscure stuff like Ada, the missing AI from the original Deus Ex you were originally going to go and deal with in a cut mission set on the moon. You know how you can climb walls with grenades, or punch in a passcode you simply remember from a previous game? So do The Nameless Mod's designers, and while they won't necessarily stop you, they will call you on it. Behind that, the attention to detail is almost ridiculous. It's much rougher than the original Deus Ex, no question, but generally holds its own against it-and in more than a few cases, even surpasses it. What really stands out about the game though is that you can see exactly where the development time went. It's worth siding with the baddies just to get more of his dialogue, though you won't be disappointed on either path. King is far and away the most fun though, bouncing from smug glee to spluttering anger, while almost never even managing to get poor Triskion's name right. The others run the gamut from completely original cyberpunk characters like the sadistic AI Shadowcode to complete crazies like Ghandaiah, who immediately accuses Tresktcone of being a 'boob suit' and gives you a bit of XP simply for enduring his babble. Tristkon himself is JC Denton with a little bit more history, especially in interactions with characters like Kylie, his former colleague/lover and current enforcer for WorldCorp, or Phasmatis, his friend amongst the moderators. It doesn't matter that you almost certainly have no idea who the characters are originally based on. The original Deus Ex never stops being important to the world, nor is the meta side or in-jokey humour ever lost (this is probably the only game you'll ever play where your Mission Control guy will interrupt your adventures to let you know he just did really well in a game of DOTA), but the focus soon shifts firmly towards The Nameless Mod's own fiction. In the first map, you'll bump into about a million and three of the buggers.Īfter the opening though, things tighten up a lot. Other bits, like the newbies everywhere demanding to know how you get on 'the boat', are in-jokes you don't need to understand, but will probably feel a bit alienated by not being in on. One early area for instance (completely optional) is a fan-fiction store, whose owners do nothing but reel off endless speeches about the original game's story that you do not give a crap about. The early areas can be a little off-putting, at least potentially, simply because they're by far the most self-referential or reliant on you being a hardcore Deus Ex fan. Silly as many of the details are, the game is no joke. What better way to whet your appetite for the official sequel? Team Fortress 2 weapons? Bah! Prepare to enter Forum City, where conspiracy and intrigue aren't simply life and death. Meet The Nameless Mod, one of the coolest attempts to recreate the original magic, and a fine adventure in its own right. Unless you follow the mod scene though, it's likely that you've not played one of the best things to come from Deus Ex, and one of the best single-player mods in general. Still, I remember it like it was yesterday. Will Human Revolution finally be the successor we're all longing for? "Hopefully!" I say, in the shifty tone of one who finished it about two weeks a go, but isn't all owed to give away any actual details for another week or so. Nothing however has that same hook of being dropped into a world with a bag of tricks, and invited to make your own way through it. A few others have taken on board individual ideas, like offering stealthy options, or giving you a sack of gadgets. Vampire: Bloodlines got the closest, E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, uh, exists. With the exception of Invisible War, the great shame of Deus Ex's legacy is that almost nobody's ever really tried to beat it.
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