Graphics and Sound

Unreal strikes again

Deus Ex's graphics are based on Epic's Unreal engine, which means you take the good parts along with the bad. Bad news first: the game is a lot smoother in Glide than it is in Direct3D. Gamers without 3dfx cards experienced some rather horrible framerate and performance issues, prior to the recent Direct3D patch. That patch resolved a lot of issues when I was using a GeForce 2 GTS, but even then, the game played smoother after I swapped out the GTS for a Voodoo 5. Those of you STILL without a 3D card, beware - Deus Ex is hardware only, meaning that you need a 3D accelerator to play. Overall, Deus Ex is one of the more demanding games on the market when it comes to system resources.

Gunther's huge

Even federal agents need an ATM

The good news is that the graphics in Deus Ex are clean and crisp, albeit a bit dark because most of the action takes place at night and in gloomy environments. The engine seems to be quite at home in either outdoor or indoor areas, rendering both types of environments equally well. Particularly impressive was the attention to detail for the indoor areas. There are a lot of random items like plants, furniture, computers, control panels, and more, scattered about the rooms to make the world seem more real and believable. Everything is interactive, moveable, and usable - you can run sinks, drink from water fountains, log into computer and ATM terminals, buy candy from vending machines, and much, much more! Slummy areas looked appropriately run down with wisps of trash flying about the ground and trash can fires lighting up streets and tunnels.

It's your brother

Yes boss

Character models were a tad blocky, particularly in the facial area, but at least their mouths move when they talk. The character animations appeared a bit too stiff at times. OK so it's pretty nitpicky but it's our job to nitpick! Overall we were satisfied with the visuals, particularly because games of this type (Thief 2, System Shock 2, etc) generally have average or sub par graphics. Deus Ex is probably the best of the bunch, but that's not necessarily saying much.

Sound

As we mentioned before, Deus Ex features an intricate plot - there's a ton of spoken dialogue in the game that advances the story and keeps the player glued to his computer. Most of the voice acting in the game is decent, but not earth shattering. JC and Paul's boss at UNATCO, Manderley, sounds appropriately authoritative, while the mousy looking secretaries sound sniveling, with a touch of Fran Drescher. Your partners, Gunther Hermann and Anna Navarre, both speak with the cocky swagger of true, badass government agents. The one real disappointing voice I found was the main character's - JC's. The protagonist always speaks with a low, droning, monotone. At first it's ok because he sounds cool, confident, and self-assured. But as the game carries on, JC never seems to change his tone of voice. Despite some very disturbing and flustering things that might happen to him, JC never sounds bewildered, panicked, or even awake at times. It's almost as if he's disinterested.

Your partner Anna

Sam Carter - UNATCO quartermaster

As far as the in-game sound goes, it's excellent, and you'll be relying on it a lot because much of the gameplay hinges on stealth. You'll be listening for footsteps, trying to overhear conversations, and cringing in hapless frustration because you were careless and set off an alarm that will summon tons of armed guards to take you down.