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Deus Ex · The Long and Short of It

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  Thanks for checking out the Long and Short of It podcast.
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  You can find us on all good podcast platforms.
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  Please consider following or subscribing.
• 0:07
  We hope you enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to The Long
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  and Short of It, the podcast where we discuss each of the
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  games on the Open Critic Top 100 list.
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  My name's Dan and I'm joined. By this is Lawrence.
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  Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast,
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  everyone. We've had a bit of a hiatus and
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  in that time I believe you've got some some news.
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  For me and the listeners, I've had a baby, no.
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  Yes, that too, yeah. I gave birth to a baby.
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  No, no babies. Yes.
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  I successfully completed the London Marathon, which was
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  probably the hardest experience of my life.
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  I'd say probably up there after sitting in a room with yourself,
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  of course, that's yes, that's probably a little bit more
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  difficult. But no, got it done correct.
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  It was, it was everything I thought it would be, which is
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  horrific, but got it done. Glad I did it, It was a cool
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  experience. Don't know if I'd do it again.
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  Describe the experience for us. What was sort of going through
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  your mind and how how did your peaks of energy work and did you
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  start off strong and then yeah, it.
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  Was it was very hot last Sunday because we're recording this the
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  following week. It was, it was very hot and I
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  set off at about 10:40 and I was basically just trying to keep a
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  slow pace, but I'm not running the heat for for quite a while.
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  I think peaks like for, for international listeners, for us
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  it was about 19, 2020, 1°C, which probably isn't very hot
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  for a lot of people, but Britain, yeah, that's quite
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  warm. Could have been hotter though.
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  But yeah, I took it slow for the first kind of, I ran
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  consistently for about 10 miles. And then it wasn't a case of my
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  fitness being the problem, it was a case of my, my body, like
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  my legs just seized up. So for the remaining kind of 15
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  miles, it was a 1516 miles. It was a case of running and
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  jogging, but it, it, it was mad. I've, I've done, I've done
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  events before, I've done half marathons where there's a lot of
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  people on the streets kind of cheering you on.
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  But nothing kind of on that scale compares to London.
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  Because the way that I would explain it is like a normal
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  event, you've probably got supporters and crowds probably
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  between 40 to 60% of the way around.
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  Whereas London, it felt like it was probably about 90% and now
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  definitely periods where you wanted to slow down and just
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  kind of rest, but you felt like you couldn't because it, it, it
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  was very overwhelming. It, it was a lot, to be fair.
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  I thought I'd cry a couple of times, but I, I didn't, which I
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  was quite surprised at, but I think it's because I was just so
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  dehydrated and sweating so much. But yeah, I'm, I'm glad that
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  I've done it and I've still, I think about £1800 on my
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  fundraising. So if, if there are any, any
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  listeners that wanted to donate that hadn't yet to make sure
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  that I didn't pass away while I was running it.
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  The fundraising just giving page is still open, the links on our
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  Instagram. I think it's on our Facebook as
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  well, if you remind us what the cause is.
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  Yeah, I ran for Saint Richard's Hospice, which is a Hospice
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  where I'm from in Worcester. They looked after my nan about
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  1213 years ago when she was kind of at the end of her, her kind
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  of journey with cancer, I suppose.
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  And then the same for my auntie, my dad's sister, about five
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  years ago. And when I think back to, I
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  wasn't particularly close with my auntie like that side of the
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  family, but at the time you and me were playing Grim Fandango.
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  So I remember it because I had to go and pick my nan up from
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  the Hospice because she'd been to visit her just as locked down
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  and kicked in. I was doing a bit in the field,
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  I think of Grim Fandang and I want to remember my nan.
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  And then I got in some hot water with my previous, previous,
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  previous employers because they were like, why are you
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  travelling with old people in the car when they've been put
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  into a lockdown? And that ended up with me
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  leaving my job. So yeah, St Richard's Hospice in
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  Worcester, they do amazing work, a lot of end of life care.
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  So if anyone would like to Chuck in a few pounds to get me closer
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  to my target of 2500, which would, we're getting close.
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  We're still a way off, but it would be very much appreciated.
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  So yeah. Every little help it.
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  Does my advice is don't run a marathon is it's the underlying
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  score there I think it was very tough but I'm glad I did it and
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  I'm going to the gym after this to go and run 5K on the
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  treadmill as part of my recovery plan.
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  So good, yes. Any news from?
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  You keep it up and not. No, not really.
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  I'm going to be doing some extensive walking in a month.
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  Yeah. With Craig, who you met.
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  I did. So yes.
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  So we're going to be going to East Coast.
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  I don't can't remember where exactly, but yeah, we're doing a
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  bit of a walking tour and yeah, we're doing that staying
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  overnight, walking the next day. We're doing it, yeah.
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  It's a bit of a bit of an adventure really.
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  So. A little bit of a job.
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  Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we're doing that.
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  And yeah, looking forward to that.
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  And also off to Italy with Joe. Italy.
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  In. Yes, very nice.
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  Whereabouts. Yeah, we're we're cheering.
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  So there's a wrestling event on. There so.
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  Yes. So we're going there for a long
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  weekend. So yeah, a couple of things to
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  look forward to coming up. Excellent.
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  But nothing really going on in the last month other than
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  extensive work really. And.
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  What a joy it is to work. Yes, but I have enjoyed the
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  weather turning up a bit and it's warming up a bit.
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  I've, I felt like I've realised it a bit more this year compared
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  to other years and I think I've been walking a lot and I'm very
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  aware of what the current temperature is.
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  And yeah, it's, it's been nice. Enjoying it a little bit more.
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  A bit, yeah. OK, so today we are here to talk
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  about a game, and the game we're talking about is not a game that
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  is on the open critical list. It is a bonus A.
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  Listening suggestion. It is a listener suggestion,
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  rightly said, and this game released in the year 2000.
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  It is the almighty Deus Ex and I did a bit of research here.
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  In terms of the lists, it doesn't appear on the open
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  critic list at all because it predates it.
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  It is of course on the Metacritic list where it has a
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  meta score of 90, so this is a high hitter.
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  Whatever way you look at it. I think it probably just lost
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  out on being on. The yeah, between 150 maybe.
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  Yeah. And, and given some of the stuff
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  that's on that list, I think there's a very good case for
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  this game being on there. So it's a good recommendation
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  from one of our listeners. So firstly, as we always do,
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  what on earth is Deus Ex for the uninitiated?
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  It's the way that I was thinking about when I first started
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  playing it is it's got a vibe of Half Life about it, the original
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  Half Life, but it's effectively like an action stealth RPG game
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  really. You can play it in quite a few
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  different ways, whether you want to go about it stealth, whether
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  you want to go guns blazing, talking.
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  It's got a vibe of a lot of different games.
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  You know, there were times when I was playing it that even made
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  me think back to when we played one of your games, Vampire the
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  Masquerade Alpha Pro. OK, yeah, yeah, true.
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  But yeah, it's. I was getting Vampire Masquerade
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  because I've not played. We'll get into this in a bit,
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  but I've not played this game in a very long time and I was
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  getting Vampire the Masquerade vibes, especially in certain
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  bits. Yeah, it's it's kind of like an
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  old school like PCRPGII see it as it's and to be fair that that
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  I say they're a dying breed. They are dead.
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  Obviously this is a 26 year old game, but the the things that
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  this game does live on in other games, like the choices that you
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  make, the options that you take will affect certain things that
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  happen in the story. And it isn't always completely
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  linear, but yeah. So it's kind of like a stealth
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  action RPG game really. So it's first person viewpoint
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  vantage point and it's what people call an immersive SIM.
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  And an immersive SIM is a game that prioritises choice making
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  and also systems based gameplay, where within that frame of
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  systems, you can kind of, as long as you stick within the
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  parameters of it, you can kind of do what you want with it.
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  If you want to run in and immediately start shooting
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  everyone, you can do that. Or if you want to avoid combat
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  as much as possible and crawl around in the vents, you can do
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  that. You can hack, you can hack
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  security, you can use lock picks, you can bath with people.
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  You can, yeah, yeah. All sorts of stuff going on
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  here. And there are a lot of layers to
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  this game. Levelling up.
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  I think it's one of those games. Nano augmented skill, true,
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  etcetera. Yeah.
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  So you, you, you level up by you don't level up as such, but you,
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  you enhance your orgs and you also can boost your your skills
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  by funnelling points into them. The the so the thing with this
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  game is it draws, sorry, not it draws from a lot of games that
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  have come out since draw off this.
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  Have drawn. From it and obviously I, I made
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  the reference then to Half Life, which came out I think the
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  original Half Life. Came up two years prior.
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  In IT 9899, yeah. However, you can, you can look
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  around at so many different games that have come out since
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  this that have taken things from it.
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  And the biggest one that I see, even though it wasn't like super
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  obvious to me initially, but then when you look at it a
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  little bit more, it is. And it's a game that you played
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  recently being Cyberpunk. Yeah.
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  Yeah. So it's got elements of that.
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  Obviously Half Life. There are a few other games as
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  well where it's very obvious that it's taken, you know, stuff
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  from Deus Ex. And obviously there was also a
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  sequel which came out I think about 10-12, thirteen years ago.
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  So there's Invisible War, which came out a couple of years
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  later, which was a bit divisive to say the least.
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  And then there was A Human Revolution, which came out,
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  yeah, about 10 years later. And then there was Mankind
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  Divided, which is the most recent one, which came out still
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  about 10 years ago now, right. But yeah, so to be honest, it's
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  a good series and consistently the entries are quite high
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  quality. So it's it's surprising we've
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  not really run into this series well in the list so far.
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  I mean, another game that obviously borrows a lot from
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  this. I just had to kind of scroll
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  back through my notes because I did make a note of it on my
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  phone when I was playing is Dishonoured.
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  Yes, yes, being being absolutely.
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  But my kind of my. Exactly the same sort of game as
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  this, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, except with a
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  different sort of setting and theme.
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  And I, I I love Dishonoured and Dishonoured is about playing as
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  well, really. But we.
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  Should play that at some point. Yeah, dishonest fun.
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  I never played the second one. But I want to play the second
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  one as well. And then there's also Death of
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  the Outsider or something, which is the add on content, which is
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  sort of. Stand alone I think that like
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  with with this game because like you said, and I'm jumping ahead
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  a little bit here is kind of what the history is with the
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  game you you say you've played this game before a long time
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  ago. I I've never played this ever,
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  but it's one of those ones that I think if you play games or if
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  you're in that sphere, you've heard of Deus Ex.
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  It's royalty. His gaming.
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  Royalty, yeah. And you know, at the time, Ados,
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  Edos, however you want to pronounce it, they had two other
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  quite big franchises, which was Tomb Raider, obviously, and then
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  Thief. And I was watching a video
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  talking about kind of a YouTube that I've mentioned quite a few
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  times on this podcast. This is one of my favourites.
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  Someone called H Bomber Guy. He did a video on, I think it
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  was on Mankind Divided and he was talking basically it's a 3
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  1/2 hour video on Mankind Divided and how it's all right.
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  Like it's not as good as the first one in his.
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  Opinion. I really like Mankind Divided.
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  That's probably after the probably after the original.
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  That's probably my favourite. Yeah, like the points he makes
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  and he goes, it's fine. Like it isn't a bad game, but it
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  isn't anything on this one. And he made a point that around
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  the time that Mankind Divided came out, it was about the time
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  that Square Enix were pushing ADOS to do their kind of their
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  relaunches, weren't they? Because you had the the Tomb
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  Raider remake in 2013. And then I think in 2014 they
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  did a remake of Thief, which I've never played.
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  And then obviously Mankind Divided.
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  That is terrible. Yeah.
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  I've not heard good things. But I then also found out that
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  at the moment, at some point this year or early next year,
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  they're looking to do a RE, not a remake, but remaster of of the
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  original Deus Ex that we've been playing.
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  It was supposed to be out now, but but when it when when the
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  trailer came out, it got some backlash for the visuals, which
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  they didn't like, people didn't like.
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  And I think it's fair to say that lovers of this game, they,
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  they're quite a passionate bunch.
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  And yeah. And because this franchise has
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  probably not had the care over the years, basically the the
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  developer of that game has gone back and said they're going to
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  overhaul it. Which, you know what, I'm not
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  necessarily against because there have been some remasters
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  that have come out. And I mean the big one for me,
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  the one, the one that I'll never forget, is the GTA Trilogy
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  remasters, which are apparently pretty decent now.
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  But when we played those came out, they were bad.
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  Shocking, considering Rockstar Criminal is Is Rockstar supposed
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  to be up there with the very best?
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  Yeah. And those remasters were, Yeah,
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  criminal. Good.
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  So yeah, you're right there. OK, so do you have what?
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  What's your history with Deus Ex?
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  And what, what had you heard about it over the years?
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  And he hadn't played it. But what was your familiarity
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  with it? Nothing major to be honest.
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  It's it's one that had never really interested me, as is the
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  case with a lot of the games that we've played on here.
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  Like I'd heard of them but never had the itch to play them.
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  I just knew that it was kind of like a, a dystopian, like like
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  police E kind of story. Yeah.
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  But other than that, nothing other than the video that I
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  watched on the sequel by H Bomber Guy, which mentioned a
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  lot about this game, I didn't really know anything about it.
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  So I went into this relatively blind, to be honest.
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  OK, other than the fact that I knew that the the character
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  model between this game and then Mankind Divided, JC Denton, the
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  protagonist looks very different.
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  Yeah, and also, well, we'll get to the visuals in a moment.
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  I wanted to get the visuals out of the way quite early.
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  So, so my experience in this game, it was probably around
• 17:40
  2000 and two, 2003, so a couple of years after it had come out.
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  However, I played the PS2 version which did come out
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  afterwards anyway, so that probably came out 2002 ish I'm
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  guessing. So maybe I played it in 2004.
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  But I I bought the game having heard the huge reverence that
• 18:08
  there was for it and it took me a little while to get into it.
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  I think I attempted to to start it once, didn't really make it
• 18:18
  past Liberty Island. And then at some point,
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  especially back then, I just get to the point where I pushed
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  through. Yeah, Yeah.
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  And I pushed through and, and I got into it, probably got into
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  it sort of when you're in Hell's Kitchen area.
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  And I enjoyed it. I, I, there are still parts of
• 18:38
  that game that I remember. I don't think it set my world on
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  fire, but I enjoyed it. I think one of the things that
• 18:45
  disappointed me about this game. Spoilers was the multiple choice
• 18:50
  ending at the very end, but it's one of those games where you
• 18:54
  literally go into the ending and you can make your choice and you
• 18:57
  just get the cutscene and then the game ends.
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  Nothing you've done. Given that it's such a choice
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  based game, nothing you've done up to that point feeds into that
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  ending and I always found that a bit disappointing after
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  spending. Probably. 15. 20 out yeah, 1520
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  hours with this game, getting to know its systems.
• 19:20
  But it it, it was a good game and I've always remembered it
• 19:23
  and I've always remembered it sort of fondly, but never really
• 19:28
  had the inkling to go back to it.
• 19:30
  And I was quite open to going back to it for for the podcast.
• 19:36
  And I played it, I said probably about six months ago now, I said
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  that I bought a PC handheld that runs Steam and I played it on
• 19:48
  there. So no, it's not a Steam Deck.
• 19:51
  No, but it's, it was the first one to run Steam that wasn't a
• 19:54
  Steam Deck. But yeah, it's a it's a nice
• 19:58
  system. It's a Lenovo thing.
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  And it. Yeah.
• 20:06
  So I so I played it on there. So I was playing it in handheld
• 20:08
  the whole time and I played actually the Revision version,
• 20:14
  which which is well received, but it does rejig the level
• 20:20
  somewhat and it also overhauls the graphics.
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  But yeah, it's well received. And what they say with Revision
• 20:27
  is play it in its vanilla state 1st and then play Revision.
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  Now I'm going to count that PS2 play all those years ago as
• 20:35
  playing it in it's a vanilla state.
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  So yeah, I played the revision and to be honest, I've not quite
• 20:40
  got to the end. I think I'm like a mission away
• 20:42
  from the end. But I'm absolutely going to
• 20:44
  finish this because I've gotten quite into it and it's a it's a
• 20:48
  nice way to play in this handheld form.
• 20:50
  Yeah. So yeah, I'm definitely going to
• 20:52
  finish this one. OK, so where did you play this?
• 20:58
  On Steam it made the most sense to me.
• 21:01
  Obviously. Since picking up my my PC in
• 21:04
  November last year, I tried to play as many games as I can on
• 21:10
  on my PC. This one wasn't particularly
• 21:16
  great with control, so I had to persevere with mouse and
• 21:20
  keyboard, which I do read still really struggle with.
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  And I think it's just because it isn't something that's kind of
• 21:28
  ingrained into me from being young.
• 21:32
  Mouse and keyboard. So I'm the same.
• 21:34
  Yeah, it's, it's, it's really difficult if that isn't what
• 21:37
  you're used to. But I made it work, played it on
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  Steam and it felt like one of those games that was best suited
• 21:46
  for playing on PC, you know, similar with with Half Life 1.
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  I can't even remember how I played that now.
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  I think I borrowed someone's laptop to play it because I
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  didn't have anything that could run it at the time and the my
• 21:59
  PS2 copy of it broke. So yeah, but no Steam and it
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  felt like the right place to play it.
• 22:06
  It isn't something that despite you enjoying playing at
• 22:08
  handheld, it isn't a game that I could have played handheld, I
• 22:11
  don't think. Yeah, I think the difference is
• 22:15
  I was able to map, yeah, the controls to the handheld.
• 22:20
  So I was using the analogue stick.
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  So I was basically playing it as with a controller.
• 22:25
  I will say that it took a bit of jigging to get there and at one
• 22:28
  point I thought I'm not going to get this to work, but I did and
• 22:32
  and it really works quite nicely.
• 22:35
  There are some bits that don't work as nicely where like
• 22:39
  triggering orgs or using the keyboard function when you're
• 22:43
  entering in usernames and passwords into computers, but
• 22:48
  for the most part it works really nicely.
• 22:50
  So yeah, I think that really increase my enjoyment of playing
• 22:58
  the game for a game which is a very old game, 2026 years old.
• 23:03
  So yeah. OK, so give us without going
• 23:08
  into too much detail, give us an overview of the plot of this
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  game. So it it's weird, it kind of
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  starts off as one thing and then ends as another.
• 23:20
  So you play as a character called JC Denton, who is
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  effectively like a special agent working for an organisation
• 23:29
  called Unacco. They're dealing with a virus
• 23:35
  called Grey Death, which is kind of spreading across the world.
• 23:40
  And the kind of enemy of Unacco is a group called the NSF, which
• 23:47
  are the national secessionist forces.
• 23:51
  And it's kind of pictured as them are trying to steal the
• 23:54
  cure, which is called Ambrosia. So kind of the first half of the
• 23:57
  game is Denton trying to take on the NSF, hunting them, trying to
• 24:04
  find this Ambrosia cure and shipments along with his brother
• 24:09
  Paul Denton, who's quite a big influence across across the
• 24:15
  story, who's who also works for UNATCO.
• 24:18
  However, Paul is a little bit different from JC and that he
• 24:24
  kind of sees things that maybe JC doesn't and he's beginning to
• 24:27
  question Yonatco. And as you kind of progress
• 24:32
  through the story, Paul reveals that he's working as a double
• 24:36
  agents because Yonatco actually aren't all what they seem and
• 24:42
  the Ambrosia distribution is being controlled by other forces
• 24:47
  and it isn't actually all as it looks.
• 24:50
  So you're not Co actor a kill switch on Denton's brother and
• 24:55
  you have an option to kind of try and save him or to leave
• 24:58
  him. And as the game progresses, it
• 25:02
  goes a little bit kind of bonkers in that there is another
• 25:05
  group called Majestic 12, as well as the fact that you work
• 25:08
  alongside the Illuminati. And at the end of the game, you
• 25:13
  are given a choice, three options, either to join like a
• 25:19
  an AI thing called Helios, which is Deus Ex to control the world
• 25:27
  with like a very high level of control.
• 25:30
  You can join the Illuminati, which is a lot more kind of
• 25:34
  refined control of the world, or you can just blow everything up
• 25:38
  and take the world back to the Stone Age.
• 25:42
  So yeah, that's a very brief, probably shaky overview of it,
• 25:46
  but that's about it. Yeah, and, and it's bombastic at
• 25:52
  times, influenced by things like the Matrix and other things at
• 25:58
  the at the time. It's a little bit I find this
• 26:00
  game as well. Yeah, I think one of the great
• 26:05
  things about the game is given that it was released in 2000,
• 26:10
  there's so much depth here. There are books that you can
• 26:13
  read, there are emails that you can access.
• 26:16
  There's a lot to it. Again, there's a lot of layers
• 26:19
  and it's a really fleshed out world, much more so than the
• 26:26
  vast majority of things at the time.
• 26:28
  So especially for a shooter, quote unquote.
• 26:33
  OK, so let's let's address the elephant in the room, which is
• 26:39
  the visuals. Talk to me about the visuals of
• 26:42
  this game. They aren't aged particularly
• 26:45
  well. It's, it's funny because when
• 26:49
  you look at this game, which came out in the year 2000, and
• 26:52
  then compare it with a game that came out two years later, like
• 26:55
  Metal Gear Solid 2, it's kind of crazy how junky that it does
• 27:02
  look. And I think that maybe I can't
• 27:04
  remember a lot of games from around the year 2000, but maybe
• 27:07
  it was in that awkward middle ground where graphics were kind
• 27:11
  of going from what they were in the PS1 era into what they
• 27:18
  became in the PS2. Obviously this is APC game, but
• 27:22
  it's a very kind of dark, very kind of Goldeneye face esque
• 27:29
  game, but not quite as bad. As Goldeneye.
• 27:33
  And yeah, it's a very, it looks and it feels very clunky.
• 27:38
  I think clunky is a good word to describe it.
• 27:41
  Yeah, yeah, it's I don't I've heard a few people saying, and I
• 27:46
  don't disagree. They always never really a
• 27:48
  looker and I never when I played it on the PS2, I never ever
• 27:53
  thought, oh, I think probably that was one of the things that
• 27:55
  initially turned me off. It's not in any way a handsome
• 28:01
  game. It relies more on its systems
• 28:04
  and the system stuff here with the with the physics and
• 28:07
  everything else. Not all perfect, but, but it is
• 28:13
  quite impressive, some of it. So you're stacking of blocks
• 28:16
  which you can do to access various places.
• 28:21
  Yeah, that that stuff's pretty good.
• 28:24
  But yeah, the actual and I played the the revision version
• 28:28
  where some faces are improved, a lot of the textures are
• 28:32
  improved, but a lot of the geometry is still the same and
• 28:35
  it's still quite flat looking. But the revision version does
• 28:40
  look a lot better. Yeah.
• 28:43
  So it's just something to be aware of if you do go into this
• 28:48
  game. But if I don't think it should
• 28:52
  stop you from enjoying it if you've got the tolerance for it,
• 28:55
  but also worth noting that you can actually play the PS2
• 29:00
  version on the PS-5. You can, you can download that
• 29:04
  from the PlayStation Store and play that version and it's
• 29:08
  tidied up a little bit, but it's still very much the same game.
• 29:12
  One of the other things is the PS2 version had additional
• 29:14
  loading screens in levels because it wasn't able to load
• 29:19
  as much at one time. So for example, Battery Park, I
• 29:24
  think that was split into 3 for the for the PS2 version, whereas
• 29:29
  in the PC version it's one large level.
• 29:33
  It's just something to worth, something worth noting.
• 29:37
  OK, so jumping straight from the visuals into the audio, which
• 29:42
  actually I think is a really strong point of this game.
• 29:45
  What do you think of the audio here?
• 29:47
  It's good. It's kind of very in line with
• 29:50
  the we, we talk a lot about like environmental storytelling.
• 29:53
  And I feel that the sound is fine for what it is.
• 29:58
  But again, this game's, you know, 1/4 / 1/4 of a century
• 30:02
  old. So I think the music where it
• 30:07
  shows up is fine. The voice acting is very like a
• 30:10
  fancy, very echoey. But the guy that does the voice
• 30:13
  acting for Denton I think does a really good job.
• 30:16
  I think that I don't know if they kept the same voice actor
• 30:21
  for number 2 or #3 but the voice acting.
• 30:26
  I don't think they did. No, because I mean, I suppose
• 30:29
  doing the same voice actor 15 years later will probably sound
• 30:33
  quite different, but I think. I have a feeling the one who did
• 30:36
  Human Revolution. I think he's quite a famous
• 30:37
  voice actor, but I can't remember his name.
• 30:41
  OK, so yeah, it it was fine, but it wasn't anything that I would
• 30:45
  be like, oh, that was brilliant, you know what I mean?
• 30:49
  Yeah, yeah, I I really like the soundtrack.
• 30:53
  I think the the voice work is, is a bit one note for a lot of
• 31:00
  it, quite flat, not a lot of emoting in there.
• 31:06
  Everything is sort of one level. Very matter of fact, this is
• 31:09
  what's going on. It suits, it's the style of the
• 31:11
  game. But yeah, I like the the
• 31:15
  soundtrack where it does swell and there are some bits where it
• 31:20
  really does swell nicely. OK, how would you describe the
• 31:26
  style of this game like? Played if you were to OK, yeah,
• 31:33
  OK. It's it.
• 31:35
  One of the words I use earlier is dystopian and it takes place
• 31:39
  in 2052, doesn't it? So not 1,000,000 miles away from
• 31:42
  where we are now, really, but it's is a dystopian future that
• 31:48
  has elements of like the whole cyberpunk thing, but it's
• 31:53
  reminiscent of it's Ridley Scott, the director of Blade
• 31:56
  Runner, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
• 31:59
  Very Blade Runner esque I'd say. Yeah, what do you agree?
• 32:05
  Yeah, Blade Runner esque Matrix as well comes to mind.
• 32:09
  I've written down cyberpunk. I've also written down noir.
• 32:13
  Yeah, noir and it never, ever you never.
• 32:20
  There's no daytime in the entire time you're playing.
• 32:24
  There's no daytime. It's all at night, which is
• 32:26
  obviously a stylistic choice. You've got the trench coats and
• 32:30
  the sunglasses, which were all the rage in the 2000s.
• 32:34
  Matrix, Matrix. Yeah, all those things.
• 32:40
  But yeah, it's it's got its own look and style.
• 32:44
  OK, on to our ever present featured gameplay.
• 32:47
  Is king. Is Deus Ex fun to play?
• 32:53
  I think so. It's The thing is with this
• 32:56
  game, I think the the reason that I thought about Vampires
• 32:59
  Masquerade is that the levels aren't really levels, are they?
• 33:01
  They're more like sandboxes. Hubs.
• 33:04
  Yeah, hubs is a good word. And you can kind of tackle most
• 33:10
  sections however you want. Like if you're patient and you
• 33:13
  want to do stealth, you can, you know, get around large parts of
• 33:18
  missions just by being patient. I think that it is fun because
• 33:24
  it you can play it mostly how you want to.
• 33:29
  Yeah. So yeah, I would say that it is.
• 33:33
  What do you reckon? Yeah, I agree.
• 33:36
  I think it's fun. It can be frustrating at times
• 33:41
  because you can die pretty quickly.
• 33:42
  And the I'd say that the health system in this game is a bit
• 33:49
  clunky because basically each each part of your body has its
• 33:54
  own health metre. And you can, it's clever really.
• 33:59
  You can take out someone's legs and then that you're crawling
• 34:01
  the whole time. But when you're actually playing
• 34:04
  that, it's quite annoying, Yeah. So though it's quite a smart
• 34:08
  feature, I'm not the biggest fan of it, but yeah, I think it is
• 34:13
  fun to play. One of the things that I like to
• 34:18
  do playing it is, again, within the framework that the game
• 34:22
  provides, find ways around. So like for example, in Fort
• 34:30
  Clinton in Battery Park, you have to get into the Fort
• 34:34
  Clinton area and you can either go in through the front with
• 34:37
  your comrades, you can sneak in through the back, or you can do
• 34:41
  what I did, which is just build a big tower of blocks and climb
• 34:45
  over it. And that is an option in quite a
• 34:49
  few places, just if you've got the blocks around you, you can
• 34:53
  use your strength org to pick up heavier ones and just build a
• 34:57
  tower and then just climb it. And if it's if it's there to get
• 35:02
  over, you can usually get over it.
• 35:06
  So yeah, that that's just a good idea for the listener how the
• 35:11
  freedom in this game works. Again, a bit like Dishonoured
• 35:14
  and things like that in terms of choice based things.
• 35:18
  What was one of the choices that you made in terms of the
• 35:21
  gameplay that you found most novel or enjoyable that comes to
• 35:25
  mind. In terms of novel, like I, I
• 35:29
  quite like games where you can like affect the story by the
• 35:34
  choices that you make. And it's like one of the obvious
• 35:37
  ones. But I played through a section
• 35:40
  twice because I think when I was playing through this, you were
• 35:43
  still kind of pushing through Persona, weren't you?
• 35:45
  So I was playing through this a bit longer, so I got to kind of
• 35:48
  test, test it a little bit. But the thing I mentioned
• 35:51
  earlier with whether or not you kind of stay and fight to save
• 35:55
  your brother or if you just leave him be and it kind of
• 35:59
  affects the story and whether or not he survives.
• 36:02
  You don't really find out if he makes it if you leave him.
• 36:06
  But I think that's quite like a it doesn't affect the story
• 36:09
  overall, but it's like a nice little storytelling choice to
• 36:12
  have in there, you know? Yeah, so if you leave out of the
• 36:16
  window, he dies. And if you if you stay and fight
• 36:21
  with him, he will survive. Yeah.
• 36:23
  So, OK, what about you? Well, it's just things like
• 36:29
  that, the building blocks. I mean, there's there's loads.
• 36:32
  My my favourite. I mean, we'll talk about this
• 36:35
  actually. So my favourite weapon to use is
• 36:38
  is the sniper rifle. That's out there for me as well.
• 36:41
  I'd say it's not my favourite but it's like I always.
• 36:44
  I always like to keep stuck of sniper bullets and what I've
• 36:48
  done is I've gradually used the weapon mods to make the the
• 36:52
  aiming on that thing a lot better because you start off and
• 36:55
  it's pretty hideous. So, so, so it's pretty solid now
• 37:00
  and it's it's powerful in this game where when you get into
• 37:07
  close combat, you die pretty quickly.
• 37:12
  So using a sniper rifle can be a godsend at times.
• 37:17
  So yeah, I use a sniper rifle a lot.
• 37:20
  Obviously the the grenades and, and the Rockets in this game are
• 37:23
  so overpowered it's hilarious. They can just decimate most
• 37:28
  people. So yeah, they're they're fun to
• 37:30
  use as well. And they wipe outdoors and any
• 37:33
  other destructibles in the environment.
• 37:35
  Yeah, there's there's a lot of fun stuff to mess around with in
• 37:37
  this game and it really does encourage experimentation.
• 37:40
  Yeah, absolutely. OK, you played it on PC.
• 37:46
  Talk to me about the interface and how you found it the the
• 37:49
  menus and such. I mean, I had, I had an issue in
• 37:55
  the a lot of the, a lot of like the button correspondent things
• 38:00
  are for full keyboards. Yeah, I don't have a full size
• 38:05
  keyboard. Mine's quite small, so like if I
• 38:08
  want to use like the F1 key, I have to press like Shift and F1
• 38:11
  Alt and F1 away. So I actually actually had to
• 38:14
  get a specific keyboard to play this game properly, right?
• 38:18
  OK, so the UI is built fine and well for this game.
• 38:26
  However, if you haven't got awful of the right things to
• 38:29
  play it, it makes it difficult and one of the like.
• 38:33
  Really early on in the game I got really confused because this
• 38:37
  game doesn't really hold your hand and giving you instructions
• 38:40
  and telling you what to do. And there was a section during
• 38:44
  the training part where you knock out like one of the lab
• 38:50
  scientists and you have to take a key from him.
• 38:53
  But because it hadn't been explained to me how to actually
• 38:55
  equip a key, I hadn't thought that I'd picked it up.
• 38:58
  It was something along those lines.
• 39:00
  I hadn't picked up the key even though I had.
• 39:03
  And for about 10 minutes I was just running around between the
• 39:07
  rooms trying to work out what the bloody hell I was supposed
• 39:09
  to do. And I then had to like look it
• 39:11
  up on Reddit because I was like if I'd like is the game glitched
• 39:15
  or something? And worked out that I just need
• 39:17
  to use a key to a button on my keyboard to equip it to get out
• 39:22
  of that area. But like, I think the UI is fine
• 39:26
  for the game as it is, but it's very classic in the it's like a
• 39:30
  19 nineties 2000s game where it just doesn't give you anything.
• 39:32
  It's all right. Either read the manual or work
• 39:34
  it out yourself. Yeah, yeah.
• 39:37
  And the menus are quite heavy and yeah, it's a bit
• 39:43
  overwhelming at times. And I agree with you, There are
• 39:45
  times where you don't know where you're going.
• 39:49
  There was a time when I was in Hong Kong and which is a great
• 39:52
  hub, and I'm supposed to find a temple.
• 39:56
  But there are a few temples around.
• 39:58
  And I spent probably about 20 minutes just looking for this
• 40:02
  temple, trying to find it using the maps that they've provided,
• 40:05
  which are not very helpful, using the descriptions given to
• 40:08
  me, which again, were really vague.
• 40:11
  But it seems like I was expected to know where this temple was
• 40:15
  and it just wasn't clear to me where it was.
• 40:18
  So yeah. There are things like that that
• 40:22
  happened a few times in the game Hell's Kitchen as well as
• 40:24
  another example of where it's quite easy to get lost and there
• 40:28
  wasn't. There was a time when I was I
• 40:31
  was looking for a burnout building to meet someone and I
• 40:35
  just couldn't find it. So I was just wandering around
• 40:38
  the map aimlessly until I happened upon it, probably after
• 40:41
  about 25 minutes. So I'm not I'm not saying it
• 40:46
  should use waypoints, I don't think it needs to, but I just
• 40:49
  think. Theory and structurances maybe?
• 40:52
  Yeah, this this was a very different time in gaming where
• 40:58
  hunting for something was part of the joy of it and part of the
• 41:03
  reward of it. But I think nowadays we're not
• 41:06
  very good at that patient side of gaming.
• 41:10
  So OK, talk to me a bit about the AI in this game.
• 41:17
  The AI combat is quite poor. I agree.
• 41:22
  The what what you'll find, and to be fair, you could say that
• 41:26
  it's similar of games like MGS, is that I didn't really focus on
• 41:31
  the stealth that much because I found the stealth quite
• 41:33
  difficult because it isn't like what stealth games are now or or
• 41:38
  even like games like Splinter Cell where it's very clear when
• 41:42
  you are or you are not visible or when you can't be.
• 41:44
  Trapped. It's not refined, is it?
• 41:47
  No. And like, you could do like a a
• 41:50
  bit of stealth and then all of a sudden a guard would turn around
• 41:53
  and you'd be like, oh, but then they'll probably be about two
• 41:56
  seconds before they actually even react.
• 41:58
  So the stakes were never too high with stealth, but I found
• 42:04
  it quite frustrating to try and do because it just wasn't very
• 42:07
  consistent, which is to be understood for a game of that
• 42:11
  age. So I mainly start with combat.
• 42:13
  And you often found that the the guards would just run around.
• 42:16
  They wouldn't shoot you. Or if they did, they'd
• 42:19
  completely miss. So yeah, the AI wasn't great,
• 42:24
  but not that I'm complaining because it made it slightly
• 42:27
  easier for me to actually get around and traverse, I suppose.
• 42:31
  Yeah. But it's very, it's very obvious
• 42:34
  that the AI is like, you know, of its time.
• 42:38
  Yeah, and I agree with you, the stealth, one of the things that
• 42:41
  I find a bit frustrating is that you're given the crossbow, which
• 42:45
  is your quote unquote stealthy option.
• 42:49
  But as soon as you shoot someone with the crossbow, unlike him,
• 42:53
  Metal Gear sort of for example, where a headshot will take them
• 42:56
  out instantly, even a headshot with the with the crossbow,
• 43:00
  they're still running around for a bit.
• 43:01
  So you alert them by shooting them in the head and then you're
• 43:05
  just waiting for them to die while they're shooting at you
• 43:07
  and alerting everyone else in the area.
• 43:10
  Similarly, the you can get stealth pistol.
• 43:14
  Yeah, the pistol, yeah, yeah. But the accuracy on that thing
• 43:18
  is, is is not not great. It's best to just stick with
• 43:22
  SOAP. Well, what I was doing was I, I
• 43:27
  put a silence from my sniper rifle.
• 43:31
  So I was just using my silence sniper rifle from afar.
• 43:36
  And that was my way of being stealthy.
• 43:38
  See. Yeah, that's the yeah, that's my
• 43:41
  favourite way to do it. But yeah, no, I agree.
• 43:44
  The AI can be a bit all over the place and sometimes they don't
• 43:48
  clock you. Sometimes they do and there's no
• 43:52
  consistency to it. Sometimes they'll run for the
• 43:55
  alarm. I had one time where there was a
• 43:59
  guard walking over me above me on a glass floor.
• 44:03
  So I thought, oh, I'm going to shoot the glass floor and watch
• 44:05
  him fall to his death. I shot the glass floor, he fell
• 44:09
  through, landed on his feet and just carried him shooting me.
• 44:12
  And I was like, ah, why? And yeah, so it's not, it's not
• 44:17
  perfect. Sometimes you can do the old
• 44:21
  thing of funnelling enemies through a door where they just
• 44:25
  come in one by one and you just wipe them out that way.
• 44:28
  The old Goldeneye trick, that works here very nicely.
• 44:32
  So yeah, yeah, there's there's some stuff to be improved, but
• 44:36
  yeah, it's an old game. OK, So my question for you this
• 44:44
  week in terms of question of the week is I obviously played the
• 44:49
  revision version of this game. What sorts of other games do you
• 44:55
  think would benefit from a revision like this?
• 44:57
  It doesn't have to be specifics, but any type of game that you
• 45:01
  think would benefit from it more than others.
• 45:04
  And specifically what about the revision element?
• 45:08
  Because obviously you've played the original and the revision,
• 45:10
  whereas I haven't. So what's the, what's the?
• 45:12
  So specifically about the about the revision is.
• 45:16
  Rejigging the levels and freshening things up by adding
• 45:22
  whole bits of cut content, tweaking the gameplay, making it
• 45:27
  a bit more refined. So basically taking a game that,
• 45:31
  you know, turning it on its head very slightly, not altogether
• 45:39
  just freshening up the levels a bit, refining the game play and
• 45:42
  adding a bit of life to the game by yeah, basically it's it's
• 45:50
  almost like, yeah, just just turning on its head a bit.
• 45:55
  I don't. I'm looking for a word but I
• 45:56
  can't think of the word. It's hard shaking up a bit.
• 45:59
  It's hard to say, isn't it? Because like when you think back
• 46:02
  to games of that generation, like the the first thing that
• 46:06
  comes to my head is Metal Gear Solid.
• 46:07
  But then in my opinion, Metal Gear Solid is perfect as it is.
• 46:11
  It doesn't need changing. And they also did it did it with
• 46:13
  the VR. Missions.
• 46:14
  Yeah, they did the VR missions, obviously and then they did twin
• 46:18
  snakes, which obviously kind of different, but I don't know
• 46:23
  that's. Probably a good example of it,
• 46:24
  actually. Twin snakes?
• 46:26
  Yeah, possibly. I'm not sure, maybe I mean have
• 46:32
  you got, have you got one in mind?
• 46:34
  I've got 1 and I think the key here is not picking games that
• 46:41
  have got it right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:43
  Like, like I was thinking of some of my favourite games and I
• 46:46
  was thinking no, actually I wouldn't want that to be changed
• 46:50
  because I think they got it just right.
• 46:53
  So. So I was thinking of Resident
• 46:54
  Evil 4, and I think I was thinking, no, I wouldn't want
• 46:57
  that to be changed because the cutscenes are in just the right
• 47:01
  places and as much as I'd want to play more of the gameplay, I
• 47:06
  wouldn't want to touch that arc. So the one that came to mind
• 47:11
  actually is one that we played as part of my list, which was
• 47:16
  Alpha Protocol and I think a game like that.
• 47:19
  Yeah, I can see that. Which which had something about
• 47:24
  it, but really could have done with a shake up and refinement
• 47:29
  and a new Crouch animation. I think that would have
• 47:34
  benefited that game hugely. It's funny as well that you
• 47:37
  mentioned Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, because that sort of
• 47:41
  had that as well, because the models were working on that one
• 47:44
  for a long, long time to get into the state that it's in now.
• 47:49
  So they've added in cut content again, they've refined bits here
• 47:52
  and there. It's a completely different
• 47:54
  games. The game that was released, but
• 47:57
  for the game's benefit. I think so, yeah.
• 48:00
  I think the key is games that maybe have a lot of potential or
• 48:04
  maybe you really like the gameplay element of them, but
• 48:08
  the other side is missing or it needs refinement or it needs
• 48:11
  shaking up. Maybe the level designs not
• 48:13
  great. I don't know.
• 48:15
  Any anything come to mind? Not that I can think of in
• 48:19
  depth. Like one that comes to mind
• 48:21
  would be maybe the first Silent Hill.
• 48:25
  OK, yeah, yeah. I don't know how interesting,
• 48:27
  but that game hasn't aged very well.
• 48:29
  It's very clunky, obviously so. Watch me play that game from
• 48:33
  start to finish it at university.
• 48:35
  Bar and obviously they, they have Silent Hill too and they
• 48:38
  remade that and it was, it was very successful.
• 48:41
  I don't know how much they changed.
• 48:42
  It it's a good remake. I've heard that it's decent.
• 48:45
  It is good. I was, I was, I played it last
• 48:47
  year and I was really pleasantly surprised.
• 48:50
  Yeah. So maybe the first Silent Hill
• 48:53
  perhaps. OK, maybe a bit.
• 48:55
  I think, yeah, I think, I think games like that could benefit
• 48:59
  from it because something about the the original Silent Hill was
• 49:04
  that sometimes the environments were a bit repetitive, so maybe
• 49:10
  freshening them up a little bit wouldn't be a bad thing.
• 49:14
  OK, now the big question, the one we've all been waiting for.
• 49:20
  Does Deus Ex belong on a list? A top 100 list of games.
• 49:30
  I'd say it does, yeah. Obviously it's interesting that
• 49:35
  it isn't on here and maybe just missed out on the Metacritic
• 49:38
  list. And like we said, this is kind
• 49:40
  of like a bonus game from a a listener suggestion, but I think
• 49:45
  that it does enough to kind of warrant it being on the list to
• 49:51
  some extent. I'd maybe put it in line with
• 49:54
  the first Half Life because I think this game, similar to a
• 49:57
  lot of other ones that we've talked about, a big one being
• 50:00
  Ocarina of Time. I feel that this game is an
• 50:02
  important game because it's very influential, not specifically
• 50:07
  because of how good the game is, even though it is good, but
• 50:10
  we're kind of rating this on the barometer of it being 2026.
• 50:15
  Yeah, I'd say so even if it isn't, oh, the game is the best
• 50:19
  ever. It's kind of, well, this is
• 50:20
  probably one of the most influential games on the list,
• 50:22
  and he'd probably put it in the top 2530 if that was what we
• 50:25
  were racing against, you know? So yeah, I'd say yeah, it's got
• 50:29
  a place. I think this is a really
• 50:32
  important game that influenced a lot of other games.
• 50:36
  And I, I don't think it quite gets the credit that it deserves
• 50:42
  for that. And the fact that it missed out
• 50:44
  on the Metacritic list and some of the chaff that we played on
• 50:48
  that it should have been there. And I agree with you, this game
• 50:56
  has definitely aged and it shows its age in many areas.
• 51:00
  And I think going into this game, you've got to be aware of
• 51:02
  that. But I would also say, I think if
• 51:07
  you can tolerate those rough edges, you'll be surprised by
• 51:12
  how many elements of modern games are there in a, in a sort
• 51:17
  of primitive form and how much depth there is on display.
• 51:21
  Like the idea of hacking ATMs and stealing the money from
• 51:26
  them, that is just immensely satisfying to this day.
• 51:31
  And it's stuff like that. You just do something and it'll
• 51:36
  work and it and, and this feeling of novelty that you get,
• 51:40
  it does that really well. And the options that it presents
• 51:43
  you, it does a really good job with them.
• 51:45
  So yeah, I think it does deserve to be there.
• 51:48
  And, and I would actually like to play Human Revolution and
• 51:55
  Mankind Divided later in the life of the podcast.
• 52:00
  I think we can probably skip Invisible War, but I'd also like
• 52:03
  to play Dishonoured, Dishonoured too.
• 52:08
  So we've got a bit of a bit of a queue of games, but that's
• 52:10
  that's, that's never a bad thing.
• 52:14
  OK, so obligatory blobby mention.
• 52:19
  There we go. We've done that.
• 52:20
  Thank you. We'll inject that with a bit
• 52:24
  more originality next time. At the London Marathon,
• 52:26
  unfortunately. Oh damn, I know.
• 52:31
  Yeah, you should have. You should have been him for the
• 52:33
  London Marathon. I should make maybe next time.
• 52:35
  Maybe next time when I don't do it.
• 52:38
  Then you could have like blundered through it and and no
• 52:40
  one would have been batting an eyelid.
• 52:42
  True. I mean, I saw some interesting
• 52:44
  costumes, Mr Blobby. One, unfortunately wasn't one of
• 52:46
  them, sadly. That is a shame.
• 52:48
  That is a shame. Maybe if we ever do like a
• 52:51
  podcast get together, we'll have a special guest, Mr Blobby,
• 52:56
  joining us. We will, I think, I'm sure,
• 52:58
  positive actually. I'm sure we will as well.
• 53:00
  Yeah. At his theme park, Yes.
• 53:05
  What's that? Something bottom.
• 53:07
  I can't remember, it was abandoned there.
• 53:09
  Wasn't it creepy? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's called
• 53:14
  like wrinkly bottom. Yeah, that was it.
• 53:16
  Wrinkly bottom, I think, which funnily enough, is the name of
• 53:19
  your house. It is indeed.
• 53:22
  I live in the theme park formerly.
• 53:24
  Owned by Mr That's right. OK, so next time there's there's
• 53:29
  there's a choice here. It depends how far along you
• 53:32
  are. OK OK, I was going to say it
• 53:35
  depends how far you are along with persona or how much more
• 53:38
  time you need. But yeah, give me your options.
• 53:41
  1st, I need a little bit longer with Persona because whilst
• 53:45
  whilst you were playing that and I was playing this, it's a
• 53:47
  neglected. Big ass game.
• 53:49
  It is. It's very long.
• 53:52
  I think I played about 100 hours in total in the end.
• 53:56
  It's not a short 1, so my suggestion was going to be out
• 53:59
  of two, and I was going to give you an option because I don't
• 54:01
  think we've played Legend of Zelda Linked Between Worlds yet,
• 54:05
  have we? Which is a 3DS game.
• 54:08
  So I was going to suggest either that as a supplement or it's a
• 54:13
  bit shorter. I've played it a little bit in
• 54:14
  the past, again called Crusader Kings 3, which you can play on
• 54:20
  Xbox if you don't want to play it on your laptop, but it's like
• 54:27
  a simulation, like an RCS strategy game.
• 54:32
  So those are my 2 suggestions. Did you have one as well?
• 54:36
  I will throw one in there, which is Rayman Legends.
• 54:39
  OK, so I do want to play Zelda, but I think so you could
• 54:48
  probably, yeah, pick that for a better.
• 54:51
  Time. That's fine.
• 54:52
  So one of those two I'd say, but I'm really.
• 54:57
  Not well. Why don't we leave it as a
• 54:58
  surprise? OK, so the next game is we don't
• 55:03
  know. It could either be Rayman
• 55:05
  Legends or it could be Crusader Kings three, who knows?
• 55:07
  A flip of the coin. It is.
• 55:11
  So yeah, I I reckon one of those two would be good.
• 55:14
  And then after that we will do Persona, because I I just need
• 55:17
  to finish it now because it's been going on for a very long
• 55:19
  time. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:22
  So yes, one of those two will be our next game, which will
• 55:25
  probably be in a week or two now to be.
• 55:28
  Fair, I think the the persona episode will be a good one so it
• 55:33
  will be worth the wait for the listener I think.
• 55:35
  Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, that'll be a good one.
• 55:39
  And in the meantime, we'll have one of those other two come up
• 55:41
  for you as well. But yes, in the meantime, if you
• 55:45
  want to, you know, give us a like or a follower on social
• 55:48
  media, or you can give us an e-mail at
• 55:50
  thelongshortestpodcast@hotmail.com. As noted, if you are interested
• 55:55
  in topping up the donations for the fundraising that I did for
• 56:00
  Saint Richard's Hospice in Worcester, it'll be much
• 56:02
  appreciated. But as always, there's no no
• 56:06
  pressure. But yeah, that's about it from
• 56:09
  me for today. Anything else from yourself?
• 56:12
  Just to say, if you do have any games that you would like to see
• 56:15
  us play or listen to us play and talk about, do send them our way
• 56:21
  and yeah, we will. We will get on that for you at
• 56:23
  some point in the in the future. Absolutely.
• 56:26
  So, yeah, always open to suggestions, always nice when we
• 56:29
  get them. But yeah, that is it for this
• 56:32
  week. But we'll see you next time for
• 56:35
  TBC. But in the meantime, take care.
• 56:37
  TBC Cheerio. Yeah.
• 56:38
  All right, see you later. See you on the next one.