Hey Elon Musk, I know your fucking nerd fans love that you used JC Denton on twitter as a profile pic, but the one most likely to be a part of an evil organization of rich assholes running the world is you, you fucking fascist billionaire. Fuck Elon Musk.


Also good game, fun times with soy food and cybernetics.

EDIT: this review is funnier after the whole twitter thing. I’m glad that pompous dickhead is finally getting publicly humiliated so thoroughly.

how many people do u think believe covids a government conspiracy because of this game specifically. its gotta be a non zero amount. Anyway

Frankly too much has been written about how prophetic Deus Ex was in seeing the future of our world. You already know the spiel: Something something massive government surveillance, world plague, illuminati, soy food, the whole nine yards. You don’t need me to tell you how the good folks at Ion Storm were “genius lumineers who could see the future” for correctly determining the obvious path our world hellscape was barrelling down like dozens of other writers did (Though the soy food thing was weirdly accurate). No, I think what’s particularly prescient from Day of Sex is how it managed to capture the farce that our modern world is become. Every turn of Denton’s journey blowing up government bunkers and megacorporations, he’s met with dozens upon dozens of employees who either don’t know what they’re doing or just don’t care. Everyone works endlessly on tasks that serve nobody but those vying for power and are completely ambivalent to it. We all know the system is fucked, and we know we’re too little to do anything ourselves, so we all play into it. This facade that the world of Deus Ex puts on that our society makes sense and our actions benefit anyone is its true strength.

Obviously, the other great storytelling aspect of Day of Sex is our protagonist. Our idiosyncratic cyborg who exclusively speaks in political jargon and action movie quips. He’s the straight shooter that slashes through the layers and layers of obfuscation in our world. It’s a shame Jay Franke has done (as far as I’m aware) literally zero other voiceover work, because it can’t be overstated how he does an absolutely perfect job embodying JC (and Paul to a lesser extent). Put simply, man’s an all timer.

Similarly, too much has been said about the level of freedom this game gives the player. “You can finish each mission any way your heart desires!” scream the voices of the hundreds of /v/ types who constantly sing its praises, and while this is true, let’s not act like the best solution to every problem isn’t the exact same thing: Aggroing every enemy NPC from halfway across the map with a gun, then hiding behind a corner and swinging at them wildly once they pass by with your laser sword like some half-rate matador act. The more cynical of you may see me describe that and take it as an insult of the game, but quite the contrary, this literally never stops being incredibly fun. I was giggling like a schoolgirl every time I ran headfirst into a massive pile of enemies, flamethrower in hand as I threw my safety to the wind, hoping to some divine power above I can last until the next Medbot. Sure, the combat’s kinda jank, but I think the jank adds a lot of fun to what otherwise might be a pretty rudimentary experience. It benefits all modes of play too; Knowing at any moment your perfect stealth run might be ruined by the AI randomly noticing your footsteps, or your epic parkour over everything can end from you clipping weirdly off the edge of a metal crate (Even when not platforming like once every 30 minutes my model would react weirdly with an animal carcass on the ground and I’d go sliding in a random direction). Game always keeps you on your toes, whether or not it really sets out to do that.

i was originally gonna complain about one major issue i had with the game, and thats that it felt weirdly dark. not in tone or anything, in actual brightness. it wasn't until halfway through the game i realized there was a weird issue running it on modern pcs that made the lighting engine all fucky. oops

So yeah, every single person on /v/ is 100% right about this game. Play it if you haven’t. It’s action packed! It’s gripping! It’s dense! It’s fun! It’s got weird voice acting! Everything that makes a true piece of kino.

What makes Deus Ex so impressive isn't just the amount of choices you're given, it's the way that they're presented to you and how they entertain your curiosity. When the game responds to your decisions from such an early point, it sets the tone of the rest of the experience: if it'll call you out for something as inconspicuous as messing around with the bathrooms, what else is it going to track? What other actions can you get it to react to?

It's this relationship of your curiosity being encouraged and then rewarded that defines Deus Ex. Although there are extrinsic bonuses for exploration (upgrade points, weapon mods, etc.), most of my motivation was intrinsic. There was never a time where I stumbled upon an unlocked vent and didn't want to see where it lead. Deus Ex's story deserves its own review, but the gameplay is about you and the designers. It's about inspecting every painting in a building and trusting that one of them will have a secret vault behind it. It's about lockpicking your way into a building at the front door before stopping yourself and asking "Wait, I bet there's another way" and reloading your save to see how else you can break in.

Sometimes it's very unbalanced, occasionally frustrating, jarringly unintuitive (especially considering the extended tutorial sequence), many aspects that would normally hold it back. But it doesn't need to be perfect, because these issues ultimately become drowned out as you're constantly making new decisions, answering new questions, and testing how mechanics interact with each other. Your imagination keeps being sparked and once you reach a certain point these shortcomings will suddenly stop mattering--nothing can break that unstoppable desire to see what the game has to offer next as everything finally clicks together.

This is, again, not even beginning on the story, atmosphere, or especially the music (because holy shit the OST is phenomenal). The gameplay alone is fantastic but the experience as a whole is just as special and is absolutely worth your time if you can get past some initial frustrations. The payoff is worth it.

It's fun, it can definitely use some more polishing though. Sometimes it feels unresponsive or not responsive enough, it lacks of basic modern rhythm game options such as custom maps, skins (or any type of mod loader in general), multiplayer and remaps for the keys. These types of games must be played with keys on a horizontal line because the way they're layed out on a normal keyboard makes it uncomfortable to play at times.

A lot of people love the presentation but I honestly hesitated to try it for that motive, I think the "quirky simplistic" artstyle has already died down for me.
Honestly, it's free, you can try it out and it's fun. I just hope it gets some more basic features because the week system gets old quickly. A multiplayer mode could really benefit from the "duel" type of rhythm game in which both sides are displayed.

genuinely the worst rhythm game engine ive ever experienced in my life. i feel bad for shitting on it cus i know this games for beginners and i have 300 hours across osumania, etterna and quaver but like. unmodded this game uses ARROW KEYS/WASD WITH NO OPTIONS FOR REBINDING? YOU LOSE HEALTH FOR PRESSING BUTTONS WHEN THERES NOTHING ON SCREEN? not to mention how awful latency and input dropping is. literally no one makes rhythm games like this anymore what the fuck is this. i know theres mods that fix this but you shouldnt need to mod the game to even make it playable