Thoughts about Deus Ex

Lately, I hadn't been writing as much. I fell into the Playstation trap again. Playing video games has to be one of the most cost effective forms of entertainment. Even if you buy a game new for $60, getting 10 hours of entertainment from the game brings the cost of entertainment to $6 per hour. It cheaper than $15 for a 2 hour movie.

Most games can provide more hours of entertainment and you can get a much better value for games if you buy older games that you never had a chance to play. Three weeks ago, I walked into a GameStop and looked for the game Deus Ex Human Revolution. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain doesn't come out until September 1st but I still needed some good stealth action. Deus Ex came out in 2008 or 2009. When I picked it up at GameStop, it cost less than $5.

I've been playing this game too much. The level of stealth in this game either rivals or surpasses the level of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The game really puts a big emphasis on choice. While completing objectives, there are multiple routes to reach your goal every time. If you want to, you can hack security systems to open up new paths. If you can't do that, you can upgrade your arms to punch through walls, or you can find air vents to sneak past guards.

In Deus Ex, there are several points where your decisions have direct impacts on what happens next in the game and this encourages playing through the game multiple times for replay value. I must have logged in more than 30 to 40 hours playing this game. There isn't a clock in the game so I'm not sure.

There is a sort of irony when playing this game though. The motif of the game is augmentations that improve what a human is capable of. You can give yourself extra strength, increase your intelligence through hacking, and develop interpersonal skills with the other characters in the game.

In real life, you are sitting on the couch for multiple hours getting engrossed in a game until it is time to go to sleep and go to school or work the following morning. Playing the game kind of hinders your personal growth and development. This isn't just Deus Ex, but any game that is engrossing will detract a man from doing something more useful. Those hours spent playing the game could be dedicated to lifting weights, learning game, learning how to hack, or studying an interesting subject.

Games like this could technically inspire a man to try to focus on self improvement though. After all, I started skateboarding because of the game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. I'm grateful for that because I've been doing it for more than half my life now. In another case, watching the movie "Run Fatboy Run" actually inspired me to start doing some running.

Last week, I saw the trailer for the next game in the franchise, Deus Ex Invisible War. It is set a few years after Human Revolution so you still get to play as Adam Jensen. It looks pretty cool but unfortunately, it is only coming out for PS4, XBONE, and PC so I won't be playing it anytime soon. Maybe I'll pick it up sometime around 2020, I'm not feeling like buying a PS4 yet.