Pete's top 25 videogame random award show!

[Pete for President]

If only the ending wasn't so bad.

I think the ending was pretty bad, because ...

Please discuss, don't troll.

Please don't use the word troll so inaccurately in the future.

Can't help it came across as such.

The ending was terrible. The game defines itself largely through choice - it presents multiple options, different avenues of approach, dialogue that leads in different directions, et cetera. Then, at the end, the entire system is revealed to have been absolutely meaningless. No choice you made has any actual consequence. You literally just press a button on one of four endings, and that's the outcome of the game. It undermines the entire philosophy of the game itself in one cruel moment.

That's in addition to the fact that the endings aren't even very good.

I see your point, but I think it is being bashed on way too hard for what it actually is. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls have a similar ending system and they hardly ever get bashed upon. Not that pointing at other games is an excuse to get Deus Ex off the hook, but I do sometimes wonder why Deus Ex seems to get a little more rage. As said, I personally like the endings and I'm happy with the Souls' ones too.

At least the choices along the way do determine the experience of playing through Deus Ex itself and are pretty successful in being morally grey and intriguing because of it as opposed to games like InFamous where the morality system is very obvious (and therefor the choices are too).

Technically providing separate endings depending on choices made through the entire game seems like a huge challenge and the only game I can currently think of doing that very successfully is Heavy Rain. But the scope of that game is way smaller and I can certainly understand the design choice of keeping things a bit more simple for development sake. I can also see it as the developers vision of wanting you to make the choice based on all information gathered, in a way granting you the most freedom at the end. It's a theory.

I'd also like to know why you think the actual ending scenes are bad.

I didn't take any issues with the endings. At that point, everything that needed to be resolved with the plot had been taken care of. I thought the soliloquy expressing the ideology the player developed for themself throughout the course of the game was a classy, thoughtful way to ride out. Can't wait for the next one!

I agree. Well said!