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When the game loaded and a windowed, pixel-heavy cutscene kicked off, I had to fight off every instinct to shut it down. I’ll admit it: I’ve been spoiled by modern graphics. If Deus Ex remains as playable today as it was in 2000, then surely this 1999 forerunner is still worth booting up? I really hope so. Even so, it remained one of those iconic games that grew mouldy in my Steam library. It’s staggering to think that it’s almost twenty years old now, but the impact it had on the FPS genre is such that the likes of Deus Ex owe a huge debt to it - despite it being a huge commercial failure. Only the very best games will stand up to scrutiny today.īefore BioShock (which I loved) and BioShock Infinite (which was OK, but not a patch on the first), Irrational Games developed a futuristic horror named System Shock 2. Brutal Backlog is a semi-regular feature where the JDR team plough through some of the unplayed games on their shelves (both digital and physical), disregarding their age or the technical limitations of their era.
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