Deus Ex was originally a PC game released all the way back in 2000. So why on Earth would you be interested in it now, as 2006 and the next generation of consoles beckons? Well, quite simply, because five years later the open-ended gameplay experience and compelling story still have no rival on the PS2. This game is one of a kind and if you've not yet played it, you're seriously missing out.

A bold statement indeed, but one that I fully intend to back up throughout this review! Set in the not too distant future, you play J.C. Denton, an agent who is enhanced with cutting edge nano-technology. At the beginning of the game you are working for UNATCO, a kind of world peacekeeping force. However, as you progress through the game it soon becomes clear that UNATCO is not entirely what it seems and that there is more than one side to this complex story of philosophies and social commentary. You might think this sounds like the basis for a fairly dull tale, but it's quite the opposite, full of plot twists and power plays, as various factions vie for control of the world. It's one of the most engaging stories I've ever come across in a game and one that I was compelled to follow through to all three of the game's excellent endings. I don't want to go into any more detail and spoil the engaging plot, but suffice to say that your adventure takes you across several continents to a range of varied locations.

Although using the first person perspective, Deus Ex is more of a first person RPG than a shooter. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of shooting, as there is, along with a formidable array of excellent weapons to use, but there are over a hundred non-playable characters to interact with, a host of ways to upgrade your abilities, skills and weapons and completely open-ended gameplay; in fact, it's far more open-ended than your traditional Final Fantasy style RPG or Killzone style first person shooter.

Throughout the game you receive many different objectives, primary ones that have to be completed and secondary ones that are left to your discretion. Primary objectives usually involve infiltrating a base and destroying or retrieving technology, while secondary objectives are greatly ranged and on a much smaller scale. In one instance you get the chance to see off a guy that's been hassling the daughter of a local hotel proprietor before protecting him from a UNATCO invasion. In another you are asked to kill some greasels (genetically bred lizards with highly poisonous spit!) that are terrorising a homeless bum and others see you running errands, gathering intelligence, doing favours in exchange for pay offs, rescuing hostages (with different outcomes whether they live or die), even the occasional assassination. It's up to you how much you get involved with these side quests but there is normally a reward for carrying them out, in the form of an item of some description.

The amount of equipment at your disposal in this game is unrivalled. You can carry up to four weapons at a time (although you can collect all ammo types and switch weapons with any you find along the way, either in storage or on the bodies of fallen enemies) and these include the classic stealth pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, GEP (homing rockets with a 2 second lock-on time), flamethrower, even a prototype plasma rifle. Furthermore, these can be upgraded with a variety of mods, that increase the range or ammo capacity, add a sniper scope and reduce reload time or recoil. Thus it pays to choose a varied combination of four weapons and then upgrade them as you go through the game, making them more and more effective as the enemies gradually get tougher.

There are a range of melee weapons too, like knives, laser swords, crowbars, pepper guns, stun guns, batons and more, kept in a separate slot in your inventory to the ranged weapons. Then there are grenades that can be thrown or attached for proximity detonation - EMP for disabling bots, cameras and automated turrets, LAM's for a hefty explosion, scramblers to cause bots to attack each other and gas grenades for disabling human foes. As well as all this, you have a range of items to use - candy bars, soy food and soda to slightly increase your health (if medkits aren't available), fire extinguishers to put yourself out when on fire and counter flamethrowing enemies, hazmat suits for areas of high radiation or hazardous electrical charge, ballistic armour, thermoptic camouflage for passing through laser beams undetected and avoiding the view of cameras and bots, tech goggles for enhanced night vision, even rebreathers for extended periods of swimming underwater. The list is almost endless.

It is possible in most circumstances to take a stealthy approach and avoid killing any enemies at all, by evading them completely. The level designs are absolutely ingenious, the most cleverly thought out levels I've ever come across in fact. Every level has multiple routes and solutions - you can go in guns blazing down the main path or use ventilation shafts or water-filled tunnels to infiltrate undetected. Sometimes you'll come up against a locked door, so use a lockpick to open it (these are limited, so use them wisely) or a multitool to hack a keypad to get at the goodies within a store cupboard or breach a security door.

However, it's your range of biomods that really make this game something special. As you progress, you get augmentation canisters that add a range of powers into the mix. Abilities include super strength, super speed and high jumping, enhanced vision, a remote spy drone capable of delivering an EMP blast, cloaking against human and mechanical foes, self-healing and even resistance to toxicity. Each biomod has four levels and you won't be able to build them all up, so it's advisable to specialise in the areas that complement your playing style. Like to go in guns blazing? Then speed, enhanced vision and self-healing will be a big bonus. Prefer the stealthy approach? Then cloaking and the spy drone are just what you need. The super strength comes in handy for moving large crates to access secret areas (and the goodies within) or to place them in a position to jump over laser tripwires undetected. Like I said, there are so many options for countering any given situation that it's ridiculous. Tripwire time - you can charge through and raise the alarm, use a crate to jump over it or find a ventilation route to avoid it, use thermoptic camo to walk through undetected or even use a multitool to disable the nearby control panel on occasion.

If all this wasn't enough variety, you are also awarded skill points for achieving primary and secondary objectives, or exploration bonuses for discovering hidden areas. These skill points can be used to upgrade a range of skills that make things easier for you to do. You can enhance your lock pick or multitool skills for example - each lock/keypad has a percentage rating for how tough it is to pick/hack and how many items you need to do it. The more you enhance your skills in these areas, the less items you need and the more places you can go. Of course, if a storage cabinet or door doesn't have an infinite strength value (every door has a percentage strength value too) then you can just use a rocket or grenade to blow it up instead! How's that for options? You also have a nanokeyring, which allows you to add nanokeys and unlock the majority of the doors you encounter, so if you search thoroughly enough, there's another option. Similarly with keypads you can find datacubes to read that give you access codes, saving those precious multitools for another occasion.

Other skills to enhance include your ability to swim and hold your breath underwater, your ability to wear hazmat suits and ballistic armour more effectively, your skill with pistols, ranged weapons, heavy weapons or demolitions and (one of the most crucial) your computer hacking skills. There are many security terminals and computers in each level and a lot of the time you can save yourself hassle by hacking. Hacking a security terminal allows you to deactivate nearby cameras and turrets, or even take control of them at higher skill levels - you can also set turrets to attack your enemies too. Sometimes you can even deactivate the security bots patrolling around, which otherwise would take a couple of EMP grenades or rockets to deal with (they're highly dangerous and can kill you very quickly if you don't stay back, too). Meanwhile, hacking a computer allows you to read emails (often furthering the plot, while sometimes just having a personal message - I once hacked into the account of F. Baggins but there were sadly no messages!!) and gives you access to special actions, like activating a vital piece of equipment in the nearby area or opening a locked door. The possibilities are almost endless!!

With all these options at your disposal, the gameplay never gets dull and discovering hidden paths is just as satisfying as sniping a bunch of guards and blowing up the bots before moving through the now cleared area. The only way in which Deus Ex feels dated is in its looks. But it is five years old, so what do you expect? Despite this, the graphics are still good enough for the game to be enjoyable. Animation can be a little stilted and textures a bit basic at times but even so, the range of locations, people, weapons effects and explosions is very impressive and because you move cities every so often, you never get bored. You'll visit massive corporations, various science facilities (including an underwater submarine base), a deserted gas station near to the Los Angeles ruins and several cities, including the streets of Paris and a Hong Kong market. The range of enemies is good - guards with standard or enhanced combat armour, mutated creatures, men in black (which self-destruct when they die!) and even alien grays later on.

The sound is also dated but not quite as much as the graphics - the weapons effects and explosions aren't exactly up to Killzone standards but they are convincing and suit the game very well. There is an unfeasible amount of voice acting and every character, major and minor, speaks their dialogue. Admittedly a lot of it is acted in a quite matter of fact, even stilted fashion, but you get used to this and the narrative is so strong that the many characters take you through the story, their true motivations gradually becoming clear. The music is excellent - a couple of tracks that occur when you are under attack can be a tad repetitive but they're fast and enhance the action very well, while the various themes for the background music of each area are very catchy and suit the mood perfectly. It really does have a great musical score, despite the dated sounding electronic instruments used to construct them.

It's safe to say that you'll get a good twenty or more hours of gameplay out of Deus Ex - probably more like thirty to forty if you complete all the side quests. This game is huge! Huge, I tell you! Each area you visit, whether a base or a city, is massive, with wide open spaces, buildings to explore, the scale and scope of everything to find, see and do is truly impressive and far greater than your average console game. There is a trade off for this though - the load times. Each area is broken down into sections and when you go from one to the next, the game freezes for a moment then the load time of around thirty seconds kicks in. This isn't too bad most of the time, but when you're completing objectives and have to go from one end of the area to the next, or retracing your steps through a base, it can be grating to have these big loading chunks every minute or two. Still, considering how big the levels are and that the game remembers the position of every single enemy, dead body, wrecked bot, dropped gun and discarded item throughout the entire area, this incredible realism makes the load times seem like a small price to pay.

Deus Ex is a groundbreaking PC game that supremely talented developers Ion Storm somehow managed to squeeze onto the PS2, all the more amazing considering that there's no hard drive to work with. While the graphics and, to a lesser extent, sound are showing their age, the gameplay and story are still magnificent and unrivalled on PS2. With totally open-ended gameplay with a range of weapons, items, biomod powers and skills that gives you multiple solutions every step of the way, the mix of shooting, stealth, RPG and adventure elements make this a unique classic that every PS2 owner should take a look at.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).