alt Hacker NewsStill my favorite game of all time. The difficulty scaling was absolutely ridiculous though. In the first level, you're supposed to be a cyber augmented super soldier, but in the first level, they give you like 2 magazines for your pistol, and if you don't max our your small weapon skill, you have worse aim than a toddler with a nerf gun.
The gameplay and graphics don't hold up but the story was absolutely prescient around AI, billionaire oligarchs, and mass surveillance.
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Deus Ex and Alice were both games I wanted to play when I was in high school, but they didn't have Mac ports.
I tried playing Alice a couple times when I got Steam in 2023, and I couldn't get into it. Tried another game from that era: Made it about halfway through Half Life 1 on a long flight and couldn't get into it either, even after I'd played Alyx.
It's wild how games that were considered state-of-the-art when we were kids can feel unplayably unpolished today.
I was also completely blown away by something I only discovered years after playing the game when the sequel landed.
There's a portion in the game when your brother Paul is sick and he tells you to leave him to fight off enemy goons alone. Apparently you can fight your way through the hotel and he survives all the way to the end of the game!
When the sequel came out, I was like "why the fuck is Paul still alive"