Deus Ex: The Conspiracy

I feel bad when I hate games that are generally regarded with found memories. It is worth mentioning that many games have weak openings and get better later on. If I am not in love with it in the first thirty minutes I am loath to give it any more time. That is a THIRD of a movie, it is as much time as it takes me to eat lunch, it is in my opinion quite long enough to come up with something redeeming.
I am of the opinion that all of the first person shooters before the xbox 360 / playstation 3 era kind of sucked. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of good ones for PC, I just mean all of the ones for consoles sucked. ALL OF THEM. I want to be proven wrong about this, but so far I have not been.

This game had a good opening video. It hit all the right notes, showing how evil the corporate villains with their shadowy mega-corp are, not getting too cartoony about it (like in RoboCop). Then it throws you into a menu with all the style and flair of a Dungeons and Dragons stat sheet where you decide what to invest your points in. On the PS2 they had the ability to give each of these a sexy little explanation video, however, they chose not to. This menu didn't even have cool looking icons. After reading the explanations for each skill I invested all my points in melee weapons skills and started the game. It Soon became readily apparent that there was no hand to hand combat, my character may be a futuristic special agent of some sort, but he is incapable of throwing a punch, he might have bio-engineered flashlights inside his freaking eyeballs, but he can't kick to save his life. Fine whatever I'll just use my cattle prod baton. What's that? I can only use it three times? Well I can still use it to bludgeon people with once it is out of batteries right? NO! OK, I'll use my pistol. six bullets you say? Now I have a baton (traditionally used for HITTING PEOPLE) which I cannot hit people with, a pistol that is out of bullets and cannot be used for pistol whipping, and a sniper rifle that ALSO only has one clip. One clip for each of my guns and a single battery for my stun baton. . . Apparently they did not anticipate me running into more than 12 people on this one man assault of a terrorist cell, and their budget did not allow for providing me with extra munitions just in case. I might be able to sneak past some of the guys I used up all my bullets on, but despite the fact that I am a secret agent for some sort of woefully underfunded police agency, and that I live in a future where people have flashlights implanted in their eyeballs, I have some sort of untreated, and debilitating, knee condition that prevents me from crouching or kneeling. I am in capable of ducking behind any of the crates for cover, but I can jump up and down if I wish, my knees can still do that.
Speaking of crates, I have to use up bullets to open them. I, having no ability to punch or kick, am dependent on my gun or stun baton to break open wooden crates, and am apparently incapable of opening the metal ones. I did not enjoy this game.

game play video

In a five star ranking system
I give this game 2.5