3. Deus Ex
Why Its Controversial: The original Deus Ex is controversial for one simple reason: some people loved it obsessively, some people absolutely hated it. Its a shooter that leans heavily on RPG elements (for example, your aim is piss-poor when using a weapon you dont have the skill in). In this respect, its one of the very first of its kind. But thanks to its relatively poor graphics for a game released in 2000 undoubtedly a restriction brought about by the huge length of the game it was just too technically primitive for some to get behind. That said, it has and has always had a huge cult following, and PC gamer have gone so far as to name it the
greatest PC game of all time; undeniable proof that graphics arent everything.
Why It Influenced Gaming for the Better: Deus Ex was about player choice; would you play as a good guy or a bad guy; would you pick the lock or kill the guard for the key? And my word was it big, was it rich. Its depth, at the time, was staggering and the emphasis on choice, in a shooter of all things, was completely unprecedented. Apart from spawning its own set of sequels, Deus Ex was one of the first immersive FPS games to incorporate these RPG elements, this incredible open-world depth and particularly to incorporate a sense of character alignment. The influence of Deus Ex is widely felt today; youve only got to look at games like Fallout or Far Cry to see that.