Likewise, stealth players would likely choose to upgrade their lock picking and electronics skills in order to bypass various types of physical and electronic security without spending scarce disposable lock picks or multitools from their inventory. The prod was the perfect high-tech replacement to Thief's blackjack: it incapacitated opponents without killing them. For instance, stealth players might develop the УLow-techФ weapons skill, which would improve proficiency with the baton and the electric prod. The game offered a whole different skillset for the stealth-minded player. But playing Deus Ex in a pure stealth mode required the player to forgo these weapons and skills. Deus Ex also allowed the player to develop the skills to make using these weapons second nature. The game certainly allows for first person shooter type gameplay, since it provides plenty of potent weapons like the assault shotgun, the flamethrower, and the devastating GEP gun, which used a laser targeting system to fire powerful explosive weapons great distances. Of course, the mode we're most concerned with here is the stealth mode. The fact that the original hit so many Game of the Year lists probably helped set an unreasonably high standard for the sequel. The game was followed in December 2003 by Deus Ex: Invisible War, but the sequel was far from the critical and commercial home run that was the original. Coupled with a set of dialog trees that would truly be at home in any RPG, this meant that Deus Ex played differently for everyone who took up its challenges and could certainly be played in significantly different ways on successive play-throughs. Playing as JC Denton in a crumbling society rife with conspiracy and competing factions, gamers were able to build a character with skills ranging from pistol and rifle proficiencies to medicine, computer hacking and swimming. When Ion Storm released the game in the summer of 2000, they created an open-ended experience that allowed the player to define his or her own style. Deus Ex isn't exactly a stealth game, but it isn't not a stealth game, either.