Speed run of Deus Ex on Realistic difficulty in 41 segments appended to one file, completed on May 3 2007. Available in five versions: low/normal quality DivX, and normal/high/low quality H.264 MPEG-4.

Author's comments:
Hello there. This is my first speedrun that ends up on SDA (well, I have quite a few records in Quake, but that is irrevelant :) ), and a speedrun made for the game I think to be one of the best games ever. This run improves upon Nick "Thrull" Alward's run on Realistic difficulty, segmented. It's made on GOTY edition with patch 1.112fm, because of version specific bugs and availability of GOTYE.

First off, DOWNLOAD XVID LOW QUALITY ONLY AT YOUR OWN RISK. *Severe* eye damage may occur. I strongly suggest getting one of the medium qualities, depending on your computer. HQ is recommended if you can spare the bandwidth. It's worth it.

A few words about the game itself. Deus Ex is one of the most popular and highest rated games in the history of gaming industry. It has won a lot of Game Of The Year Awards and other titles with its perfect mix of FPS and RPG elements. With its thrilling plot it remains a game worth at least a few playthroughs, despite its bad graphics today. It is one of my favorites since I have played it for the first time.

About the plot - it is awesome, so *if you have never played Deus Ex, I suggest you do it before watching the run*. I don't take responsibility for blowing the plot to you :)

First, I need to express quite a few thank-yous to people that helped me make this run:

* Phauxe - he was an *immerse* help, founder of the grenade jumping tricks! He contributed quite a lot to the run.
* Thrull - for making the earlier run. I've borrowed/improved upon tactics from his run much.
* pc600 - the reason I had to restart the run completely after 20 segment, he found the LI trick, found a more consistent strategy for Vandenberg (I had a very rare one) and found out about double grenade jump.
* Sidra, entity999, T1, jetsetlemming, Rake, AgentSmithereens - Contributing tips and tricks on the forums. Thanks, mates!
* Radix - making the SDA and QDQ sites
* DJGrenola - taking care of the run posting process
* mikwuyma - taking care of the verification process
* Kibumbi - For encouraging me to do a run, and an overall inspiration with his DooM 3 runs :) Also for some help with encoding.
* henkie, DaleLewill, Kib (again), Ewil, ShadowWraith, Zanthra, Lag.Com and probably a ton of people I forgot - for support.

Without those people, the run would either not exist, or never achieve so high level of awesomeness. I've found some tactics myself, alongside a lot of small tweaks scattered everywhere thorough the run, but without people contributing in the forum thread, this wouldn't go sub 0:50 !

I have started doing this run in December 2006. Earlier, I mostly contributed quite a lot of tricks for the run planned by Phauxe. Unfortunately, as his absence on the forum increased, I've started planning a small test run recorded with FRAPS in half-size, mainly because FRAPS didn't work too well on my comp, and I didn't want to take the planned run from Phauxe anyway. Then, one night on #qdq, I've been talking with people about how many of them anticipate the coming of DX run. From one point to another, it ended at speculations when will Phauxe come back to make the run. That is when Kibumbi said those unforgettable lines:

[12/14/2006 9:18 PM] I think you really need to get going with the run
[12/14/2006 9:18 PM] :P
[12/14/2006 9:20 PM] You mean, like, an official run?
[12/14/2006 9:20 PM] yeah
[12/14/2006 9:20 PM] just get going! :D

And so it started. I've done quite a few segments in the first time, then problems with computer interferred for a while. For the first 5 levels, the framerate problem persisted, but then I bought a new drive and everything was fixed. Then, after getting to segment 20, a trick to cut 1:30 minute on LI was found, so I had to restart the run. It came to good, because I've found quite a few new cuts and tricks that improved on times I thought were already optimized earlier. The framerate chops happen sometimes, they are rare, although especially in like 5-6 segments, they are noticeable, I couldn't avoid them during some of those crappy vehicle cutscenes.

Anyway, I am going to include every segment comments, as well as trick explanations.

* "Bunny" hopping - an easy and efficient trick from Thrull's run. Lets me preserve bioenergy while moving at full speed available from fast run aug. The principle is to jump with the speed aug on, turn it off and before hitting the ground turn it again. Rinse and repeat. Can be done without bioenergy, but it's inefficient.
* Grenade jump - despite the name, this is not a damage boost. It is just using U engine physics to your advantage. First, you need to start "surfing" on the grenade by throwing it under yourself and after that, jump with your speed aug on, if it's needed. The resulting boost can be described as awesome++. It is exactly the same as elevator jump in UT.
* Grenade fall - close in principle, lets me survive incredibely high falls. It is about surfing on the grenade as well.
* Grenade climbing - climbing by planting grenades on walls and then jumping on them.
* Grenade clipping - by standing on the grenade thrown near a vertical surface when it flips you get pushed inside the wall. Most of the time it equals a telefrag and your death, but with thin vertical surfaces like glass or fences you get moved to the second side, along with a bonus of weirdly turning camera.

All of the nade tricks require IMMENSE amount of planning to fit with grenades in the run.

* Avoiding the text box - just jump through where the text box should be. It will make you avoid the convo.
* Friendly text breaking - Found by me. Mostly, we always want to *avoid* the convos. But if it's impossible, you can use a crowbar or a baton to stop those. You do it by jumping before the text box, starting to hit with a melee weapon. The game should shift into a convo, and the attack you started should hit and break the convo. Only usable on some people.
* Speeding through text - You need to press spacebar during the convo, it will speed through it in a second-two tops. Makes choices for you, so watch out!
* Super speeding through text - The last one. If you jump earlier and keep the spacebar pressed, you'll speed through the convo instantly.
* NPC opening the door - You need to force an enemy to open a door for you. Easily noticable in the first segment :)
* Open every door with one lockpick - a known bug that lets you use only one lockpick even if the door requires ten. You need to open the inventory after starting using the lockpick on the door and wait the time that would be necessary to open the door with sufficient lockpicks. Then turn the inventory off (you can use the time to manage things in it as well). The door should stand opened before you.
* Scope trick - If you turn on the scope and shoot just after that, your accuracy is 100% perfect. Very handy.
* Ledge jumping - jumping at the ledges normally unreachable by running at them at an angle.
* Moving during loading - during loading, you can move your mouse or press some key and it will start working after loading ends. I use it to make the menu appear just after loading to save as fast as possible for example, or to start moving :)
* Helicopter trick - found accidentally by me. It requires you to press right mouse button on a helicopter before starting and jumping at the same time. It makes you avoid the conversation. For some reason it works only in one segment.

What pissed me off was the fu**ed up programming of taking items. Most of them required very strange aiming at hitboxes, and some didn't register taking them. Same with buttons, you can clearly aim at elevator buttons in segment 8 for example, but still not hit it. FRAPS only made it worse.

With FRAPS, mouse likes to lag/not register some movements on aug/heal/skill screens.

Planning is incredibly important in Deus Ex. I often slow down to take a critical aug upgrade, refill my bio energy, get some ammo/biocells etc. Some of the parts aren't too fast because of this, but it's been carefully checked what is the best for the situation :). Okay, time for every segment writeup. Skip to the segment that interests you. (and because no saving is noticable in the run, I included names of the segments as well).

====== SEGMENT 1 === LIBERTY ISLAND ==========
First off, I take crucial skills. Swimming (will need later), Low-tech (DTS and the beginning), Rifles (EXTREMELY crucial because of the sheer awesomeness of sniper). I downgrade pistols - I need skill points, and there is a bug that makes your pistol skill Trained even if you downgraded (as far as I know, last version specific bug). I take my time, it's not counted until I take the control of the char right? :) . In case you wonder about that small sound chop, it is because I've recorded the menu sequence and the segment itself separately, because if I did it all at once, FRAPS had a nasty habit of breaking recording during a very long loading :/. I've ensured everything fits though, so there should be no problem with that.
I start up with running up to Paul as fast as it is possible. I used the ledge jumping trick. I speed through the convo, take sniper, and then I'm off to take cigarettes off of the body and get a gas grenade. I use that gas grenade for an astonishing tactic found by pc600, I needed to restart my run after 20 segment because of this getting found. Thanks mate! :P

====== SEGMENT 2 === UNATCO HQ VISIT 1 ==========
This one isn't as easy as it looks (just look at the freaking try count!), mainly because of the trick found by Phauxe, which is shooting the pistol on stairs. Manderley walks to the door then and you save around 1.5 second all in all. However, as easy as it is without FRAPS, recording it makes Manderley path screw up, and he either gets stuck in the door and never talks to you, or not moves from his place. Suffice to say, on those tries, it is the only occurence of this trick I had.
I also used a minor tweak that involves jumping into Jaime's textbox and turning in the air, after the conversation ends I'm turned in the direction I have to run next thanks to that.

====== SEGMENT 3 === BATTERY PARK ==========
Very short segment, but very hard at that. I first skipped the talk with Anna, and then it's just a rush to the subway. However, I couldn't get even an ounce of leg damage, and this is what makes this one pretty hard.

====== SEGMENT 4 === HELL'S KITCHEN ==========
Another short segment I have to pass without leg damage, and I have to lure one enemy to open the door for me, too. I do it by moving in a specific pattern (yes, the wait near the phone booth is because of this pattern). However, I end the pattern very, very close to a handy biocell, so I take it, as it's impossible to be inside faster anyway. I take the aug upgrade (invaluable for my legs later), and the second biocell. Thanks to those biocells, I can skip going to repair bot in Tong's Compound later. Voila, 15 seconds saved. Planning ++. I also take three gas grenades, they will prove useful later.

====== SEGMENT 5 === NSF GENERATOR ==========
I'm pretty proud of this segment, most of the route is my doing. First off, I go as fast as I can supplying myself with LAMs. Then I kill one enemy with LAM, and before you ask, yes I had to wait so long before shooting, otherwise even a clean headshot wouldn't kill him. Stupid. Also, pc600 contemplated going through the front door, but I proved that to be slower by 2 seconds, and I proved it requires one grenade more. I go through the back, and then I throw one grenade to destroy both the safe and the generator, nifty.
I take two additional LAMs, run aug and go through the same way I got in. I use a grenade jump to get onto the roof, which shaves as much as 8-9 seconds. And then, just look how retarded the sniper guy is ;D

====== SEGMENT 6 === UNATCO HQ VISIT 2 ==========
Leg augmentation level 2 from the start, woohoo! This segment was quite easy, but even despite that I managed to cut a few seconds between my first and second run, mainly because of manipulating of MedBot position and of spending 2% bioenergy to get up the staircase earlier than Walton Simons got to it. The segment is quite maxed out, maybe besides the position of the bum, but I proved that even his best position saves like 5 frames over this one, the MedBot position is 5 times more important.

====== SEGMENT 7 === MOLE HIDEOUT ==========
This one took little time to optimize, nice and easy segment, everything went great. My super stealth fitting for Garrett or Solid Snake shows up in this segment, hehe.
I'm fairly happy from my bunnyhopping here, very precise.

====== SEGMENT 8 === HELIBASE SEWERS =========
This segment was a pure nightmare....Starts with a taking damage trick that has to work flawlessly (1 in 20 chance), then you have to pick a few items up, then you need to bypass two deadly bots without getting leg or torso damage (chance like 1 in 10), then you have to avoid every enemy, and there are items and buttons as well... but the result of 12 hours spent on this segment (both rounds) is very, very good, the video and the playing is as smooth as it can be.
Oh, and during this segment I punched my keyboard in anger for the first time in 3 years, and my print screen key is not working now... Why? Because I got a smooth try 3 hours earlier than this, but FRAPS decided it was too fast and made half of the vid 12 FPS, even though the play was clearly 30 :/ This one is 18 frames faster though, so I guess it's even better that FRAPS crapped out.

====== SEGMENT 9 === AIRPORT =========
Anyone who thought that airport right after helibase sewers was a good idea deserves to be castrated, through his ears, slowly and painfully...this segment was a nightmare, because in addition to those lots of tries I needed to fight against FRAPS. It broke recording every once and then, and it managed to exit with an error every 5-6 tries. Stupid.
The segment itself is great, especially the route kicks ass. I do a thing designers probably never thought anyone was going to try :P. Also, killing Navarre is always pleasurable, the only good side of the segment. Too bad about the bump on the trooper at the end, he went into my bunnyhopping line!

====== SEGMENT 10 === MEETING WITH PAUL =========
Not too hard, just plain old simple "get from the point A to point B as fast as you can". I take an upgrade canister though, 4 level legs = king.

====== SEGMENT 11 === NSF WAREHOUSE =========
Nice grenade jump at the beginning, but that's not really the point. This segment was the first of the segments that had a bio-energy usage so tight 90% of my restarts were because one of the turn-ons of the Leg aug was too long. Really. Also, this segment would fit for antinicotine campaign perfectly.
I can't afford to lose my possesions, so I am clever and just throw my shit on the floor before anyone takes it. Surprisingly, the guards never find what I threw on the floor. I wonder, why won't all the prisoners in the world do the same thing in real prisons?....

====== SEGMENT 12 === DAMNIT I'M CAPTURED =========
Segment so easy it's almost a joke. 9 tries...in both rounds. Pathetic. This got its own segment only because the next one is very hard to do optimally.
I took a gas grenade and all the things I dropped earlier.

====== SEGMENT 13 === UNATCO LOOTING =========
This one was hard because of the density of buttons, items I had to take, doors and menus. This is the kind of shit I get frustrated on! Compared to that, enemies are a joke. Anyway, almost everything went surprisingly good, maybe besides the door that you need the nanokey for, I lost about 6-10 frames there because the game didn't register my clicks, a thing occuring often with FRAPS on.

====== SEGMENT 14 === MJ12 HELIBASE =========
One of those cool segments on which I don't need to avoid using too much bioenergy or care about my health and just heal with regen, thanks to the repair bot. The cooperation in this segment went pretty well.

====== SEGMENT 15 === HONG KONG PART ONE: DEATH AT VERSADEATH =========
Okay, this segment was truly ridiculous. Not only I needed to make a very precise grenade jump and kill everyone I needed fast enough, but also take none leg damage (besides one jump that took 2 hp from each leg, which doesn't slow me down. The jump saves about 20 frames), press buttons fast, take all items properly, do a lot of great menuwork and input codes and logins properly. The commando had a nasty habit of killing me with one shot when I used pistol, not having DTS hurts. I take the DTS off of Maggie's body and take the upgrade cannister and Power Recirculator augmentation. Both will be incredibly useful.
And just for the record, killing Louis Pan after making this segment (not recorded of course) was like the biggest joy I got in Hong-Kong. There are times when running under your legs and pissing you off just goes too far.

====== SEGMENT 16 === HONG KONG PART TWO: A VISIT TO MAGGIE CHOW =========
I skip waiting for DTS, I needed to wait until the second Tong's convo started though. That's still quite a nice timesaver. Nothing after getting to the DTS room influences the final time basically, because I had to wait for that stupid convo to start. Most of the difficulty was to avoid getting hit in the legs, because honestly, who cares about torso damage as long as you are alive?

====== SEGMENT 17 === HONG KONG PART THREE: PARTYING IN SUCKY MONEY =========
Most of the difficulty lies in killing enemies fast in this segment, fortunately everything went great despite about 20 FPS I had here. Well...everything is too big of a word, almost everything would fit better. There was a remote possiblity to hit with one of the swipes into the enemy and not the dead body hitbox, but it wouldn't do any good for time anyway, so I left this in.

====== SEGMENT 18 === HONG KONG PART FOUR: TONG'S USEFUL ITEM STORAGE =========
Mostly an "item take" segment, I get two grenades, upgrade canister, rockets and all kinds of other things that will be essential to my survival. The only highlight is using the "great sequence break of China". The principle is to talk to Tong being outside of his hitbox (you have to invoke the convo yourself). Works wonders.

====== SEGMENT 19 === -JOCK: I HOPE THAT'S THE END OF THOSE SILLY JOURNEYS =========
I just need to talk to a few people, which means running and talking as fast as possible, nothing really fancy. One of those "close to super optimum" records.

====== SEGMENT 20 === TO THE BOAT! =========
I like this one, pretty clever routes made by me, pc600 (suggestion to use elevator) and Phauxe (key). Dodging those spiders was pretty hard...

====== SEGMENT 21 === ARGHHHHHH!!!!***@$&@^&(!&*%! =========
I hate literally everything in this segment. Starting with voices; seems like the designers thought that in 50 years the Americans will migrate to China and then go to chinese army to serve on a ship in America. Brilliant. Next, enemies are most of the time like small cats, even on Realistic. Unless you try to speed through the boat level, in which case they get an aimbot mode and hit everything from a range a class A sniper would probably miss. They also have the tendency to be so stupid it's actually harder to kill them. Believe me, hitting enemies running around me randomly like chickens with a slightly delayed hit weapon (DTS has a delay between "shot" and hit) is very hard. I of course had to get all the weld points without any bumps and stucks, get quite a few codes inputted, few items taken, a computer handled...and last but not least, I had to survive without too much leg damage. WHY?
Simultaniously, I am proud of this segment like of none other. I utilize a LAW trick - the principle is that the LAW rocket gets spawned several units ahead of player, so I can shoot through the glass. This makes a visit to armory actually faster than not visiting it.

====== SEGMENT 22 === SHIP ESCAPE! =========
The fan jump was pretty random, believe me. And avoiding getting hit by spiders is hellishly hard, two hits are basically a minimum.

====== SEGMENT 23 === NO GRAVE FOR DENTON =========
Ahh, a fine level, Graveyard. I first bypass a bunch of invisible walls by just jumping through a hole in them. Next time cover ecerything up, designers! Not like it would stop me anyway. I talk to Dowd, get a few grenades and then I destroy the generator through the wall. Heli spawns on me (literally), forcing me to the conversation because of some quirk in the engine. The view gets slightly buggered, I even see the GEP model for a short while.

====== SEGMENT 24 === THIS BUILDING WILL BE HARD BECAUSE OF RAD...*LOADING* =========
Shortest segment in the run (for a reason). Grenade tricks are fun.

====== SEGMENT 25 === LES CATACOMBES DE PARIS =========
This was a pretty funny segment. Most of the problem was killing almost every enemy with one swipe. I took a LAM and a few handy rockets and biocells. It's a segment full of taking enemies down very fast, which is why I like it that much.

====== SEGMENT 26 === LA PORTE DE L'ENFER =========
I like how Nicolette talks to a guy with a LAM in his hands that just demolished half the club when doing a grenade jump. This was a pretty easy segment, besides the grenade jump which had a very small margin of success.

====== SEGMENT 27 === CHATEAU DUCLARE =========
The trick with the grenade was found just a few segments earlier. The only place that you can use it in is fortunately only Prison, where it saves 6-7 seconds. Besides that, I resupplied myself a little, especially the LAW will be damn useful. Nothing fancy besides those things.

====== SEGMENT 28 === CATHEDRAL TIME! =========
Ah, my favorite level. It has such a great atmosphere and so many things to do I had a hard time skipping everything :). The biggest problem was bypassing those damn bots. I can't unfortunately skip going to the Cathedral, I need Atanwe to spawn in the subway. Then a quick jump to the Everett's home and save.

====== SEGMENT 29 === JC SAVES! =========
First I use the grenade clipping trick, unfortunately you can't use it both ways because of how the textures are placed, so I took this occasion to install Cloak which will help me a few times. Then, just like Thrull did, I do save Jo....Black Helicopter. It's done very, very efficiently, I didn't lose time in this run at all. So, I chose to have some fun and save the bastard :)

====== SEGMENT 30 === VAN DEN BERG! =========
This route is pretty Goddamn useful, don't you think? Three segments from Thrull's run that took over 3 minutes in total became a 30 second segment in my run, now this is what I call "condensed".

====== SEGMENT 31 === VAN DEN BERG 2! =========
To skip all the stupidly long infolink talks I make one conversation with Carter, which makes all the infolink messages go to hell. That saved quite a few seconds. Besides that I used a BSP hole designers have left in the level. And before you ask, the Thermoptic Camo is absolutely NECESSARY to my survival.

====== SEGMENT 32 === SAVING TIFFANY? I DON'T QUITE UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN. =========
Run, get guards attention, exit, swear at low framerate during the cutscene.

====== SEGMENT 33 === SOCAL SEAWALL =========
I don't like Ocean Lab...it got very old after the first playthrough. Only one proper way most of the time, almost no invention... I still managed to squeeze a few interesting things into this segment. It turned out good at the end.

====== SEGMENT 34 === OCEAN LAB ENTERING =========
A segment full of buggy doors, items and one computer, as such I hate it very bad. Managed to get it quite good though. There's also an interesting engine quirk, it seems that all the computers are open in the beginning, which makes me lose about 5 frames.

====== SEGMENT 35 === OCEAN LAB UC =========
Feel the power of double grenade jumping.

====== SEGMENT 36 === OCEAN LAB EXITING =========
This segment uses quite an interesting tactic, and you can see why I opened the doors in segment 34.

====== SEGMENT 37 === OCEAN LAB ESCAPE =========
That one was rather easy. You can see how much grenades Ocean Lab wasted, I'm left with just two. Getting close to the final confrontation...

====== SEGMENT 38 === MISSILE SILO =========
I like how the only objective is to kill Howard Strong. Quite fast, but I had to wait for convos to end.

====== SEGMENT 39 === WHAT GOOD IS A GAME WITH A CONSPIRACY PLOT WITHOUT AREA 51? =========
My favorite unit, probably. The bunker entrance went very fast, and Jock is alive as expected. I love the music in this level, probably the only piece of music that charmed me in Deus Ex.

====== SEGMENT 40 === "DO WHAT YOU THINK'S FAST, JC. ONLY LISTEN TO YOUR OWN CONSCIENCE." =========
This is not a run to save resources anymore. I abuse the crap out of Cloak. I find the elevator sequence quite funny :)

====== SEGMENT 41 === FINITO =========
Who cares about meeting Page and doing any of the silly objectives when you can just set the world into the Dark Age in a matter of seconds without any requirements? Enjoy the ending, and notice how JC reappears in a solid form during the ending, quite interesting indeed.

Finishing stats? 0 hp in torso and legs, 30% of bio, one biocell, and all the things you see in the inventory. I believe a few seconds could be cut if you skipped 2 biocells. Besides that the planning ended up pretty well despite the improvisation in the last levels.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed/will enjoy the run. See you.

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