'Removing the suck from Deus Ex.' It's an odd slogan, but that's what Shifter does, what little of it there is. In my opinion anyway. A little mod that started off as an effort to get the damn laser sight to turn on automatically now includes additional augmentations, unique weapons, new game mechanics, bugfixes, restored game content, and even a complete and working alt-fire option for almost.

I've beat the game twice before, the first time I got delegged in the 747 level, and descided to cheat because it would have taken an hour to gimp over to where Jock had landed. . .the second time I cheated because I didn't want to kill anyone and couldn't find enough trank darts.

Cheating SUX!

So I descided to see if I could beat the game on realistic without cheating. I can! This time I tried to find every nook and cranney you can get in to. I never ran out of ammo in the game. I DID run out of Prod chargers, but that was ok. . . Some thoughts. . .

The Riot Prod rocks. If noone's spotted you yet, or they don't know you're an enemy, the riot prod will usually take 'em down silently with a single jolt. Noone's the wiser, if you get them alone. Works on MIBs. One of the two ways I found to get the MIB's ammo.

Sniping is fun: As far as I know, the only enemies you can't take out in a single shot with the sniper rifle to the head are the transgenics, and the mechs. Silenced sniper rifle with accuracy mods rocks.

Regeneration is the most valuable augmentation: Regeneration can take the place of the environmental sheild, the aqualung, and partially help like balistic armour, or energy sheild.

The Flamethrower sucks. Too short range, doesn't damage fast enough. OTOH, it is fun watching people run around on fire.

The silenced assault rifle is good for stealth approaches, and the shotgun is good for the rest of the time. MJ12 commandos die in two good hits to the head from the shotgun, normal troops 1, and MIBs 2.

AFAIK, you can turn off all the 'military mechs' in the game. . .

. . .but it is easier just to take the Vandenberg mechs out from the roof you land on. 6 rockets is all it takes. Lockon makes it easy.

Gray aliens are immune to plasma. . . And the plasma rifle sucks. Too big, slows you down, no effect on mechs, and basically just wussie. . .

You get too many duplicate augmentation canisters.

You only need 1 level of strengh aug to get most places, but speed aug helps more!

Men In Black take 5 trank darts before they KO. If you kill them while KOed they don't explode. (Damn. Be nice to use their bodies to blow open doors. . .)

My loadout. . .
Biocells, health kits, mini-crossbow, assault shotgun, assault rifle, gep gun, riot prod, sniper rifle, LAMs, and EMP grens. Oh, and naturally lockpicks and multitools. I never even came CLOSE to running out of lockpicks and multitools.

I still don't know what scramble grens do for ya.

All in all the game rocks.