The Man Who Hated Deus Ex

As part of a series of articles looking back at the Deus Ex series, Rock, Paper Shotgun decided to track down the one critic who hated the game: Tom Chick. Chick, who runs the Fidgit Blog over at SyFy.com, is no stranger to controversy and strong opinion; In May of this year he penned an article explaining why he wouldn't sign the ECA's violent videogame petition, and his reviews of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Killzone 2 for Crispy Gamer certainly raised the ire of fanboys worldwide.

Agree or disagree with his opinions, Chick is an articulate and interesting character. The RPS interview is a guilty pleasure for game journalists looking for a little nostalgia and an "inside the sausage factory moment" for gamers wondering how this American game journalist often comes to conclusions that are sometimes at odds with everyone else.

Here's a sample from the interview:

"I guess it wasn’t until after it was published that I realized how the cosmic dice had rolled on a larger scale. I remember several long and often acrimonious conversations on Usenet about the review. And, of course, the emails. For a while, I had a whole folder for Deus Ex email. Some emails were supportive, but most were just people who wanted to vent. One angry fellow – he was a kid really – sent me a picture of himself, pointing a gun at the camera. He wrote something like “go ahead, make my day” in the email. I suppose that could be considered a death threat, but I would have preferred something more dramatic like “I will totally kill you because you didn’t like Deus Ex!” I tried for a while to respond to everyone as graciously as I could, but I eventually petered out. So if you wrote me an angry email ten years ago, I apologize for not getting back to you."

You can check out that interview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Full Disclosure: Game Politcs is an ECA publication.