Wait, wait, I can explain.
When Gunther talks to you, he asks for a weapon. If you have a pistol, you get the option to offer it to him. If you don't have a pistol, you can offer him a standard combat knife, which is (a) easily replaced and (b) hilarious to see him use. My pistol, on the other hand, is fitted with valuable upgrades, but refusing to hand it over would put me in Gunther's bad books. Better not to have one to give.
That was the first moment I realised Deus Ex was something special: these two had killed me several times in a fair fight, and I found myself actually studying my inventory trying to figure out how to tackle them. They're just two basic enemies. In how many games does that situation actually require you to stop and think? When I came up with the aforementioned solution – blinding them with fire retardant to give me time to line up point-blank headshots on each in turn – it worked. I was in love.
Of course, it's only after I've fire-extinguished the both of them that I remember my rule: no direct killing. Damn. They're going to get the foam out of their eyes in a sec, and I rather badly need them to not be alive by then. Ooh, an explosive barrel!
When I say things go wrong in Deus Ex, I don't mean the way they sometimes go wrong in a game like Half-Life, where you might run out of ammo or get knocked down to 20 health. I mean 'stand an inch too close to something you're blowing up and you'll lose both your legs'.
I lost both my legs. I have no legs. The guards have no bodies, granted, but I thought backing up a few paces would make this a relatively cheap win. Instead, it cost a leg and a leg.
I sit there on my stumps for a second, reminiscing about long walks on the beach.
