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Deus Ex is a futuristic cyberpunk computer game released in 2000 by Ion Storm. Set in a near-future dystopian world, the game combines the action elements of a first_person shooter with the character development and interaction of a role playing game. Its name is derived from the Latin expression deus ex machina, meaning "a person or event that provides a sudden and unexpected solution to a story", or literally, "god from the machine". These most obviously refer to the game's protagonist JC Denton and the cybernetic themes of the game. Also, Warren Spector, one of the game's designers, has stated the name was a dig at most video game plots, where heavy "deus ex machina" artifices and other poor script writing techniques can be seen. Created by a team working with the producer of System Shock, Warren Spector, and built based on a modified Unreal engine, Deus Ex is seen as having a mixed gaming genre. The game featured environments often drawn from real locations, which seemed to more accurately depict real environments than other games to date. It was also notable for the complex tactical possibilities, where players could choose many different ways of achieving evolving goals, from stealth (akin to Thief) and long-range sniping, to all-out combat with various heavy weapons, to character interaction and use of objects in the environment.
Plot
Deus Ex's plot drew together several current conspiracy theories into a narrative with characters having a deeper development than those of most FPS games. It also presented a philosophical dilemma on its conclusion where the player must choose between courses, which lead to the continuation of 20th century style capitalism with all its flaws, returning the world to a dark age of medieval anarchy, or the peace offered by the benevolent dictatorship of an omnipotent and omniscient computer AI.
The amount of research demonstrated in the game's level of detail astounded the gaming world. One of Deus Ex's central issues is nanotechnology: the main character JC Denton serves under the flag of UNATCO (United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition) as an agent augmented by symbiotic microscopic computers called nanites. Deus Ex contains an impressive amount of literature on nanotechnology and defines its science quite accurately. Many allusions to classic literature and influences (predominantly Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and Snow Crash) can be found throughout the game environment (in e-mails, books, mottos, and notes). Erudite individuals often find the game quite humorous. The environment encourages the player to replay the game frequently to discover and learn more about the world of Deus Ex.
The game was hailed by many critics and users as a significant step towards a "reality simulation", as one of the first games to truly pioneer the effect of moral choices, and one of the only games in existence based on violence to offer a non_violent alternative; killing is not a necessary part of Deus Ex.
Commodification and alienation are recurring themes in Deus Ex, and nowhere is this more readily apparent than in the game's unique take on the FPS staple of expendable goons, or "mooks". Ere the game is through, Denton will have faced legions of seemingly faceless, nameless foes, ranging from soldiers to police forces to criminals, cyborgs, biomechanical and robotic androids and other partially- or fully-artificial life forms, and the foot soldiers of an omnipresent secret society. All of these adversaries have one thing in common: They're just doing their job. The "enemy" are not malevolent, they're simply people, some more ordinary than others, employed by monolithic corporate, military, governmental and even cultic entities with agendas they, as mere cogs in the machine, cannot begin to understand, nor care to contemplate.
At every turn, the game stresses the fundamental humanity of Denton's foes. Just a few examples (a full list would be substantially longer than this entire entry): A perfectly ordinary human being, face and all, discusses joining one of the legions with his wife. The mother of another such recruit pleads that Denton try and spare her son, while acknowledging that Denton can hardly be expected to tell him apart from all the other expendables. One of Majestic 12's elite cyborgs calibrates his enhanced visual apparati by looking at the night sky, and remarks, with genuine emotion, on how beautiful full-spectrum vision can be. In a laboratory in which a "Woman in Black" (one of the aforementioned biomechanical androids) discovers the corpse of a security guard or technician killed by Denton, she will report in, saying "Human down, lots of fluids". The uncertainty and pathos in her voice clearly impress upon us that she is more confused and frightened than evil, as we might expect of a week-old artificial life form brainwashed into becoming a perfectly obedient supersoldier. The other newly-manufactured Men and Women in Black's lines only reinforce this notion, though the more experienced androids betray no such emotion.
Some have complained of technical flaws (the graphics were not "state-of-the-art" and the game ran slowly on machines not fitted with 3dfx video cards), while others found the game too difficult to complete.
The initial release of the game did not include multiplayer support, though this was later remedied via a patch. The patch in question weighed in at a hefty 35.7 megabytes, and allowed for a multiplayer experience markedly unlike any other available at the time. Multiplayer boasted such unique features as controllable turrets and cameras, nanotechnological augmentations such as cloaking and enhanced vision, and a streamlined version of Deus Ex's unique skill system. The original multiplayer patch implemented two gameplay modes, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, and included several maps.
A sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, was released in the United States on December 3, 2003. As of mid-2003, plans for a Deus Ex movie were in the works. Spider-Man producer Laura Ziskin was on board for the movie, but no other details were given at that point. However, according to the Internet Movie Database, production of the movie has been cancelled. No further details were given.
Characters
UNATCO Employees
JC Denton JC is a clone of his brother Paul Denton and a prototype created by shadowy organization Swiss school to be under more supervision. Paul escaped the attack, and JC grew up unaware of his early childhood with Majestic 12. After graduation, JC joined UNATCO, a UN peacekeeping organization. He then becomes involved in the events shown in Deus Ex.
Paul Denton Paul Denton is the older brother of JC Denton. He was the first agent to successfully have nano-augmentations implanted into his body. He was a UNATCO agent, and as Deus Ex begins, he is returning from Hong Kong. Since both brothers are clones, Paul Denton looks very much like JC, yet he is of a wholly different stock of character. Where JC is stolid and perfunctory, Paul is passionate and dedicated. Where JC is cold, Paul is empathetic and favours knocking out and incapacitating enemies rather than killing them. It is possible for him to die, depending on your actions in the game.
Gunther Hermann Gunther Hermann is a top agent of the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Coalition, or German accent, as well as a love of murder and mayhem that endears him to fellow mechanically augmented UNATCO agent Anna Navarre.
While his augmentations grant him strength and speed far beyond that of normal men, they are also prone to the degradation of any constantly operating piece of machinery. He receives significant wear in his line of work, and is often returning to Dr. Jaime Reyes for a tune-up.
Beneath his hard metal surface, Gunther is also a very sad and lonely agent. His severely scarring augmentation makes him a freak to the public eye, a monster with a guttural accent who loves to kill. But in truth, Gunther is just a confused and frustrated robotic killing machine, a pitiful pawn of the bureaucratic high command. His long-time partner and fellow mech-aug Anna Navarre is the only real friend Gunther has in the entire world, and as a result, he is fiercely loyal to her.
Gunther resents the almost infinite power of nano-augmentation, as well as the agents who utilize them (due to their relatively normal appearance), and often finds himself fantasizing about ever more impractical augmentations he believes his superiors might offer him.
Like most of the game's androids and cyborgs, Gunther was wired to a killphrase, a failsafe intended to prevent Hermann from turning against his employers. Uttering the phrase "Laputan machine" in Gunther's presence detonates the explosive device in his chest. This self-destruct mechanism apparently takes a few seconds to arm, just long enough for poor Gunther to protest "I am not a machine!".
Alex Jacobson UNATCO's IT man, secretly sympathetic to JC's cause. He is able to constantly see everything JC sees and hear everything JC hears, and as such is able to pass along relevant information to JC. His office also houses the thief within UNATCO's hidden stash.
Jock A UNATCO helicopter pilot who turns rogue, Jock is entrusted to fly one of the so-called "black helicopters," low-noise, low-visibility stealth helicopters to assist MJ12 and UNATCO with their covert operations. Jock transports the player from place to place as a dutiful pilot, but when the player is given the opportunity to speak to him in the Underworld Bar at Hell's Kitchen, New York (the only time he can be found apart from his chopper), he/she learns more about Jock's ambitions.
As a longtime pilot for covert operations, Jock is aware of many top-secret forces at work involving Echelon, Area 51, and other covert government operations. JC is initially skeptical of Jock's claims of massive centralized surveillance and artificial intelligence, but as the game progresses, the proof presents itself.
Jock is a longtime friend of Paul Denton, and is eager to assist the resistance by bringing JC to Hong Kong after his escape from UNATCO. Jock continues to assist JC as pilot and occasional informant until the end of the game, where the player's actions determine if he survives to the finale.
Jaime Reyes Dr. Reyes attends to the medical needs of all UNATCO's soldiers, and provides JC with nano-augmentation canisters and upgrades from time to time. His office is also stocked with med-kits. Reyes is endeared to JC because of an understanding of his past, and eagerly assists JC upon his arrival at UNATCO. Reyes becomes dissatisfied with the organization as JC uncovers its secrets, but he is far less passionate about it than Paul. The player is given the choice to either keep Reyes in UNATCO as a covert informant, or to advise him to escape and assist the resistance.
General Carter General Sam Carter is the quartermaster and arms supplier for UNATCO. He is a small legend among the military for his actions in the Merced Operation (which is otherwise unexplained in the game), and JC recognizes him immediately upon meeting him. (Though never explicit mentioned in the game, Carter was retired from army service after losing one of his legs. He currently uses a mechanical prosthesis) His family was murdered by the NSF, but his response to JC's attempts at sympathy are curt. Although surely a strong fighter and skilled soldier (he claims to have taken out an entire platoon with a combat knife, and he doesn't joke around...), Carter has an intimate understanding of tactics and deliberacy. He applauds JC when stealth and skill are used in favor of brute force. Carter also has a respect and admiration for military order and discipline; the ability for an organization to harness the power of obedience and teamwork.
Sam Carter has a belief that a benign military can exist to truly serve peace and the people. When UNATCO's secrets are revealed, Sam is loathe to give up his loyalty, because of the belief that UNATCO can still do good if most of its employees are there to serve good. As the game progresses, however, Sam realizes that he cannot remain in UNATCO, and escapes the organization, pondering the true meaning of good in a military.
Carter and Doctor Gary Savage of X-51 apparently go back a while. It his him who he contacts when he needs to get out of UNATCO. Sam is staying with him in X-51 Vandenberg headquarters when the player last sees him.
Joseph Manderley Joseph Manderley is the director of the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Coalition, or UNATCO.
Manderley is a bureaucrat at heart, a proxy from the Treasury department installed by Majestic 12 to put an urbane face on their operation. After the defection of Paul Denton from UNATCO and the capture of JC Denton by Majestic 12, Manderley was relieved of duty and replaced by Walton Simons.
Janice Reed Janice Reed is Joseph Manderley's secretary. Her office is outside Manderley's office. She can give the player some information, but scolds JC after he is captured as he escapes from UNATCO.
Anna Navarre Anna Navarre is a top agent of the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Coalition, or Israeli accent. She stands roughly five feet ten inches tall, and sports fairly extensive mechanical augmentation (though not as instantly horrifying as fellow mech-aug Gunther Hermann). She also has a thing for black leather.
Anna is not a stranger to blood and gore. In fact, she revels in it (much to the chagrin of fellow agent Paul Denton). Like Gunther, Anna feels that the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist. But unlike Gunther, she prefers a silent, stealthy kill to an all-out frontal assault (as evidenced by her focus on stealth in her section of the UNATCO training course). She has even gone so far to have a cloaking augmentation installed.
Anna was JC's first partner after his arrival at UNATCO, but she was content to sit out their first mission outside Castle Clinton while Denton handled the guards inside. She is suspicious and somewhat hostile toward her nano-augmented colleagues, but has a more open mind than her cohort, Agent Hermann. Anna will put up with them, as long as they get the job done (in as bloody a manner as possible, of course).
Anna has something of a unique fighting style in that she always fires her assault rifle one-handed, while everyone else in the Deus Ex world has to use both hands to fire that weapon. She's also unusually adept at scoring headshots and bodyshots instead of simply spraying the arms and legs.
Like Gunther Hermann, agent Navarre can be terminated by simply speaking aloud a killphrase, specifically "flatlander woman". As in Gunther's case, death only occurs after several seconds, long enough for Navarre to express her fury and Denton to deliver an apt one-liner.
Allies
Tracer Tong Tracer Tong is an ally and informant to Paul Denton. He resides in Hong Kong and heads a small laboratory that aids the resistance. His laboratory is located underneath the compound of the Luminous Path, one of two triads that vie for control of Hong Kong. Paul first becomes an ally of Tracer via e-mail exchanges leading him down a path towards UNATCO's secrets. Both Paul and JC were assigned to assassinate Tracer Tong, as MJ12 views him as a very powerful threat, but both defect before completing their respective missions.
Tracer Tong is a curious man, and curiosity is what leads him to follow JC's actions upon first meeting him; however, his loyalty is not blind. JC must earn the trust of Tracer, even though his brother is Tong's ally and friend. Upon gaining a sliver of Tong's trust, JC is able to use his laboratory to deactivate his killswitch, thus saving his life.
Tong continues to aid JC (as much as JC continues to aid Tong), and with his help JC is led to Area 51 where the game's climax occurs. During the game the MJ12 continue to fight Tong, and successfully manage to infect him with the Gray Death, but Tong's life is spared with the help of resistance members. At the end of the game, Tong advises the player to destroy the facility, thus removing the technology and starting a new Dark Age; this one of three paths the player can choose to take.
Nicolette Duclare Nicolette Duclare is the daughter of Elizabeth Duclare, a former member of the Illuminati. Nicolette is a relatively minor character, appearing centrally only in a single mission. She is 17, and while brave, is also foolhardy. After her mother's assassination she began working with the terrorist group Silhouette. She allows JC to locate Beth Duclare's chateau, and in so doing contact her old associate Morgan Everett.
Chad Dumier Chad Dumier is the leader of the terrorist group Silhouette and a close friend of Nicolette Duclare. He has taken up residence in the Silhouette Bunker located in the Paris Catacombs, and is likely to remain there until the bunker is no longer under threat of siege by Majestic 12.
Morgan Everett Morgan Everett is the acting leader of the Illuminati. His residence is somewhere in France, though the exact location cannot be confirmed.
Everett is highly paranoid, and receives visitors only after they have proven themselves to be loyal to the Illuminati. Even then he does not allow them to know the location of his compound, instead opting to render visitors unconscious with neuroparalytic gas and transport them in secret through his associate Toby Atanwe.
Everett's compound is quite vast, encompassing computer and nanotech laboratories, hydroponic growing vats, a repair depot, and a helipad.
Everett was the creator of the prototype AI codenamed Morpheus, which later became Echelon III, and was the architect of its successor, the Echelon IV AI known as Daedalus.
He was the mentor of Bob Page before Page left the Illuminati to form Majestic 12, and a close friend of Stanton Dowd.
His mansion has a secret room with his predecessor, who was leader of the Illuminati during the 20th century, preserved within it.
Antagonists
Bob Page Bob Page was the main villain in the game and was a special protégé to Illuminati leader Morgan Everett. Although Page was a good student, he was impatient and short-tempered. Page and Everett developed Daedalus, an artificial intelligence (A.I.) program that would help the Illuminati keep track of and control the new communication technologies. The duo also started the project that Majestic 12 would eventually turn into the Gray Death virus. Page was a major power behind the push for nanotechnology, and was a part of the enhancement project that JC Denton and Paul Denton went though.
Page grew impatient with Everett's unwillingness to use the technology and the Illuminati's slow, gentle ways and rebelled by forming Majestic 12, which eventually took over much of the Illuminati's power structures and resources. The final blow to the Illuminati was when Page gained almost total control of the information infrastructure through the Aquinas Protocol/Hub at Area 51 and the Daedalus A.I., making it nigh impossible for the Illuminati to safely communicate using electronic means.
Secretly, Page is the head of Majestic 12. His ultimate plan is to merge with the artificial intelligence Helios to control the world's electronic systems, becoming an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent entity.
Publicly, Bob Page is the richest man on Earth; a trillionaire and head of the unbelievably large Page Industries. Page also likes to groom his image in the public eye as a great philanthropist, donating millions of credits to the needy, while secretly plunging the world into chaos to create the conditions that will allow him to achieve world domination.
Walton Simons Walton Simons is the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and a member of Majestic 12.
Simons is a close associate of Bob Page, and a very powerful man in Washington. He was appointed to FEMA through Page's manipulation of an unnamed senator infected with the Gray Death, and went to work immediately.
A strictly cloak-and-dagger man, Simons was the first higher-up on the scene after JC Denton's capture of NSF operatives in Battery Park, though his interrogations consisted mostly of numerous shotgun blasts to the chest.
The third successful nano-augmented human (After Paul and JC Denton), Simons is widely considered one of the most dangerous men in Majestic 12. Although he claims his augmentations are strictly for increased ability for work in FEMA disaster relief, he often travels with an escort of two or more Men in Black, and he is rarely seen without his plasma rifle close at hand.
In one outcome Simons hints to JC (outside Area 51) that he is another clone of Paul Denton.
Simons also has a tendency to continually charge his bioelectric reserves, keeping them at 100% efficiency. This causes an intermittent sharp pain behind his eyes.
Maggie Chow J.C. Denton encounters Maggie Chow in Hong Kong. A former kung-fu actress turned politician, she claims that the Luminous Path Triads work for Majestic 12 and have stolen the Dragon Tooth Sword to upstage their rivals, the Red Arrow. In reality, she is a Majestic 12 agent and holds the Sword in a hidden barracks in her apartment. There are several ways to deal with Maggie: Denton could either waste her in her apartment and fight his way to the Sword, or he could get the sword without killing her, in which case he would have to fight her later at the Universal Constructor. She is an expert swordsman, armed with a Dragon Tooth Sword of her own.
Artificial intelligences
Helios Helios is an A.I. that was created when the artificial intelligences Icarus and Daedalus merged. Bob Page knew the merge would happen, and planned to himself merge with the AI, becoming a biological component of it. However, he was unable to control Helios, who himself wanted to control the world as a benevolent dictator. Helios enlisted JC Denton to help with the task, and to eventually merge with. The player of Deus Ex could choose to help Helios, or choose one of the other two endings of the game.
Morpheus Morpheus is possibly Deus Ex's most poignant element. A semi-hidden AI, Morpheus sees man's obsession with the machine with utter clarity. It observes man's madness, narcissism and desire for judgement with an eerie, almost childlike accuracy.
Organizations
External links
Official websites
In-game material - The end game quotes (http://www.forumplanet.com/planetdeusex/topic.asp?fid=2755&tid=1236316)
- Conversation scripts (http://christhecynic.o-f.com/ConText.html)
- Inventory images (http://members.lycos.co.uk/waltonsimons/)
- nuwen.net - Deus Ex (http://nuwen.net/dx.shtml) - Includes in-game text (such as e-mails, books, and data cubes)
General information - Planet Deus Ex (http://www.planetdeusex.com/) - Fan community website
- The Deus Ex "Continuity Bible" (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/april02/dxbible/) from gamespy.com (http://www.gamespy.com)
- Deus Ex Information Page (http://home.kc.rr.com/bobfahey/deus_ex.htm)
- Deus Ex Gaming (http://www.deusexgaming.com/)
- Deus Ex Machina (http://www.deusex-machina.com/)
- List of links related to Deus Ex (http://www.matthewmiller.net/html/games/Deus_Ex_links.html)
- Timeline of events in the game (http://www.forumplanet.com/planetdeusex/topic.asp?fid=2755&tid=1241827)
- Game FAQ guides (http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/26151.html)
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