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Deus Ex (video game)

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Deus Ex
Box shot of the PC version
Developer(s)Ion Storm Inc.
Publisher(s)Eidos Interactive
Designer(s)Warren Spector, Harvey Smith
Composer(s)
EngineUnreal Engine 1.5
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
Mac OS 9
PlayStation 2
ReleaseUnited States
  • June 22, 2000 (PC)
  • July 7, 2000 (Mac OS)
  • May 9, 2001 (PC, Game Of The Year edition)
  • March 25, 2002 (PS2)
    • Genre(s)First-person shooter
    Computer role-playing game
    Mode(s)Single player, multiplayer

    Deus Ex (commonly abbreviated DX) is a first-person shooter/computer role-playing game developed by Ion Storm Inc. and published by Eidos Interactive in 2000. Set in a dystopian world during the 2050s, with a cyberpunk story and setting elements, the game combines the action elements of a first-person shooter with the character development and interaction of a role playing game.

    The game sold quite well during its initial run and remains among the top selling computer role-playing games. As of May 17, 2006, it was #19 in top selling Mac RPGs, and also appears in CNET's list of most popular PC role playing games.[1] A sequel to Deus Ex, titled Deus Ex: Invisible War, was released in December 2003 for both the PC, and the Xbox game console.

    Etymology

    The game's name is derived from the Latin expression deus ex machina (pronounced [deus εks ˈmaːk(ʰ)ina]), literally meaning "god from the machine", i.e. "a person or event that provides a sudden, unexpected solution to a story" (referencing the practice in Greek drama of using a machine rig to lower an actor playing a deity down to a stage, quickly resolving a drama). Warren Spector, executive producer for Deus Ex, has stated the name was also a dig at the typical video game plot, which tends to be laden with "deus ex machina" artifices and other poor script writing techniques. Spector explained in a 1Up Show interview:[citation needed]

    “Game stories suck. I mean, let’s just cut right to the chase. Game stories - game stories all suck. I mean, that was part of the reason why I called Deus Ex, Deus Ex. You know, “Deus Ex Machina”, it’s a literary criticism term for like, really bad storytelling. At the time, you know, I said you know, if people pronounce it Deus Ex and they get it, then I’ve made a nice statement. And if they don’t get it, they’re going to mispronounce it “Do Sex”. I knew it; “Do Sex”. I figured, “hey, “Do Sex”, that works, they have to say the word “Sex” to buy my game – that’s alright!”

    The ambiguity of the protagonist's name, JC Denton, has lead some to speculate on the meaning of "JC". Some fans have speculated that the name JC is derived from the initials of Jesus Christ, leading some to believe that instead of referring to deus ex machina the title is actually meant to be translated literally as 'from God.' If this were the case the title would be grammatically inaccurate, with "Deo Ex" being the correct Latin form.

    Whether or not "JC" is a reference to Jesus Christ is subject to debate. The story itself makes no references to what the initials stand for. Harvey Smith, lead designer for Deus Ex, has stated that originally JC was supposed to be a descendant of Jesus Christ;[2] however, Warren Spector has said the name "JC" was chosen for its unisex qualities when the developers were still planning to let the player choose the gender of the main character.[3]

    Overview

    File:Dxingame.jpg
    Deus Ex - In game screenshot

    Built on a modified Unreal engine, Deus Ex combines two mainstream game genres - first person shooter and role-playing game. It is notable for its open-ended gameplay, allowing the player to overcome obstacles and achieve goals by employing a variety of skills and tactics, such as stealth (akin to Thief), long-range sniping, all-out combat with various heavy weapons, dialogue, engineering and computer hacking. It is one of the few games that can be played almost entirely without the use of violence (only one confrontation in the entire game is unavoidable). This level of freedom requires levels, characters and puzzles to be designed with significant redundancy - a single play-through of the game will miss much dialogue, areas and other content. Because of its non-linearity and open-ended nature, Deus Ex is often compared with System Shock, one of the first FPS/CRPG hybrids.

    Deus Ex plot draws together several popular conspiracy theories into an intriguing narrative. A philosophical theme is introduced later in the game and the player is eventually required to make a world-altering choice based on their character's moral convictions. The game also contains many references and even outright quotes from literature, both classical (the story of Daedalus and Icarus) and modern (Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novels The Diamond Age and Snow Crash, G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, and the fictional book titled Jacob's Shadow). The game world contains an abundance of media outlets which enhance the atmosphere by featuring news stories of fictional events, often directly related to the game plot.

    One of the themes in Deus Ex is nanotechnology. The main character JC Denton is augmented with symbiotic microscopic machines called nanites. Though mostly fictional, the concepts behind nanotechnology are persuasively explained in extensive literature the player can come across.

    The game did not originally ship with multiplayer support. Later versions provided multiplayer, as well as various game fixes. Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition, as well as containing all current game updates and a Software development kit, includes a separate soundtrack CD and a page from a fictional newspaper entitled The Midnight Sun recounting recent events in the game's world. However, some distributions of the GOTY version do not include the soundtrack CD and only have a PDF version of the newspaper page.

    File:Inventory.gif
    The character inventory.

    The Mac version of the game, released shortly after the PC version, was shipped with the same capabilities and can also be patched to enable multiplayer support. However, publisher Aspyr Media did not release any subsequent editions of the game or any additional patches. As such the game is only supported in Mac OS 9 and the "Classic" environment in Mac OS X.

    A version was also released for the PlayStation 2, named Deus Ex: The Conspiracy, on March 25, 2002, featuring improved character graphics and motion captured models. Some levels were changed and chopped down into smaller hubs due to the PS2's memory limitations.

    A sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, was released in the United States on December 3, 2003, and then in Europe in early 2004 for both the PC and the Xbox. Plans for a Deus Ex movie were in the works; however, the film is now listed on IMDb as "cancelled".

    Despite its age and the release of Deus Ex: Invisible War, the Deus Ex community is still very active. There are a significant number of websites which offer news, information, and resources to Deus Ex players. Several groups of fans have also created and released modifications for Deus Ex, which offer new plots, characters, weapons and other features, while new mods are still in development. There are also various attempts by fans of the game to update the graphics using new higher resolution textures and higher polygon-count models.

    The music for Deus Ex was composed by Alexander Brandon, Dan Gardopee, Michiel van den Bos and Reeves Gabrels.

    Critical acclaim

    The game received numerous positive reviews. It won a number of awards and received many nominations, including BAFTA Game of the year,[4] IGN Game of the year, and many Best Story awards.

    The game has appeared in a number of Greatest games of all times lists and hall of fame features.

    Awards

    Greatest games of all time lists

    • #21 in IGN's 2005 List of 100 Greatest games of all time.[5]
    • #40 in IGN's 2003 List of 100 Greatest games of all time.[6]
    • #18 in GameSpy's Top 50 Games of All Time.[7]
    • #67 in GameFAQ's Top 100 Games of All Time.[8]
    • The GameSpy Hall of Fame.[9]

    Date setting

    The game is unclear as to in which exact year Deus Ex takes place. A public terminal news bulletin points towards 2052, but in Area 51 nearing the end of the game, a datacube reveals JC's inception date to be in 2054, with another clone having been created in 2055. The most commonly accepted date, however, is still 2052.

    The question of Deus Ex's timeframe was cleared up by Deus Ex: Invisible War, in which a character refers to an event from the previous game as having happened in 2052.

    Real world parallels

    Although the story of Deus Ex is based on real world themes and events, a few fictional elements of the game world have seemingly spilled over into reality since the game's release in 2000.

    During sections of the game where the New York skyline is visible in the background, the two towers of the World Trade Center are noticeably missing. Harvey Smith has explained that due to texture memory limitations, the portion of the skyline with the twin towers exists in the game's data files but had to be left out of the final game, with the other half mirrored in place of it. According to Smith, during the game's development, the developers justified the lack of the towers by stating that terrorists had destroyed the World Trade Center earlier in the game's storyline:[10]

    We just said that the towers had been destroyed too. And this was way before 9-11. Years. That's kind of freaky.

    In the game, it is mentioned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has assumed counter-terrorism responsibilities. Shortly after September 11th, it was announced that FEMA would be assuming counter-terrorism responsibilities, as part of the Department of Homeland Security.

    Some fans have also noted similarities between the anti-terrorist movement in the game, spurred by the Statue of Liberty bombing, and the post-9/11 "war on terror" in the real world. The sequel actually shipped with the tagline "The future war on terror" on the box art front.

    Other examples include rioting in Paris and the similarity of the Gray Death epidemic to the possible bird flu pandemic. Strangely also, there is a mention of 'Century Flu' within various newspapers in the game.

    Several plot elements involve real-world conspiracy theories about ECHELON, Majestic-12 and the Roswell UFO incident. Popular conspiracy theory elements like Men in Black, Black helicopters, Greys, and the Illuminati are also featured throughout the game.

    In-game fiction

    Deus Ex features a text-reading system where the protagonist may read terminals, newspapers, books and notes found in various locations around the levels. These include two books, Jacob's Shadow (continued in Jacob's War in the game's sequel Invisible War) and The Man who was Thursday, with excerpts usually relevant to the player's situation.

    Jacob's Shadow

    Jacob's Shadow is a work of fiction created by Chris Todd, one of the writers of the game, but attributed to the fictitious author Andrew Hammond. The book is an homage by Todd to Andrew Vachss.[11] The first chapter displayed is Chapter Twelve with a subsequent six other chapters (fifteen, twenty, twenty-three, twenty-seven, thirty-two and thirty-four) which portray the cyberpunk themes of the game in the style of William Gibson. The book appears to be a violent, spiritual journey of a man named Jacob as he journeys worldwide (we can assume) to find a woman, whose name we never learn, through a city described as 'Hell'.

    A chapter from a "sequel" to Jacob's Shadow can be found in Deus Ex: Invisible War.

    The Man who was Thursday

    At various points in the game, the player can find excerpts of the real book The Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton, which was published in 1908. The Man who was Thursday is a detective story set in the time it was written, about a detective named Gabriel Syme trying to stop a council of anarchists. Syme's name also appears in the hotel register at the 'ton Hotel.

    The Man who was Thursday is also the name of a sculpture being made by Rafael, one of the two men in the entrance of the NYC Free Clinic

    Modding

    Main article: Deus Ex mods

    Deus Ex's game engine lends itself to heavy modification by fans of the game. Such mods can have a variety of purposes; they can make a game more difficult, increase the variety of weapons available to the player, or even completely change the game's graphics and storyline.

    Trivia

    • Because the game has such gameplay freedom it is possible to finish the game without killing anyone, though in one case, the method required to do this may be considered exploitation of a glitch. It is also possible to finish the game without using any weapons, currency or the nano augmentations featured in the game by using he various things a player can pick up and throw around in the game, this requires the player to kill though.
    • Early on in the first level of the game, when visiting a sick bay full of wounded soldiers, a conversation can be activated between JC and a wounded soldier, which is concluded by JC remarking "Get well soon" and the soldier responding "Yes Sir, I will." This is a reference to a conversation said to have taken place between Charles, Prince of Wales and a badly burned soldier (Simon Weston) who had returned from the Falklands.[citation needed]
    • If you look at the sign-in sheet at Paul Denton's place of residence, the 'Ton Hotel, among those listed is Gully Foyle, the protagonist of Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. Foyle, like the Denton brothers, is a man with unique gifts who is hunted by the government.
    • Some of the robots in the game are very similar to the ED-209 robot from the movie RoboCop.
    • Warren Spector didn't like the opening music. He was planning to tell the composer to compose something else. But after he couldn't get the tune out of his head, he was convinced to leave it as it was.[citation needed]
    • The entire game takes place during night time. Due to this, and the game's nonlinear nature, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact number of days portrayed in the game.
    • The protagonist wears sunglasses for the entire game, receiving criticism from certain characters for doing so.
    • The face of the character Ford Schick is based on that of Warren Spector. Several games that Spector has worked on in the past have featured cameo characters based on or named after him.
    • There is a Lord Brinne tombstone in the Paris Cemetery, a reference to the real life Bill Iburg, an RPG fan and regular of multiple forums who died in 1999.[12]
    • An email found on Paul Denton's computer contains a notice from a movie rental company, mentioning the fictional movies See You Next Wednesday and Blue Harvest. See You Next Wednesday is a reference to the famous signature appearing in most of John Landis' films, and Blue Harvest was the code name used during the filming of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
    • A datacube found in the MJ12 sewer base is addressed to "Lt. Maxwell Hammer", "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" being a popular song on the Beatles' Abbey Road album.

    References

    1. ^ "Deus Ex Prices". CNET Shopper. CNET. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
    2. ^ "DX: Visible Interview". IGN. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
    3. ^ "Warren Spector Interview - Q11 - 20". DeuxExGaming.com. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
    4. ^ Trey Walker. "Deus Ex Receives British Award". Yahoo! Games. Yahoo!. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
    5. ^ http://top100.ign.com/2005/021-030.html
    6. ^ http://top100.ign.com/2003/31-40.html
    7. ^ http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/july01/top502ase/
    8. ^ http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/top10/top10_100.html
    9. ^ http://www.gamespy.com/articles/488/488681p1.html
    10. ^ http://pc.ign.com/articles/386/386515p1.html
    11. ^ http://www.deusex-machina.com/articles/makingofdeusex.asp
    12. ^ See also: List of Memorials in Videogames.
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