Though this was dead, huh? Nope, this is part 2 on my
reasoning on why Deus Ex is the game designer’s bible. Now, last time I talked
about the setting of the game and how it played an overall part of the plot. Now, I’m going to talk about the plot itself and how it’s paced so well.
The game starts off with the player, JC Denton, who is a
nano-aug agent for the UNATCO. After your usual tutorial level you get to play
a few missions that tie around the Gray Death virus. This is a good start for
the game as we get to know what the character’s role is in society and we learn
the starting parts of the main plot. We also get to meet JC’s bother Paul who is
working with NSF, a group who want to secede from the US and are stealing the
vaccine for the Grey Death Virus. It’s here we get our first twist, Grey Death
is a man-made virus and JC’s superiors are using it so that only the elite receive
the vaccine, leaving the poor to suffer.
This moment shows just how much power corporations and the
rich have in society while the poor are forced to suffer as I mentioned in my
first part. To make things worse for JC, he learns that both he and Paul were
outfitted with a kill switch that will kill them in a day. JC rushes to save
his brother as well as get rid of the kill switch. From here JC is then labeled
as a traitor and his own kill switch is activated.
Here the lines between friend and foe start to blur as the organizations
have people that want to help or kill JC. After being captured, JC is contacted
by something named Daedalus who is part of the organization Majestic 12,
leaving another organization that plays a role in the growing conspiracy of the
Grey Death.
Eventually, JC finds out that the Grey Death was made by the
Illuminati, but after meeting their leader, Morgan, it turns out that the Grey
Death was only to be used by augmented people and not everyone. Majestic 12,
the organization that saved you, use to be part of the Illuminati until it’s
leader, Bob Page, used it to make it for all people. After stopping Majestic 12
from getting alternate means of repurposing the virus, you learn that Daedalus is
an AI born from ECHELON. Just as
Daedalus is about to gain control over Majestic 12’s communications, Page
unleashes his own AI, Icarus. The two AI’s merge and create Helios who controls
all global communications.
This is when things get climatic. Page plans to use Helios
to merge with it and become a god of machines to control all network
communications of all levels. JC must defeat Page and then choose what to do
with Helios with each organization demanding their result. JC can either:
1.
Destroy Global Communications, which puts the world
in a Dark Age, but nobody controls the world
2.
Bring the Illuminati into power and control the
world
3.
Denton can merge with Helios and rule the world
alone as a benevolent dictator as an all knowing god.
The story is full of conspiracy and thrives on the themes of
technology and morality. Trust and a desire of finding the truth, throw the player
into an ongoing struggle to complete the game and find the ending of the story.
And the pacing is great. The way that you start off just dealing with terrorist
to ending with you possibly becoming a technological god.
The story is long, but not rushed. Every moment of every
scene is played out perfectly and when you get to the end, all the connections
come into place and you see how what happened before has affected you now. This
is perfect storytelling with each choice and decision affecting this story so
much that you’ll see the responses of your actions. It’s better than even Mass
Effect or any other game. You have to play it to really experience it.
I’ll touch more on Deux Ex later, if I haven’t convinced you
to get the game now, you’ll be getting on the next part.
We are Gamers and We are Legion.
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