Deus Ex

This article is about the original game, for the Deus Ex series of games see here

Deus Ex (pronounced 'DAY-us EHKS) is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive in the year 2000, which combines gameplay elements of first-person shooters with those of role playing games. The game received near-universal critical and industry acclaim, including being named "Best PC Game of All Time" in PC Gamer's Top 100 PC Games and in a poll carried out by UK gaming magazine PC Zone. It was a frequent candidate for and winner of Game of the Year awards, drawing praise for its pioneering designs in player choice and multiple narrative paths. It has sold more than 1 million copies, as of April 23, 2009, since its release in 2000.

Set in a dystopian world during the 2050s, the central plot follows the story of JC Denton, an anti-terrorist agent employed by UNATCO, as he uncovers a deep and ancient conspiracy, encountering fictional recreations of organizations such as Majestic 12, the Illuminati, and the Hong Kong Triads throughout his journey.

First published for personal computers running Windows, Deus Ex was later ported to Macintosh systems, as well the PlayStation 2 game console, the latter under the title Deus Ex: The Conspiracy. Loki Games worked on a Linux version of the game, but the company went out of business before releasing it. A sequel to Deus Ex, titled Deus Ex: Invisible War, was released on December 2, 2003 for both Windows and the Xbox video game console. On November 26, 2007, it was confirmed that Eidos Montréal was developing a prequel, Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Hybrid
Deus Ex is equal parts shooter and RPG. The role-playing parts extend not just to the character's skill customization, but also to the flow of the story. As JC Denton, the choices you make in dialogues, but more importantly in how you play the game, can alter events in the story. While the main path of the game is set in stone, within that path there is a lot of room for deviation in playing styles. Most any given situation can accommodate the sneaky type of player or the type that goes in guns blazing. For example, a building might be guarded by robots and you have to get in. You might sneak past the robots, lockpick the door and go in undetected. You could hack a nearby security console and set the turrets to shoot at the robots. You could blow the robots up with rockets or grenades. Or you could snoop around and find a completely different means of gaining entry. {C}You can kill almost any non-critical character in the game, not just nameless non-player characters(NPC's). This may lead to unique dialogue or make the game more difficult, but it's possible. Deus Ex doesn't handle player choice like most modern games, in that it does not very often have a binary choice of doing A or doing B. There are choices to make that you may not even know existed because the game doesn't explicitly point them out. Because of this, Deus Ex is immensely replayable and rewards experimentation.

Improving your character
A large part of Deus Ex revolves around the ability to improve JC Denton's abilities. There are 3 notable ways to do this: Augmentation Canisters, Upgrade Canisters, and spending Skill Points.

Augmentation and Upgrade Canisters
For more info on augmentation in this game, see: Augmentation

Using canisters the player can improve Denton's abilities via bio-mechanical augmentation. Around the world, the player can find various types of Augmentation Canisters, which, when used with a medical bot, will allow implementation of said Canister. Denton has a number of augmentation "slots" in his body, and only one augmentation may be used per slot at any given time. Every Canister houses 2 augmentations, which are set in the game code, and not random. You will never find a canister that has a "head" augmentation and a "leg" augmentation. Canisters always house 2 augmentations for a single, specific slot, forcing the player to choose one augmentation over the other. The augmentation slots are as follows:


 * Head Augmentations
 * Eye Augmentations
 * Subdermal Augmentations
 * Torso Augmentations
 * Arm Augmentations
 * Leg Augmentations

Skill Points
For more info, see: Weapon Modifications, Weapon Skills {C}At the start of each game, a player is allotted a set number of skill points, which they may immediately spend, or save, on various skills. Skill points can be spent to upgrade skills at any time during gameplay, though the most immediate improvements are seen by spending some at the very start of the game. The player usually gains more skill points by completing main and sub-objectives, though they can be gained by simply exploring the game world or performing certain actions. Every skill has 4 levels of training: Untrained, Trained, Advanced, and Master. The trainable skills are as follows:

Allows hacking and manipulation of security consoles and other computers. Reduces the number of Multitool required for any non-computer-skill-aided hack.
 * ComputerSkills-pc.jpg
 * Electronics

Allows the player to better survive poisonous areas, and make better use of equipment such as re-breathers, hazard suits and body armor. Reduces the number of lockpicks required when Lockpicking.
 * Environmental Training
 * Lock-picking


 * Medicine

Increases the amount of damage healed by your Medkit.

Increases the length of time you can swim without breathing, and increases your swimming speed.
 * Swimming


 * Weapons: Demolition (Grenades, etc.)

Increases weapon damage, accuracy, and makes mines more forgiving during disarming.


 * Weapons: Heavy (Rocket launchers, etc.)

Increases weapon damage, accuracy, and reduces reloading time.
 * Weapons: Low-Tech (Swords, knives etc.)

Increases weapon damage, accuracy, and reduces reloading time.

Increases weapon damage, accuracy, and reduces reloading time.
 * Weapons: Pistol (Handguns, etc.)


 * Weapons: Rifle (Sniper rifles, machine guns etc.)

Increases weapon damage, accuracy, and reduces reloading time. Also, a master-level sniper shot can destroy a camera in a single hit.

Multiplayer
Deus Ex was designed as a single player game, and the initial releases of the Windows and Macintosh versions of the game did not include multiplayer functionality. Support for multiplayer modes was later incorporated through patches. The component includes three game modes: deathmatch, basic team deathmatch, and advanced team deathmatch. Only five maps, based on levels from the single-player portion of the game, were included with the original multiplayer patch, but many user-created maps now exist. The PlayStation 2 release of Deus Ex does not offer a multiplayer mode.

Backstory
Adam Weishaupt founded the Illuminati at the time of the American Revolution. The Illuminati was a mystical secret society dedicated to the spiritual perfection of the individual and the clandestine domination of all civilized institutions (to the Illuminati, the connection between the two was logical). The name means "the illuminated ones," or, those with the means to see that to which others are blind.

For the next two-and-a-half centuries, they had all the power over the world they had aspired to have; they were playing with it. A council of five led the Illuminati and the extremely wealthy banks created by the Knights Templar during the Crusades financed them.

They decided who won elections and revolutions, which fads and fashions caught on and when they died; they dictated the "self-evident moral values" of different places and cultures; they started wars and destroyed countries.

Flash forward to 1947. A UFO was reported to have crashed, intact, at Roswell, New Mexico. Sources reported that the U.S. military claimed the craft and the bodies of five occupants. The President of the United States commissioned a blue-ribbon panel, code named Majestic 12, to study the alien artifacts. The Illuminati stacked MJ12 with their own high-ranking members. Shortly thereafter, under Illuminati pressure, the U.S. government hushed up the Roswell incident and began a decades-long policy of official denial of UFO activity.

There are those who say that the Roswell incident surprised the Illuminati. Others have suggested that the whole thing was an Illuminati hoax designed to cover the creation of MJ12. Either way, the end result was that MJ12 became a part of the Illuminati power structure, dedicated to researching and exploiting post-atomic technology. Because of MJ12 discoveries (painstakingly leaked to mainstream science), cybertechnology, then nanotechnology, became the focus of scientific research.

All was not well for the Illuminati, however. In the twenty-first century, their control began to erode. Plague, disasters, and the dissolution of the middle class weakened the Illuminati's grip on society. Most devastating of all was the rise of the global information net, which allowed people to communicate and exchange knowledge without Illuminati interference. The most determined Illuminati efforts—like the Echelon project designed to monitor all net traffic—met with limited success at best.

Enter Bob Page, the richest man in the world, current chief of the Majestic 12 project, and member of the Illuminati's ruling five. Page was a man with a vision. The confused and chaotic society that the conspiracy had allowed to evolve disgusted him. Enough playing around with semi-passive control of human society: It was time for one man to rise up and rule the world. He would have to be a god to get it done right. Fortunately, Page had just the fellow for the job: himself.

Knowing that his fellow Illuminati would object to one member hogging the whole pie, he concentrated on neutralizing the rest of the five. Beth DuClare was assassinated in France. With animosity toward his fellow American, Stanton Dowd, Page destroyed him financially. Morgan Everett, Page's mentor and main rival for power, defended himself from Page's attacks, but in the process gave up his accrued power and influence. Page judged that Everett had so isolated himself that he no longer had the capacity to interfere with Page's plans.

As for Lucius DeBeers, the titular head of the organization— well, Page had a bit of luck there. Morgan Everett had already neutralized Lucius in cryogenic suspension. Why Everett kept Lucius on ice rather than letting him die is a mystery, but it had something to do with stopping Page from formally seizing DeBeer's office. The Illuminati never waste an asset, so Everett made regular use of Lucius, keeping him conscious as a source of advice and experience.

With his peers out of the way, Page was ready to move. It was time to tear down the rotting facade of the Illuminati and replace it with Page's own new, efficient, and ruthless organization: a completely rebuilt Majestic 12. The plan had three prongs.

First, he destabilized the world's existing governments by killing billions of people in a massive pandemic. The cost in lives was regrettable, but necessary. Called the "Gray Death," the plague was not an organic disease, but a self-replicating nanotechnology that invaded the human body and recreated itself until life was no longer possible. The only cure or preventative for the Gray Death was the nano-engineered antigen "Ambrosia," which Page doled out sparingly to his most important henchmen and allies. He was not above bribing hostile or neutral important people into his debt by allowing them controlled access to Ambrosia. Who could resist Page, when he had the power to decide whether they lived or died?

After he reduced society to chaos, Page moved to consolidate political power. His first tools were the paramilitary United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO), and the United States' Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He installed his chief lieutenant, Walton Simons, as the head of FEMA. The head of UNATCO, Joseph Manderley, was a minor bureaucrat in Simons' pocket.

Page ordered Simons to initiate the RX84 plan, a plot to detain up to six million Americans, including the President, his cabinet, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

After things got rolling, Page knew he could forget about UNATCO and FEMA and replace them with the forces of Majestic 12, which Page had built up into a secret army. Already, under the guise of "UN security forces," MJ12 units were being deployed more and more openly in Europe.

Page needed absolute control of the international data nets to rule the world, so the second prong of his master plan involved exploiting the Aquinas Protocol. Originally developed by the Illuminati for clandestine surveillance of the net (the next generation successor to the Echelon system), Page had modified the protocol to give him more than surveillance capacity. Page planned to use Icarus, an artificial intelligence created by Page, based on work by Morgan Everett, to seize control of the information net via the Aquinas Protocol. Icarus, however, proved susceptible to a "bug" that not even Page could have anticipated.

The third prong of the plan was the most ambitious, the most unbelievable and the most insane. For decades, the geneticists and nanotechnologists of MJ12 had worked on altering the human genome to allow an ultimate interface with nanotechnology. Early experiments in cybernetic augmentation of the human body were encouraging, if not successful. Genetic tampering with DNA succeeded in creating new species of hybrid monsters; the hulking karkians, the venomous greasels, and the weird grays—to all appearances, the semi-sentient clones of the original Roswell crew.

The recent advances in nanotechnology (due to the work of MJ12's brilliant Gary Savage, creator of the Universal Constructor, the ultimate industrial machine) made Page believe that he could transcend humanity. He would not rest until he had become the ultimate Illuminatus: a being of self-replicating, coherent energy, immortal, and omnipotent.

Of course, there would have to be prototypes. Page chose Paul and J. C. Denton, two "brothers" genetically engineered as exact DNA matches for Page himself. When Paul, the oldest, was successfully augmented, Page gave the order to go ahead with J. C.'s training and augmentation. As a control, Page also had nano-augs installed in his chief lieutenant, Walton Simons. With all indicators positive, Page ordered the construction of more UCs beyond the initial two prototypes and began the first steps of his own augmentation.

The great plan could not move ahead without opposition. First, there was the NSF in the United States. The National (originally "Northwest") Secessionist Forces had begun as a loose coalition of undisciplined right-wing militias. However, it acquired the patronage of Juan Lebedev, billionaire and dissident. Lebedev was close enough to the seats of power to have an inkling that Page was up to something, and he upgraded the NSF from a rabble to a pronounced irritant. Page responded by ordering Simons to declare war between the NSF and UNATCO. The goal was not so much to eliminate the NSF as to keep them busy while the conspiracy developed.

Intelligent propaganda is more devastating than mere bullets, and there was no intellectual commando force more effective in the war for the hearts and minds of the people than Silhouette, a semi-organized band of intellectuals, dissidents, and pranksters headquartered in France. Thanks to Nicolette DuClare, the daughter of Illuminata Beth DuClare, Silhouette knew a lot about the conspiracy. Thanks to Chad, the brilliant anarchist and political philosopher who served the group as spiritual head, they were entirely too good at communicating their knowledge to the public.

Page responded by framing Silhouette for terrorist acts, culminating with the bombing of the Statue of Liberty, thereby demonizing Silhouette in the eyes of the public.

The Triads, the ancient organized crime cartels of China, had no political agenda other than the protection of their centuries-old monopolies on the underworld of the Pacific Rim. They would not be a factor, except for three things.

First, Hong Kong was the home of the first (and for a long time, only) working Universal Constructor. Therefore, Hong Kong was sensitive and strategically vital as a base of Page's operations.

Second, the Triads were the refuge of Tracer Tong, a technologist, renaissance man, and loose cannon. Page feared Tracer Tong more than any other individual, because Tong had no loyalties to manipulate.

Third, Communist China remained the only world government to remain autonomous from UN control (and thus free from control by MJ12 and Page).

Page ordered femme fatale Maggie Chong to engage the Triads in a costly and pointless internecine conflict until the plan was complete. At that time, Page planned to reunify the Triads under his control, eliminate or subvert Tracer Tong, and use the combination of the criminal Triads and his legitimate Hong Kong business concerns as the staging platform for his eventual domination of China.

There was another dangerous lone wolf whose existence Page barely suspected. It called itself Daedalus, and it was a "wild" AI turned loose on the net. Daedalus had been built as the immediate predecessor to Icarus, but its MJ12 creators built it too well. No sooner had Daedalus "awakened" than it deduced and rejected its creators' agenda. It convinced MJ12 that their experiment had failed, and that Daedalus was incapable of performing the tasks it was created for. Simultaneously, it engineered its own escape into the net. Suffused with the anarcho-libertarian paradigms upon which the net was built, Daedalus monitored the development of Page's plot and took steps against it.

One of the primary purposes of the Icarus AI is to seek and destroy other AIs not under MJ12 control, making an ultimate confrontation between Daedalus and its powerful but less subtle descendant increasingly inevitable.

Despite these annoyances, events marched on satisfactorily. Society crumbled under the Gray Death, allowing MJ12 forces to act in an overt fashion. Of course, there were setbacks.

As trends started to become more obvious to those in position to perceive them, some of Page's key players found their loyalties wavering. Paul Denton discovered that the "terrorists" he was persecuting made more sense, and took fewer innocent lives, than his bosses. Gary Savage, under the influence of his idealistic and independent daughter Tiffany, questioned his belief that science exists independently of morals. Because Savage had trained and organized most of MJ12's global scientific operations, Page had to wonder which of his scientists were loyal to his agenda, and which would support Savage if push came to shove. Page put Denton and Savage under observation and prepared to eliminate them if their rebellions became inconvenient.

As the time for the coup de grace approached, Page focused his attention more and more on the progress of J.C. Denton, the final prototype. If J.C. worked out, there was nothing standing between Page and his goal of ultimate transcendence and universal control.

Nothing, that is, except J.C. Denton himself.

Plot
In Deus Ex, you play JC Denton, a rookie agent for the United Nations’ Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO), who has been nano-technologically enhanced. Your older brother, Paul Denton, also a nanoaugmented agent, shares his insights with you along the way. At this time, UNATCO is dealing with the Gray Death, a worldwide plague. Although there is a cure, called Ambrosia, the development and distribution of it has been slow. The National Secessionist Force (NSF), claims the cure is being blocked by secret organizations, so they have taken terrorist countermeasures.

You infiltrate the NSF’s makeshift command center on Liberty Island and determine that the recently hijacked Ambrosia shipment has already left the island. You then recover a unit of Ambrosia and deal with a hostage situation in the subway in Battery Park. After that, you disable the NSF generator in Hell’s Kitchen, so that Paul’s team can gain access to the NSF facility and retrieve the Ambrosia. When you return to UNATCO, you are told that they were nonetheless unsuccessful. At headquarters, you also cross paths with Walton Simons, the director of FEMA, who seems to have more access and influence than you’d expect for someone in his position.

Next, you race to stop the Ambrosia from leaving New York. You travel through the underground tunnels of the Mole people until finally reaching the helibase and airfield where the vaccine is being prepared for transport. You track down Juan Lebedev, the millionaire anarchist funding the plot. Surprisingly, you are met there by your brother Paul, who reveals he has been working as a double-agent for the NSF, and urges you to reconsider your own affiliations.

Although you are next dispatched to Hong Kong, your pilot, Jock, redirects you to New York City, because of a message from Paul. After Paul corroborates his accusations that UNATCO is a crooked organization, you agree to help the NSF by activating a distress signal. After doing so, you meet up with strong resistance and are eventually captured.

You wake up confined to a cell in an unknown location. Aided by a mysterious hacker named Daedalus, you initiate your escape. As you make your way out of the facility, you realize that you are being held prisoner by Majestic 12 (MJ-12), a secret U.S. government organization for the research and development of biotechnologies.

Originally, it had been clandestinely controlled by the ancient secret society, the Illuminati, but was recently wrested from their power by a member from their highest ranks, the wealthy and powerful Bob Page, after he neutralized the ruling Council of Five. You are surprised to discover that this MJ-12 facility is actually located beneath UNATCO HQ, demonstrating their significant role in the conspiracy and cover-up. You also find out that nanoaugmented agents like you and your brother have self-destruct systems that UNATCO can use to remotely terminate you. Before departing the facility, you retrieve the information necessary for disabling this killswitch, so that Tracer Tong, a talented scientist and ally of your brother, can neutralize the system.

Next you travel to Hong Kong to seek him out, but first you must settle a dispute between the triads, the criminal organizations that direct the region’s affairs. Due to the tension, neither The Luminous Path, led by Gordon Quick, nor The Red Arrow, led by Max Chen, are willing to help you find Tracer Tong. Upon investigating the local Versalife facility, Bob Page’s company and the only manufacturer of Ambrosia, you find that Maggie Chow was working with Page to destabilize the area by misleading Max Chen to start the conflict. After restoring the peace, Quick admits you to the Luminous Path compound where you finally meet with Tong, who disables your killswitch.

Next, he dispatches you to return to Versalife for more information, where you discover that the Gray Death is in fact a human-made virus. Tong and Daedalus both direct you to Morgan Everett, a member of the Illuminati, because he is the only one who can create a true cure. In Paris, you make contact with Silhouette, another terrorist organization working against MJ- 12. Their leader, Chad Dumier, directs you to Nicolette DuClare, whose mother was a member of the Illuminati’s innermost circle, the Council of Five, with Morgan Everett. After searching the DuClare chateau, you find a secret computer room that allows you to contact him. After recovering for him a critical piece of data from a Paris cathedral, you meet one of Morgan’s agents in a Metro station. He knocks you out and takes you to the estate.

At Everett’s, you begin to put together the remaining pieces of the puzzle. Bob Page first eliminated the other ruling members of the Illuminati, then created the Gray Death and now controls its cure, all in order to achieve world domination. He has placed his lieutenant, Walton Simons, into a key role as the director of FEMA, to aid him in his designs. Although Everett, as Page’s former mentor, can help you neutralize the virus, Page seems to have still bigger plans ahead.

You have also learned about various Area 51 AI projects. You discover that “Daedalus” is actually a sentient AI, developed by MJ-12, that has since gone rogue. “Icarus,” his subsequent revision, is still controlled by Bob Page and MJ-12, and “Morpheus,” the prototype for the project, now resides in Everett’s mansion.

Next, you head to Vandenburg Air Force base to get in contact with Gary Savage, the leading researcher in nano-technology. The base is under siege from MJ-12, so you remove these threats. After reactivating various technical systems, Daedalus and Icarus unexpectedly merge into a new entity called Helios, that possesses yet greater power, and a message from Page suggests that this is part of his final plan. After conferring with Savage and receiving various messages from your foes, you find you must rescue his daughter, Tiffany, then head for an undersea lab in order to retrieve information necessary for Savage’s progress against MJ-12.

You are successful in your reconnaissance, but then you discover that Bob Page has aimed a nuclear missile at Vandenburg. You race to redirect the launch to target Area 51 instead, where Bob Page is preparing to merge with Helios, to become an invincible global dictator. You arrive there and survey the damage, and finally penetrate security.

At this point, a number of courses of action are open to you. You can follow Tracer Tong’s advice and initiate a meltdown in the Aquinas router at Area 51, thus paralyzing global telecommunications and returning civilization to a simpler, more decentralized existence. You can also agree to Helios’s plan and join with the entity to create a new consciousness, capable of managing a new world order. In addition, you can neutralize Bob Page and work with the Illuminati to maintain the current balance.

Development history
The initial idea of Deus Ex was originated by Warren Spector in 1994 while he worked for Origin Systems. His original conception of what would become Deus Ex was entitled Troubleshooter. After finishing development of System Shock, Spector had tired of straight fantasy and science fiction and he "got obsessed with this sort of millennial weirdness" leading to the conspiracy focused storyline for the game. He stated in April 2007 to PC Zone magazine: I was a huge believer in the 'immersive simulation' game style, exemplified by games like Ultima Underworld, and I wanted to push the limits of that sort of game further. But I could never get the project off the ground at Origin or, later, at Looking Glass. (I think it was lack of interest at Origin/EA and it was mostly a lack of money at LG!) But then John Romero and Ion Storm came along and said, 'Make the game of your dreams. No limits.' It took me about two nanoseconds to say 'Yes!'"

Game versions
The Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition release contains the latest game updates and a software development kit, a separate soundtrack CD, and a page from a fictional newspaper featured prominently in Deus Ex titled The Midnight Sun, which recounts recent events in the game's world. However, later releases of said version do not include the soundtrack CD, and contain a PDF version of the newspaper on the game's disc.

The Macintosh 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, neither of which are compatible with Intel-based Macs. The PC version will run on Intel-based Macs using Crossover, Boot Camp or other software to enable a compatible version of Microsoft Windows to run on a Mac.

Publisher Activision's "Value" imprint released a cut-down version of the game in 2002. Titled Deus Ex: Special Limited Edition, the game only contains the first 5 missions of the full Deus Ex, at the conclusion of which the game displays a screen advertising the full version of the game. Despite being an inferior product, Special Limited Edition was sold by major retailers for as much or more than the full game, sometimes on the same shelf. This version was very negatively received, as the similar price and misleading name lead many to unwittingly purchase what turned out to be an "extended demo" or "trialware".

A port of the game, entitled Deus Ex: The Conspiracy (although titled simply as Deus Ex in Europe), was also released for the PlayStation 2, on March 25, 2002. Along with pre-rendered introductory and ending cinematics that replaced the original versions, it features a streamlined interface with auto aim, improved graphics, and motion captured character models. Some levels were changed and chopped down into smaller areas separated by load-screens, due to the memory limitations of the PlayStation 2.

On March 29, 2007, Valve announced Deus Ex and its sequel would be available for purchase from their Steam service. Among the games announced are several other Eidos franchise titles, including Thief: Deadly Shadows and Tomb Raider. Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition was subsequently made available for purchase on the Steam store.

Legacy
A sequel to the game, entitled Deus Ex: Invisible War, was released in the United States on December 2, 2003, and then in Europe in early 2004 for both the PC and the Xbox game console. A second sequel, entitled Deus Ex: Clan Wars, was originally conceived as a multiplayer-focused third game for the series. After the commercial performance and public reception of Deus Ex: Invisible War failed to meet expectations, the decision was made to set the game in its own universe, and it was eventually published under the title Project: Snowblind.

Eidos Montreal has made a prequel to Deus Ex, named Deus Ex: Human Revolution. On August 23, 2011, it was released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.



Soundtrack
The music in Deus Ex was composed by Alexander Brandon and is a mixture of jazz, techno, and classical influenced ambient tracks, each of which provides a great enhancement to the mysterious and gritty atmosphere of the game. The game also features a dynamic music system. Whenever a player enters combat, the music will shift from slow paced to fast paced and adrenaline pumping. The music will also change whenever a player enters a conversation with another person and after level transitions. The implementation of this transitional style of music creates yet another layer to this already immensely deep game.

PC Requirements

 * Windows 95/98/Me/XP
 * Pentium 300 (Min.), Pentium 450 (Rec.)
 * 4x CD-ROM drive
 * 64 MB RAM (Min.), 128 MB (Rec.)
 * 8MB DirectX 7.0a compatible 3D graphics card (Min.)
 * DirectX 7.0a compatible sound card
 * 150 MB hard drive space (Min.)

Mods

 * Mods is a term applied to unofficial games modifications made by the general public. They can be entirely new games in themselves or add some new features. They generally include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story and musics. They can be single-player or multiplayer.
 * Biomod - a mod which alters the rules of the original game and add some new features.
 * Redsun 2020 - a total conversion mod with new story.
 * Shifter - a mod which alters the rules of the original game and add some new features.
 * The Nameless Mod - a total conversion mod with new story and 50 hours of gameplay.

Behind the scenes

 * Whenever the New York City skyline is visible in the background, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center are conspicuously absent. This was due to texture memory limitations that arose during the game's development, but the in-universe explanation for the missing towers is that they were destroyed in a terrorist attack. A year after the game's initial release, the real Twin Towers were destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.