Deus Ex

Deus Ex (pronounced 'DAY-oos EHKS) is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing game 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.and released 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 Square Enix Europe (former Eidos Montréal) is developing a prequel, Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Hybrid
Deus Ex is roughly equal parts shooter and equal parts 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.

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 of the technology, 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 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 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.
 * Computer
 * 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.

Plot
The year is 2052, and JC Denton is a new agent at the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO). He is the second nano-augmented agent to be employed by the agency, the first being Paul Denton, his older brother. On his arrival at Liberty Island, where UNATCO headquarters are, he is informed by Alex Jacobson (via infolink) and Paul that the island has been taken by NSF terrorists, Ambrosia shipments being held there have been stolen, and that the UNATCO base is under lockdown. His first mission becomes locating the leader inside the Statue of Liberty.

Once JC has completed this mission, he is debriefed by Joseph Manderley, director of UNATCO. He is then told to follow the terrorists' trail to recover the stolen Ambrosia, a vaccine for the Gray Death that is plaguing the planet. He follows them to Battery Park, Hell's Kitchen, and the La Guardia airfield. At the airfield he is met by Paul, who informs him that he has been working with the NSF. Paul implores JC to listen to Juan Lebedev, the terrorist leader he was sent to kill, and to consider joining them. JC is given the choice to assassinate Lebedev himself, allow his partner Anna Navarre to do it, to kill agent Navarre, or to kill them both. After this encounter, JC will find UNATCO troops have taken control of the airfield, Paul has escaped and is now an enemy of UNATCO. After a debriefing back at UNATCO, JC is informed that Paul Denton's killswitch has been activated as a response to his betrayal, and JC will be going to Hong Kong to assassinate Tracer Tong, one of Paul's NSF contacts.

As JC leaves for his mission, UNATCO's helicopter pilot Jock takes JC back to Hell's Kitchen to help Paul rather than heading to Hong Kong. A dying Paul attempts to sway JC to join the NSF and sends him on a mission to uncover the truth about UNATCO for himself. He must go to a defeated NSF base a few blocks away and recover records. Once he has found the information, JC sends a warning message to the french NSF group Silhouette. The director of FEMA, Walton Simons, dismayed by JC's betrayal orders the UNATCO troops patroling the NSF base to kill JC, he must fight them and escape back to Paul's apartment. With both of their killswitches counting down, JC and Paul are to head to Battery Park to be picked up by Jock, but they are stopped by agents with several UNATCO troops. A firefight ensues and JC and Paul are split up, Paul possibly dying depending on the player's actions. JC heads to Battery Park alone and is captured by Gunther Hermann with a barricade of troops, and put into MJ12 custody in an unknown location.

JC finds himself locked in a prison cell, but manages to escape it with the help of a mysterious hacker named Daedalus, who contacts him through his infolink. JC must fight his way out of the base with the aid of Daedalus, who needs JC's help for as yet unclear reasons (Paul may also be in the facility if the player kept him alive). After exiting, he finds that the facility he was being held in is actually UNATCO. After escaping from the headquarters, Jock meets with JC to bring him to Hong Kong to meet Tracer Tong, who can deactivate his killswitch. After a 12 hour flight, they reach Hong Kong, and Jock's helicopter is taken over by MJ12 and forced to land in their air pad. JC must then free the helicopter and escape into the Wan-Chai market below, from there, he must win the trust of Tracer Tong's triad, The Luminous Path, by helping to end the warring with their rivals, the Red Arrow triad. He infiltrates the nearby VersaLife building and steals the schematics for the Dragon's Tooth Sword, giving both sides access to the powerful weapon. At this point, it is revealed that the mysterious Daedalus who has been aiding JC is actually an AI.

JC goes to Tracer Tong's lab in the Luminous Path compound to have his killswitch switched off, and is then sent back to the VersaLife facility to destroy the Universal Constructor within their labs. The UC has been used to manufacture the Gray Death plague, and it is revealed that VersaLife, the company that created the plague vaccine also created the Gray Death virus itself. After destroying the VersaLife builing, he returns to the triad compound to speak with Tong, and must go back to New York City to meet Stanton Dowd, a high-ranking member of the Illuminati, in order to stop a deadly shipment of the plague virus. Paul may also be in Tong's lab at this point, having just arrived from New York and only barely beating his killswitch.

Jock drops JC off back in New York, after asking around, he soon is able to meet Stanton Dowd, who helps him locate the freighter destined to deliver stockpiles of the virus. It is revealed that Dowd is the former owner the the freighter in question, the PRCS Wall Cloud. JC leaves for the NYC Naval base where it is held, and must fight his way in to scuttle the freighter and destroy the virus inside. After this, JC is picked up by Jock and brought to the Dowd family crypt to meet again with Stanton. Daedalus orders JC to travel to Paris to find the leader of the Illuminati, Morgan Everett. JC tells Dowd that he needs to meet with Everett, Dowd explains he can only get to him though the group Silhouette, and Nicolette DuClare, the daughter of Illuminatus Beth DuClare. Jock Brings JC to Paris where he goes to locate Silhouette, shortly after his arival, another mysterious AI called Icarus begins harassing him over his infolink. After helping Silhouette in defeating Majestic Twelve troops who had taken over their base in the parisian catacombs, the Silhouette leader Chad Dumier tells JC how to find Nicolette, who then leads him to Everett. Everett sends JC to Vandenberg Air Force Base, where a group of scientists formerly employed by MJ12, called X-51, are working on their own cure for the virus. In an attempt to destroy an Artificial Intelligence called Icarus which has been tracking JC, the AI Daedalus accidentally merges with it, creating the powerful entity Helios.

JC next travels to an underwater submarine base operated by MJ12, to acquire components needed for X-51 to build their own Universal Constructor. Helios, working with Bob Page, intercepts the transmission of these components, and as such can build its own Universal Constructors at Area 51. JC sends a missile to Area 51 then goes there himself to confront Page.

When JC arrives, Page has begun to augment himself, in preparation to merge with Helios. JC is given three choices: Tracer Tong wants him to destroy the Aquinas hub and send the world into a new dark age; Morgan Everett wants him to kill Page but leave the equipment there, allowing the Illuminati to reign; Helios wants to merge with his systems and become an all-powerful ruler.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eidos Montreal is now working on a prequel to Deus Ex, named Deus Ex: Human Revolution(for PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360), confirmed in hearly 2011

Music
The music in Deus Ex 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.

Deus Ex Track List:
 * 1) 1. Main Title - 02:24
 * 2) Intro Sequence - 02:23
 * 3) Liberty Island - 05:26
 * 4) UNATCO - 05:12
 * 5) Battery Park - 04:42
 * 6) NYC Streets - 04:15
 * 7) Lebedev's Airfield - 03:14
 * 8) Airfield Action - 01:10
 * 9) Enemy Within - 01:48
 * 10) Desolation (Hong Kong Canal) - 02:26
 * 11) The Synapse (Hong Kong Streets) - 04:37
 * 12) Hong Kong Action - 00:59
 * 13) Majestic 12 Labs - 01:50
 * 14) Versalife - 03:48
 * 15) Naval Base - 04:59
 * 16) Paris Streets - 01:18
 * 17) DuClare Château - 06:42
 * 18) Paris Action - 01:24
 * 19) Return to NYC - 01:34
 * 20) Ocean Lab - 01:35
 * 21) Ocean Action - 01:24
 * 22) Ocean Lab Complex - 01:48
 * 23) Vandenberg - 03:46
 * 24) Begin the End (Bunker) - 01:41
 * 25) Area 51 - 02:22
 * 26) Ending 1 - 01:15
 * 27) Ending 2 - 01:18
 * 28) Ending 3 - 01:50
 * 29) The Illuminati - 02:38
 * 30) DX Club Mix - 03:00
 * 31) Training Room - 02:03
 * 32) NYC Bar - 05:10
 * 33) Hong Kong Helipad - 03:30
 * 34) Hong Kong Club 1 - 04:56
 * 35) Hong Kong Club 2 - 02:57
 * 36) The Nothing - 03:17
 * 37) Paris Club 1 - 02:49
 * 38) Paris Club 2 - 04:31
 * 39) Paris Cathedral - 03:36
 * 40) Conspiravision - 05:38
 * 41) Paris Cathedral Conversation - 00:54

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 compatiable 3D graphics card (Min.)
 * DirectX 7.0a compatible sound card
 * 150 MB hard drive space (Min.)

Trivia

 * 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.

Deus Ex