Deus Ex



Deus Ex (pronounced 'day-uss ex') is a postcyberpunk video game developed by Ion Storm and released in 2000. It follows the story of JC Denton, an anti-terrorist agent employed by UNATCO, as he uncovers various factions conspiring to take over the world.

The game is a mixture of traditional first-person shooter and role-playing game elements and is highly praised by critics, winning many 'game of the year' awards and being voted 'best PC game of all time' by PC Zone magazine.

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, the first being Paul Denton, his elder 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, and his first mission is to locate 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 cure for the Gray Death that is plaguing the planet. He follows them to Battery Park, Hell's Kitchen, and a private airfield. At the airfield he is met by Paul, who informs him that he has joined the NSF and is now an enemy of UNATCO. 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, or to kill agent Navarre. Shortly after this, a dying Paul tells JC that his killswitch has been activated as a response to his betrayal, and sends JC on a mission to uncover the truth about UNATCO for himself. Once he has found the information, JC sends a warning message to Paul's friends and allies worldwide. Walton Simons, director of FEMA, orders the UNATCO troops to kill JC, who escapes back to Paul's apartment. A firefight ensues and JC is eventually captured and put into MJ12 custody in a secret base below UNATCO headquarters.

JC manages to escape the base with the help of a mysterious hacker named Daedalus, who contacts him through his infolink. After exiting UNATCO, Jock takes JC to Hong Kong to meet Tracer Tong, who can deactivate his killswitch. Jock's helicopter is taken over by MJ12 and forced to land. JC frees the helicopter and escapes into the Wan-Chai market. There he gains access to Tracer Tong's compound within the headquarters of the Luminous Path triad by helping to unite the warring triads, which he does by infiltrating the nearby VersaLife building and stealing the schematics for the Dragon's Tooth Sword. At this point, it is revealed that Daedalus is actually an AI. JC returns to VersaLife to destroy the Universal Constructor there, and on his return is sent back to New York to meet Stanton Dowd, a high-ranking member of the Illuminati.

Dowd sends JC to scuttle a freighter, the PRCS Wall Cloud, destined to deliver stockpiles of the virus. After this, JC travels to Paris to find the leader of the Illuminati, Morgan Everett. JC befriends Nicolette DuClare, daughter of Illuminatus Beth DuClare, who leads him to Everett. Everett sends JC to Vandenberg Air Force Base, where a group of scientists formerly employed by MJ12, called X-51, is 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.

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 a terrorist attack.

Deus Ex