Deus Ex

Deus Ex (pronounced 'DAY-oos EHKS) is a cyberpunk-themed 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 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 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.

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