Rating the story lower for current events is quite weak. i would actually think that it's a big plus on that behalf. that the game actually portrays a futuristic world that was incabable of controling the spread despite their technology and knowledge on human enhancement.
I'd argue the story in Deus Ex, especially in its world building is some of the most timeless parts of the game. Themes of terrorism, consolidation and surveillance the game covers only became far more prevalent in our world as time passes.
The only timeless theme there is consolidation. All of the other you mentioned aren't timeless, but rather modern day consideration. They will most likely continue to be important from now on,, but that doesn't exactly make them timeless as there is a whole lot of TIME behind us.
@@khankhomrad8855 Timeless in the sense of being relevant to what we were experiencing in the 90s, to what we are experiencing in the 20's. There has never been a time when the topics of the game were not prophetic. He does not mean timeless as in 'the content of game will be relevant up to and beyond heat death of the universe'.
They existed during that time - the devs just read the writing on the wall that John Q. Citizen ignored. Ultimate Davis here seems to agree with you, that the themes have become so relevant that it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it's good to feel uncomfortable.
I found Anna's death on the plane annoying. I didn't kill her, she committed suicide by LAM. I shouldn't be guilt tripped because of her lack of explosive safety and low environmental awareness.
Elitistb616 same here. I booby trapped the plane to take out the inevitable (to me not knowing the story) stream of baddies that i was sure was going to come in after me, Then anna shows up and sets off my mines.
@@unfa00 Oh, no, I threw the LAM. But its her fault she walked onto it. There was no way I could have known she'd walk onto an obvious LAM on the floor. Maybe she should have knocked.
Choose your own adventure game content prediction of reality 20 years ago. Yeah best game of all time. And i hated choose your own adventure books and games back then. Cyberpunk 2077 looks promising but i don't have time for games really.
i get it. 2020 and all that. it's why i kinda don't want to even touch police quest anymore due to recent events. but deus ex had no idea this was gonna happen.
I think the game developers did know. The human 2.0 project was started a couple years before this game was released... and i think they know biblical theology. what we are seeing is end game for satan and hes about to lose to the creator of all. Sky party
Agreed. Just because something makes someone uncomfortable doesnt mean its bad. If we never felt uncomfortable, we would never have our beliefs questioned or revised to understand our world better. I also love how dismissive chris is towards the grim simularities in the plot to irl either to say "yeah, it exists. Everyone knows, who cares" or "only people I disagee with/dislike and call names will ever gleam insight from the simularities". Especially when he disregards the illuminati's existance is just a "anti Semitic stand in" when its more of a stand in for governments, companies, or the such who pull crap to get more money or influence (a point more impartially and scholarly pointed out by Ross Scott's vid).
I don't know why you would think a deus ex nowadays would celebrate antivaxxers and flat earthers, the first game just uses those conspiracies as decoration for their story, it doesn't actually want you to believe aliens or lizard people exist. Warren even says in the panel from which you've edited clips into this video that he just took all the ridiculous conspiracies he could and imagined a world where they were all real. The game does unironically have the spirit of a conspiracy theorist, but I think there's a pretty obvious line between when the game is having fun with Men In Black, plasma guns, and aliens, and when the game is going on a long dialogue about how corporations manipulate the government and media in order to create a self substaining loop of profit and control. There's a reason the NSF commander at the beginning quotes tax rates instead of eye witness accounts at Roswell.
I don't think he said anything of the kind, actually. It's all in the language and he used the term' ridiculous conspiracies" and left out the dismissive and decisive word of 'theorist' used to discredit the truth. It's not a mistake or a coincidence, or even a poorly worded phrase, it's the extreme opposite in fact! He just said it was ridiculous, which is true b j t doesn't say anything or even imply that it wasn't still true. You're seeing what ya wanna see and 'conspiracy theorists' is a cia term to keep people from exposing them, y o ure j u st helping them with their scumbag bullshit
if human revolution and man kind divided showed. deus ex should have just stayed in the early 2000's. not due to content but them just not being as good games.
I don't think he's really saying that the game "celebrates" those specific (more modern) conspiracy theories. He's just saying that when you're a teenager, conspiracy theories can be quite a bit of fun. But when you grow up, it's easier to see that they can be quite harmful - and they're not nearly as interesting, anyway. So it's more about how growing up can change the way you view (or enjoy) a classic game.
@@kuribojim3916 So growing up reduces your ability to differentiate an obvious work of fiction from actual crackpots who believe in similar conspiracies? You do know that there have been conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and Majestic 12 for decades before Deus Ex released right? The reason the final chapter of the game is in Area 51 is because its Majestic 12 who are purportedly supposed to have recovered the UFO that people believed crashed in Roswell.
“I’m constantly amazed at how accurate our view of the world ended up being. Frankly it freaks me out a bit,” Spector wrote. Later he continued, “Interestingly, I’m not sure I’d make Deus Ex today. The conspiracy theories we wrote about are now part of the real world. I don’t want to support that.”
I played through the game pretty exhaustively, and there are enough cultural artifacts scattered around that strongly suggest that one or more people smelled a rat about what current events were actually about and where they were actually heading. Of course, "fiction" provides the perfect plausible deniability for getting a political message out.
@@esotericbrain2689 everything in deus ex came true because you were being told what would happen, of course they wouldn't make it now because our window to change things has long been closed. they call it the revelation of the m*thod
As many others have pointed out, I can't believe how utterly insane (not to mention irrelevant) the critique on the story is. Not only is this a work of fiction (you don't need to believe in the Force to enjoy Star Wars, do you?), but if anything, the themes DE tackles (terrorism, a distrustful global political climate, a heavily polarized world wherein huge corporations control ever more aspects of our lives, and so on) make the game stand out as being still relevant, and in some areas downright prophetic, seeing as how it was released in 2000. In the end, though, not only is Deus Ex not a political game by any means (but rather a sci-fi / cyberpunk story that happens to delve into a few good old-fashioned conspiracy theories like the Illuminati and Freemasons etc), it's also about so much more -- the human condition, artificial intelligence and its possible role in mankind's future, identity, and so forth. In general, I absolutely don't understand how DE's story could be seen as "not having aged well" because conspiracy theories abound, and most especially not why this might make someone feel uncomfortable. Novels like Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 might feel a tad "uncomfortable" to read too now, as they seemingly predicted a fair amount of things we see in society today, but to criticise them for it would simply be ludicrous, as in effect it only makes them relevant and poignant even today. Wholly apart from all that, in the end, DE's story (and especially its execution, its reach, its characters, its massive attention to detail in its worldbuilding) remain something to be marvelled at. Who can forget the dialogues with Lucius deBeers, the Morpheus AI, or characters like Anna Navarre and Gunther Hermann? The curveball it threw at you when encountering the terrorist leader at the top of the Statue of Liberty, who made you question who and what you worked for (rather than being the boss-fight I think most players were expecting)? Or even the 'Jacob's Shadow' and 'The Man Who Was Thursday' novels you kept encountering throughout the game, whose story snippets always seemed to be so fitting to where you were in the game? That's not to mention the mood of the music, which set the tone perfectly through every segment of the experience. I realise I'm veering off course with these things, beyond the boundaries of the story in itself, but suffice to say that Deus Ex has one of the greatest and most wonderfully executed science-fiction storylines I've ever seen in a game. How anyone might twist it into having potential politically-incorrect overtones twenty years later, then call it uncomfortable and indeed criticise it for not having aged well despite the game obviously being mainly sci-fi at its heart, is beyond me. For the record; I'm not much into one-world-government conspiracy theories (fascinated me as a teen though), but all I see in Deus Ex is a fantastic SF tale that was developed to perfection, which happened to contain elements which, sadly, proved to become ever more relevant to our present-day society. Uncomfortable and at times a bit spooky for how much it "got right", way before the game's setting of the mid-2050s? Sure! A relevant point of criticism? Not at all.
In terms of Conspiracy Theories, I used to think like you do. I would ask this simple question to debunk any Conspiracy Theory, which is "If true, who has the money and the power to pull off such an operation?". Then I learned that Central Banks around the World are PRIVATELY owned, controlled and/or operated. I also learned how Fractional Reserve Banking works. Together, that answered the Q of "Who has the money and power". I am an engineer by training/education. Then, from a scientific/engineering perspective, I did research and tried to debunk many of the Conspiracy Theories I have been hearing. Instead of disproving them, I found many are true. Many are false (such as UFOs, Aliens, etc.), but many of the disturbing ones are true. Anyway, my efforts to debunk Conspiracy Theories have led down a Rabbit Hole that is truly frightening. Just to add clarification: I am AGAINST the Private Central Banking SYSTEM. It does not matter who is on top. Eliminating the people on top does not solve the World's problems if the SYSTEM remains in place. It is the SYSTEM that needs to be eliminated.
Fractional reserve banking is crazy stuff. Unfortunately observing _who_ the vast majority of those private owners of the banks, or controls of the Federal Reserve, or came up with the ideal of fractional reserve banking in the first place, is considered hate speech now. Funny how that works.
Once you understand how global banking works, how the UN operates, and how almost all information now passes through 7 global media/social media corporations before it reaches the public it becomes really easy to see how a global elite could feasibly accomplish some sinister things while keeping the wool pulled over most people's eyes. I think the manufactured chaos of 2020 (a pivotal election year in the U.S. hmm....) should be a wake up call.
This game was prescient on so many different levels. Deus Ex predicted meme wars 20 freaking years ago. You get this information from one of the terminals at UNATCO. It really makes you wonder how much of it was a case of the writers doing extensive research, or them just throwing all the crazy conspiracy theories imaginable in the game and seeing what’ll stick.
@@JZStudiosonline MGS2's GW conversation touches more on cancel-culture, safe spaces and social media than Deus Ex does with political conspiracy and societal commentary, imo. Especially with "Rose" and her line about "Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large." and is followed up by Colonel Campbell's AI stating: "The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right."
@@morgan79737 literally my favorite chunk of that whole conversation. Its nail on head accurate to the current climate, with the resurgence of PC culture, as you mentioned, being especially toxic.
@@morgan79737 Equally that sentiment echoes the way that the powers that be have requested greater net censorship, which has been seen as a way of increasing societal/cultural control and curbing the exposure of actual conspiracies before the public become widely aware of them (Regard the destruction of Wikileaks over the last decade). A lot of cultural capital has been invested in making the public more accepting of censorship. Ask anyone what they think of the media and they'll tell you "Oh I don't trust them, they're always lying." but equally if you ask them for their opinion on a controversial public figure they are only aware of through media osmosis, and they'll say, "Oh yeah, they're evil right?".
@@morgan79737 The guy just said Deus Ex predicted some things. As far as I'm aware aliens, area 51, and the Illuminati are all non issues. I think MGS2 got much closer, despite the fact that it's a game about giant fucking robots and nanomachines. Though it is fun to look at stuff in retrospect. Ironically, my first time ever watching Blade Runner was in November of 2019. Like "Holy shit! This movie is happening RIGHT NOW!"
Conspiracy theories in modern times are quite scary, but the fact that the game is about them is largely what makes it interesting. It's a thing that needs to be talked about. It didn't age poorly at all; it became even more relevant. And it goes both ways: I grew up surrounded by a lot of pseudo scientific contrarian quackery, but have this game to thank for making me think critically about what I was being subjected to. It could be either Infowars: The Game, or Infowars: The Game (The Satire) depending on your mood
It would be wrong to write off Deus Ex' story for "glorifying conspiracy" when there's so much truth in there. Stuff like Qanon (which I believe is a disinfo op) and Alex Jones paint the public image of conspiracy theory (or questioning power) as inherently crazy. We have CEOs and execs being given governmental positions over things that directly benefit their business, lobbying, high level corruption like the 2008 crash going unpunished, the patriot act, the rise of PMCs, bipartisan support for the rich, Epstein, the CIA toppling democratic governments for trade and resources (for like 70 years,) the media keeping half of the population hysteric over everything but the reality of our corporate overlords etc. No doubt there are lunatic conspiracy nuts out there, I've met some, but just because a lunatic said it doesn't mean it's wrong. Alex Jones is a grifter and a madman and yet in between all the accusations of baby eating, crisis actors and devil worship he'll often say something completely based (and true) that you'd never hear on the "news." Basically the dangers and consequences of conspiracy theorism have been used as a smokescreen for the reality of the corporate oligarchy, keeping us complacent to quell any kind of revolt or calls for reform.
@@aburrki6732 It doesn't satirize anything. It merely uses the concept of conspiracy theories to tell a story, that is never presented as anything other than fiction. The existence of 9/11 truthers, antivaxxers and infowars/Alex Jones doesn't detract or make the story uncomfortable. There have been crackpot conspiracy theories for decades, if there hadn't been the game probably would never have been made, or at least it would be very different.
I applaud your efforts with this longform retrospective but it felt like you didn't fully understand some of the story elements and what it was trying to do. You also mention how 'current events' make you feel uncomfirtable but 9/11 happened just over a year after the game's realease --- conspiracy is in Deus Ex's blood.
I feel like the story has aged, really well, I feel like it's still a good commentary, about how the modern world operates and the unfathomable secrets kept by Elites, I genuinely feel like it's never left Prevalence, and could fit back in 2000, as well as in 2020
i don't know if it says more about me or you that you missed a lot of the nuances in gameplay elements, like the threshold damage for doors, or even cameras, for example, at rifles Master you can deal enough damage with 1 shot to destroy cameras with a sniper rifle, with melee at Master you can break through the threshold of doors that have a strength of 50 with the dragons tooth sword, which is most destructible doors in the game. Melee is greatly the stronger option in the early game because of how bad you are at shooting then, but quickly falls off as your shooting skills increase and so does the enemies damage output. You mention the assault rifle was horrible, it's actually only horrible un-modded and with low skills, once you reach that 100% accuracy while moving threshold it becomes broken, shotguns on the other hand are trash by comparison, slower dps, and much MUCH shorter range, not to mention the assault rifle has the built in grenade launcher which is good enough for light and medium mechs if you don't want to carry the hefty gep gun also gep gun sniping with it's lock on function never gets old :D you didn't mention the health medical or energy maintenance bots that also break the game, having infinite health or energy at hand when those bots are nearby, and with a health regen mod, the energy bot also functions as a health bot, or the spy drone when near an energy bot is essentially infinite emp grenades as they explode with emp damage on detonation. Or the flame thrower, how setting someone on fire with a single tap immediately renders that enemy useless as they can't shoot while on fire (bar the commandos) or the mini crossbow which is actually incredibly strong early game, line up you aim, head shot, then walk away as the tranc does the job speed running jumpy legs is hilarious I'm sure theres a lot more that i could cover, but as i said, i don't know if it says more about me that i know these things or you that you didn't mention them :D (also i could have sworn in a patch the power recirculation mod auto activates when you enable any other active mod)
Two corrections: -The Dragon's Tooth Sword needs Master in Low-Tech and Tech 2 in Combat Strength (or Advanced and Tech 4, or some other combination with the Targeting aug) to break damage thresholds of 50. The reason is that it does 20 damage in 5 separate hits, which all count individually when going up against a damage threshold. So you need at least +150% damage, while Master weapon skills only provide a +100% damage bonus. -The Power Recirculator never auto-activated in vanilla, as all augmentations are require manual activation. You're thinking of Biomod or GMDX. But yes, there's a ton more he could have mentioned in gameplay discussion, both good and bad. In fact, he wouldn't be able to get through it all if the entire hour long video had been spent on gameplay!
You can break your fall with the leg augmention that allows you to jump higher. Also, technically he meets 4 AIs, Daedalus, Icarus, Morpheus and Helios.
Hm. So the reactions from this guy...hmm. Ill just say it. I find it odd/funny/weird how he points out how conspiracy theories back in the day were "fun" but now are "uncomfortable". I thought he was going somewhere...else with that but oh well. What I; personally, found uncomfortable however was his benign reaction to the "reality" of how corporations run and ruin the world. Because hey! "Its just part of life". Which sure, that WAS his life; since he stated his background and all, still odd to be cool with that. However, given the comparison he makes is what has me scratching my head. When he claimed how modern day "conspiracy" was all about anti-vax and flat earth. And how the red pill is just white nationalists and misogynists. I was like...wait what? So the world being slowly fucked by groups of wealthy usually evil/selfish/greedy people who have ACTUAL power is OK to you, but some small minority of whackjobs is where the real damage is being done?? Ya, can't say I agree with that. Like, at all. Not to mention there are other actual conspiracies that are going on besides flat earth and anti vax. I still find it funny how people swore up and down about how that pizza place was nothing but conspiracy, late night show people made actual jokes about it. A year later? Oh look there is this guy named epstien who has a small island for the sole purpose of prostituting kids to the wealthy. So, a small pizza place is crazy, but a whole private island makes sense. I mean, I can't make this shit up. No one even brings up the pizza place ever since Epstein. I think the biggest strike against that conspiracy was "THE PLACE HAD NO BASEMENT SO ITS ALL FALSE!" And I'm over here looking at Podesta's murals depicting naked young boys in his house, ya, totally nothing weird going on AT ALL. That is all.
Just a note from a classicist : "Deus ex" (without machina) can't mean "out of God", which would be "e(x) Deo" or "a(b) Deo" (from God), because latin uses declensions (is that the word you use in English ?) So I always thought it was a reference to the expression, since to be the god from the machine is the objective of the antagonist, and is something you can choose to do. Anyway, very good work as always ! I just get nitpicky when it's about my job. ^^
I'm surprised that a person who has worked in law wouldn't make a correct call on the latin grammar. Then again, tax law is a different animal from Latin legislature.
Ludovic Thed I think he might be talking about in general. Not this video specifically. I like his content well enough but he has a tendency to make anywhere from minor to quite major errors generally at least once in most of his videos. Stuff that either could’ve been averted had he done a little more research in the topic to outright completely misunderstanding or misinterpreting something.
Incoming wall of text: >the shooting is terrible and always was Literally just get better at the game. >Deus Ex is a world run by corporations It's run by individuals, not organisations - the organisations are tools the individuals use to maintain their power. >conspiracy theories bad because of these strawmen examples!!! Research the history of the term "conspiracy theory" and how it was used to discredit those that question authority. The examples you've given are actually examples of this, in my opinion. >planning to do a series retrospective Don't forget to cover Deus Ex: Frozen Hell >may give the crown to invisible war Objectively wrong opinion >Game models looked inferior to half life I really have to disagree with this - the textures in vanilla half-life were flat and blurry. Not to mention the mouth animations. >Paul could've told JC not to kill the NSF soldiers He does, in a way - he repeatedly tells JC to choose the non-lethal approach. If he had been more explicit, he would've given away that he was working with them - and JC might not have joined him. >Triad war feels pointless I agree that it doesn't feel 100% relevant at the time, but I believe (just conjecture, I have no evidence) that this quest gives you a reason to explore Hong Kong before moving on. If Tong just sent you straight to Versalife, you could easily miss half of the map, and Hong Kong is probably the best "hub" map in the game. >Illuminati ending sucks Yes >Tong Ending best Yes >Alex Denton This is an interesting one - how did they get the clone out of Area 51? There's a theory that the "Alex Denton" we see in the tank is just a hologram, which makes some sense. >Deus Ex/Machina name When I first saw the cover art, I understood it as "of God" as you did, but wasn't really sure how that fit into the game - the helicopters in the background seemed to imply that the light JC was caught in was a searchlight from one of the choppers and I didn't even consider that it could be a holy light - in my defense I was 14. The ending of the game certainly fits Deus Ex Machina both intentionally - with "God from the machine" referring to creating a new God out of a machine - and unintentionally, with the ability to choose whatever you want right at the end, which feels a bit weak. Much better than Human Revolution when you just choose a button to press. >Walter Simons "Do you have even a passing interest in remembering my name?" >he doesn't save Paul To be fair I do like that this is optional - the fight to save him is tough as nails, and it feels rewarding if you actually manage to beat it. >Killing Anna early is meaningless You have to lie directly to your superiors when they call you up on this, and that did make me feel tense at the time. I think this worked well. >Corporations rule real life as well Corporations are dependent on governments to exist, so how can they rule everything? It's in the definition of the word Corporation - it allows people to not be personally financially responsible for making bad decisions in business - this would not be possible without a government and legal system that supports it. >apologizing for helping companies pay less tax again, this is a symptom of the system that encourages this behavior, so you can't take responsibility for it. If you were a CFO that purposefully paid more tax than the bare minimum, the shareholders could fire you for not doing your job properly. >Deus Ex champions conspiracy theories In the game, they're not theories. If you choose to compare them to real life, that's your decision, not the games. >the illuminati is too similar to anti-semitic theories The fact that you drew this comparison seems to suggest that you're more concerned about appearing anti-Semitic than you are about questioning authority >Conspiracy theories are harmful even when they don't encourage violence Yeah just believe everything you're told I guess >Flat earth theory is a refuge for angry white men You haven't really explained the relevance of race in this point? >the algorithm promotes anger I do agree with this - I think that social media in general has tapped into a human desire to be outraged and angered, and this (purposefully or otherwise) ends up making you more likely to see posts you disagree with >The virus theory isn't fun because it's real now I've got some bad news - this isn't the only thing in Deus Ex that's uncomfortably similar to real life. >Killing DeBeers has no tangible consequence Since it's completely optional, it felt like I made this moral decision not as the JC Denton character, or to progress the game in a certain way, but as me. I liked this, but I see your point too. >footsteps sounds suck yes >JC can't jump Should've picked the good leg augmentation >you can't distract guards you can throw things that make sounds and it will distract them. Also firing flare darts will do this, and you'll probably keep hold of the crossbow if you choose to play stealthy. >Sending the broadcast at the NSF HQ triggers the alarm I thought this worked really well for the reasons you described. This was a scary moment to me, and possibly one of the best twists in the game - Walton Simons has been watching you fall for his trap the entire time. He then tells you that all those armed guys you walked past on your way in are now coming to kill you. It really makes you think "oh fuck" >played the vanilla game for the retrospective Nice one. It wouldn't be much of a retrospective if you played a conversion mod like Revision that came out a couple of years ago! Especially since it changes the levels. Fuck Revision. I did like this video and I don't mean to come off as mean spirited in any of the points I've mentioned, but I really do disagree with a lot of your points around the plot and conspiracy. Still, I'm looking forward to your videos on the rest of the series.
@@Jesion-kv9tu Does Paul not die if you do this? Last time I played was GMDX so not necessarily a good representation of how the game plays. I suppose I didn't consider hiding because I usually set lams and gas grenades in the hallway to own the MiBs and UNATCO troops epically - this tends to destroy Paul's closet.
"Especially the freedom to solve problems in many ways, something that few games were doing in the nineties *and ever fewer games do nowadays* . " fixed that for you.
there are plenty of games nowadays that let you have many choices, just fucking play those instead of yearning for the good old days. deus ex wasn't mainstream back then either, it shouldn't be hard to look outside the biggest games to find exactly what you want to play
I never got the chance to play this game although I've heard how influential it was and still is but I've played Human Revolution and Mankind Divided and I enjoyed both games but I might give HR the edge but MD fixes some the issues from HR that made it more accessible and the graphics helped alot.
Yeah this was a smooth brain take on the vaxxing scenario by him. Agree or not with how the game portrayed it, it IS accurate and thats a big plus for the games story writing.
@@nboy7 no it's not. covid wasn't artificially manufactured by Pfizer or China (or whatever conspiracy you think is "accurate" and "not smooth brained").
I always assumed the title was a reference to "Deus Ex Machina", but in a more literal sense than simply the story-telling cliché, especially because of the Helios ending. After JC merges with the AI, he talks about bringing enlightenment to the masses, and to top it off you get Voltaire's quote "If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to create it." That ending makes for a very literal "Deus Ex Machina", since it magically "solves" society by way of cyborg Jesus.
i don't understand his uncomfortableness with the conspiracy storyline. It was always supposed to be uncomfortable. It's the source of this dystopian society...
I think he's talking more about how conspiracy theorist culture has evolved since the game released, rather than the conspiracy storyline itself. When this game was released, conspiracy theories were just mere entertainment. It was a bunch of internet nerds spitballing crazy ideas, not really taking them super seriously. Now people are so absorbed in conspiracy theories that they have a core part of their deeply held political views, which is a serious problem that has enabled a lot of regressive, anti-intellectual movements and policies. So in short: the game is fantastic and its intentions were harmless. But replaying it in 2020 makes it feel more like "Infowars: The Game" which is a little awkward.
@@austinthefreak Please allow me to say something that may prove disturbing, your belief that everyone is obsessed with conspiracy theories is false. You may think that crazy theories can influence people's political choices, that is wrong, it is propaganda aimed at the other side, I am European and my country is governed by the left, but even still people say that the opposition is "mentally ill" and is completely brain washed by flat earthers and the like. I guess it is the same in your country. You should understand that people are smarter than that. You may even think that democracy is only possible when people are "educated" and when the government control the media so that moral standards are respected, this belief is dangerous in my opinion and everything that "dehumanize" the opposition is bad. You can see that the left and the right can use the same wrong tactics and usually it leads to bad things.
@@BigC60 I think you are misrepresenting what I said. I don't think "everyone" is obsessed with conspiracy theories. It is definitely a vocal minority situation and I acknowledge that. However, conspiracy theories have a much bigger impact on my country than they once did, mostly for the worse. It's a very real issue because it's now being weaponized in mainstream politics from our own government officials. Some "conspiracy theories" are a good example of citizens simply searching for truth where it is clearly being obstructed (such as the theories surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death), but the majority of popular conspiracy theories are more on the level of pizzagate, QAnon, flat earth, anti-vax, etc. These kinds of theories are not organic or warranted. They are a result of astroturfing, misunderstood satire, or just plain ignorance.
@@austinthefreak What you say is just a belief, based on ZERO evidence, it's not rational. You probably want to believe that because it makes you feel superior , but in the end you sound like you live in a fantasy universe.
Well, differences of opinion make for interesting discussion. I don't think Chris is Anti-Ross, just because their interests don't align on this specific subject.
Ross has always been honest about his position of a sceptic against power and never being comfortable withing the corporate system. Chris is honest that he has acted as an accountant and lawyer in servitude to the corporate system. Inevitably one of them was going to come down on the side of putting more faith in the public to make their own decisions about what media and corporations want them to think, while the other would come to the opposite conclusion.
Ross made that a little while ago, things have changed a bit - that said I didn't get a "pro-conspiracy" vibe from what Ross said, more of an anti-authority/oligarchy sentiment which shouldn't be confused.
You know that the game must be good when his immediate criticisms with it are aspects which aren't problems at all [EDIT, 15/11/2024] After two years of introspection, I actually mostly agree with what was said at the beggining.
"I can't enjoy the game anymore because of antivaxxers and Alex Jones". Lol, to each their own. But I'm gonna stop there and seek out a more intelligent breakdown of this game.
" The ending of the story had the protagonist, JC Denton merging with the AI to combine an incredible intelligence with *Human Compassion* " *Murders an innocent man in cold blood* -What a shame.
Saving Paul is simple. Either try to escape the hotel via the FRONT door, or get taken down by the UNATCO troops in the hotel. DO NOT escape via the fire escape window if you want to save Paul
I think you have to stay inside the hotel to save Paul, don't exit at all. If you kill everyone inside the hotel and make it to Battery Park, Paul still dies
@@km099 If you exist through the front door or "die" trying , Paul lives. Exiting through the window, even if all the troopers have been taken care of, means Paul still dies. It is just simple logic the game uses to determine the outcome.
Decent video but when he starts talking about the story, its more worth while to just watch Ross Scott's coverage of it in his video for that aspect. Some of the other parts of chris' video have incorrect info/insight but the story is best understood thru personal experience and the analysis Ross did as Chris really dropped the ball (especially when he starts shying away from modern day relevance in the story details and starts injecting "this is insensitive/only people I dislike politically see anything in this" ) when stuff involving how corperations, news, economics, and the military industrial complex relate between in game and irl. I dont mind some political details/knowledge in games/analysis to give it a insightful angle but the way Chris handled it here and some of his other videos just feels like him flaunting "im politically correct" for a minute or so instead of actually staying relevant/informative like the rest of the video pretty much is.
I’m not sure you’re using “politically correct”, er, correctly here. 🤔 I don’t see political correctness here, I see a discussion on the increasing pervasiveness of conspiracy theories, and their pernicious effects (especially some of the underlying prejudices associated with some of them). Admittedly, some younger conspiracy theorists may not understand or be aware of those historical links.
I do enjoy this retrospective but around the 30min mark you let your personal politics creep in. With so much becoming politicised recently it’s probably best you don’t do that in order not to alienate people.
I find the remarks Chris gives about conspiracy theories quite strange. I think one needs to notice the difference between fiction and non-fiction. I remember that in the 90’s and early 2000’s The X-files were criticized by some scientist and moralists who felt that the adventures of Mulder and Scully were far too close to reality while embracing both religious ideas and conspiracy theories. They got nothing against conspiracy theories or religious ideas themselves, but they thought it was harmful that this show offered us a mix of (more or less) realistic FBI-work, combined with fantasies about aliens and demonic creatures. Because of the realistic elements of the show, people would be too easily persuaded into all of the supernatural conspiracies and (I guess) Satanism. The problem with this kind of critique is that in short they are saying you can’t make a show that says: ‘The truth is out there’ or ‘Trust no one’. It is quite obvious that the latter tagline is a bad advice for almost everyone. (If you never trust anyone in your life, you’ll probably wind up very lonely after a totally meaningless life.) How much risk can any artist take in creating art or entertainment? If no risk is ever taken, all art and entertainment will become meaningless. It will become harmless too, that’s for sure. In order to make something meaningful, one has to take the chance that it will probably be harmful for some people. But what potential harmfulness does Deus Ex offer us? The idea that there is a secret World Government ruled by the Illuminati or the Temple Knights is among us for so many years, that is has become some sort of a blueprint for any creator to make up a conspiracy theory that is utterly harmless. If I had to guess, I think this is where the creators of Deus Ex went for. They did not want to create a very political, religious or even philosophical game that could divide their audience. Why do you think the Assassins Creed franchise is about the Templar knights? The answer is very easy: since the Templar Knights no longer exist - only if you believe they secretly rule the world, you might believe they still exist - the game is for Christians and atheists alike. Because of that any adept of any religion might pick up the game.
Very nice job discussing how the level design intersects with the gameplay systems. It's something a lot of people miss when discussing what works about Deus Ex, and also when analyzing other games that attempt to offer multiple routes. Different routes will test multiple (player and character) skills, with branches and loops that afford a multitude of combinations in various character builds. Because character upgrades have a degree of granularity, this is also more nuanced than the binary ability gating you see in the modern Deus Ex games, as opening up paths will require different amounts of resources depending on your character upgrades and equipment choices, adding a long-term layer of resource management to your decisions. Investing into technical skills doesn't just open up options for tackling levels, but also can grant access to helpful items such as ammunition/grenades, lockpicks/multitools, medits/biocells, or even weapon mods and augmentation upgrade canisters, which feeds back into stealth, combat, and exploration. Every player is expected to engage with these core tenets of gameplay, but it's up to them exactly how they want to do it. The level design is really what brings everything together, as no individual gameplay element in Deus Ex is terribly impressive (in fact, most have major flaws). You brought up the Vandenberg mission where you have to bring down four bots in the courtyard and have the option to release friendly bots to aid you. The difficulty with that one isn't just getting to the bots, it's finding and activating two generators which grant access to the bot hangar. This requires sneaking or fighting your way through the interior of the building, which is the bulk of the level. I also wanted to bring further attention to Maggie Chow's apartment where you mention the secret door opened with a paper lantern. This level is actually pretty brilliant -- the player has likely gathered by this point that their goal is to speak to Maggie and figure out where her allegiances lie. She falsely claims that Majestic 12 is working with the Luminous Path (when they are in fact using her to manipulate the Red Arrow) and sends the player to break into the police station to find evidence exonerating her. If you do this and come back, you'll find her mysteriously gone and her maid will release the guards from a secret compartment to attack you. However, an observant player will suspect Maggie is lying and poke around, finding one of 4 distinct paths from the street level into the secret MJ12 command center next to her penthouse apartment -- there's a maintenance access to the elevator shaft which takes you to the top of the building which you can also access by jumping across nearby rooftops, where you'll find a locked door to the area. You can also get in from the floor under construction below Maggie's, but you'll have to make it through a locked door and a laser grid with a guard. Or you can use the paper lantern to open the secret wall panel, which you can find out about by hacking into the security computer on Maggie's desk, or you can simply listen carefully for the hum of a laser grid behind the wall, which clues you in using a simple gameplay element you're already familiar with. This is the strength of having objectives that aren't spelled out for the player with objective markers. There are some aspects of the mechanics and systems worth mentioning in greater detail. Despite my prior praise for the RPG elements in conjunction with the level design, is that the skills and augs are balanced quite terribly. Every technical skill is basically a ripoff beyond Trained -- you already noted how you can hack every terminal with only Trained Computer (upgrading just lets you control turrets at Advanced and hack more money from ATMs ), but the other ones are nearly as bad, with exponential costs for marginal increases. Each rank of Lockpicking/Electronics nearly doubles in cost when tools already crack most doors and devices at Trained. Trained Medicine doubles medkit healing for only a handful of skill points, with subsequent skill increases offering half the increase at higher cost. Environmental Training just improves the effectiveness of situational inventory-hogging equipment. Ironically, the Swimming skill is the cheapest and I'd actually argue that there are enough swimming paths to justify its inclusion, but you can nearly always find a rebreather nearby to obviate investment. The optimal skill allocation leaves Lockpicking, Electronics, Computer, and Medicine at Trained while dumping everything into Pistols or Rifles skills. Demolitions isn't important as mines are easy enough to defuse at Untrained, the game scoffs at Low-Tech investment by handing you a laser sword halfway through that can kill most enemies in a single swipe, and Heavy weapons take too much inventory space to be worth the effort. While solid in concept and integrated well into the level design, the skill system is implemented quite poorly if the goal is to offer meaningful character differentiation with many viable choices. Augmentations don't fare much better. While they can be fun and empowering to use, essentially acting as Deus Ex's magic system, there's usually an obvious superior choice among each of the binary upgrades. I noticed you using Run Silent in the video while crouched, which is pointless -- you're already completely silent while crouchwalking. In fact, this is still the case even when with the Speed Enhancement aug which otherwise amplifies running noise, making it the clear winner between the two. Ballistic Protection easily beats out EMP Shield, as electrical damage makes up less than 10% of the damage in the game compared to at least 70% coming from bullets and blades, and both must be activated manually. Regeneration similarly demolishes Energy Shield, offering an insane amount of HP restoration compared to situational defense against fire and plasma. There's an argument for Combat Strength to bust down doors, but the Dragon's Tooth's potency makes this redundant in combat and Microfibral Muscle is arguably better for opening paths. Aqualung would be a decent choice compared to Environmental Resistance, but the rarity of swimming paths and abundance of rebreathers rears its ugly head again. Vision Enhancement is okay for spotting guards through walls on initial runs, but the bonus accuracy AND damage from Targeting wins. The rest are a bit more even. Spy Drone is EMP damage on demand, vs Aggressive Defense System which has situational use for destroying incoming projectiles. Cloak is extremely overpowered for rendering you completely invisible to human enemies, while Radar Transparency only works on cameras, turrets, and bots, and stealth players can forgo Ballistic Protection and install both. Power Recirculator is cumbersome to manage and drains energy of its own accord but can drastically improve the cost of using multiple augs at once, while Synthetic Heart is nice for allowing boosted aug performance in a pinch. While the choices are at first interesting to ponder, the balance can leave a lot to be desired. I wanted to touch on some of the problems with combat. While the stealth AI is notoriously underdeveloped, I'd imagine it's not as much of a turnoff as Deus Ex's wonky gunplay. Deus Ex requires the player to stand still to stabilize their aim which is frequently maligned, but I'd argue Deus Ex's gunplay is janky for reasons other than its accuracy system, such as: -Unpleasantly slow recoil "climbing" effect. It can take up to a full second after you stop firing for you to regain full control of your view -Inconsistent communication of accuracy from targeting reticles thanks to an insanely stupid programming of the range stat, which makes the sniper rifle pinpoint accurate while the pistol can't reliably hit a guy from 10m away, even when they have the same accuracy stat -More range shenanigans which apply bullet drop only when you would have hit your target, so you can't actually compensate for it in long-range firefights -Low quality assets and poorly fleshed out effects, such as the lack of weapon bob and lame sound effects -Limited/poor communication of hit registration, whether through enemy reactions or abstract indicators like hitmarkers -Miscellaneous issues like weapon bugs, restrictions on the scope state, and hit detection problems The abstracted accuracy system is actually one of the strongest assets of Deus Ex's gameplay in concept, even if it has problems in execution. Early on, the game plays like a stealthy tactical shooter where you have to either give yourself enough time to line up a shot or close the distance with your enemy, while later on you'll be able to target enemies at range while moving, which opens up the space of available combat strategies. The abstraction is important, as it allows the user's aim stability and targeting speed to occupy the same category as inherent weapon accuracy, which means that it can be influenced by both character upgrades AND gear upgrades. The overlapping upgrade design, particularly with the weapon modding system, adds a lot to build depth and offers satisfying routes to character progression. Deus Ex is still probably my favorite game of all time, though it's hard to disentangle my feelings for the game when I originally played it from all of the dissection I've done over the last several years (I'm one of those modder guys trying to improve it, see). Its numerous flaws are generally offset by its excellent level design, strong player agency, and integration of story and gameplay in a manner that enhance rather than handicap one another. There are Immersive Sims that have stronger systems design (System Shock 2, Thief, even Prey), but Deus Ex is still the most complete package, and one that changed my view of games are capable of.
@@dnaderelmasry7973 Ehhhh someday I'll get back to it. I have a half-finished build on my PC waiting for more bugfixes, but I've been busy with System Shock 2 modding the last few years.
I know. That shit bugs the fuck out of me. It's almost as if the internet let's stupid people get a million times more exposure than they would on the past.
Sounds like you are just afraid of questioning the things you believe is true. While many conspiracies are stupid, many do have legitimate concerns and points.
"celebration of conspiracy theories" You must be joking right? If you think the game is somehow glorifying or celebrating conspiracy theories, I really want to know what you're smoking. Maybe just proofread your scripts a bit more.
@@larry3828 Yeah, these sorts of games *enjoy* the aesthetic and excitement of conspiracy theories; they're not neutral on the issue. I don't think Chris is saying "Deus Ex supports 9/11 Truther Conspiracies" as much as he's saying that the game's sensational usage of those themes feels a bit too close to home now that so many people around us ernestly believe those sorts of things.
@@TheGangsterousG There have been conspiracies about false flag attacks (at least one of which that I know of actually turned out to be true) before 9/11, remember this game came out in 2000, a year before the twin towers fell. But the majority of the game is about secret organizations secretly running things from the shadows. Primarily the Illuminati and Majestic 12, 2 groups that have been the centre of conspiracy theories for decades. All the alien stuff that randomly shows up later on in the game is very obviously because it's Majestic 12 who people claim to have covered up and seized the crashed UFO at Roswell. I don't believe a ship of extra terrestrial origin crashed at Roswell, or that Majestic 12 actually exist, doesn't detract from Deus Ex being a really good cyberpunk/sci fi story. Its not sensationalising conspiracies, because it never presents those elements of the story as anything other than fiction.
Deus Ex was always more "Alex Jones" than "X Files". The entire game is absolutely steeped in conspiracy culture, yes, somewhat the kitschy kind that arose out of the UFO disclosure movement (MJ12), but predominantly the type that arose from the 80's/90's militia movement, the Bill Cooper/Behold A Pale Horse, None Dare Call it Conspiracy type. Much of the flavor text explicitly draws upon popular right wing/militia movement theories, the kind that go on about Black helicopters, the NWO, Rothschild banking family, Rockefeller foundation, CFR, Trilateral Commission, FEMA camps, false flags, eugenics, etc. Moreover, the writers were clearly well read in these subjects, verbatim repeating popular theories along with actual executive orders, quotes, and military readiness exercises. Just real enough to be uncomfortable- and it's only gotten more uncomfortable (a sign of its quality, I would say). All of this might have been lost on people that didn't grow up in the US, or didn't look into this subculture deeply. It actually comes off like a love letter to conspiracy theorists of the 80's and 90's - who, just like Deux Ex, happened to write some things decades ago that ended up being uncannily accurate. My guess is that if I were to talk to the person who made this video, we wouldn't have much in the way of a similar worldview. I would just encourage anyone who finds that Deus Ex suddenly makes them uncomfortable (in a different way) when it didn't 20 years ago to do some introspection, and earnestly examine why that is.
Another interesting point about how these subjects are presented is in the characters that illustrate them. These conspiracy theories (Although several of them are a matter of concrete historical fact, just the scope of them is more dubious) were as you say perceived as "right wing militia" theories. The image of the white male prepper living in isolation come to mind, perhaps imagery such as the Ruby Ridge massacre in '92. The character who first gives voice to these subjects in the game? The NSF Leader, a tactfully spoken urbane black man. The one chomping at the bit to murderously oppress him? Gunther, an alabaster pale white German. I think people in the nineties had enjoyed a certain degree of deracialisation in their worldview, so they might not have noticed something as subtle as that or passed it off as unintentional. In retrospect you can observe it as a Plinkett-esque "You didn't see it, but your brain did" moment.
Very good point. I hadn't even considered that. Perhaps that makes it easier to swallow. You sign up to play a video game, there's an element of fantasy, and then suddenly characters who aren't the caricature of the conspiracy theorist of the time are dumping real, actual conspiracy theories about our own very real world on you by the minute. It's kind of fun, because this is a game, and those are interesting topics- "hey wait, did Rockefeller actually say that quote about world government? What's RX84? If I look up that executive order the guards cited in their banter, does it really exist?". It's practically an initiation into the subculture, you are becoming "illumined". That's precisely why this game is beloved by people who were/are engaged with the conspiracy subculture. You can probably get a better overview of what these people believed by playing this game than you could spending a couple weeks reading the actual literature or listening to some old radio shows. And all presented by sympathetic characters - not necessarily the seeming wackjobs normally associated with them. Even if you don't think there's any merit to a conspiratorial worldview, or a conspiratorial view of history, or even if you think they're dangerous, I think the game still stands as an excellent snapshot of the reality many of these people believe we actually live in. The fact that they didn't take the route of simplifying a few basic theories and sanitizing them - but actually used them to enrich the world and create a sense of hyperreality (not knowing where the real and fictional end) was nothing short of artful. I find the following games lack that sense of hyperreality, and it hurts the longevity and depth of their narrative- dropping the first games approach in favor of generic cyberpunk science fiction.
@@sean5388 Frankly there is no way that any kind of sequel within the Deus Ex setting could tap into the hyper-reality mood in the same way again. Games that are built around genre subversion such as Spec Ops: The Line can't milk the same sense of surprise if they go for the same emotional beat and subject matter. Arguable Taro's Drakengard has the same issue, which is why he quietly spun off that game into Nier without announcing it as a sequel as such. Deus Ex was lightning in a bottle in many ways. It wouldn't be impossible to make a new game today that touches on current affairs and hidden agendas while naming names, but the Overton Window has contracted to the size of a pinprick. Such a game mentioning the Rothschilds at all for example would get the designers labelled as antisemites. I am fervently in favor of the goatseing of the Overton Window.
I am saddened how many people seem to have the "conspiracies aren't fun anymore" attitude. Diving into conspiracies doesn't have to be bad, ask Why Files. That channel is nothing but pure fun and speculation.
First of all good video on one of the greatest games ever made to this very day. But I'm not really seeing some story parts the way you do. Liberty Island for one could have been swept clean by unatco with absolute ease, but they actively ordered a retreat in order to create an opportunity for JC to prove himself to the force, and also to see if you are more 'suitable' for coworking with Anna and Gunther (and by this - also with MJ12) than Paul who just got pulled out of Hong Kong for not being able to do just that. This is conveyed to you as obvious fact throughout your progress on the island and in later convos with Anna and Gunther, should you choose to be the guns blazing type . Also saving Gunther is not the objective, but only a side quest here, you can skip freeing him completely if you so choose. The kills witches of JC and Paul were not activated at the same time as you suggest. Jcs was flipped after the distress signal to silhouette while Paul is already severely weakened when he gives you above task. I love the never actively conveyed part of being able to save him here. I restarted my first play through out of feeling guilty for him, it was a fkin revelation back then!! There's 4AIs, not 3, even if icarus is Only deadalus big mean brother. the resentment of the Public towards mechanical augs comes from the humanitarian view of sacrificing humanity to improve performance. There's a genius bit of dialogue between two nsf troopers on this on liberty Island. This is pretty strong, see Gunthers mails or rile up Jordan Shae to see more of it. Don't let HR obfuscate your view on this. Jcs defection from unatco is a bit more logical after seeing a bit of Paul's world - and him naturally being the most trustworthy person in Jcs world - and later realizing that somebody from within unatco, namely manderly who even straight up tells you, can kill your only surviving family member By pushing a button instead of arresting and trailing him. Remember, unatco is supposed to be the good guys. I also don't agree with your view that The Denton Brothers being the outcome of controlled breeding is how it really went down. the game never clearly conveyed it(to M knowledge) , that's something HR introduced for Adam. I don't recall a single hint towards this in the original deus ex. Based on the info I came across (and still remember) it's more likely they were artificially created entirely and had implanted memories of their childhoods, with real memories starting somewhen maybe in their early twenties. These implanted memories don't even seem consistent, if you take the first ever conversation with Paul into account where he and JC seem to have different types of men in mind when talking about their supposed father. the conversations with lebedev after you kill Anna("you never had parents. The ones you knew were employees... ") and later the conversation with Morpheus seem to emphasize that theory, as do the new creations, including Alex in the vats in a51 . Also some very late game hints on some MJ12 computers which I can't fully remember anymore also do, but my memory really fails me on those.
I recommend looking up the "Deus Ex Bible", which is based on the original design documents of the game: Paul Denton: "The conspirators' agents, posing as nurses and doctors, in pediatricians' offices and elementary schools across the nation, used the smallpox census data, to keep track of high potential candidates. The specialists in charge of the project were updated regularly on the progress of potential candidates. All the conspirators had to do was wait. Ma and Pa Denton -- two such potential candidates -- fell in love (perhaps even with some help from the conspirators!) and produced young Paul under the watchful, albeit covert eye of Majestic 12 operatives who played the parts of friends, family doctors, neighbors, school teachers and so on..." J.C. Denton is Paul's clone: "She and her husband agreed to the experiment, unaware that their lives had been closely monitored by the cabal for many years. Although Paul's mother believed that the surgery would let her become pregnant again, in reality the Majestic 12 operatives implanted her with a cloned embryo of Paul. Nine months later, J.C. Denton was born. Paul and J.C. were raised as brothers, under the careful and clandestine scrutiny of Majestic 12. Their parents never knew that the children were identical twins born eleven years apart." Of course that's according to the design documents. The information the game provides should stand on its own and is open to interpretation.
I am younger than this game and first played it like 1 or 2 years ago, so there is 0 nostalgia there for me. I also didn't use any kind of mods to modernize the experience, yet despite the game's age, I finished it on my first playthrough and immediately started a second one, because the experience was so captivating. I remember not putting any skill points into guns at first, because in any modern game, your guy or girl can shoot any gun they find quite competently, even if you invest no points at all. Instead I put all points into mastering hacking and was surprised when weapons were more or less useless against the first batches of NSF troops. I never engaged in any direct combat during the first half of the game, but hacked everything I could and got through it pretty quickly that way. After hearing you talk about your adventures with a sniper rifle, I kinda wanna boot up the DE:Revision and just put all my points into weapons this time, to shoot my way through the entire game lol. I think Deus Ex definitely holds up to this day, it has aged quite well for a 20 year old game, although my perception might be a bit warped by the fact that games like this and Half Life 1 or System Shock 2 came out before I was even born, and are probably more interesting to me than to people who were around at the time of release to play them.
You talked for over an hour about Deus Ex but didn't once mention the great music from Alexander Brandon. I still listen to his music from Deus Ex's soundtrack and Unreal's soundtracks. Great video overall though.
He seems to miss a lot of gameplay nuances unfortunately. Also I know he wasn’t necessarily mentioning the discussions around conspiracies today as a negative against the story but either way it seems an odd thing to bring up?
It's always sad to see people so brainscrubbed that they act like total obedience to the narratives pushed by our ruling institutions and elite class is some kind of intellectual high ground.
I'm confused how conspiracy theories to you seem like what's essentially exclusively conservatist propaganda. There's plenty of reasons in the modern day to be sceptic of a lot of things even if one is liberal. Hell, would argue even moreso.
Agreed. The rambling over 4chan users seemed extremely pointless and basically none of it actually applied to the game or how relevant its themes are today. He basically ignored how general the term "conspiracy theory" actually is
A nice video. I disagree with a couple of your story points though. First I think the events of the first mission actually make more sense taking place where they do then elsewhere. Its a test and if it goes bad UNACTO can pour in more resources and personnel with ease due to their main base being so close. Second I think you overestimate how hard it should have been for Paul to turn JC. Remember Paul is by far the person JC has the most reason to trust at UNACTO because he has known Paul far longer then anyone else there. Also by that point JC has seen signs that something is wrong at UNACTO like an elite agent executing a man who had surrendered if JC didn't fight Anna on the plane, and if memory serves the head of UNACTO scolds you if you refuse to kill the leader of the NSF after he surrenders. So the head of UNACTO gets upset because you protest orders to commit murder. If that isn't obvious proof that UNACTO has gone bad what would be?
One of the little white lies that's been spun regarding the immediate pre-9/11 era and 9/11 in earnest is that it came out of nowhere. It's easy to use that for exculpation, that there was nothing to be done. This fucking video game developer could read the writing on the walls - it wasn't like this was niche stuff, journalist Robert Fisk (whose claim to fame is being the first Westerner to interview Bin Laden, and who had a weird association with the dude) literally created a multi-part documentary series in the early 90's called "From Beirut to Bosnia" in which he all but yelled at the camera "IF WE DON'T CHANGE SOME SHIT THERE'S GONNA BE SOME EXPLOSIONS!" There's innocence, and then there's plain ignorance but I guess ignorance just fucking abounds.
Still best game ever made. If you disagree with me then modernise it with a mod (gmdx) and then inevitably agree with me that it is indeed the best game ever made.
@@kalenics123 Pretty sure I tried a mod or two, but it didn't really change the gameplay to a point I was happy. I hate the gunplay and melee is weird.
@@JZStudiosonline when were you born? Its not going to play like bioshock dude. It has more in common with system shock 2, a fanastic game you might never enjoy with your attitude.
Ah man, Deus Ex.... I love it. I recall playing a version from a PC demo disc when I was about 12 or so near it's release date in the UK..... I remember being unnecessarily enthusiastic and impressed at the shiny floor in the UNATCO HQ on the training level! And that my ATI Rage Pro with a whopping 16 or 32 mb of video memory could process such 'realistic graphics'
I usually enjoy this channel but I have to say the conspiracy theory part seemed extremely awkward. I get what you're saying about conspiracy theories being more harmful but I cant really imagine this game being "more uncomfortable" because of "angry white men" and it kind of just seemed like over the top rambling at that point especially when you admitted it's not the game's fault that the reputation of conspiracy theories has changed
Im 16 and picked it up on steam last year but couldnt get into it. Fast forward to 2020 and when corona hit I gave it another try with some mods to make it run better because of bugs. I finally got into it and is now one of my all time favourite games. For me its unbelivable that a game which is older than me can be so immersive and filled to rim with stuff to explore and different choices to make.
Lame, the 'conspiracy theories' are MORE relevant today and we should be confronting the powers that be MORE openly. the notion that they're 'uncomfortable' is just your own lack of spine showing in not questioning whether or not governments and corporations (pharmaceutical or otherwise) have your best interests at heart
@Chris Davis My advice is, if you find something uncomfortable, you should example it more deeply. Also had to LOL at the accents being borderline offensive -- they intentionally picked people of those nationalities to record the dialogue, which is why they sound as they do. Yes, mainland Chinese people do often tark riiike daat.
Check out Ikumi Nakamura's presentation at E3 last year; the verbal ticks of Maggie Chow are positively sedate. Noticing broad trends that differentiate ethnic groups only makes you a monster if you misjudge a person's character in light of them, and Ikumi speaks English a damn sight better than I'll ever speak Japanese.
@@honkinggoose7481 I have it on good authority that the fellow who plays All Might in My Hero Academia isn't event in the same haplogroup as a caucasoid. This is an unacceptable level of biological impurity in casting. You see, this whole topic of discussion becomes a bit of a farce once you think about it.
@@BobExcalibur The point wasn't that a chinese character was voiced by a white person, the point is that the original comment claimed that the voice actor was indeed chinese when that's not the case. Caring about the race of the voice actor is dumb, but that's not even the point Honking Goose was making. And acting as if it is makes you a honking goose.
Imagine being the guy who had to pitch that Paul Denton test subject plan to his Illuminati boss. "Hey, we need funding for our incredibly complicated, expensive, and failure-prone plan that, assuming all goes well, should deliver us a single test subject 20 years from now."
It worked out for Werner Von Braun. A lot of research projects operate as sunk cost fallacies for decades. Look at how much money is spent on fossil fuel alternatives, and the time frames in question. Not to say it isn't a valid subject of research, far from it, but "failure prone" is only the start of it.
BobExcalibur that is a bit different then putting enormous amounts of resources into the creation of a potentially good test subject 20 years from now, upon which you might actually be able to begin the proposed research.
@@CTOOFBOOGLE That's why vivisection is popular. If you want to test human viability for the application of a scientific innovation, you have to operate on a human timescale.
"It's a little uncomfortable innit?" Bro stick to your Downton Abbey reruns, you're clearly intimidated by the plot's complexity and JC's unironic manliness.
I love this game so much. But I totally agree, I always tried every single route through a level, even when I already achieved the objective in an easy way
"Deus Ex was never a great looking game. It didn't run especially well, and the character models were inferior to those in games like Half-Life." That's very generous of you to say Half-Life's models are better than Deus Ex's, since other players I've encountered don't hold Half-Life's graphics with high esteem. I'm a fan of Half-Life's graphics, too. At the same, I think your assessment of Deus Ex's character models are unfair. Its character models may not be as fluid as the ones in Unreal or Unreal Tournament, but they still move rather well, and they have a nice look to their design too. I'm surprised when you said it didn't run well, because it ran quite well on my brother's Windows 2000 when I first played it, and on my Windows XP and Windows 7 computers. It does have some issues with some computers, depending on which version or system you're using. The current Game of Year version for some reason has lingering bugs, like Page not exploding at the end, or music not playing in level when it should. You are right that game reviewers regarded the graphics as dated at the time of its release. "Where Deus Ex hasn't aged well is in its general positivity in championing of conspiracy theories. The main conspiracies included in this game are aliens and the Illuminati, plus a general distrust of vaccines. [...] In 2020, conspiracy theories undeniably more dangerous. You have anti-vaxxers, 9/11 being an inside job, everything Alex Jones says, and even the world being flat." I can see what you mean. There are bits of dialogue here and there that border on the rhetoric I've heard by modern day political nuts, but the conspiracies in Deus Ex at least never reached the same level of unreasonably crazy conspiracy theories like the ones you mentioned. At the same time, while Deus Ex makes nearly every conspiracy real, there's a lot of moral grays and mundane realities mixed in with the conspiracies. While the NSF are right about there being a conspiracy behind the Gray Death, and right about the wealth disparity, they're not necessarily right about everything else. They're mostly inexperienced, trigger-happy initiates who resort to doing stupidly dangerous things under pressure, and have extreme notions of what they think maximum freedom should look like. Leo Gold is right about a number of things, but he also did his share of bad things, as the woman with Harley Filben attests. The NSF associate with Jojo and the Rooks, who are not very stable either. One NSF referred to Jojo as a punk who'll get them all killed. Before the NSF knew of the existence of Majestic 12, back when they were the NWSF, they mainly formed as an extreme overreaction to an act of gun legislation, and tried to violently overthrow the government in a reckless raid on Washington. Deus Ex shows many times that just because the NSF came to oppose MJ-12, that doesn't mean that all of their intentions or actions were entirely justified. Tracer Tong himself is a great and honorable character, yet his Luminous Path Triad members have been capable of great cruelty, like what the Dazed Girl at the Lucky Money said they did to poor Ching-kuo. Although UNATCO is full of trigger-happy soldiers who are more concerned with military operations than with law enforcement, you still see some honorable members here and there who try to operate according to proper procedure. Even if the United Nations is rendered as a tool by Majestic 12, keep in mind that Sam Carter, who worked for the UN back in his day, operates according to many of the ideals of the UN that shaped him as a soldier and a peace-keeper. Consider some of Carter's lines: "In my day international peace keepers were citizens first and soldiers second." Or "My unit killed a bunch of Afghans one time, but we weren't proud of it. In fact, our liaison at the UN went to the funeral." While the Silhouette are also right in their cause against MJ-12, other Frenchmen think they're either going about it the wrong way, or spend too much of their time playing dumb pranks on the police like cutting off their ties. MJ-12 are severe and cruel, yet they also seem to hold annual family picnics, too. Joseph Manderley even alternates between being a corrupt and slimy official to someone who's trying to prevent UNATCO from becoming an even more extreme version of itself. And although VersaLife is responsible for engineering the Gray Death, most of their scientists spend most of their time arguing over what experiments they are allowed to do, or if teams should share scientific data with each other. On the issue of the Ambrosia Vaccine, the NSF are not opposed to the use of the vaccine itself. Their concern is mainly that the vaccine is restricted only to the super rich rather than to ordinary people, and that the Ambrosia Vaccine was not designed to properly vaccinate victims of the plague. It's more of a reference to Johnny Mnemonic than to current day vaccine-based fears. As the AI from Johnny Mnemonic puts it: "Treating the disease is more profitable than curing it!" There are lots of other grays mixed in the conspiracies of Deus Ex that are too numerous to mention here. If one concentrated only on the superficial aspects of Deus Ex's conspiracies, that would be a problem. If you pay closer attention to how the conspiracies in Deus Ex are told, you find that there's a lot of awkward and ordinary humanity incorporated into the lives of the conspirators and their resistors. It's not as extremely morally gray as Invisible War, but Deus Ex is still grayer in how it approaches its world than most conspiracy theories or conspiracy-based games. It's often the awkward, ordinary human aspect of life which conspiracy theories usually ignore.
Chris, to your point on the title: The idea of Deus Ex meaning "of god" and seeing JC as a godly figure is also likely part of the meaning as well as it being short for Deus Ex Machina. Warren Spector said in a post-mortem presentation on the game that the JC stands for Jesus Christ. So it's possible that the image chosen was actually intentional and that the degree to which Denton was a god-like figure was reduced throughout the development process. I also hope you enjoy playing through the rest of series, Invisible War is a respectable game that I think gets slept on a lot although it is very buggy (My last playthrough was completely corrupted just before the very last room in the game due to a bug, Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are also two of my favourite games of the 2010s and I feel as though no one really gives them the attention they deserve.
30:12 how to tell someone puts their own political biases over the substance of the story they're reviewing. Also that comment about the algorithm promoting content based on views instead of substance? That also applies to you bud.
The themes and content this game explores has stuck with me more than any other in the 15 years since I first played through it as a young teenager. It consistently made me question and experiment; both with the mechanics of the game (many of which I have to admit I had little to no problem interpreting with a little trial and error during my time with the game) and the major ideas it explores surrounding humanity, power and the nods to classical philosophical concepts and literature). I agree with you that it is a victim of the time in which it was produced - the tropes and stereotypes are tired, it wasn’t polished or perfect, there are some major narrative plot holes and a lack of meaningful character development for many characters) but I would also challenge that it was brilliant in its ambition and concepts for the time in which it was produced - and I had a whole lot of fun in this world which all at once felt eerily familiar and yet very alien. In my opinion, a masterpiece. Thank you for the review. 😊
Deus Ex is the perfect candidate for a remake. Places like Hell’s Kitchen and the MJ12 headquarters would look incredible with 2020 textures. Plus, with extra funding and time, separate story branches which are hinted at within the game (like staying with unatco instead of betraying them) could be fully fleshed out. I really enjoyed the main game even as a person who’s more interested in competitive shooters than rpgs, but I think that a few improvements could make it one of the best games ever made.
It would only ruin the game. Nobody would be able to recapture the feel of the old game and you can be certain that in this day and age nobody would invest money into making separate story branches. Publishers now are interested in the cheapest way to make a profit. If anything they'd ruin it with microtransactions and multiplayer focus.
I truly love the content you make, I love long winded analysis and retrospective videos. But I've noticed more and more that you tend to... let your politics show a bit more than I'd like. Now I'm just one person, so maybe it's just me, and I'll admit, your political views don't exactly match up with mine, but I never let that deter me. I'm here for good content, not politics as it were. So when you mentioned the flat earth society being a group of angry young white men, it really rubbed me the wrong way. You can have your opinion, I truly don't want anyone to think they don't because this world needs people with differing opinions... but that statement came off as both racist and sexist (regardless of the people that'll tell you it's impossible to be racist to white people) I know 2 flat earthers, they're smart, good at their jobs, and good people, they just bought into the lie that the earth is flat, fun fact... One is a woman. You can't and shouldn't just assume and spout blatant lies like they're fact, it makes you come off looking like a racist sexist person which, after all I've seen of your content, I don't believe you are either. Just please be more careful about some of the stuff you say, if you don't show proof and data that backs up your idea, then keep it to yourself. Otherwise, great content man. Please take this as constructive criticism by a fan!
Agreed with 90% of your points on Deus ex but the whole conspiracy stuff I disagree with. Especially your comment on how flat earthers are a refuge for young angry white men that came off a bit unfair. Flat earthers aren't the smartest people and are usually distrusting of anything any major group has to say, yet that's not because of their race or gender. Same with the "911 was an inside job" they are like that not because of their race or gender. Other than that I liked the video I'm definitely looking forward to your invisible war video as I remember that game being interesting mess
Flat-earthers are a very broad church; there's certainly not a monopoly held over the idea by the one demographic you're encouraged to hate. That being said, Chris has his algorithms to think about. Demonetization comes very quickly and he doesn't have the numbers that Ssethtzeentach has. He has to have the tamest takes possible on a purely pragmatic level, before you get to any personal bias.
@@Dermetsu Oh no no no no, you can't point that out! It's not rhetoric! Meanwhile replace the word white with black in his flat earth sentence and suddenly... But it's okay baby boy, no need to bother your pretty little head.
A real GOAT. Revision and GMDX mods are the best way to revisit DX1 these days. Don't care about IW, but can't way to see your HR and MD vids. Both fantastic games.
Anachronox and Deus Ex are the only two really good things to come out of Ion Storm. I'd ague that the game was a good looking game when it was released. I still remember the PC Gamer review gushing over how great the game looked. On a side note, I found a sealed copy of Deus Ex at a thrift store recently, and it's all mine!!!
Great video! Never heard of "ex machina" as a kid, I thought Deus Ex was made up. The JC initials are an easter-egg. There's an option to re-name him, the nickname was an innovative solution for consistent narration. In 2001 Gothic they had to constantly dance around a "nameless hero" loophole. Part of DX's greatness is you've missed more than a few things. Hong Kong has a "hidden" water level & story insights, 1st mission has a sunken freighter /w loot.. On max difficulty; tranq-dart kiting and stealth one-shotting with the Prod & baton is an exciting non-lethal way to play. Detection means surrounded by a crowd of crappy aim-bots, augments and assault weapons become relevant. Your map sniping AI & stealth-purity knowing it's a Spectre stealth-hybrid + cheesing Simons is just odd. Unlike Revolution, mech-augmentation is high-clearance personnel only; they're scorned for sacrificing limbs to be more effective enforcers.. NSF-Paul convinces JC because of relationship and evidence. All of the readable lore items have relevant explanations for game events and world-building. Restricted access routes give fun practical meaning to multi-tools & lockpicks, not a means to skipping the level. I also agree /w comments about the conspiracy criticism. From the very beginning It's about a corporate tyranny conspiracy. The Illumanti & vaccine control are just sub-plots. Also, the alien presence was minor & practical for location. A nice homage to "possibilities" w/o de-railing the game. There's more, but I think you get the idea and my text wall is already massive :DD
How can you say (around 31:30) that the “increasing ease of access” to information is “making people stupider and less concerned with facts” when across the course of human history most people have been like this? Think burning witches at the stake, believing the world is 6000 years old, or that the earth was the centre of the universe, just to name a few? I’d argue that things are not much different, sure, but that these people (flat earthers, conspiracy nuts, and all those that you mentioned) are now, more than ever, the outlier!
The mass media corporations present the greater spread of information as a danger to society 1: because it undermines their hegemonic control over what people think on the broader cultural level and 2: it allows for information about real corruption to be broadly disseminated well before counter-narratives can be put in place. To this end its ensured the most absurd conspiracy theories are presented to people as the totality of any dissent against them, using the very same algorithms that Chris claims guides people to "white supremacy". As if Stephen Molyneux discussing FBI statistics is going to usher in the ethnostate. Dissemination of information of course leads to bad outcomes like any form of technology, but the mainstream narrative surrounding the subject always errs on fearing the printing press, just as the churches did back in the fifteenth century.
I think Chris made a mistake with that one. Ease of of access for information didn't make anyone more stupid, it exposed us to the fact that so many stupid people actually existed. The ease of hiding in a bubble online was probably the bigger issue, it was a lot harder to form a bubble around yourself during the early internet. I guess we all expect instant access to the vast majority of the sum total of human knowledge to date would make people smarter just by osmosis, but when they intentionally hide from learning things, they go on to form conspiracy theories and whatever else -- just look at this comment section, filled with people upset that people don't take their dumbass point of view seriously. They don't understand that some conspiracies having been real in the past should never equal you believing whatever some jagoff says on the internet.
@@Xbob42 Keep in mind that information aggregators and media organisations will always highlight the people with the most outlandish beliefs and push them to the top of your news feed, including mainstream news organisations. "Man bites dog" is the trend when it comes to interest stories, so gradually absurdity becomes the only worldview that exists outside of the "normalcy" that the aggregator wants to push. Which itself is a "normalcy" as observed by the Alphabet Corporation's HR Department. Remember, biological sex doesn't exist, and if you say it does you can be fired.
Here are the timestamps:
Intro - 0:00
Making of - 2:27
Story - 11:28
Gameplay - 31:42
Map Design - 48:59
Conclusion - 1:04:14
Chris, you are defiling this masterpiece with your pointless and incredibly biased rhetorics. Just... stop.
@@Gungrave123 how dare he express his opinion on his own video.
@@Dermetsu How dare people have an opinion of their own and not kiss the content creator's ass unconditionally.
@@Dermetsu how dare gungrave express his opinion!
Chris expressed his own opinion, and each and every one of you has made posts crying about it. And you all sound like robots while doing so.
Rating the story lower for current events is quite weak. i would actually think that it's a big plus on that behalf. that the game actually portrays a futuristic world that was incabable of controling the spread despite their technology and knowledge on human enhancement.
Agreed, that was a woke "in the moment" take. He looks really stupid 2 years later.
He has a lot of moments like that
"I have to give Fahrenheit 451 a lower rating because it's getting closer to our reality and I don't like it."
he has a lot of shit opinions to be honest. When he said the new characters were ok/good in Baldurs Gate EE I stopped taking him seriously @@nboy7
> Still (Mostly) Great...
I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you badmouth the greatest...
😂😂👍
Nothing is perfect
No mantling. I SHUT IT OFF RIGHT THERE. And then immediately reinstalled it.
I'd argue the story in Deus Ex, especially in its world building is some of the most timeless parts of the game. Themes of terrorism, consolidation and surveillance the game covers only became far more prevalent in our world as time passes.
The only timeless theme there is consolidation. All of the other you mentioned aren't timeless, but rather modern day consideration. They will most likely continue to be important from now on,, but that doesn't exactly make them timeless as there is a whole lot of TIME behind us.
@@khankhomrad8855 Timeless in the sense of being relevant to what we were experiencing in the 90s, to what we are experiencing in the 20's. There has never been a time when the topics of the game were not prophetic. He does not mean timeless as in 'the content of game will be relevant up to and beyond heat death of the universe'.
They existed during that time - the devs just read the writing on the wall that John Q. Citizen ignored. Ultimate Davis here seems to agree with you, that the themes have become so relevant that it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it's good to feel uncomfortable.
@Bwa Bwa Yoshi MGS2 argued on the merits of modern day social engineering before it was even as widescale as it is
not to mention how prophetic it was in predicting the aftermath of 9/11
I found Anna's death on the plane annoying. I didn't kill her, she committed suicide by LAM. I shouldn't be guilt tripped because of her lack of explosive safety and low environmental awareness.
Elitistb616 same here. I booby trapped the plane to take out the inevitable (to me not knowing the story) stream of baddies that i was sure was going to come in after me, Then anna shows up and sets off my mines.
@@jasonlescalleet5611 Oh, glad I'm not the only one. I was just talking to the guy, then "Boom!" and the tech is yelling at me that I'd killed Anna.
Hahahaha i never used mines except for droids and mechs
She threw a LAM and took the blast during your playthrough?
@@unfa00 Oh, no, I threw the LAM. But its her fault she walked onto it. There was no way I could have known she'd walk onto an obvious LAM on the floor. Maybe she should have knocked.
id argue that the story is uncomfortable for the right reasons
Just wait when he discover Plague Inc.
Choose your own adventure game content prediction of reality 20 years ago. Yeah best game of all time. And i hated choose your own adventure books and games back then. Cyberpunk 2077 looks promising but i don't have time for games really.
i get it. 2020 and all that. it's why i kinda don't want to even touch police quest anymore due to recent events.
but deus ex had no idea this was gonna happen.
I think the game developers did know. The human 2.0 project was started a couple years before this game was released... and i think they know biblical theology. what we are seeing is end game for satan and hes about to lose to the creator of all. Sky party
Agreed. Just because something makes someone uncomfortable doesnt mean its bad. If we never felt uncomfortable, we would never have our beliefs questioned or revised to understand our world better.
I also love how dismissive chris is towards the grim simularities in the plot to irl either to say "yeah, it exists. Everyone knows, who cares" or "only people I disagee with/dislike and call names will ever gleam insight from the simularities". Especially when he disregards the illuminati's existance is just a "anti Semitic stand in" when its more of a stand in for governments, companies, or the such who pull crap to get more money or influence (a point more impartially and scholarly pointed out by Ross Scott's vid).
I don't know why you would think a deus ex nowadays would celebrate antivaxxers and flat earthers, the first game just uses those conspiracies as decoration for their story, it doesn't actually want you to believe aliens or lizard people exist. Warren even says in the panel from which you've edited clips into this video that he just took all the ridiculous conspiracies he could and imagined a world where they were all real.
The game does unironically have the spirit of a conspiracy theorist, but I think there's a pretty obvious line between when the game is having fun with Men In Black, plasma guns, and aliens, and when the game is going on a long dialogue about how corporations manipulate the government and media in order to create a self substaining loop of profit and control. There's a reason the NSF commander at the beginning quotes tax rates instead of eye witness accounts at Roswell.
I don't think he said anything of the kind, actually. It's all in the language and he used the term' ridiculous conspiracies" and left out the dismissive and decisive word of 'theorist' used to discredit the truth. It's not a mistake or a coincidence, or even a poorly worded phrase, it's the extreme opposite in fact! He just said it was ridiculous, which is true b j t doesn't say anything or even imply that it wasn't still true. You're seeing what ya wanna see and 'conspiracy theorists' is a cia term to keep people from exposing them, y o ure j u st helping them with their scumbag bullshit
@@jeremyrobertson7267 "'conspiracy theorists' is a CIA term"
You're gonna wanna brush up on that one fam, your nose will follow the truth!
if human revolution and man kind divided showed. deus ex should have just stayed in the early 2000's. not due to content but them just not being as good games.
I don't think he's really saying that the game "celebrates" those specific (more modern) conspiracy theories. He's just saying that when you're a teenager, conspiracy theories can be quite a bit of fun. But when you grow up, it's easier to see that they can be quite harmful - and they're not nearly as interesting, anyway. So it's more about how growing up can change the way you view (or enjoy) a classic game.
@@kuribojim3916 So growing up reduces your ability to differentiate an obvious work of fiction from actual crackpots who believe in similar conspiracies? You do know that there have been conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and Majestic 12 for decades before Deus Ex released right? The reason the final chapter of the game is in Area 51 is because its Majestic 12 who are purportedly supposed to have recovered the UFO that people believed crashed in Roswell.
JC doesn't have to betray UNATCO on Paul's word only, he directs you to a heavily fortified vault where you can find evidence of their corruption.
“I’m constantly amazed at how accurate our view of the world ended up being. Frankly it freaks me out a bit,” Spector wrote. Later he continued, “Interestingly, I’m not sure I’d make Deus Ex today. The conspiracy theories we wrote about are now part of the real world. I don’t want to support that.”
I played through the game pretty exhaustively, and there are enough cultural artifacts scattered around that strongly suggest that one or more people smelled a rat about what current events were actually about and where they were actually heading. Of course, "fiction" provides the perfect plausible deniability for getting a political message out.
Yeah he's a bitch. He hit the nail on the head and got embarrassed and scared and bitched out
remember spector is a j
@@consumer1073 based
@@esotericbrain2689 everything in deus ex came true because you were being told what would happen, of course they wouldn't make it now because our window to change things has long been closed. they call it the revelation of the m*thod
Deus Ex. Also known as: 2020: The Game.
I was hoping for a 20th anniversary remake from Square Enix, but not irl
Niko Bellic yeah, Square Enix really overdid it a bit with that 20th anniversary special, didn’t they?!?
Need Corona Antidote but communists keep it for themselves in China
still no ambrosia vaccine though and the conspiracy theories this time around kind of suck compare to what's going on in deus ex
Lol, covid is totally grey death light.
As many others have pointed out, I can't believe how utterly insane (not to mention irrelevant) the critique on the story is. Not only is this a work of fiction (you don't need to believe in the Force to enjoy Star Wars, do you?), but if anything, the themes DE tackles (terrorism, a distrustful global political climate, a heavily polarized world wherein huge corporations control ever more aspects of our lives, and so on) make the game stand out as being still relevant, and in some areas downright prophetic, seeing as how it was released in 2000. In the end, though, not only is Deus Ex not a political game by any means (but rather a sci-fi / cyberpunk story that happens to delve into a few good old-fashioned conspiracy theories like the Illuminati and Freemasons etc), it's also about so much more -- the human condition, artificial intelligence and its possible role in mankind's future, identity, and so forth. In general, I absolutely don't understand how DE's story could be seen as "not having aged well" because conspiracy theories abound, and most especially not why this might make someone feel uncomfortable. Novels like Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 might feel a tad "uncomfortable" to read too now, as they seemingly predicted a fair amount of things we see in society today, but to criticise them for it would simply be ludicrous, as in effect it only makes them relevant and poignant even today.
Wholly apart from all that, in the end, DE's story (and especially its execution, its reach, its characters, its massive attention to detail in its worldbuilding) remain something to be marvelled at. Who can forget the dialogues with Lucius deBeers, the Morpheus AI, or characters like Anna Navarre and Gunther Hermann? The curveball it threw at you when encountering the terrorist leader at the top of the Statue of Liberty, who made you question who and what you worked for (rather than being the boss-fight I think most players were expecting)? Or even the 'Jacob's Shadow' and 'The Man Who Was Thursday' novels you kept encountering throughout the game, whose story snippets always seemed to be so fitting to where you were in the game? That's not to mention the mood of the music, which set the tone perfectly through every segment of the experience. I realise I'm veering off course with these things, beyond the boundaries of the story in itself, but suffice to say that Deus Ex has one of the greatest and most wonderfully executed science-fiction storylines I've ever seen in a game. How anyone might twist it into having potential politically-incorrect overtones twenty years later, then call it uncomfortable and indeed criticise it for not having aged well despite the game obviously being mainly sci-fi at its heart, is beyond me. For the record; I'm not much into one-world-government conspiracy theories (fascinated me as a teen though), but all I see in Deus Ex is a fantastic SF tale that was developed to perfection, which happened to contain elements which, sadly, proved to become ever more relevant to our present-day society. Uncomfortable and at times a bit spooky for how much it "got right", way before the game's setting of the mid-2050s? Sure! A relevant point of criticism? Not at all.
The story is hands down the best thing about the game. Yes i know this is a 3 year old xomment 😂
In terms of Conspiracy Theories, I used to think like you do. I would ask this simple question to debunk any Conspiracy Theory, which is "If true, who has the money and the power to pull off such an operation?". Then I learned that Central Banks around the World are PRIVATELY owned, controlled and/or operated. I also learned how Fractional Reserve Banking works. Together, that answered the Q of "Who has the money and power". I am an engineer by training/education. Then, from a scientific/engineering perspective, I did research and tried to debunk many of the Conspiracy Theories I have been hearing. Instead of disproving them, I found many are true. Many are false (such as UFOs, Aliens, etc.), but many of the disturbing ones are true.
Anyway, my efforts to debunk Conspiracy Theories have led down a Rabbit Hole that is truly frightening.
Just to add clarification: I am AGAINST the Private Central Banking SYSTEM. It does not matter who is on top. Eliminating the people on top does not solve the World's problems if the SYSTEM remains in place. It is the SYSTEM that needs to be eliminated.
Fractional reserve banking is crazy stuff. Unfortunately observing _who_ the vast majority of those private owners of the banks, or controls of the Federal Reserve, or came up with the ideal of fractional reserve banking in the first place, is considered hate speech now. Funny how that works.
@@itsarchie1261 Good point, I should add a Clarification to my original comment.
@@itsarchie1261 It truly is masterful work. Any and all discussion can be shut down by being called a racist.
Once you understand how global banking works, how the UN operates, and how almost all information now passes through 7 global media/social media corporations before it reaches the public it becomes really easy to see how a global elite could feasibly accomplish some sinister things while keeping the wool pulled over most people's eyes. I think the manufactured chaos of 2020 (a pivotal election year in the U.S. hmm....) should be a wake up call.
@@CelestialArboretum The "Wool was pulled over my eyes" for most of my life. I wish I learned the truth sooner in my life.
This game was prescient on so many different levels. Deus Ex predicted meme wars 20 freaking years ago. You get this information from one of the terminals at UNATCO. It really makes you wonder how much of it was a case of the writers doing extensive research, or them just throwing all the crazy conspiracy theories imaginable in the game and seeing what’ll stick.
MGS2 did it shockingly well too.
@@JZStudiosonline MGS2's GW conversation touches more on cancel-culture, safe spaces and social media than Deus Ex does with political conspiracy and societal commentary, imo. Especially with "Rose" and her line about "Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large." and is followed up by Colonel Campbell's AI stating: "The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right."
@@morgan79737 literally my favorite chunk of that whole conversation. Its nail on head accurate to the current climate, with the resurgence of PC culture, as you mentioned, being especially toxic.
@@morgan79737 Equally that sentiment echoes the way that the powers that be have requested greater net censorship, which has been seen as a way of increasing societal/cultural control and curbing the exposure of actual conspiracies before the public become widely aware of them (Regard the destruction of Wikileaks over the last decade).
A lot of cultural capital has been invested in making the public more accepting of censorship. Ask anyone what they think of the media and they'll tell you "Oh I don't trust them, they're always lying." but equally if you ask them for their opinion on a controversial public figure they are only aware of through media osmosis, and they'll say, "Oh yeah, they're evil right?".
@@morgan79737 The guy just said Deus Ex predicted some things. As far as I'm aware aliens, area 51, and the Illuminati are all non issues. I think MGS2 got much closer, despite the fact that it's a game about giant fucking robots and nanomachines.
Though it is fun to look at stuff in retrospect. Ironically, my first time ever watching Blade Runner was in November of 2019. Like "Holy shit! This movie is happening RIGHT NOW!"
Conspiracy theories in modern times are quite scary, but the fact that the game is about them is largely what makes it interesting. It's a thing that needs to be talked about. It didn't age poorly at all; it became even more relevant. And it goes both ways: I grew up surrounded by a lot of pseudo scientific contrarian quackery, but have this game to thank for making me think critically about what I was being subjected to. It could be either Infowars: The Game, or Infowars: The Game (The Satire) depending on your mood
It would be wrong to write off Deus Ex' story for "glorifying conspiracy" when there's so much truth in there. Stuff like Qanon (which I believe is a disinfo op) and Alex Jones paint the public image of conspiracy theory (or questioning power) as inherently crazy. We have CEOs and execs being given governmental positions over things that directly benefit their business, lobbying, high level corruption like the 2008 crash going unpunished, the patriot act, the rise of PMCs, bipartisan support for the rich, Epstein, the CIA toppling democratic governments for trade and resources (for like 70 years,) the media keeping half of the population hysteric over everything but the reality of our corporate overlords etc. No doubt there are lunatic conspiracy nuts out there, I've met some, but just because a lunatic said it doesn't mean it's wrong. Alex Jones is a grifter and a madman and yet in between all the accusations of baby eating, crisis actors and devil worship he'll often say something completely based (and true) that you'd never hear on the "news." Basically the dangers and consequences of conspiracy theorism have been used as a smokescreen for the reality of the corporate oligarchy, keeping us complacent to quell any kind of revolt or calls for reform.
in what way does this game satirize conspiracy theories lul. they're presented at face value
@@aburrki6732 It doesn't satirize anything. It merely uses the concept of conspiracy theories to tell a story, that is never presented as anything other than fiction. The existence of 9/11 truthers, antivaxxers and infowars/Alex Jones doesn't detract or make the story uncomfortable. There have been crackpot conspiracy theories for decades, if there hadn't been the game probably would never have been made, or at least it would be very different.
I applaud your efforts with this longform retrospective but it felt like you didn't fully understand some of the story elements and what it was trying to do.
You also mention how 'current events' make you feel uncomfirtable but 9/11 happened just over a year after the game's realease --- conspiracy is in Deus Ex's blood.
I feel like the story has aged, really well, I feel like it's still a good commentary, about how the modern world operates and the unfathomable secrets kept by Elites, I genuinely feel like it's never left Prevalence, and could fit back in 2000, as well as in 2020
i don't know if it says more about me or you that you missed a lot of the nuances in gameplay elements, like the threshold damage for doors, or even cameras, for example, at rifles Master you can deal enough damage with 1 shot to destroy cameras with a sniper rifle, with melee at Master you can break through the threshold of doors that have a strength of 50 with the dragons tooth sword, which is most destructible doors in the game.
Melee is greatly the stronger option in the early game because of how bad you are at shooting then, but quickly falls off as your shooting skills increase and so does the enemies damage output.
You mention the assault rifle was horrible, it's actually only horrible un-modded and with low skills, once you reach that 100% accuracy while moving threshold it becomes broken, shotguns on the other hand are trash by comparison, slower dps, and much MUCH shorter range, not to mention the assault rifle has the built in grenade launcher which is good enough for light and medium mechs if you don't want to carry the hefty gep gun
also gep gun sniping with it's lock on function never gets old :D
you didn't mention the health medical or energy maintenance bots that also break the game, having infinite health or energy at hand when those bots are nearby, and with a health regen mod, the energy bot also functions as a health bot, or the spy drone when near an energy bot is essentially infinite emp grenades as they explode with emp damage on detonation.
Or the flame thrower, how setting someone on fire with a single tap immediately renders that enemy useless as they can't shoot while on fire (bar the commandos)
or the mini crossbow which is actually incredibly strong early game, line up you aim, head shot, then walk away as the tranc does the job
speed running jumpy legs is hilarious
I'm sure theres a lot more that i could cover, but as i said, i don't know if it says more about me that i know these things or you that you didn't mention them :D
(also i could have sworn in a patch the power recirculation mod auto activates when you enable any other active mod)
Two corrections:
-The Dragon's Tooth Sword needs Master in Low-Tech and Tech 2 in Combat Strength (or Advanced and Tech 4, or some other combination with the Targeting aug) to break damage thresholds of 50. The reason is that it does 20 damage in 5 separate hits, which all count individually when going up against a damage threshold. So you need at least +150% damage, while Master weapon skills only provide a +100% damage bonus.
-The Power Recirculator never auto-activated in vanilla, as all augmentations are require manual activation. You're thinking of Biomod or GMDX.
But yes, there's a ton more he could have mentioned in gameplay discussion, both good and bad. In fact, he wouldn't be able to get through it all if the entire hour long video had been spent on gameplay!
@@rosodudersd260 well spotted, yeah you're right :)
also the Deus Ex death match patch :D who thought that was a good idea :D was fun tho :)
hey, thank you
this information is pretty useful for me since im on my first playthrough
@@cinnamontoast1586 also i forgot, sticking mines on walls allows you to use them as makeshift stepping stones :)
you can destroy cameras with a sniper rifle?????? i've been through this game 10 times...
You can break your fall with the leg augmention that allows you to jump higher.
Also, technically he meets 4 AIs, Daedalus, Icarus, Morpheus and Helios.
Hm. So the reactions from this guy...hmm.
Ill just say it. I find it odd/funny/weird how he points out how conspiracy theories back in the day were "fun" but now are "uncomfortable". I thought he was going somewhere...else with that but oh well.
What I; personally, found uncomfortable however was his benign reaction to the "reality" of how corporations run and ruin the world. Because hey! "Its just part of life". Which sure, that WAS his life; since he stated his background and all, still odd to be cool with that.
However, given the comparison he makes is what has me scratching my head. When he claimed how modern day "conspiracy" was all about anti-vax and flat earth. And how the red pill is just white nationalists and misogynists.
I was like...wait what? So the world being slowly fucked by groups of wealthy usually evil/selfish/greedy people who have ACTUAL power is OK to you, but some small minority of whackjobs is where the real damage is being done?? Ya, can't say I agree with that. Like, at all.
Not to mention there are other actual conspiracies that are going on besides flat earth and anti vax. I still find it funny how people swore up and down about how that pizza place was nothing but conspiracy, late night show people made actual jokes about it.
A year later? Oh look there is this guy named epstien who has a small island for the sole purpose of prostituting kids to the wealthy.
So, a small pizza place is crazy, but a whole private island makes sense. I mean, I can't make this shit up. No one even brings up the pizza place ever since Epstein. I think the biggest strike against that conspiracy was "THE PLACE HAD NO BASEMENT SO ITS ALL FALSE!" And I'm over here looking at Podesta's murals depicting naked young boys in his house, ya, totally nothing weird going on AT ALL.
That is all.
I think your takes on a lot of this aged worse in 1-2 years than this game did in over 2 decades
Just a note from a classicist : "Deus ex" (without machina) can't mean "out of God", which would be "e(x) Deo" or "a(b) Deo" (from God), because latin uses declensions (is that the word you use in English ?) So I always thought it was a reference to the expression, since to be the god from the machine is the objective of the antagonist, and is something you can choose to do.
Anyway, very good work as always ! I just get nitpicky when it's about my job. ^^
Yes, declensions.
I'm surprised that a person who has worked in law wouldn't make a correct call on the latin grammar. Then again, tax law is a different animal from Latin legislature.
Thanks. One of many points where he thinks he knows what he's talking about.
@@tydendurler9574 I genuinely don't know what you are talking about. He seems reasonable enough on the rest.
Ludovic Thed I think he might be talking about in general. Not this video specifically. I like his content well enough but he has a tendency to make anywhere from minor to quite major errors generally at least once in most of his videos. Stuff that either could’ve been averted had he done a little more research in the topic to outright completely misunderstanding or misinterpreting something.
Incoming wall of text:
>the shooting is terrible and always was
Literally just get better at the game.
>Deus Ex is a world run by corporations
It's run by individuals, not organisations - the organisations are tools the individuals use to maintain their power.
>conspiracy theories bad because of these strawmen examples!!!
Research the history of the term "conspiracy theory" and how it was used to discredit those that question authority. The examples you've given are actually examples of this, in my opinion.
>planning to do a series retrospective
Don't forget to cover Deus Ex: Frozen Hell
>may give the crown to invisible war
Objectively wrong opinion
>Game models looked inferior to half life
I really have to disagree with this - the textures in vanilla half-life were flat and blurry. Not to mention the mouth animations.
>Paul could've told JC not to kill the NSF soldiers
He does, in a way - he repeatedly tells JC to choose the non-lethal approach. If he had been more explicit, he would've given away that he was working with them - and JC might not have joined him.
>Triad war feels pointless
I agree that it doesn't feel 100% relevant at the time, but I believe (just conjecture, I have no evidence) that this quest gives you a reason to explore Hong Kong before moving on. If Tong just sent you straight to Versalife, you could easily miss half of the map, and Hong Kong is probably the best "hub" map in the game.
>Illuminati ending sucks
Yes
>Tong Ending best
Yes
>Alex Denton
This is an interesting one - how did they get the clone out of Area 51? There's a theory that the "Alex Denton" we see in the tank is just a hologram, which makes some sense.
>Deus Ex/Machina name
When I first saw the cover art, I understood it as "of God" as you did, but wasn't really sure how that fit into the game - the helicopters in the background seemed to imply that the light JC was caught in was a searchlight from one of the choppers and I didn't even consider that it could be a holy light - in my defense I was 14. The ending of the game certainly fits Deus Ex Machina both intentionally - with "God from the machine" referring to creating a new God out of a machine - and unintentionally, with the ability to choose whatever you want right at the end, which feels a bit weak. Much better than Human Revolution when you just choose a button to press.
>Walter Simons
"Do you have even a passing interest in remembering my name?"
>he doesn't save Paul
To be fair I do like that this is optional - the fight to save him is tough as nails, and it feels rewarding if you actually manage to beat it.
>Killing Anna early is meaningless
You have to lie directly to your superiors when they call you up on this, and that did make me feel tense at the time. I think this worked well.
>Corporations rule real life as well
Corporations are dependent on governments to exist, so how can they rule everything? It's in the definition of the word Corporation - it allows people to not be personally financially responsible for making bad decisions in business - this would not be possible without a government and legal system that supports it.
>apologizing for helping companies pay less tax
again, this is a symptom of the system that encourages this behavior, so you can't take responsibility for it. If you were a CFO that purposefully paid more tax than the bare minimum, the shareholders could fire you for not doing your job properly.
>Deus Ex champions conspiracy theories
In the game, they're not theories. If you choose to compare them to real life, that's your decision, not the games.
>the illuminati is too similar to anti-semitic theories
The fact that you drew this comparison seems to suggest that you're more concerned about appearing anti-Semitic than you are about questioning authority
>Conspiracy theories are harmful even when they don't encourage violence
Yeah just believe everything you're told I guess
>Flat earth theory is a refuge for angry white men
You haven't really explained the relevance of race in this point?
>the algorithm promotes anger
I do agree with this - I think that social media in general has tapped into a human desire to be outraged and angered, and this (purposefully or otherwise) ends up making you more likely to see posts you disagree with
>The virus theory isn't fun because it's real now
I've got some bad news - this isn't the only thing in Deus Ex that's uncomfortably similar to real life.
>Killing DeBeers has no tangible consequence
Since it's completely optional, it felt like I made this moral decision not as the JC Denton character, or to progress the game in a certain way, but as me. I liked this, but I see your point too.
>footsteps sounds suck
yes
>JC can't jump
Should've picked the good leg augmentation
>you can't distract guards
you can throw things that make sounds and it will distract them. Also firing flare darts will do this, and you'll probably keep hold of the crossbow if you choose to play stealthy.
>Sending the broadcast at the NSF HQ triggers the alarm
I thought this worked really well for the reasons you described. This was a scary moment to me, and possibly one of the best twists in the game - Walton Simons has been watching you fall for his trap the entire time. He then tells you that all those armed guys you walked past on your way in are now coming to kill you. It really makes you think "oh fuck"
>played the vanilla game for the retrospective
Nice one. It wouldn't be much of a retrospective if you played a conversion mod like Revision that came out a couple of years ago! Especially since it changes the levels. Fuck Revision.
I did like this video and I don't mean to come off as mean spirited in any of the points I've mentioned, but I really do disagree with a lot of your points around the plot and conspiracy. Still, I'm looking forward to your videos on the rest of the series.
Man that's a long post
@@sevenkaylive dialog mode was set to verbose
You have destroyed this video. Thank you.
>the fight to save Paul is tough as nails
Bruh just lock yourself in a secret closet and wait
@@Jesion-kv9tu Does Paul not die if you do this? Last time I played was GMDX so not necessarily a good representation of how the game plays.
I suppose I didn't consider hiding because I usually set lams and gas grenades in the hallway to own the MiBs and UNATCO troops epically - this tends to destroy Paul's closet.
"Especially the freedom to solve problems in many ways, something that few games were doing in the nineties *and ever fewer games do nowadays* . "
fixed that for you.
there are plenty of games nowadays that let you have many choices, just fucking play those instead of yearning for the good old days. deus ex wasn't mainstream back then either, it shouldn't be hard to look outside the biggest games to find exactly what you want to play
@@aburrki6732 i am sorry, has my freedom to express my thoughts angered you?
ever heard of prey? dishonored? new deus ex games? whole new hitman trilogy?
@@MidnightSt Damn son, they goin hard on your ass.
Game is a damn masterpiece. Makes you feel enlightened after finishing it.
I never got the chance to play this game although I've heard how influential it was and still is but I've played Human Revolution and Mankind Divided and I enjoyed both games but I might give HR the edge but MD fixes some the issues from HR that made it more accessible and the graphics helped alot.
the fact that the story was able to make you feel this uncomfortable given the current situation is EXACTLY why this game is so timeless.
Yeah this was a smooth brain take on the vaxxing scenario by him. Agree or not with how the game portrayed it, it IS accurate and thats a big plus for the games story writing.
@@nboy7 no it's not. covid wasn't artificially manufactured by Pfizer or China (or whatever conspiracy you think is "accurate" and "not smooth brained").
@@alexscriabin it was man made
I always assumed the title was a reference to "Deus Ex Machina", but in a more literal sense than simply the story-telling cliché, especially because of the Helios ending. After JC merges with the AI, he talks about bringing enlightenment to the masses, and to top it off you get Voltaire's quote "If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to create it." That ending makes for a very literal "Deus Ex Machina", since it magically "solves" society by way of cyborg Jesus.
i don't understand his uncomfortableness with the conspiracy storyline. It was always supposed to be uncomfortable. It's the source of this dystopian society...
He can hear the truth scratching and clawing at his door, but he won't open it because it would destroy him
I think he's talking more about how conspiracy theorist culture has evolved since the game released, rather than the conspiracy storyline itself.
When this game was released, conspiracy theories were just mere entertainment. It was a bunch of internet nerds spitballing crazy ideas, not really taking them super seriously. Now people are so absorbed in conspiracy theories that they have a core part of their deeply held political views, which is a serious problem that has enabled a lot of regressive, anti-intellectual movements and policies.
So in short: the game is fantastic and its intentions were harmless. But replaying it in 2020 makes it feel more like "Infowars: The Game" which is a little awkward.
@@austinthefreak Please allow me to say something that may prove disturbing, your belief that everyone is obsessed with conspiracy theories is false. You may think that crazy theories can influence people's political choices, that is wrong, it is propaganda aimed at the other side, I am European and my country is governed by the left, but even still people say that the opposition is "mentally ill" and is completely brain washed by flat earthers and the like. I guess it is the same in your country. You should understand that people are smarter than that.
You may even think that democracy is only possible when people are "educated" and when the government control the media so that moral standards are respected, this belief is dangerous in my opinion and everything that "dehumanize" the opposition is bad. You can see that the left and the right can use the same wrong tactics and usually it leads to bad things.
@@BigC60 I think you are misrepresenting what I said. I don't think "everyone" is obsessed with conspiracy theories. It is definitely a vocal minority situation and I acknowledge that. However, conspiracy theories have a much bigger impact on my country than they once did, mostly for the worse. It's a very real issue because it's now being weaponized in mainstream politics from our own government officials.
Some "conspiracy theories" are a good example of citizens simply searching for truth where it is clearly being obstructed (such as the theories surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death), but the majority of popular conspiracy theories are more on the level of pizzagate, QAnon, flat earth, anti-vax, etc. These kinds of theories are not organic or warranted. They are a result of astroturfing, misunderstood satire, or just plain ignorance.
@@austinthefreak What you say is just a belief, based on ZERO evidence, it's not rational.
You probably want to believe that because it makes you feel superior , but in the end you sound like you live in a fantasy universe.
Anti-Conspiracy, huh so Chris is Anti Ross Game Dungeon.
Well, differences of opinion make for interesting discussion. I don't think Chris is Anti-Ross, just because their interests don't align on this specific subject.
@@DetlevvanLoenhout It's a joke.
I love Game Dungeon
Ross has always been honest about his position of a sceptic against power and never being comfortable withing the corporate system. Chris is honest that he has acted as an accountant and lawyer in servitude to the corporate system.
Inevitably one of them was going to come down on the side of putting more faith in the public to make their own decisions about what media and corporations want them to think, while the other would come to the opposite conclusion.
Ross made that a little while ago, things have changed a bit - that said I didn't get a "pro-conspiracy" vibe from what Ross said, more of an anti-authority/oligarchy sentiment which shouldn't be confused.
You know that the game must be good when his immediate criticisms with it are aspects which aren't problems at all
[EDIT, 15/11/2024] After two years of introspection, I actually mostly agree with what was said at the beggining.
"but the story is a little uncomfortable in 2020"... lol indeed it is. And even so more in 2021 :)
2022 even more than 2021 . . .
HELLO 2023
Rolling my eyes at your portrayal of it as uncomfortable. Terrible review, you jumped the shark here.
he has been like this for awhile now.
"I can't enjoy the game anymore because of antivaxxers and Alex Jones".
Lol, to each their own. But I'm gonna stop there and seek out a more intelligent breakdown of this game.
" The ending of the story had the protagonist, JC Denton merging with the AI to combine an incredible intelligence with *Human Compassion* "
*Murders an innocent man in cold blood*
-What a shame.
Saving Paul is simple. Either try to escape the hotel via the FRONT door, or get taken down by the UNATCO troops in the hotel. DO NOT escape via the fire escape window if you want to save Paul
I think you have to stay inside the hotel to save Paul, don't exit at all. If you kill everyone inside the hotel and make it to Battery Park, Paul still dies
@@km099 If you exist through the front door or "die" trying , Paul lives. Exiting through the window, even if all the troopers have been taken care of, means Paul still dies. It is just simple logic the game uses to determine the outcome.
this game makes you feel uncomfortable ...wake up and man up
Deus Ex has been spreading truth 2 decades ago
Decent video but when he starts talking about the story, its more worth while to just watch Ross Scott's coverage of it in his video for that aspect.
Some of the other parts of chris' video have incorrect info/insight but the story is best understood thru personal experience and the analysis Ross did as Chris really dropped the ball (especially when he starts shying away from modern day relevance in the story details and starts injecting "this is insensitive/only people I dislike politically see anything in this" ) when stuff involving how corperations, news, economics, and the military industrial complex relate between in game and irl.
I dont mind some political details/knowledge in games/analysis to give it a insightful angle but the way Chris handled it here and some of his other videos just feels like him flaunting "im politically correct" for a minute or so instead of actually staying relevant/informative like the rest of the video pretty much is.
I’m not sure you’re using “politically correct”, er, correctly here. 🤔 I don’t see political correctness here, I see a discussion on the increasing pervasiveness of conspiracy theories, and their pernicious effects (especially some of the underlying prejudices associated with some of them). Admittedly, some younger conspiracy theorists may not understand or be aware of those historical links.
You find conspiracy theories in the game "uncomfortable", hahah
I do enjoy this retrospective but around the 30min mark you let your personal politics creep in. With so much becoming politicised recently it’s probably best you don’t do that in order not to alienate people.
I find the remarks Chris gives about conspiracy theories quite strange. I think one needs to notice the difference between fiction and non-fiction.
I remember that in the 90’s and early 2000’s The X-files were criticized by some scientist and moralists who felt that the adventures of Mulder and Scully were far too close to reality while embracing both religious ideas and conspiracy theories. They got nothing against conspiracy theories or religious ideas themselves, but they thought it was harmful that this show offered us a mix of (more or less) realistic FBI-work, combined with fantasies about aliens and demonic creatures. Because of the realistic elements of the show, people would be too easily persuaded into all of the supernatural conspiracies and (I guess) Satanism.
The problem with this kind of critique is that in short they are saying you can’t make a show that says: ‘The truth is out there’ or ‘Trust no one’. It is quite obvious that the latter tagline is a bad advice for almost everyone. (If you never trust anyone in your life, you’ll probably wind up very lonely after a totally meaningless life.)
How much risk can any artist take in creating art or entertainment? If no risk is ever taken, all art and entertainment will become meaningless. It will become harmless too, that’s for sure. In order to make something meaningful, one has to take the chance that it will probably be harmful for some people.
But what potential harmfulness does Deus Ex offer us? The idea that there is a secret World Government ruled by the Illuminati or the Temple Knights is among us for so many years, that is has become some sort of a blueprint for any creator to make up a conspiracy theory that is utterly harmless. If I had to guess, I think this is where the creators of Deus Ex went for. They did not want to create a very political, religious or even philosophical game that could divide their audience. Why do you think the Assassins Creed franchise is about the Templar knights? The answer is very easy: since the Templar Knights no longer exist - only if you believe they secretly rule the world, you might believe they still exist - the game is for Christians and atheists alike. Because of that any adept of any religion might pick up the game.
Very nice job discussing how the level design intersects with the gameplay systems. It's something a lot of people miss when discussing what works about Deus Ex, and also when analyzing other games that attempt to offer multiple routes. Different routes will test multiple (player and character) skills, with branches and loops that afford a multitude of combinations in various character builds. Because character upgrades have a degree of granularity, this is also more nuanced than the binary ability gating you see in the modern Deus Ex games, as opening up paths will require different amounts of resources depending on your character upgrades and equipment choices, adding a long-term layer of resource management to your decisions. Investing into technical skills doesn't just open up options for tackling levels, but also can grant access to helpful items such as ammunition/grenades, lockpicks/multitools, medits/biocells, or even weapon mods and augmentation upgrade canisters, which feeds back into stealth, combat, and exploration. Every player is expected to engage with these core tenets of gameplay, but it's up to them exactly how they want to do it. The level design is really what brings everything together, as no individual gameplay element in Deus Ex is terribly impressive (in fact, most have major flaws).
You brought up the Vandenberg mission where you have to bring down four bots in the courtyard and have the option to release friendly bots to aid you. The difficulty with that one isn't just getting to the bots, it's finding and activating two generators which grant access to the bot hangar. This requires sneaking or fighting your way through the interior of the building, which is the bulk of the level. I also wanted to bring further attention to Maggie Chow's apartment where you mention the secret door opened with a paper lantern. This level is actually pretty brilliant -- the player has likely gathered by this point that their goal is to speak to Maggie and figure out where her allegiances lie. She falsely claims that Majestic 12 is working with the Luminous Path (when they are in fact using her to manipulate the Red Arrow) and sends the player to break into the police station to find evidence exonerating her. If you do this and come back, you'll find her mysteriously gone and her maid will release the guards from a secret compartment to attack you. However, an observant player will suspect Maggie is lying and poke around, finding one of 4 distinct paths from the street level into the secret MJ12 command center next to her penthouse apartment -- there's a maintenance access to the elevator shaft which takes you to the top of the building which you can also access by jumping across nearby rooftops, where you'll find a locked door to the area. You can also get in from the floor under construction below Maggie's, but you'll have to make it through a locked door and a laser grid with a guard. Or you can use the paper lantern to open the secret wall panel, which you can find out about by hacking into the security computer on Maggie's desk, or you can simply listen carefully for the hum of a laser grid behind the wall, which clues you in using a simple gameplay element you're already familiar with. This is the strength of having objectives that aren't spelled out for the player with objective markers.
There are some aspects of the mechanics and systems worth mentioning in greater detail. Despite my prior praise for the RPG elements in conjunction with the level design, is that the skills and augs are balanced quite terribly. Every technical skill is basically a ripoff beyond Trained -- you already noted how you can hack every terminal with only Trained Computer (upgrading just lets you control turrets at Advanced and hack more money from ATMs ), but the other ones are nearly as bad, with exponential costs for marginal increases. Each rank of Lockpicking/Electronics nearly doubles in cost when tools already crack most doors and devices at Trained. Trained Medicine doubles medkit healing for only a handful of skill points, with subsequent skill increases offering half the increase at higher cost. Environmental Training just improves the effectiveness of situational inventory-hogging equipment. Ironically, the Swimming skill is the cheapest and I'd actually argue that there are enough swimming paths to justify its inclusion, but you can nearly always find a rebreather nearby to obviate investment. The optimal skill allocation leaves Lockpicking, Electronics, Computer, and Medicine at Trained while dumping everything into Pistols or Rifles skills. Demolitions isn't important as mines are easy enough to defuse at Untrained, the game scoffs at Low-Tech investment by handing you a laser sword halfway through that can kill most enemies in a single swipe, and Heavy weapons take too much inventory space to be worth the effort. While solid in concept and integrated well into the level design, the skill system is implemented quite poorly if the goal is to offer meaningful character differentiation with many viable choices.
Augmentations don't fare much better. While they can be fun and empowering to use, essentially acting as Deus Ex's magic system, there's usually an obvious superior choice among each of the binary upgrades. I noticed you using Run Silent in the video while crouched, which is pointless -- you're already completely silent while crouchwalking. In fact, this is still the case even when with the Speed Enhancement aug which otherwise amplifies running noise, making it the clear winner between the two. Ballistic Protection easily beats out EMP Shield, as electrical damage makes up less than 10% of the damage in the game compared to at least 70% coming from bullets and blades, and both must be activated manually. Regeneration similarly demolishes Energy Shield, offering an insane amount of HP restoration compared to situational defense against fire and plasma. There's an argument for Combat Strength to bust down doors, but the Dragon's Tooth's potency makes this redundant in combat and Microfibral Muscle is arguably better for opening paths. Aqualung would be a decent choice compared to Environmental Resistance, but the rarity of swimming paths and abundance of rebreathers rears its ugly head again. Vision Enhancement is okay for spotting guards through walls on initial runs, but the bonus accuracy AND damage from Targeting wins. The rest are a bit more even. Spy Drone is EMP damage on demand, vs Aggressive Defense System which has situational use for destroying incoming projectiles. Cloak is extremely overpowered for rendering you completely invisible to human enemies, while Radar Transparency only works on cameras, turrets, and bots, and stealth players can forgo Ballistic Protection and install both. Power Recirculator is cumbersome to manage and drains energy of its own accord but can drastically improve the cost of using multiple augs at once, while Synthetic Heart is nice for allowing boosted aug performance in a pinch. While the choices are at first interesting to ponder, the balance can leave a lot to be desired.
I wanted to touch on some of the problems with combat. While the stealth AI is notoriously underdeveloped, I'd imagine it's not as much of a turnoff as Deus Ex's wonky gunplay. Deus Ex requires the player to stand still to stabilize their aim which is frequently maligned, but I'd argue Deus Ex's gunplay is janky for reasons other than its accuracy system, such as:
-Unpleasantly slow recoil "climbing" effect. It can take up to a full second after you stop firing for you to regain full control of your view
-Inconsistent communication of accuracy from targeting reticles thanks to an insanely stupid programming of the range stat, which makes the sniper rifle pinpoint accurate while the pistol can't reliably hit a guy from 10m away, even when they have the same accuracy stat
-More range shenanigans which apply bullet drop only when you would have hit your target, so you can't actually compensate for it in long-range firefights
-Low quality assets and poorly fleshed out effects, such as the lack of weapon bob and lame sound effects
-Limited/poor communication of hit registration, whether through enemy reactions or abstract indicators like hitmarkers
-Miscellaneous issues like weapon bugs, restrictions on the scope state, and hit detection problems
The abstracted accuracy system is actually one of the strongest assets of Deus Ex's gameplay in concept, even if it has problems in execution. Early on, the game plays like a stealthy tactical shooter where you have to either give yourself enough time to line up a shot or close the distance with your enemy, while later on you'll be able to target enemies at range while moving, which opens up the space of available combat strategies. The abstraction is important, as it allows the user's aim stability and targeting speed to occupy the same category as inherent weapon accuracy, which means that it can be influenced by both character upgrades AND gear upgrades. The overlapping upgrade design, particularly with the weapon modding system, adds a lot to build depth and offers satisfying routes to character progression.
Deus Ex is still probably my favorite game of all time, though it's hard to disentangle my feelings for the game when I originally played it from all of the dissection I've done over the last several years (I'm one of those modder guys trying to improve it, see). Its numerous flaws are generally offset by its excellent level design, strong player agency, and integration of story and gameplay in a manner that enhance rather than handicap one another. There are Immersive Sims that have stronger systems design (System Shock 2, Thief, even Prey), but Deus Ex is still the most complete package, and one that changed my view of games are capable of.
Excellent commentary.
Based RSD
P.S GMDX RSD update when?
@@dnaderelmasry7973 Ehhhh someday I'll get back to it. I have a half-finished build on my PC waiting for more bugfixes, but I've been busy with System Shock 2 modding the last few years.
If you think people are stupider now with the internet than they were before oh man, you really need to study History.
I know. That shit bugs the fuck out of me. It's almost as if the internet let's stupid people get a million times more exposure than they would on the past.
"Why contain it?"
Before the internet we had people sacrificing children to the sun on top of Mayan pyramids.... so yeah.
Sounds like you are just afraid of questioning the things you believe is true. While many conspiracies are stupid, many do have legitimate concerns and points.
Do you think there isn't a single flat earthen that isn't white?
Agreed. Wasnt a valid criticism of the game and seemed more like an angry twitter take rather than a point about the games relevance today
This is exactly what I got from it.
He was "uncomfortable" because the game clearly made him question his views on current events.
@@graye2799 that's mad racist
"celebration of conspiracy theories"
You must be joking right? If you think the game is somehow glorifying or celebrating conspiracy theories, I really want to know what you're smoking. Maybe just proofread your scripts a bit more.
deus ex is in love with conspiracy theories, its definitely supposed to be part of the appeal. theyre fun
@@larry3828 Yeah, these sorts of games *enjoy* the aesthetic and excitement of conspiracy theories; they're not neutral on the issue.
I don't think Chris is saying "Deus Ex supports 9/11 Truther Conspiracies" as much as he's saying that the game's sensational usage of those themes feels a bit too close to home now that so many people around us ernestly believe those sorts of things.
@@TheGangsterousG There have been conspiracies about false flag attacks (at least one of which that I know of actually turned out to be true) before 9/11, remember this game came out in 2000, a year before the twin towers fell.
But the majority of the game is about secret organizations secretly running things from the shadows. Primarily the Illuminati and Majestic 12, 2 groups that have been the centre of conspiracy theories for decades.
All the alien stuff that randomly shows up later on in the game is very obviously because it's Majestic 12 who people claim to have covered up and seized the crashed UFO at Roswell.
I don't believe a ship of extra terrestrial origin crashed at Roswell, or that Majestic 12 actually exist, doesn't detract from Deus Ex being a really good cyberpunk/sci fi story. Its not sensationalising conspiracies, because it never presents those elements of the story as anything other than fiction.
Deus Ex was always more "Alex Jones" than "X Files". The entire game is absolutely steeped in conspiracy culture, yes, somewhat the kitschy kind that arose out of the UFO disclosure movement (MJ12), but predominantly the type that arose from the 80's/90's militia movement, the Bill Cooper/Behold A Pale Horse, None Dare Call it Conspiracy type. Much of the flavor text explicitly draws upon popular right wing/militia movement theories, the kind that go on about Black helicopters, the NWO, Rothschild banking family, Rockefeller foundation, CFR, Trilateral Commission, FEMA camps, false flags, eugenics, etc. Moreover, the writers were clearly well read in these subjects, verbatim repeating popular theories along with actual executive orders, quotes, and military readiness exercises. Just real enough to be uncomfortable- and it's only gotten more uncomfortable (a sign of its quality, I would say).
All of this might have been lost on people that didn't grow up in the US, or didn't look into this subculture deeply. It actually comes off like a love letter to conspiracy theorists of the 80's and 90's - who, just like Deux Ex, happened to write some things decades ago that ended up being uncannily accurate. My guess is that if I were to talk to the person who made this video, we wouldn't have much in the way of a similar worldview. I would just encourage anyone who finds that Deus Ex suddenly makes them uncomfortable (in a different way) when it didn't 20 years ago to do some introspection, and earnestly examine why that is.
Another interesting point about how these subjects are presented is in the characters that illustrate them. These conspiracy theories (Although several of them are a matter of concrete historical fact, just the scope of them is more dubious) were as you say perceived as "right wing militia" theories. The image of the white male prepper living in isolation come to mind, perhaps imagery such as the Ruby Ridge massacre in '92.
The character who first gives voice to these subjects in the game? The NSF Leader, a tactfully spoken urbane black man. The one chomping at the bit to murderously oppress him? Gunther, an alabaster pale white German.
I think people in the nineties had enjoyed a certain degree of deracialisation in their worldview, so they might not have noticed something as subtle as that or passed it off as unintentional. In retrospect you can observe it as a Plinkett-esque "You didn't see it, but your brain did" moment.
Very good point. I hadn't even considered that. Perhaps that makes it easier to swallow. You sign up to play a video game, there's an element of fantasy, and then suddenly characters who aren't the caricature of the conspiracy theorist of the time are dumping real, actual conspiracy theories about our own very real world on you by the minute. It's kind of fun, because this is a game, and those are interesting topics- "hey wait, did Rockefeller actually say that quote about world government? What's RX84? If I look up that executive order the guards cited in their banter, does it really exist?". It's practically an initiation into the subculture, you are becoming "illumined". That's precisely why this game is beloved by people who were/are engaged with the conspiracy subculture. You can probably get a better overview of what these people believed by playing this game than you could spending a couple weeks reading the actual literature or listening to some old radio shows. And all presented by sympathetic characters - not necessarily the seeming wackjobs normally associated with them.
Even if you don't think there's any merit to a conspiratorial worldview, or a conspiratorial view of history, or even if you think they're dangerous, I think the game still stands as an excellent snapshot of the reality many of these people believe we actually live in. The fact that they didn't take the route of simplifying a few basic theories and sanitizing them - but actually used them to enrich the world and create a sense of hyperreality (not knowing where the real and fictional end) was nothing short of artful. I find the following games lack that sense of hyperreality, and it hurts the longevity and depth of their narrative- dropping the first games approach in favor of generic cyberpunk science fiction.
@@sean5388 Frankly there is no way that any kind of sequel within the Deus Ex setting could tap into the hyper-reality mood in the same way again. Games that are built around genre subversion such as Spec Ops: The Line can't milk the same sense of surprise if they go for the same emotional beat and subject matter. Arguable Taro's Drakengard has the same issue, which is why he quietly spun off that game into Nier without announcing it as a sequel as such.
Deus Ex was lightning in a bottle in many ways. It wouldn't be impossible to make a new game today that touches on current affairs and hidden agendas while naming names, but the Overton Window has contracted to the size of a pinprick. Such a game mentioning the Rothschilds at all for example would get the designers labelled as antisemites.
I am fervently in favor of the goatseing of the Overton Window.
@@BobExcalibur Colorful way to put your point about the Overton Window, lmao. I agree.
I have a more simple opinion. Conspiracies are fun and a world made up of these conspiracies is very interesting
I am saddened how many people seem to have the "conspiracies aren't fun anymore" attitude. Diving into conspiracies doesn't have to be bad, ask Why Files. That channel is nothing but pure fun and speculation.
31min in and I had to go and see from comments that am I crazy. And no, I think i am not. Really.... what is this analysis?
The reason deus ex could never be made today
It's a video game, fiction. It's about "what if conspiracy theories were all true" it's not claiming they are. Very poor reasoning straight away.
A good point, if that was an argument anyone made.
@@shlabulax9047 thank you.
First of all good video on one of the greatest games ever made to this very day.
But I'm not really seeing some story parts the way you do.
Liberty Island for one could have been swept clean by unatco with absolute ease, but they actively ordered a retreat in order to create an opportunity for JC to prove himself to the force, and also to see if you are more 'suitable' for coworking with Anna and Gunther (and by this - also with MJ12) than Paul who just got pulled out of Hong Kong for not being able to do just that. This is conveyed to you as obvious fact throughout your progress on the island and in later convos with Anna and Gunther, should you choose to be the guns blazing type . Also saving Gunther is not the objective, but only a side quest here, you can skip freeing him completely if you so choose.
The kills witches of JC and Paul were not activated at the same time as you suggest. Jcs was flipped after the distress signal to silhouette while Paul is already severely weakened when he gives you above task. I love the never actively conveyed part of being able to save him here. I restarted my first play through out of feeling guilty for him, it was a fkin revelation back then!!
There's 4AIs, not 3, even if icarus is Only deadalus big mean brother.
the resentment of the Public towards mechanical augs comes from the humanitarian view of sacrificing humanity to improve performance. There's a genius bit of dialogue between two nsf troopers on this on liberty Island. This is pretty strong, see Gunthers mails or rile up Jordan Shae to see more of it. Don't let HR obfuscate your view on this.
Jcs defection from unatco is a bit more logical after seeing a bit of Paul's world - and him naturally being the most trustworthy person in Jcs world - and later realizing that somebody from within unatco, namely manderly who even straight up tells you, can kill your only surviving family member By pushing a button instead of arresting and trailing him. Remember, unatco is supposed to be the good guys.
I also don't agree with your view that The Denton Brothers being the outcome of controlled breeding is how it really went down. the game never clearly conveyed it(to M knowledge) , that's something HR introduced for Adam. I don't recall a single hint towards this in the original deus ex.
Based on the info I came across (and still remember) it's more likely they were artificially created entirely and had implanted memories of their childhoods, with real memories starting somewhen maybe in their early twenties. These implanted memories don't even seem consistent, if you take the first ever conversation with Paul into account where he and JC seem to have different types of men in mind when talking about their supposed father.
the conversations with lebedev after you kill Anna("you never had parents. The ones you knew were employees... ") and later the conversation with Morpheus seem to emphasize that theory, as do the new creations, including Alex in the vats in a51 . Also some very late game hints on some MJ12 computers which I can't fully remember anymore also do, but my memory really fails me on those.
I recommend looking up the "Deus Ex Bible", which is based on the original design documents of the game:
Paul Denton:
"The conspirators' agents, posing as nurses and doctors, in pediatricians' offices and elementary schools across the nation, used the smallpox census data, to keep track of high potential candidates. The specialists in charge of the project were updated regularly on the progress of potential candidates. All the conspirators had to do was wait. Ma and Pa Denton -- two such potential candidates -- fell in love (perhaps even with some help from the conspirators!) and produced young Paul under the watchful, albeit covert eye of Majestic 12 operatives who played the parts of friends, family doctors, neighbors, school teachers and so on..."
J.C. Denton is Paul's clone:
"She and her husband agreed to the experiment, unaware that their lives had been closely monitored by the cabal for many years. Although Paul's mother believed that the surgery would let her become pregnant again, in reality the Majestic 12 operatives implanted her with a cloned embryo of Paul.
Nine months later, J.C. Denton was born. Paul and J.C. were raised as brothers, under the careful and clandestine scrutiny of Majestic 12. Their parents never knew that the children were identical twins born eleven years apart."
Of course that's according to the design documents. The information the game provides should stand on its own and is open to interpretation.
Your translation of "Deus ex" is false. What you talk about would be "ex Deo".
Exactly. "Deus ex machina" means "God from the machine". "Deus ex" means "God from".
Eriko. Oy but deus ex machina refers to theater..
I am younger than this game and first played it like 1 or 2 years ago, so there is 0 nostalgia there for me. I also didn't use any kind of mods to modernize the experience, yet despite the game's age, I finished it on my first playthrough and immediately started a second one, because the experience was so captivating. I remember not putting any skill points into guns at first, because in any modern game, your guy or girl can shoot any gun they find quite competently, even if you invest no points at all. Instead I put all points into mastering hacking and was surprised when weapons were more or less useless against the first batches of NSF troops. I never engaged in any direct combat during the first half of the game, but hacked everything I could and got through it pretty quickly that way. After hearing you talk about your adventures with a sniper rifle, I kinda wanna boot up the DE:Revision and just put all my points into weapons this time, to shoot my way through the entire game lol. I think Deus Ex definitely holds up to this day, it has aged quite well for a 20 year old game, although my perception might be a bit warped by the fact that games like this and Half Life 1 or System Shock 2 came out before I was even born, and are probably more interesting to me than to people who were around at the time of release to play them.
You talked for over an hour about Deus Ex but didn't once mention the great music from Alexander Brandon. I still listen to his music from Deus Ex's soundtrack and Unreal's soundtracks. Great video overall though.
I was always of the mind that it was short for "deus ex machina".
He seems to miss a lot of gameplay nuances unfortunately. Also I know he wasn’t necessarily mentioning the discussions around conspiracies today as a negative against the story but either way it seems an odd thing to bring up?
It was a really awkward rambling section that added nothing to the video. Great channel otherwise
I have to admit... The way you totally misinterpret and twist current years conspiracy theories lets me question your sanity... Damn man...
And that's a good thing.
Let that sink in.
It's always sad to see people so brainscrubbed that they act like total obedience to the narratives pushed by our ruling institutions and elite class is some kind of intellectual high ground.
@@CelestialArboretum I will steal that!
What exactly do you mean? I'm not sure I understand your position.
Woah. Cool it with the anti-semitism
I'm confused how conspiracy theories to you seem like what's essentially exclusively conservatist propaganda. There's plenty of reasons in the modern day to be sceptic of a lot of things even if one is liberal. Hell, would argue even moreso.
Agreed. The rambling over 4chan users seemed extremely pointless and basically none of it actually applied to the game or how relevant its themes are today. He basically ignored how general the term "conspiracy theory" actually is
"Some people have opinions that I don't like, therefore the idea of conspiracy theories is inherently bad."
A nice video. I disagree with a couple of your story points though. First I think the events of the first mission actually make more sense taking place where they do then elsewhere. Its a test and if it goes bad UNACTO can pour in more resources and personnel with ease due to their main base being so close.
Second I think you overestimate how hard it should have been for Paul to turn JC. Remember Paul is by far the person JC has the most reason to trust at UNACTO because he has known Paul far longer then anyone else there. Also by that point JC has seen signs that something is wrong at UNACTO like an elite agent executing a man who had surrendered if JC didn't fight Anna on the plane, and if memory serves the head of UNACTO scolds you if you refuse to kill the leader of the NSF after he surrenders. So the head of UNACTO gets upset because you protest orders to commit murder. If that isn't obvious proof that UNACTO has gone bad what would be?
Man so glad you're covering this classic, I remember being so impressed with this game when it came out, truly ahead of its' time.
One of the little white lies that's been spun regarding the immediate pre-9/11 era and 9/11 in earnest is that it came out of nowhere. It's easy to use that for exculpation, that there was nothing to be done. This fucking video game developer could read the writing on the walls - it wasn't like this was niche stuff, journalist Robert Fisk (whose claim to fame is being the first Westerner to interview Bin Laden, and who had a weird association with the dude) literally created a multi-part documentary series in the early 90's called "From Beirut to Bosnia" in which he all but yelled at the camera "IF WE DON'T CHANGE SOME SHIT THERE'S GONNA BE SOME EXPLOSIONS!"
There's innocence, and then there's plain ignorance but I guess ignorance just fucking abounds.
Still best game ever made. If you disagree with me then modernise it with a mod (gmdx) and then inevitably agree with me that it is indeed the best game ever made.
Does the mod make combat not dogshit? I couldn't finish the game because I hate how it played despite liking the overall story.
@@JZStudiosonline it improves it a lot.
@@kalenics123 Pretty sure I tried a mod or two, but it didn't really change the gameplay to a point I was happy. I hate the gunplay and melee is weird.
100% agreed still my favourite game
@@JZStudiosonline when were you born? Its not going to play like bioshock dude. It has more in common with system shock 2, a fanastic game you might never enjoy with your attitude.
The only game where the AI knows that strafing around you is better than standing still or moving in straight lines
Ah man, Deus Ex.... I love it. I recall playing a version from a PC demo disc when I was about 12 or so near it's release date in the UK..... I remember being unnecessarily enthusiastic and impressed at the shiny floor in the UNATCO HQ on the training level! And that my ATI Rage Pro with a whopping 16 or 32 mb of video memory could process such 'realistic graphics'
I could have lived without your preaching about conspiracy theories.
If only he spent that time productively researching details of the game such as the meaning of it's title...
Isn’t there a sunken boat submerged under the dock at the start of the game?
Use the light aug to see it
Yes there is.
I found it 6 years ago after a friends hint (actually it was the reason to replay it :-))
It contains decent weapon mods.
tldw: *I'mBigBoiAndKyonspirasiTheerisAreLame I'mSoKoolBiggPP* 😎😎😎😎
White knight Chris Davis strikes again...
I usually enjoy this channel but I have to say the conspiracy theory part seemed extremely awkward. I get what you're saying about conspiracy theories being more harmful but I cant really imagine this game being "more uncomfortable" because of "angry white men" and it kind of just seemed like over the top rambling at that point especially when you admitted it's not the game's fault that the reputation of conspiracy theories has changed
@James Sunderland didn't realise how much these comments actually also thought so much of this vid was nonsense. Definitely glad
Im 16 and picked it up on steam last year but couldnt get into it. Fast forward to 2020 and when corona hit I gave it another try with some mods to make it run better because of bugs. I finally got into it and is now one of my all time favourite games. For me its unbelivable that a game which is older than me can be so immersive and filled to rim with stuff to explore and different choices to make.
Lame, the 'conspiracy theories' are MORE relevant today and we should be confronting the powers that be MORE openly. the notion that they're 'uncomfortable' is just your own lack of spine showing in not questioning whether or not governments and corporations (pharmaceutical or otherwise) have your best interests at heart
The cyberpunk game. I got hooked with the genre since then. The story was just above and beyond.
You waited years for Chris to finally make this video? THAT'S TERROR.
@Chris Davis My advice is, if you find something uncomfortable, you should example it more deeply.
Also had to LOL at the accents being borderline offensive -- they intentionally picked people of those nationalities to record the dialogue, which is why they sound as they do. Yes, mainland Chinese people do often tark riiike daat.
Ohh, how *_p r o b b e r e h m a a t i c_*
Check out Ikumi Nakamura's presentation at E3 last year; the verbal ticks of Maggie Chow are positively sedate. Noticing broad trends that differentiate ethnic groups only makes you a monster if you misjudge a person's character in light of them, and Ikumi speaks English a damn sight better than I'll ever speak Japanese.
The example shown was Maggie Chow, voiced by the distinctly not Chinese Carolyn McCormick.
@@honkinggoose7481 I have it on good authority that the fellow who plays All Might in My Hero Academia isn't event in the same haplogroup as a caucasoid. This is an unacceptable level of biological impurity in casting.
You see, this whole topic of discussion becomes a bit of a farce once you think about it.
@@BobExcalibur The point wasn't that a chinese character was voiced by a white person, the point is that the original comment claimed that the voice actor was indeed chinese when that's not the case.
Caring about the race of the voice actor is dumb, but that's not even the point Honking Goose was making. And acting as if it is makes you a honking goose.
I played the game in middle school, and I always knew that the title was short for Deus Ex Machina.
Imagine being the guy who had to pitch that Paul Denton test subject plan to his Illuminati boss. "Hey, we need funding for our incredibly complicated, expensive, and failure-prone plan that, assuming all goes well, should deliver us a single test subject 20 years from now."
It worked out for Werner Von Braun. A lot of research projects operate as sunk cost fallacies for decades. Look at how much money is spent on fossil fuel alternatives, and the time frames in question. Not to say it isn't a valid subject of research, far from it, but "failure prone" is only the start of it.
BobExcalibur that is a bit different then putting enormous amounts of resources into the creation of a potentially good test subject 20 years from now, upon which you might actually be able to begin the proposed research.
@@CTOOFBOOGLE That's why vivisection is popular. If you want to test human viability for the application of a scientific innovation, you have to operate on a human timescale.
1:04 the conspiracy plot problem makes you nonconvertible because you help cooperation's evade taxes and you know you part of the problem.
"It's a little uncomfortable innit?"
Bro stick to your Downton Abbey reruns, you're clearly intimidated by the plot's complexity and JC's unironic manliness.
Forget mostly great it is still mostly accurate about how the modern government and UN works
I love this game so much. But I totally agree, I always tried every single route through a level, even when I already achieved the objective in an easy way
"Deus Ex was never a great looking game. It didn't run especially well, and the character models were inferior to those in games like Half-Life."
That's very generous of you to say Half-Life's models are better than Deus Ex's, since other players I've encountered don't hold Half-Life's graphics with high esteem. I'm a fan of Half-Life's graphics, too. At the same, I think your assessment of Deus Ex's character models are unfair. Its character models may not be as fluid as the ones in Unreal or Unreal Tournament, but they still move rather well, and they have a nice look to their design too. I'm surprised when you said it didn't run well, because it ran quite well on my brother's Windows 2000 when I first played it, and on my Windows XP and Windows 7 computers. It does have some issues with some computers, depending on which version or system you're using. The current Game of Year version for some reason has lingering bugs, like Page not exploding at the end, or music not playing in level when it should. You are right that game reviewers regarded the graphics as dated at the time of its release.
"Where Deus Ex hasn't aged well is in its general positivity in championing of conspiracy theories. The main conspiracies included in this game are aliens and the Illuminati, plus a general distrust of vaccines. [...] In 2020, conspiracy theories undeniably more dangerous. You have anti-vaxxers, 9/11 being an inside job, everything Alex Jones says, and even the world being flat."
I can see what you mean. There are bits of dialogue here and there that border on the rhetoric I've heard by modern day political nuts, but the conspiracies in Deus Ex at least never reached the same level of unreasonably crazy conspiracy theories like the ones you mentioned. At the same time, while Deus Ex makes nearly every conspiracy real, there's a lot of moral grays and mundane realities mixed in with the conspiracies. While the NSF are right about there being a conspiracy behind the Gray Death, and right about the wealth disparity, they're not necessarily right about everything else. They're mostly inexperienced, trigger-happy initiates who resort to doing stupidly dangerous things under pressure, and have extreme notions of what they think maximum freedom should look like. Leo Gold is right about a number of things, but he also did his share of bad things, as the woman with Harley Filben attests. The NSF associate with Jojo and the Rooks, who are not very stable either. One NSF referred to Jojo as a punk who'll get them all killed.
Before the NSF knew of the existence of Majestic 12, back when they were the NWSF, they mainly formed as an extreme overreaction to an act of gun legislation, and tried to violently overthrow the government in a reckless raid on Washington. Deus Ex shows many times that just because the NSF came to oppose MJ-12, that doesn't mean that all of their intentions or actions were entirely justified.
Tracer Tong himself is a great and honorable character, yet his Luminous Path Triad members have been capable of great cruelty, like what the Dazed Girl at the Lucky Money said they did to poor Ching-kuo. Although UNATCO is full of trigger-happy soldiers who are more concerned with military operations than with law enforcement, you still see some honorable members here and there who try to operate according to proper procedure. Even if the United Nations is rendered as a tool by Majestic 12, keep in mind that Sam Carter, who worked for the UN back in his day, operates according to many of the ideals of the UN that shaped him as a soldier and a peace-keeper. Consider some of Carter's lines: "In my day international peace keepers were citizens first and soldiers second." Or "My unit killed a bunch of Afghans one time, but we weren't proud of it. In fact, our liaison at the UN went to the funeral."
While the Silhouette are also right in their cause against MJ-12, other Frenchmen think they're either going about it the wrong way, or spend too much of their time playing dumb pranks on the police like cutting off their ties. MJ-12 are severe and cruel, yet they also seem to hold annual family picnics, too.
Joseph Manderley even alternates between being a corrupt and slimy official to someone who's trying to prevent UNATCO from becoming an even more extreme version of itself. And although VersaLife is responsible for engineering the Gray Death, most of their scientists spend most of their time arguing over what experiments they are allowed to do, or if teams should share scientific data with each other.
On the issue of the Ambrosia Vaccine, the NSF are not opposed to the use of the vaccine itself. Their concern is mainly that the vaccine is restricted only to the super rich rather than to ordinary people, and that the Ambrosia Vaccine was not designed to properly vaccinate victims of the plague. It's more of a reference to Johnny Mnemonic than to current day vaccine-based fears. As the AI from Johnny Mnemonic puts it: "Treating the disease is more profitable than curing it!"
There are lots of other grays mixed in the conspiracies of Deus Ex that are too numerous to mention here. If one concentrated only on the superficial aspects of Deus Ex's conspiracies, that would be a problem. If you pay closer attention to how the conspiracies in Deus Ex are told, you find that there's a lot of awkward and ordinary humanity incorporated into the lives of the conspirators and their resistors. It's not as extremely morally gray as Invisible War, but Deus Ex is still grayer in how it approaches its world than most conspiracy theories or conspiracy-based games. It's often the awkward, ordinary human aspect of life which conspiracy theories usually ignore.
Good points
Chris, to your point on the title:
The idea of Deus Ex meaning "of god" and seeing JC as a godly figure is also likely part of the meaning as well as it being short for Deus Ex Machina.
Warren Spector said in a post-mortem presentation on the game that the JC stands for Jesus Christ. So it's possible that the image chosen was actually intentional and that the degree to which Denton was a god-like figure was reduced throughout the development process.
I also hope you enjoy playing through the rest of series, Invisible War is a respectable game that I think gets slept on a lot although it is very buggy (My last playthrough was completely corrupted just before the very last room in the game due to a bug, Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are also two of my favourite games of the 2010s and I feel as though no one really gives them the attention they deserve.
30:12 how to tell someone puts their own political biases over the substance of the story they're reviewing. Also that comment about the algorithm promoting content based on views instead of substance? That also applies to you bud.
I might use a lot a terms to describe Flat-Earthers, but I don't know if I'd say they were predominately white. Particularly all the b-tier rappers.
The themes and content this game explores has stuck with me more than any other in the 15 years since I first played through it as a young teenager.
It consistently made me question and experiment; both with the mechanics of the game (many of which I have to admit I had little to no problem interpreting with a little trial and error during my time with the game) and the major ideas it explores surrounding humanity, power and the nods to classical philosophical concepts and literature).
I agree with you that it is a victim of the time in which it was produced - the tropes and stereotypes are tired, it wasn’t polished or perfect, there are some major narrative plot holes and a lack of meaningful character development for many characters) but I would also challenge that it was brilliant in its ambition and concepts for the time in which it was produced - and I had a whole lot of fun in this world which all at once felt eerily familiar and yet very alien. In my opinion, a masterpiece. Thank you for the review. 😊
Deus Ex is the perfect candidate for a remake. Places like Hell’s Kitchen and the MJ12 headquarters would look incredible with 2020 textures. Plus, with extra funding and time, separate story branches which are hinted at within the game (like staying with unatco instead of betraying them) could be fully fleshed out. I really enjoyed the main game even as a person who’s more interested in competitive shooters than rpgs, but I think that a few improvements could make it one of the best games ever made.
I wouldn't trust anyone to remake Deus Ex, not even Specter himself.
It would only ruin the game. Nobody would be able to recapture the feel of the old game and you can be certain that in this day and age nobody would invest money into making separate story branches. Publishers now are interested in the cheapest way to make a profit. If anything they'd ruin it with microtransactions and multiplayer focus.
I truly love the content you make, I love long winded analysis and retrospective videos. But I've noticed more and more that you tend to... let your politics show a bit more than I'd like. Now I'm just one person, so maybe it's just me, and I'll admit, your political views don't exactly match up with mine, but I never let that deter me. I'm here for good content, not politics as it were. So when you mentioned the flat earth society being a group of angry young white men, it really rubbed me the wrong way. You can have your opinion, I truly don't want anyone to think they don't because this world needs people with differing opinions... but that statement came off as both racist and sexist (regardless of the people that'll tell you it's impossible to be racist to white people) I know 2 flat earthers, they're smart, good at their jobs, and good people, they just bought into the lie that the earth is flat, fun fact... One is a woman. You can't and shouldn't just assume and spout blatant lies like they're fact, it makes you come off looking like a racist sexist person which, after all I've seen of your content, I don't believe you are either. Just please be more careful about some of the stuff you say, if you don't show proof and data that backs up your idea, then keep it to yourself. Otherwise, great content man. Please take this as constructive criticism by a fan!
Agreed with 90% of your points on Deus ex but the whole conspiracy stuff I disagree with. Especially your comment on how flat earthers are a refuge for young angry white men that came off a bit unfair. Flat earthers aren't the smartest people and are usually distrusting of anything any major group has to say, yet that's not because of their race or gender. Same with the "911 was an inside job" they are like that not because of their race or gender. Other than that I liked the video I'm definitely looking forward to your invisible war video as I remember that game being interesting mess
Chris and his anti-white rhetorics really managed to poison a once venerated channel ..
Flat-earthers are a very broad church; there's certainly not a monopoly held over the idea by the one demographic you're encouraged to hate.
That being said, Chris has his algorithms to think about. Demonetization comes very quickly and he doesn't have the numbers that Ssethtzeentach has. He has to have the tamest takes possible on a purely pragmatic level, before you get to any personal bias.
@@Gungrave123 anti white rhetoric, lmfao. Gonna need a citation on that one.
@@Dermetsu His Witcher 3 video at 01:10:10 and Witcher 3 DLCs 41:00
@@Dermetsu Oh no no no no, you can't point that out! It's not rhetoric! Meanwhile replace the word white with black in his flat earth sentence and suddenly... But it's okay baby boy, no need to bother your pretty little head.
So he hates the story because it makes him feel uncomfortable because it's so close to reality?!
Nope-and only someone who didn’t actually watch the fuckin video would comment that
@@dongvermine He literally says it at the start you plank lol
Mosley not fuckin once does he say he hates shit
@@dongvermine He does. He even repeats it when talking about the virus.
Sir Adrian timestamp?
A real GOAT. Revision and GMDX mods are the best way to revisit DX1 these days. Don't care about IW, but can't way to see your HR and MD vids. Both fantastic games.
As a ventilation shafts installator I agree 100%!
Still the best game of the series.
DE > DE:HR > DE:MD > DE:IW
Snowden I’m partial to being Human Revolution being my favorite entry...they really hit it out of the park with this one!
i wanted orange, it gave me lemon-lime!
A machine does not make mistakes.
The illuminate is way to antisemitic for your taste? As Gundam said once "god forbids the rich gets laughed at for a few minutes".
Anachronox and Deus Ex are the only two really good things to come out of Ion Storm. I'd ague that the game was a good looking game when it was released. I still remember the PC Gamer review gushing over how great the game looked.
On a side note, I found a sealed copy of Deus Ex at a thrift store recently, and it's all mine!!!
Regenning health(with the aug) faster than taking damage from drowning is so goofy :D
You had me until the last part where you went on some weird tangent dude
I only ever played the PS2 version and despite the loading times, I absolutely loved it. Played it through many times.
Poor Chris, did you get Stuckmann?
No but seriously, I got stuck there as well on my last playthrough! It's difficult to find, that staircase
Excited for your Invisible War documentary if you haven't already!
the story aged badly because you don't believe in conspiracy theories
ahhahaha what
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth.
Great video! Never heard of "ex machina" as a kid, I thought Deus Ex was made up. The JC initials are an easter-egg. There's an option to re-name him, the nickname was an innovative solution for consistent narration. In 2001 Gothic they had to constantly dance around a "nameless hero" loophole.
Part of DX's greatness is you've missed more than a few things. Hong Kong has a "hidden" water level & story insights, 1st mission has a sunken freighter /w loot.. On max difficulty; tranq-dart kiting and stealth one-shotting with the Prod & baton is an exciting non-lethal way to play. Detection means surrounded by a crowd of crappy aim-bots, augments and assault weapons become relevant. Your map sniping AI & stealth-purity knowing it's a Spectre stealth-hybrid + cheesing Simons is just odd.
Unlike Revolution, mech-augmentation is high-clearance personnel only; they're scorned for sacrificing limbs to be more effective enforcers.. NSF-Paul convinces JC because of relationship and evidence. All of the readable lore items have relevant explanations for game events and world-building. Restricted access routes give fun practical meaning to multi-tools & lockpicks, not a means to skipping the level.
I also agree /w comments about the conspiracy criticism. From the very beginning It's about a corporate tyranny conspiracy. The Illumanti & vaccine control are just sub-plots. Also, the alien presence was minor & practical for location. A nice homage to "possibilities" w/o de-railing the game.
There's more, but I think you get the idea and my text wall is already massive :DD
How can you say (around 31:30) that the “increasing ease of access” to information is “making people stupider and less concerned with facts” when across the course of human history most people have been like this? Think burning witches at the stake, believing the world is 6000 years old, or that the earth was the centre of the universe, just to name a few? I’d argue that things are not much different, sure, but that these people (flat earthers, conspiracy nuts, and all those that you mentioned) are now, more than ever, the outlier!
The mass media corporations present the greater spread of information as a danger to society 1: because it undermines their hegemonic control over what people think on the broader cultural level and 2: it allows for information about real corruption to be broadly disseminated well before counter-narratives can be put in place.
To this end its ensured the most absurd conspiracy theories are presented to people as the totality of any dissent against them, using the very same algorithms that Chris claims guides people to "white supremacy". As if Stephen Molyneux discussing FBI statistics is going to usher in the ethnostate.
Dissemination of information of course leads to bad outcomes like any form of technology, but the mainstream narrative surrounding the subject always errs on fearing the printing press, just as the churches did back in the fifteenth century.
"Stupider" sounds way more stupid than "dumber".
I think Chris made a mistake with that one. Ease of of access for information didn't make anyone more stupid, it exposed us to the fact that so many stupid people actually existed. The ease of hiding in a bubble online was probably the bigger issue, it was a lot harder to form a bubble around yourself during the early internet. I guess we all expect instant access to the vast majority of the sum total of human knowledge to date would make people smarter just by osmosis, but when they intentionally hide from learning things, they go on to form conspiracy theories and whatever else -- just look at this comment section, filled with people upset that people don't take their dumbass point of view seriously. They don't understand that some conspiracies having been real in the past should never equal you believing whatever some jagoff says on the internet.
@@Xbob42 Keep in mind that information aggregators and media organisations will always highlight the people with the most outlandish beliefs and push them to the top of your news feed, including mainstream news organisations.
"Man bites dog" is the trend when it comes to interest stories, so gradually absurdity becomes the only worldview that exists outside of the "normalcy" that the aggregator wants to push. Which itself is a "normalcy" as observed by the Alphabet Corporation's HR Department.
Remember, biological sex doesn't exist, and if you say it does you can be fired.