Deus Ex (Spoilers)

[@Giantrobots64]

Leo Gold: Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent. JC Denton: So? Leo Gold: It’s called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time.

[@HighwayMule]

Please not that the nineties were the times of the Waco Siege and Oklahoma City bombing. Also the time of peak oil theories. I don't think that conspiracy theories at the time were seen as some harmless wackiness.

[@ericmcintosh1926]

you're missing the Forrest for trees. the popular consciousness did treat conspiracy as harmless fluff. regardless of what you feel or think about conspiracy theories themselves. public opinion on a topic is not the same as the topic itself and i cant believe i have to explain that.

[@Zycyzyx]

I think the difference was that they were more fringe and inaccessible back then. The same groups that peddled stuff like water flouridation paranoia decades prior were still sniffing around for phantom commie plots. They just had a basement full of dodgy, hand-stapled tracts versus instant direct access to millions via social media. Pop culture conspiracy theory depictions of X-Files and Enemy of the State etc. tended to shy away from the more *uncomfortable* aspects of those and their unique subcultures anyways. That's why people think of the more fun stuff like aliens and bigfoot in passing.

[@ibDeman]

My favorite "Can I do that" moment is when you stun the suspicious mechanic, allowing you to locate the bomb he planted on the copter thus saving the pilot

[@Robert399]

I don't agree with the interpretation of the endings. The Illuminati one doesn't strike me so much as a "fuck you, got mine" but more the Churchillian attitude of "it sucks but it's the best we have" (or else a "fix it from within" approach). The Helios ending to me is about freedom vs. outcomes. In the best possible circumstances (no power struggles, no corruption, no succession issues), can totalitarianism be worth it? That's why it's important that the glimpses we get of Helios are positive. It runs things far more effectively than any human system and it genuinely wants to serve humanity, which is why it wants to merge with JC to understand them; this isn't some GLaDOS or SHODAN or Skynet bent on destroying humanity "cuz efficiency". There's no question in my mind that this choice has the best outcomes; the question is, is it worth giving up our autonomy? (EDIT: I think the religious reading is interesting and that metaphor is definitely intentional in the game. I'm just saying that the literal reading is perfectly good too.) Of course you can imagine Denton as a selfish prick if you like and interpret these endings as "i r rich" and "i r g0d" respectively. But I don't think that's the way it was intended to be taken. Everything about the game (right down to the name "JC") suggests that, in one way or another, you're bringing humanity into a new age. I don't think the story of some guy becoming rich and powerful really lives up to that.

[@Erika-gn1tv]

To me the Illuminati is the status quo over uncertain radical alternatives. You know what the Illuminati wants and how it operates, but you can't know what conclusion Helios will come to, nor how to stop it if it decides to do something unfortunate. The Illuminati can be reasoned with on a human level because it's run by humans. They are a known factor that can be expected to act as humans do. Helios acts without human biases, but without those biases it might judge human experience radically different from what we do. It doesn't have our needs or restrictions. It doesn't have to rely on the goodwill or respect of others and it has no loyalty or partiality to human interests aside from what it itself deems appropriate. Which _might_ not be a bad thing, but has no guaranties to be a good thing. Truth is, you have no idea of what it will choose to do because there is no predictive model to asses it by.

[@Robert399]

+Erike Söderlund Yeah I agree. That's more or less what I meant. It's "stick with what we have because the alternatives either are worse or aren't worth risking".

[@vincentjohnson7175]

I mostly agree with this, however I would say Helios is supposed to come across as creepy and having ulterior motives. Just the way it talks is so strange.

[@Robert399]

@@vincentjohnson7175 True but to me that's emphasising that JC (and to some extent mankind) is giving up his humanity. I think that's the cost you're supposed to weigh up against the benefits of Helios' rule. I don't think AI genocide scenarios (or whatever) are supposed to be a consideration.

[@anonvideo738]

To me the helios ending was the third option. Option 1 is the dark age. Its basically a "the system is bad so we burn it down". But there is nothing that prevents the illuminati from rebuilding. The illuminati ending is, as you said, a compromise. Everett promises to improve the system with JC as his guide. However everett also put his mentor on ice and had page as his protege. So he's obviously not entirely a good guy, nor is there any reason why there won't be a new Page that rises up and takes over the illuminati. Helios is the third option. He is the deus ex machina in multiple ways. First he's a god from a machine (literal translation). Second he is a deus ex machina in the literary sense. When all hope seems lost he appears and offers a way out. Just like the dark ages and illuminati endings both end up being temporary resets, merging with Helios will push humanity to the next epoch. It takes out the human element and unlike the dark ages wont cause millions to die as the world trade dies out (temporarily). Interesting is that the sequel gives us a bit more information regarding helios. It shows that indeed with humanity all linked up, everyone is fed and healthy and things like food production are 100% automatized. However, the majority then votes in favor of helios being allowed to loook into the deepest parts of your brain (before helios just had a peek in the public part of your brain, you still had a private part) and then people who dont want that are screwed.

[@puellanivis]

I saw a presentation by Warren Specter, and he was talking about Deus Ex, and apparently, rather than find a fun mechanic, and build the game from that kernel, they were building an actual dynamic simulation, and _then_ built the game around it. Apparently, the game was super boring all the way up until the end… it was just pure mechanics and simulation. He basically eschewed a number of central game design mechanics and … well, built a straight up immersive sim. Gameplay and story be damned… well, not damned, but secondary. Basically, Deus Ex was such an incredible immersive sim, _because_ it was designed with that primary goal, and the idea of a fun game, and good story were left to flesh out things to make the core an actual fun game to play.

[@ottodude555]

Is it a coincidence that he says "Illuminati" at 9:11?

[@type1ninja940]

Yes. :P

[@polaris6933]

holy shit

[@apexanomaly]

I smell a conspiracy

[@upublic]

he also says "0451" at 04:51 precisely!!!!

[@Bluehawk2008]

Dear Lord

[@tiaxanderson9725]

19:27 "Killing Anna Navarre" Oh the memories! I killed her on my very first playthrough by accident. I felt like I was walking into a trap (sotra was I guess :P ) so I placed a bunch of LAMs on the wall and she ran into them headfirst xD

[@zacharyheine4177]

I'm not sure that deus ex being more relevant now is a point against it

[@BigC60]

It makes it better

[@aramshakkour6704]

I dont think it was a point against it

[@BigC60]

@@aramshakkour6704 he spent 5 minutes complaining about it, saying that it is bad because it is not politically correct to put a left leaning conspiracy in a video game.

[@AI-jl5kp]

@@BigC60 watch the video again, he highlights the difference but doesnt complain about it.

[@BigC60]

@@AI-jl5kp I saw the video twice, he complains that it is BAD because a conspiracy that hits "too close to home" makes him feel unconfortable. Is there something I am missing ?

[@Clero77]

8:45 An amusing fact: the Twin Towers are absent in the NY texture in Deus Ex, and the game was released a year before 9/11. Another amusing fact is that the last name of one of the co-founders of Google is Page.

[@vodkaboy]

Coincidence, the texture was botched. Source : kzbin.info/www/bejne/foCzeaCYqtGAppY from 4:07

[@CT_Phipps]

I argued with Lindsay Ellis the problem with the criticism of the X-Files and by definition, Deus Ex, is that we're so busy deriding the jackass in the Nascar Hat listening to Alex Jones we forget we live in a time with actual assassination robots, mass monitoring of the internet, secret detention facilities, extraordinary rendition, and the government run by billionaires who own the system. Deus Ex's vision of a brutally corrupt cyberpunk dystopia isn't ludicrous now--and the sad fact is we think of that now. We've lost the war by looking at the elephant in the room rather than the man in the suit. 9/11 Truthers is kind of a thing you have to take with the fact we actually did make up WMDs in Iraq. Did you forget that?

[@KlausWulfenbach]

As someone who was on a jury who convicted someone of a criminal conspiracy, I'd like to point out that sometimes people are 100% guilty of criminal conspiracy. Boxes and boxes of evidence were produced by the prosecution, and it all added up. We had to listen to weeks of testimony by dozens of witnesses, and everyone sympathetic to the defendants were willing to ignore all of it. Sometimes there's little to no evidence of a crime, but in our case the evidence was overwhelming and frankly the defendants should have just plead guilty instead of wasting everyone's time. Sometimes criminal conspiracies are actually provably real and the conspirators have not been convicted yet and the people accusing them of the crime are telling the truth. Sometimes the conspirators are so good at covering up their worst crimes they get convicted of tax evasion instead of racketeering. Sometimes it's actual real crime and not science fiction. I'm just saying.

[@Torgo1969]

Regarding conspiracies, the fact that hardly one person in a thousand in the US knows about Operation Northwoods is extremely troubling.

[@BigC60]

@BrokenMikrofone I'm not american and so not aware of most of their conspiracy theories (op northwood included) but I felt the same as you when he said the game was not politically correct enough. It's like he hates Trump so bad or something that Deus ex becomes bad.

[@aramshakkour6704]

@@BigC60 jesus, he did not have problem with political correctness, what he said that the game feels too real - which can be interpretered as it predicting the future, or you can see it as in the 90s, conspiracies were considered so wacky that they would had never thought that it comes so close to the real world. Deus Ex's story is about interpretending multiply competening ideologies, and they put it in a setting which was considered so surreal in the 90s that the real-world interpretations were non-existent. They probably did this so the game is not considered as a critizism of lets say, the clinton cabinet, or generally the politics of the world in that time - but 20 years later, the conspiracies it bases its story around are became so mainstream that it can almost be read as a political stance by some people.

[@BigC60]

@@aramshakkour6704 I think conspiracies in this game are made to be timeless : A virus engineered by a globalist conspiracy in china is spreading to the world fast, the conspirators are using it and the cure to forward their agenda of global domination. Am I talking about the conspiracy of Deus Ex or the real world ? What I want to show is that Deus Ex is good because the conspiracy theories in it are real, they already existed before Deus Ex, and they still exist now. They will be new conspiracy theories 20 years from now, they will still feel close to the ones of Deus Ex, because the creators of Deus Ex tried to see how conspiracy theories were built, so that they could show something that felt real and similar to our world even with super human robots and artificial intelligence.

[@0dWHOHWb0]

6:45 In other words, back in the 90's we could play the game and laugh about it because back then the themes didn't hit uncomfortably close to home...

[@residentgrigo4701]

The same can be said about MGS 2, a game written before 9/11. 1/3 of the scrips of these 2 games aged abysmally, yet the rest is pure gold. Especially now as the patriots straight out create a fake news bubble in the game. I also played Deus Ex 1 around 9/11 back in the day. I agree with Mr.Signal that the 2nd half is sort of meh. Still better than the sequel.

[@daxiomus]

chris said on twitter: "Today is a day I put forth a modicum of effort to moderate comments." so that's possibly that

[@AFnord]

+ZoneofA The problem with most conspiracy theories is that they might take something with a small kernel of truth, and then completely blow them out of proportion. No, vaccines are not perfectly safe, that much is well known, and has been since the introduction of vaccines, but the way conspiracy media makes it seem, the whole autism thing, well that's just demonstrably false, and it's a case where the source of the false information is even well known. The whole fluoride conspiracy has a very similar basis. Conspiracy theories are bad when they're based on either made up information, or things that are completely blow out of proportion, and these kinds of conspiracy theories make it hard to actually talk about the real issues, because if you talk about not being comfortable with government surveillance (even if you've got nothing to hide) you're often lumped together with the Alex Jones's of the world. No, the government is not always our friend, and we need to realize that, but we also need to make sure that we base our arguments on facts, not just what some angry person on youtube told us is facts.

[@browsertab]

Bull fucking shit. People believed conspiracy theories in the '90s much more vehemently than they do now. People once thought Elvis was alive in the '90s going to McDonalds and buying Big Macs. It's not hard to convince these people that the government are evil lizard men. Thanks to the Internet, it's easier to spread (yes) but also debunk insane theories. If Zeitgeist came out in 1994, it would be seen as gospel today.

[@skieth9999]

It's fine to question the powers that be, but you have to have reason to. It is not enough to question something you hear for no reason, and worse to supplement the thing you have been told with another thing that you have no proof of. Every Truth has to be evaluated and understood on its singular basis, you have to actually bring proof against an idea to suggest it is not true.

[@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

Swimming is not a useless skill. Poison resistance on the other hand...

[@DietmarEugen]

2:53 Minor correction: It's a nanotech sword that sharpens itself continuously.

[@adiveler]

*Sigh* Reinstalling

[@connla]

I still fondly remember finishing the hong kong level backwards because I actually believed Maggie Chow to be a good guy but then decided to search through her apartment and stumbled into the majestic base. I spent so much of that level confused the first time as I didnt realised I had done things out of order.

[@FlymanMS]

I love to do things out of order and I love when games like Deus Ex allow me to do it. Whenever I play the game, if it's not 100% linear and corridor like, I always explore the shit out of it first and then do the storyline missions. Except for GTA maybe, but there explorations comes naturally.

[@Tauposaurus]

connla Personally I had to restart the whole game because I used the jump aug to land in Tracer Tong's compound at the start. Fun fact, while that doesnt break the game itself, landing on his dog WILL kill it and turn everyone inside hostile, making any chance at removing your brainsploderoo device null.

[@DarthBiomech]

I don't exactly understand why you piss on the Deus Ex worldbuilding so much. It's a typical dystopian cyberpunk with a sprinkle of conspiracy theories really. Calling it "pulpy b-movie shlock" is really dishonest. It's not "Sharknado".

[@GoneRampant]

> Bringing up Gamergate in 2017 WHAT FUCKING YEAR IS IT. HAVE I TRAVELED IN TIME.

[@Clero77]

As a Russian, seeing the 90s being described as a "happy-go-lucky era without problems" makes me chuckle. Because in my country the 90s were, well, a disaster.

[@IvanKravarscan]

Liberty Island is so well designed because it was in demo and a lot of the games of the time had disproportionately good "first level" because it was part of demo.

[@acrefray]

18:10 - Have you actually used the swimming skill? There are several handfuls of times where it can be used to great effect, skipping areas entirely, or parts of ares which can be used to avoid pretty nasty conflicts, or getting to side areas for additional rare bits of gear and augmentation canisters. It's funny seeing everyone bash it as completely useless, but not a single one seems to point out the places where it's actually useful, or can be used to great benefit. I love this game too, and I don't doubt you do as well, but it it absolutely untrue to call swimming useless.

[@dstarr3]

Level up regen instead of swimming. You can regen health faster than drowning depletes it. Plus it's still useful even when you're on land, which swimming isn't.

[@JohnSmith-ef2rn]

The fact that expertise is seen as bias is very troubling. So many Americans feel that they have a right to be right - that, regardless of how little they know on extremely complex subjects, their views must be taken seriously because.... it is their right! No one should be allowed to tell me I'm wrong, no one should be allowed to say I'm ignorant, even if I am. That's the mindset of so many Americans. Take medical matters - the human body is an INCREDIBLY complex organism. Billions of cells, systems that interact with each other in myriad ways, and incredibly complex, nano-sized structures interacting in ways that are insanely complex. There are huge, HUGE thick textbooks on even parts of individual organs - I've seen them! The complexity of the human body is almost beyond grasping - mmedical professionals who take 6 to 8 years learning to be a doctor, then a further 5 years or more in registrar training and then spend the next 20 years working in the field EVERY SINGLE DAY still do not know everything there is to know in a given medical speciality. Yet some one who never finished high-school, who can't even locate where the liver and spleen are in the human body, who doesn't even know that blood contains red blood cells and white blood cells, (let alone plasma, electrolytes, platelets, etc), can opine upon the validity of vaccines and DEMANDS to be taken seriously! In the old days, at least if you were ignorant, you had the guts to admit it. These days, people demand respect for any crackpot stupid idea they have, even if they have not even glanced at a textbook on the subject matter. "Well, I reckon..." they always start - oh shut up! Screw your "reckon". Your "reckon" isn't worth the air you used to form the sounds necessary to communicate your idea. God.

[@midge_gender_solek3314]

Also the conspiracy theorists take the imperfection of medicine as an argument against it. If some vaccine has 90% effectiveness, it doesn't mean that we should stop using it, as it's the only reliable way of actually dealing with our problems, although imperfect.

[@vgamepuppy1]

ти во way late to the party, but I think further research on egocentrism, negativity bias, and existential risk would do both of you well. I agree with your points, but instead of questioning the morality of sheep understand your empathy for them. Humans are very complex organisms, but we are not complex in our interaction. I’m not a nihilist, but I think everyone should tend toward that eventually. If we can’t understand our own unimportance we will never be able to understand the importance of those around us. We are ants, and we may never amount to anything more than an anthill in the universe, but boy oh boy if we can’t even get that done...

[@GokulSisir]

You aren't even trying to attempt grasping the reason behind why people would support conspiracy theories. I won't pretend to suggest that I do, but the way education is used as a mark of superiority largely by those who are politically liberal in your country, and the manner in which you and others like you are prepared to dismiss these ideas as coming from "stupid" people, at the very least, make the problem worse. If the political influence they wield truly bothers you, wouldn't it be best to engage them in a sustained dialogue, where you can change their mind? Unless you're afraid that they might change yours...?

[@GokulSisir]

@@vgamepuppy1 I disagree. Ants aren't capable of telling themselves that they are ants or delude themselves into thinking that they are not. Human communications are just as complex as the human body. The only time they have been understood "completely" would be when they are understood from a totalising theory based on unfalsifiable concepts.

[@FlakeTillman]

John Smith But what if the ‘conformist sheep’ wind up being the medical establishment and the anti-vaccers had a point?

[@DietmarEugen]

4:25 "real conspiracies" it says on the box, and yet there's the bartender in Paris who is very skeptical when JC talks to him about Illuminati and other organisations. A reminder for the player to be skeptical too?

[@dozekarTheCursed]

Why is it a bad thing that these ideas make us uncomfortable. If anything this provides a strong contrast by examining what a world where all of this is true would look. Maybe it's time we leave our comfort and consider what and where we are?

[@mongoose1582]

"Gamergaters" Paused the video to check the comments section after that lol.

[@Lol10000000000000001]

he may as well put in an "RIP Comments" disclaimer after that, because there's no way the world would ever be the same

[@swissarmycheese8117]

fucking sealions

[@Snacko0]

Same

[@mygaffer]

It's fallacious to compare the gamergate "movement" to the conspiracy theories he lists. Gamergate was a response to a perceived lack of clear and established ethical rules and boundaries between games writers and the developers they covered. Considering that many outlets updated and clarified and in some cases created codes of ethics in response shows they weren't just inventing things whole cloth. The way that was politicized is a sign of the times though.

[@Clero77]

13:17 That's where you're wrong, by the way. The next game in the series, Invisible War, states that "Helios communicates, not assimilates". It makes people share their feelings and responds to their needs, but doesn't strip free will away from people.

[@v0Xx60]

I will always remember this as the first FPS I played that was filled with non-combat encounters and NPCs and a level design that felt sprawling. There are probably earlier examples, but I was 15 when this came out, so this is the one that really stuck in my mind that you didn't need to make an impenetrable RPGs to have a good, intelligently written story. The last act definitely feels rushed, both in terms of writing and design, but this game will always have a special place in my heart.

[@HarriJokinen]

I always thought the 'Men in Black' approach to conspiracy theories was interesting. Assuming every one of them is true gives you a great playground of fiction, which is still close to the real world.

[@acerba]

Deus Ex is uncomfortable because it's uncannily accurate. P.S. Helios was right. All praise the Basilisk.

[@Lodum]

Morheus talking at 12:13 sounds remarkably like Elon Musk doing an interview in all the voice clips I've heard of him. Both the speech pattern and the content sound like something he'd say completely seriously.

[@jujuplayboy]

3:25 These blast door are the reason I- WAIT, THEY'RE OPEN ?!? Please Denton, don't kill me.

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

That bit about conspiracy theories rings... stronger in a post-2020 world.

[@amshermansen]

As I recall you can skip most, if not all boss battles by being clever in the game. You can sneak around several of them, which is actually reflected in the gameplay and story to some extent.

[@Bluer123]

Humanist/non-lethal run was the most fun I've had in a long time, figuring out what ways to not kill people. Walton Simons being the best, because of how you can run away from him and then he appears again later, and then run away from him again. My only failures to avoid that I remember are Anna and Gunther, I ended up using the killphrases :(

[@FlymanMS]

It was never hard for me to kill Anna and Gunther because it was somewhat justified. Anna was going to kill an unarmed surrendered man - naturally I had a motive to neutralize her. And Gunther - he was old, he was tired of life and he was griefing over agent Navarre - there was no future for him. He was seeking death. A mercy kill.

[@doyleharken3477]

If you haven't killed Anna on the plane, she will block your escape from the bunker. You can walk by her if you placed a box to keep a certain door open, but the game was designed to only allow progress if she's killed, so dialog is unchanged. You have to access the computer in the room Gunther waits for you, so you will die if you don't kill him. I forgot if you can stun him or if somebody found a way to trigger the event flag while he's still alive, but don't bet on it. Simmons can be skipped both times you can fight him, though. Lastly, technically Page is the last boss, there's only the Helios ending that leaves room for his survival.

[@Tauposaurus]

Doyle Harken Cloak.

[@EvanDerickson]

Both Navarre and Herman have killphrases that can be researched, bypassing their fights.

[@AKImeru]

Why feel weird about it? These are all interesting concepts regardless of the political climate from 2017.

[@BigC60]

I guess it's because of Trump, I'm not from the usa but they are acting so weird since this election. As if they have to show virtue and morality in everything and so : simply portraying a conspiracy theory in a video game is too much "politicaly incorrect" and video games should always have a political message.

[@AI-jl5kp]

@@BigC60 I think you have massively missed the point of the video, try watching it again.

[@GuiHarrison]

"It didn't feel particularly Deus Sexy"

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

Put on a trenchcoat, And fight some conspiracies; Gain experience And level up abilities Will you pick rifles or computers? Don't pick swimming 'cos it's fairly useless It's a shooter And a role-playing game The levels are ugly And everyone looks the same We're not the same Ion Storm who made Dai-Katana Our games are good and stay on schedule We made a sequel that no-one loved 'Cos we dumbed it down too much 'Cos we're thiiiick…

[@luisoncpp]

Do you know Secret World? it's an MMO RPG that has as a premise that all the conspiracy theories are true. It has interesting writing and quests.

[@FlymanMS]

Ross Scott from Accursed Farms did a great video about it (shoutout-shoutout)

[@suturesunder3465]

Dead honestly, check out the Ross's Game Dungeon review, this review was really shallow for an errant signal review. Ross deals with themes in the game with much less bias and much more consideration without using thr game as a vehicle to inejct opinons about conspiracy and political events, not to mention, even if he isn't exempt from bias towards liking the game, he knows the acual game and it's ins and outs better than this review.

[@psychodrummer1567]

Yes, because of how shallow this video was, I gave my first Thumbs Down for this chanel.

[@jabberw0k812]

Everyone rightfully holds up Liberty Island, but the Hong Kong section of this game is amazing. There are at least 4 large areas full of roleplaying and stealth, changing dynamically as the story progresses, and almost all of it is open as soon as you step into the market.

[@Hairlesswookie62]

Ah, those beautiful foot clacks amid conversations concerning philosophy. Goddamn, my childhood was wonderfully weird, and almost as alliterative as adulthood.

[@Alianger]

3:25 well it was foreshadowed by Jock early in the game, in the bar.

[@WickedSouls]

Why contain it? s'cool

[@pedarogue3163]

Old men running the world

[@LowenStrosst]

Number one: that's terror.

[@FlymanMS]

getthehelloutofhereDenton!

[@hunterm1113]

Desperate.

[@TheArchsage74]

Don't believe me? It's all in the numbers. Number one: That's terror. Number two: That's terror.

[@MrEquusQuagga]

I really do like these videos, but occasionally I get turned off by some pretentious views on games and certain gamers.

[@whyjay9959]

Journalism should be viewed with skepticism, it's full of lies and misdirections.

[@Tychoxi]

This game did bending narratives better than modern adventure games that have "tailoring" the narrative to your choices as the main selling point.

[@clydemarshall8095]

Personally, I think the game has aged very well. I don't read the conspiracy theory stuff the same way you do here. But I think one of the best aspects of this game is just how much room for player interpretation there is.

[@alexanderthemagnifcent2573]

You can play the game without killing any of the bosses. Granted one of the bosses I think the game does not account for you going only to because it will still give you the theme radio message saying that you killed or even if you use bomb to prevent the door from looking and just run out the building

[@Redem10]

Each time you play Deus Ex, you discover something new

[@XxMeatShakexX]

I honestly always thought Tracer's route would put us back to medieval times with how they worded it so I avoided it lol Also swimming is very useful, run it maxed out and see what areas you never knew about exist all throughout the game. Every level utilizes it for huge parts of the map you'll never see otherwise.

[@BigC60]

I never finished the game as a kid but now it's my favorite ending, for the cut-scene and even more for the actual choice, without a centralized internet it would be harder for empires to rule over large landmasses, and even if I think it is so good to have cheap products and food from everywhere in the world, no centralized internet, or no internet at all, would not prevent international trade the slightest. But yea it is phrased really weirdly in the game.

[@fecal_position6412]

Tracer is based and Tedpilled

[@upublic]

at 04:51 precisely, he says the word 0451 !!! Coincidence? i think NOT! lulz. is funny though :P

[@nananona6988]

Lol I'm watching this 2017 posted video in July of 2020. This isn't just awkward anymore its hilarious in a Simpsons way

[@Fireclaws10]

Also 19:45 sounds like a more successful version of Eye: Divine Cybermancy. That game was great in the choice it gave you, but it was completely impenetrable.

[@AnthonyAdrianAcker]

I'd loooove to hear an updated take on the complexities and woes of the conspiracy themes from Deus Ex. I was born in 85 so by the time Deus Ex was released I was already mature enough to comprehend a lot of the themes and plot lines of the game, and realize that the influences on it were already starting to come to light. Through the 2000s and 2010s the game's themes began to resonate so differently and after 2020 the game seems prophetic on the surface. I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

[@CreepingTerror]

The next Children of Doom video is 2000, so here's hoping!

[@gtabro1337]

The summer of 0451? Oh no, he's gonna review great games and spoil all of them, hope it's in a separate section at the end at least, I really want to watch those videos...

[@Harryeaster]

Good video. I'm a bit late, but I want to add a few sentences to the theory about "conspiracy theories don't fit anymore": In the end "Deus Ex 1" is a game about power and control. You may play a Supersoldier, but technically you are owned by a few rich people and until the end, you may chose how to get in a house, but it is others, that tell you to get in. They control you...until they don't. The same few people, that now try to take over the world...and also fail. It isn't shown often, but you are not the only one, that rebells against the Illuminati and there are also hints, that the world would collapse either way, because the world of "Deus Ex 1" is so corrupt and kaputt, that these idiot saved their money on important parts of their operation, like they did on anything else in society, and that's why the fail. Because humans always fail, when they try to do everything on their own and treat others as crap (well, as long, as they don't have the supporters to keep it up). "Deus Ex 1" shows that absolute power and control are an illusion and the conspiracy as a metaphor works perfectly in this kind of story, because it gives the participants an idea of exclusivtiy and privilege, that makes them special or so they think. Everybody thinks that they alone have the power to change the world as they want...until they won't. That's why I think, that the conspiracy-plot has aged quite well, because the Illuminati and Templars are just the coats the bad guys slip in to achieve their actual goal: just gaining power. And that is as old as human civilisation itself.

[@ramblinbananas888]

I miss the fun conspiracy theories.

[@Wind_Falcon]

The first two Thief games are one of the games with the best game feel imo. Maybe only excluding when you are on top of very slanted rooftops.

[@Rocky183]

One nitpick with this video, JC Denton's name doesn't reference Jesus Christ, but instead another messianic figure, Jeremy Corbyn

[@tracidvoyager]

Remember to get your Ambrosia vaccine! This game just keeps getting more prescient

[@danielmcelroy4505]

God but seriously we can't even trust doctors 🥲

[@dimonenka]

man, the antivax conspiracy didn't age well

[@ZodiacEntertainment2]

Luckily the "Gray Death" doesn't have much of a resemblance to COVID.

[@karry299]

@@ZodiacEntertainment2 Not yet. Wait for it. USA still has dozens of bioweapon labs all over the world.

[@olivius8891]

Take a shot every time he says "pulp".

[@Prolute]

Will somebody just stop this gamergate guy already? He can't keep getting away with this.

[@EasilyBoredGamer]

He's just too powerful, even after years of inactivity his legacy lives on.

[@witchfynder_finder]

The talk about conspiracies hits even harder in late 2020... Oof

[@glorytotheaprdeathtotheufl7917]

Btw the only first person game with guns that I never used the Reload button, mainly because I just couldn´t find it and most of the weapons I used (sniper rifle, flamethrower, baton) never really needed a reload.

[@baglayan]

GMDX improves that "clunky" gameplay you mentioned.

[@hongquiao]

Walton Simons is the one boss in Deus Ex that you don't have to kill. The first time I played the game, I just ran out of the underwater base, I didn't even realize he was there. Even at Area 51 you can enter the base without fighting him.

[@jrfproductions7226]

Wow, I have recently played through the game and I have no idea where this Morpheus conversation takes place or even got close to something like that. I'll have to go back to the game!

[@smallik81]

i didn't find it till my 4th playthrough!

[@Jonathan83X]

Honestly, while this game has dated in quite a few ways and no doubt has it shares of flaws, I still find it as enjoyable as ever. Yea, the fact its conspiracies hit way too close to home now is very dark and troubling, but at the same time, it gives this game alot more relevance than it did back then. It's not just some sci-fi game with conspiracy theories added to it. It's a game involving a player in stuff that's actually unfolding before our very eyes. And that to me is why I believe everyone should play this game. It to me is one of a kind, a game that not only has solid game mechanics for its time, a great cast of characters and a plot,, but it feels as real as the events happening in our world today.

[@TheOnlyRise]

"Oh man, he's going to catch some shit for that gamergate thing, for sure." Never been more right in my life.

[@jimifender22]

ohhh man finally...this is the first errant signal released since the dark souls 3 episode about a game i've played before. awesome (granted, i did watch the 0451 vid and had played pretty much every game mentioned save one or two)

[@StevenSeagull123]

Unatco theme will be my ringtone one my phone untill the day I die.

[@mr.fluffyface431]

so what I'm hearing here is that It desperately needs an HD Remake?

[@Rossy167]

It's certainly interesting that not only can the mechanics and graphics of a game can age, but also the themes and narrative. Not just that, but enter awkward phases due to modern politics. I do wonder if Deus Ex's approach to conspiracy theories and such will one day not be awkward anymore if we ever end up not in the post truth world of Alex Jones and co. But the aging discussion is pretty cool, it's one of those things that's only just coming into the forefront now because in the time games like this have been around the landscape they've existed in haven't changed much and even when changes happen many games often don't interact with reality too much.

[@LowenStrosst]

I'm so glad you're making these.

[@leftovernoise]

Checking in from 2021, yeah the conspiracy shit still holds up

[@ChrisGower]

6:29 is that.... Elon Musk?

[@valettashepard909]

Our electronic old men, and their “flexibility” has allowed us to make progress on THE MYTHICAL CITY ON THE HILLS O.o

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

For what it's worth, Ion Storm were making Deus Ex before the leather coat sunglasses thing became popular in the late 90s. They were one of the first on the block with that aesthetic, though the Matrix ultimately beat them to the punch.

[@puddel9079]

18:43 WHAT?!? "Brain.exe has stopped working." 18:54 welp, time to play again.

[@melshk]

I can't be the only one who was triggered by him taking the crossbow over the GEP gun.

[@RMJ1984]

I'm still hoping that somewhere, somehow, someday Deus EX will get a proper remaster, kinda like System Shock 1 is getting.

[@estebanrodriguez5409]

So you are saying our present is more cyberpunk that the cyberpunk envisioned in the 90'?

[@vincentjohnson7175]

Man, playing Deus Ex for the first time during a pandemic in a political climate dominated by memes and a surveillance state is awkward as hell. The awkwardness only grew from 2017. Great video although I think you spent way too much time talking about the themes and conspiracy theories. All of that is set dressing for the real star, the emergent gameplay, which you barely touched on.

[@ogto]

the new prey is a pretty good example of "levels as puzzles". i see most if not all of that game as a problem to solve, even the combat

[@vomitcomet]

7:09 Comparing Gamergaters to antivaxxers and Sandy Hook deniers? Seriously? You make good points and insightful analysis, and your thoughts on conspiracy theorists today versus when Deus Ex was made are interesting. But by throwing in a bunch of people who are angry about video games in with people who deny the slaughter of children ever happened or people who are wilfully creating an environment where thousands of children could die from disease... it's the hardest I've rolled my eyes in a while. It felt extremely shoehorned in, and while I'm guessing because of your work you may have run into GG personally as opposed to the other groups, it still doesn't change the massive disconnect between them and the fact that including them undermines your thoughts as a whole.

[@krrrcht]

GG share the paranoid mentality, and pretty much birthed the alt-right. It's significant not necessarily because of its material damage, which did exist though, but because of its cultural encapsulation of the recent wholesale absorption of nefarious conspiracy theories by the large parts of society.

[@g3intel]

1. the alt-right is just the modern term for a 'fringe right' group, which have existed essentially since the birth of modern politics in Europe and are only growing in notability because of the growing pains of society regarding the internet 2. it's not particularly accurate to make large statements about the mentality or emotional state of gamergate because 'gamergate' as a group was comprised of a very disparate set of subcultures that occasionally shared common complaints and issues. there's a difference between who the gamergate movement was composed of on one of the imageboards and who the gamergate movement was composed of on, say, facepunch. you really have to provide context as to what part of it you're referring to.

[@vomitcomet]

I wasn't so mad about birthers because they embody the use of racism as a tool to de-legitimise democratically elected presidents, a very dangerous idea indeed.

[@g3intel]

what

[@Xalmuster]

@@Antiformed Tell that to Spencer, Bannon, Taylor, et al.

[@MellowGaming]

Great video sir. I always kinda fizzle out on Deus Ex games after a while but always want to come back to them. Restarted Human Revolution about 4 times now between Xbox and PC. I'll get there some day. This video may have nudged me.

[@kurisu7885]

I guess, provided you watched Nostalgia Critic's look at it, Deus Ex is the Demolition Man of video games.

[@TheFFFreakazoid]

you came so close to self awareness...so close

[@Sifferzz]

I finally went back and played this game for the first time in anticipation of this episode, and I couldn't agree with what you said more. Had I played this when I was younger (or at the very least, in a different political climate), I think I easily would've been happy to end the game w/ Tong's solution. The world as it stands, however, had me feeling uncomfortably sympathetic to the technocracy solution. All of the endings and their thematic implications had surprisingly relevant elements to the world as it is today, and I wasn't really expecting that to be wrapped up in this old-school goofy looking cyberpunk shooter. So glad that your videos got me to go back and check this out! I also went a bit crazy with the summer of 0451 idea and have tried to play through almost every single "0451" game outside of the Thiefs (Thieves? can't pluralize titles normally...) and Invisible war, so I can't wait to see what's next!

[@Jorvard]

I feel you. This comment section alone gave me a good push towards technocracy as a concept in general.

[@Fireclaws10]

Those 16:00 criticisms of the mechanics of the game are basically the same as Human Revolution.

[@HQ_Default]

Well... not EVERY conspiracy is correct in Deus Ex... there's no shape shifting lizard men!... Which slightly disappoints me, actually, because that would be badass.

[@HankBaxter]

Gee, I wonder what this reviewer's biases are? 6:56. It's a pity, because he seemed kinda open-minded when he first played the game.

[@lukanxo5353]

He didn’t even talk about gameplay...

[@chibikonatsu]

You know, your discussion of the gameplay near the end makes me think of Alpha Protocol, a flawed but wonderful game. You ever play it?

[@IRMentat]

I used to sneak my way in, shoot my way out. I also find it harder to go back to than SS2 or thief. The levels felt like just that, a fixed area with clunky gameplay odd systems but a vast amount of discoverable lore/item/alternate-path trinkets. After growing up on games like this the gaming of this last decade has been a hard-sell to enjoy beyond the visual advancements, vast improvements in control schemes and rare gem that reminds me of the depth/complexity of old.

[@IRMentat]

Planetside 2 is a F2P dumbed down version of planetside (bases now allow spawn-camping using tanks) where I was in a spec-ops outfit that took and held base links and provided the experienced spear-tip to force a gap through a tightly defended base attack. Battlefield is a shadow of the large scale and quick-to-access nature of the originals through to 2142. battlefront is effectively dead now, none of the team-work, balance, asymmetry or map pacing remains. CoD is CoD, Halo is no longer a PC game, day of defeat (the mod) turned from a WW2 crawl in the dirt with fearsome weapons and devastating suppressive fire, into CoD with 2 second flag capture timers.

[@Arashmickey]

For me the outdated conspiracy parts work just perfectly, no less than the '"leeches vs. humors" debate, or whether the world is carried on elephants or turtles. Or sci-fi or Cthulhu mythos, the ruins of La Mulana, thunderbolts of the gods, etc. I agree there's a hurdle to get over. "The world is flat and flying carpets exist? Hahaha! Climate change isn't real and the president is a reptile? Are you serious?" I can try to put myself in the shoes of an ancient alchemist rebelling against the religious authorities But roleplay my political opponent? Think like a psycho murderer? Pollution isn't real? Likewise I could probably convince an alchemist that VCR and Blue-Ray are basically the same and he'd kinda shrug if he found out they aren't. But convince him alchemy is bogus and leeches are the real deal and he'd lose his shit. He would lithograph memes just to cope. Actually, he might seriously end up going to war with his former colleagues.

[@FlymanMS]

Honestly, I don't understand his gripe with conspiracies in this game. They are just a vehicle to discuss serious philosophical and political topics. I think Ross Scott has made much better review of Deus Ex where he talked about the main part - the layers of the game. There are 3 of them, and this guy touched only upon the first one, completely ingoring the higher meaning.

[@Arashmickey]

I think the context is that he didn't get the same experience as when he first played the game in the 90's, because in the meantime the conspiracy landscape and standards for art and entertainment in the real world have changed. But he said it was just a bit awkward and no big deal so whatever. Ross' review is twice as long so it was more in depth, but yeah that was a great vid and he is hilarious!

[@MrMemo77full]

As someone born in '99... I now realise why Deus Ex never has and never will seem as happy-go-lucky as it was intended to be.

[@GibsonPrime]

It was kind of so in '99, so I guess it "has". At least for a bit. Then all those TVs with mumbling news anchors accompanied by scrolling headlines about terrorism became reality.

[@alanklinzing7507]

I didn't get around to playing Deus Ex until 2013, but I definitely lived through the "transition" to the fixation on terrorism that happened in the early 2000s. In the late '90s and early 2000s, any average Joe could walk onto a military base or go home to see the news talking about some far-away conflict in a region he couldn't locate on a map. But when I was in the 2nd Grade, the Twin Towers fell. After that everything became a hell of a lot more complicated. All of the sudden the "terror" that was so far away and mostly out-of-mind was now right at our doorstep (so we thought) and always on our minds. Even to a 7-year-old, 9/11 clearly separated two vastly different worlds of then and now. It changed everything. It's a actually pretty chilling how politically relevant Deus Ex still is, 17 years later. You don't get that kind of foresight with just any game.

[@iououu]

I LOVE your voice. It's so reassuring

[@lennartweber2228]

Maxbe the whole icarus thing is a reverse symbolism thingy: Jensen is a supersoldier, used by corrupt companies and governmants to clean up their mess. Therefore him dying would actually be a problem for these cprrupt parties. Yet jensen has (at least the way i played the game) strong moral believes, thats why he would always go the way of least harm to others. He often uncovers conspiracies and prevents them from happening. Thus jensen is the icarus wings, while the corrupt companies are the icarus. By surviving (with the icarus fall thing) he ultimately brings the corruption to a downfall. They flew to close to the sun, and now their wing are being burnt. Overall this is still pretty bad simbolism in the game and thats pretty sad, because the imagery that they created is very strong.... sadly it has ultimatly no meaning.