Archive for May 4th, 2009

The first thing I notice upon returning to UNATCO HQ is that there are a couple of honest-to-god Men In Black running around, acting vaguely threatening. Anna is waiting outside Manderley’s office, where Manderley is meeting with the MIBs’ boss, Walton Simons. Simons seems to think he’s running the show now, and he has concerns about Paul, both due to his unwillingness to kill, and due to his failure t o retrieve the stolen Ambrosia shipment from the NSF. I know this because I’m eavesdropping on their conversation the whole time. Simons finally leaves, and I barge into the office ahead of Anna, because she’s an NPC and I have better things to do than wait around in a computer game. Like blog about it, I guess.

Incidentally, it’s obvious that Simons is a bad guy, for two reasons. First off, when you start the game, you’re treated to a conversation between to men who are conspiring to do something vague. Simons is one of them. Also, he looks like this:

Generally, good guys don't look like this.

Manderley gives me more cash and tasks me with fixing up Paul’s mistake by retrieving the Ambrosia. Anna comes in, tells Manderley about what a great job I did shooting up the NSF at Castle Clinton, and suggests that I also be assigned to assassinate Juan Lebedev, one of the leaders of the NSF. As it turns out, Lebedev is in New York, directing the latest NSF operation from his private terminal at LaGuardia. Yes, he’s rich enough to buy an airplane terminal, but rich guys are usually pretty wussy, right? He’ll probably be an easy target.

While Manderley and Anna are telling me what to do, I’m surreptitiously hacking Manderley’s computer, and learning that Manderley and Simons suspect that Paul is collaborating with the NSF. Not entirely implausible, given the strange emails Paul had in his inbox.

After I’m dismissed, I wander around talking to people. One of the UNATCO guys says Anna was impressed by my performance, and he suggests that we would make a good couple.

Umm. . . how about NO?

I chat with Jaime Reyes and Sam Carter a bit. Carter is all set to load me up on weapons and ammo until I start talking about how I cleared out Castle Clinton, and how great it is to be seeing so much action my first day on the job. This pisses off Carter, who is apparently the only UNATCO employee other than Paul who believes police work doesn’t require indiscriminate killing. He still gives me some useful weapon enhancements, but refuses to hand over the 7.62mm ammo he promised. This would be more of a problem if I had any guns that could use it. My staple weapons are the crossbow, riot prod, and knife, and I’m packing the GEP gun for armored targets and a snipe rifle for long-range engagements. I just don’t have room to carry an assault rifle.

The guards at the detention area warn me that Simons is interrogating the NSF prisoners and doesn’t want to be disturbed. Naturally, I go to the cells to listen in on one of the interrogations. Simons wants to know about the NSF’s plans, and has apparently taken the trouble to learn a bit about the prisoner’s family. Simons even offers to put the terrorist’s family on the list of Ambrosia recipients; evidently it’s ordinarily restricted to the weathy and the politically connected. The interrogation really tells me more about Simons than about the NSF, and makes it clear he’s a pretty scary dude.

When I head to the helipad, the MIBs stop me to let me know that Simons didn’t appreciate my “intereference” in the interrogation. God, these UNATCO guys have weird priorities. They don’t mind if you shoot up New York City or steal everything that’s not nailed down from their offices, but the moment you eavesdrop on a sensitive interrogation or try to search the ladies’ room for loot, they jump all over you for it.

"Oh, and stay out of the ladies' room in the future. That kind of behavior embarasses you more than it does the agency."

Anyway, I make it to the helicopter without further mishap, and I’m flown to Battery Park. The helicopter is piloted by Jock, who was hanging around at the Underworld last mission. He’s a friend of Paul’s, and much like Alex and Jaime, will be a significant support character over the course of the game.

Jock flies me to Battery Park, which is now occupied by UNATCO troops. A bunch of homeless are congregating by some boxes and shacks near the subway station, unable to leave the park until the fighting dies down. Some questioning makes it clear the NSF have been using the subway tunnels to move their troops and equipment from place to place, and that’s probably where the stolen Ambrosia is. The tunnels are inhabited by the Mole People, a bunch of homeless folks who have permanently moved into some of the disused subway tunnels. The entrance to the Land of the Mole People is hidden from outsiders. Luckily, I saved a Mole Person from being mugged by the NSF last mission, and he gave me their secret password. Another Mole Person at the park tells me I need to go into the subway station and enter a code into the disconnected pay phone there, which opens up a secret elevator. If I hadn’t had the password, I could also buy the code from Harley Filben, the NSF informant from the first mission, whos’ hanging around in the subway station now.

The Mole People are about as exciting as any group of hopeless and destitute outcasts can be expected to be, especially since they don’t seem to have resorted to cannibalism. I find the local excuse for an authority figure, who’s complaining that explosions from the ongoing fighting have cut off their water supply, and they can’t open the valves to get the water running again because fallen debris is blocking the way to the valves.

Luckily, some of them stole a crate of explosives (probably from the NSF), and while most people have already sold theirs, it shouldn’t be too hard to find something I can use to blast my way past the debris. Luckily, I’m already carrying about a ton of explosives, but I’m not one to pass up the chance to get some more. For instance, one junkie has a LAM (Lightweight Attack Munition, basically a futuristic grenade), which he’s willing to trade for drugs.

There’s also a drug dealer hanging around nearby, conveniently. He’s apparently the only supplier for this level of the tunnels, although a gang called the Rooks dominates the tunnel one level above. When I ask the dealer about the NSF, he gets scared and refuses to talk. I identify myself as a UNATCO agent and press him harder, because everyone knows that drug dealers are more likely to open up to you if they think you belong to a law enforcement agency. This causes the (black) drug dealer to yell “I’m not going to prison, bitch!” in a textbook example of late-90’s racial insensitivity. He then pulls a gun, forcing me to stab him to death. This nets me some ammo and some vials of drugs which I can trade to the nearby junkie for explosives.

I also head upstairs, because the Rooks are said to have taken some of the stolen munitions as well. Their leader offers to sell me some at an exorbitant price; when I demur, he offers to give me a LAM for free if I kill the drug dealer downstairs. When he learns I’ve already done so, he hands over the LAM, saying he doesn’t need it anymore. He says something to the effect of “With all the money I’m going to be making now, I’ll be able to afford a GEP gun!”

Yes, basically, by killing one drug dealer, all I did was open up his turf to another, possibly more psychotic gang. If they ever make a video game out of The Wire, I hope they hire Warren Spector to design it.

Of course, if you want to be a hardcore utilitarian about it, you could look at this from the following perspective: for killing one dude, I received two bombs. If we assume that having to kill a dude is a bad outcome, and receiving a bomb is a good outcome, then this series of events led to twice as many good outcomes as bad ones. That’s what I love about utilitarianism: if you’re sufficiently sociopathic about how much weight you give to your priorities, you can justify anything. The other thing I love about utilitarianism is that, much like magic and F-22s, it tends to work better in video games than in real life.

Having supplemented my arsenal, I go back downstairs, blow up the obstructing debris, make my way past some scalding steam, and restore running water to the city’s homeless. Warm fuzzies and good karma all around, and I’m going to need every bit of it soon. When I return to the Mole Marquis (or whatever he is) who gave me this task in the first place, he gives me directions for getting into the lower tunnels, warning me that the NSF is still down there, along with a bunch of unarmed and innocent civilians. I can’t even begin to count the number of ways this could go wrong.

I picked up a few more augmentation canisters during that last mission, so this is as good a time as any to explain in detail how they work.

Essentially, there are two parallel character-development systems in the game. I’ve already talked a little about skills. They’re pretty straightforward. You receive skill points for completing objectives, advancing the plot, or exploring new areas, and you can spend them to upgrade your skills at any time. With a few exceptions, they just let you use your weapons or tools more effectively.

Nan-augs are found in canisters, and are generally guarded and/or locked up. Each canister has two abilities it can grant, and you must choose between them. Each canister is also associated with a particular body part; for instance, Microfibrial Muscle and Combat Strength are appied to the arms. Most body parts can only take one upgrade, although JC can take three Torso enhancements and two Subdermal enhancements. This makes things a bit more complicated.

The Aqualung and Environmental Resistance canister I found in the last mission is a Torso augmentation. I can only use it to acquire one of the abilities (ER, in my case). However, there are duplicate canisters available later in the game, so I could in theory pick up Aqualung later. I won’t do that, though, since there are two other types of Torso canisters available, each with two associated abilities. This means there are six possible augmentations, but JC can only fit three of them in his Torso, and Aqualung is pretty much the worst of them. But if you really wanted to give JC the ability to swim for hours in radioactive sludge, you could do so.

Well, not hours, exactly. Nanoaugs aren’t always active, and when you do switch them on, they consume bioelectric energy, which is Deus Ex’s answer to mana or psi points: an arbitrary statistic that decreases when you use your special abilities. Augmentations all consume power, which you can only regain by drawing power from a repair bot, which is not portable, or using a bioelectric cell, which is portable, although they’re consumedwith use and there are a finite number available in the game. It’s a large finite number, mind you, but finite nonetheless. Naturally, the more useful the aug, the more rapidly it tends to drain power, so you can’t be Superman all the time.

In addition, each nano upgrade has four different levels. A newly-installed upgrade is at level 1, and isn’t usually that great. Microfibrial Muscle gives you a slight increase to your strength: approximately 20%. Environmental Resistance reduces your damage from toxins and radiation by 25%. This latter doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the same reduction you’d get from using a Hazmat suit if you haven’t invested any points in the Environmental Training skill. As you can see, there’s a bit of a trade-off at work. You can reduce damage with Environmental Resistance, expending some bioelectric energy in the process, or you can use Environmental Training, which requires you to use a hazmat suit (and they’re only good for a limited duration).

In order to increase the effectiveness of your upgrades, you don’t spend skill points. Instead, you use nanotech upgrade units which you can find at various points throughout the game. Each upgrade will enhance any one augmentation by one level, and naturally, they’re in somewhat limited supply. Upgrades tend to enhance your augmentation from “somewhat useful” to “spectacular.”

In cases where there’s some overlap between a skill and a nano-aug, it’s best to pick one or the other to specialize in; since skill points and upgrade items are in limited supply, you don’t really want to invest in redundant abilities. The power drain for Environmental Resistance is modest, and I’d rather not have hazmat suits taking up precious inventory space, so I’ll be relying on it throughout the game.

I’ll start by upgrading Environmental Resistance whenever I can, until it’s level 3. Each of the first three levels reduces environmental damage by 25%, so at level 3, it gives a 75% damage reduction; this is what I was talking about when I said that augmentation upgrades are important. You get diminishing returns at level 4, which grants only 90% protection. It’s certainly better than 75%, but remember, each upgrade that I spend on Environmental Resistance is one that can’t be spent elsewhere.

Such as Speed. The two leg upgrades are Silent Running (lets you move quietly while running at full speed) and Speed (which makes you faster, increases your jumping height, and increases the distance you can fall without taking damage). Silent Running sounds good for a sneaky character, by I think Speed is far better, since it enhances your mobility and allows you to jump over obstacles and into otherwise-inaccessible locations. Once I have ER up to level 3, if I devote all my upgrades to Speed, it’ll reach maximum level about halfway through the game. At that level, it nearly doubles my running speed, more than doubles my jumping capability, and allows me to fall up to 60 feet without taking damage. This is an ability with some profound tactical implications.

By the end of mission 2, even without having had the chance to upgrade my augmentations muchm, I have the ability to travel through hazardous areas with reduced damage, jump higher and farther than normal, and lift and move heavy objects. There are all good abilities for opening up new paths or navigating dangerous routes with minimal damage, which in turn makes it easier to avoid guards and security cameras. An alternative stealth build might use the Silent Running and Combat Strength abilities to run up behind guards and beat them into unconsciousness while their backs are turned. Or, instead of using Microfibrial Muscle to lift obstructions out of the way, a combat-oriented character could use it for wielding heavy weaponry and Rambo-ing his way through every enemy in the game.

The great thing about Deus Ex is that the nano-augmentations let you choose between a bunch of useful abilities, and you can utilize each of them in a variety of ways depending on your playstyle. I’m sure some combinations are better than others, but there are enough routes through the game that just about any plausible-seeming character build is probably viable.