Deus Ex Nostalgia

I am a creature of nostalgia. I like delving into things from times past, to remember good moments and see how far I’ve come since the way back when. For example, I recently dug up poetry I wrote as a teenager. Admittedly, I immediately wanted to burn all traces of them off the Internet, then travel back in time and give my teenage self the mother of all ass-whuppings for what he did, but nonetheless, it is...somewhat...pleasing to know that my writing skills have greatly improved since then.

One of the biggest nostalgia trips I go on is with video games. I have possession of my Nintendo 64, the first console I owned. Slowly but surely, I’m acquiring what PC games I had in my youth on Steam, just for that added peace of mind of knowing they’ll always be there.

For added bit of contextual nostalgia, I shall refer readers to a blog entry from 2012 when I listed my (as of 2012) top ten favourite video games. I may revisit this list soon, as a few changes need to be made, but one remains the same. The Big Kahuna. Numero Uno.

Ladies and gentlemen, Deus Ex.

I never thought this game could get better. I thought it simply impossible. Then a bunch of awesome people called Caustic Creative came along and gave us Deus Ex: Revision. The world as I knew it inverted itself and the game I thought I knew like the back of my hand changed dramatically.

Before I proceed any further, in spite of the fact that Deus Ex has been around for fifteen years now, I am going to issue a spoiler warning. I am going to discuss aspects of the game’s plot/later missions. I don’t know how spoiler-ish people will think these are, but the warning’s here anyway. Do with it what you will.

Rather than being a reboot, reimagining or what have you, Deus Ex: Revision is a fan-created mod for Deus Ex. Free on Steam to download, incidentally. In a nutshell, it’s a massive environment overhaul. All of the locations have been revamped – in some cases expanded, such as Hell’s Kitchen in New York City and the Wan Chai Market in Hong Kong. The gameplay itself is the same, the plot and dialogue are largely the same. It just...it looks SO MUCH PRETTIER! Multiple squeal-gasms were had as I played what felt almost akin to a new game. In places there are new enemies, guys with sniper rifles or some such who weren’t there before, or impertinent security bots that I really wasn’t expecting. But you know what, I didn’t give a frak. Because it looks so godsdamned pretty. Moreover, the unexpected additions made the game so much more thrilling. I will now cite the specific, possibly spoiler-ific, instance where my nerves were on the verge of being shredded.

The abandoned gas station west of Vandenberg. Your objective is to rescue Tiffany Savage, the daughter of Doctor Gary Savage, who is a critical ally at this point in the game. Now whether Tiffany lives or dies doesn’t affect the game all that much, except in dialogue. Doctor Savage acknowledges you tried to save her and you don’t get rewarded. If you save her, a shiny augmentation upgrade canister is yours for the taking.

Anyway.

Save Tiffany. That’s the mission. Of course, my first hurdle here is “Oh gods, oh gods, the layout of the gas station is totally different.” Fortunately for me, it turns out that Tiffany was in the same building as before. Just the buildings are a bit different, as are the Majestic-12 troops on guard duty. Things were going well. I was getting past all these new guards, taking them down nice and quiet-like. Avoiding the MJ12 commando who would give the whole game up if I tried to take him down, lethal or non-lethal.

So I’m going in the usual way – climb up to the roof of the gas station itself, then across to the garage building where they’re holding Tiffany. In Deus Ex it’s an easy jump across, then down through the hatch in the ceiling, kill the MiB and MJ12 trooper inside, job done, take out everyone else and Tiffany’s safe and sound.

Not so easy in Revision. The garage is now firmly out of jumping range. There are, however, a pair of sturdy cables stretching across from building to building that you can walk across. Simple, right? NO. There’s an MJ12 guard down below. Standing right up against the gas station. No way to jump down and stun him quietly without alerting the others.

This is where borderline nerve-shredding occurs. It’s a mixture of “oh crap this is going to take a couple of tries to get right” and “oh my gods this is so frakkin’ cool I love this game all over again!”

Deus Ex: Revision is pure, absolute joy. The same core game. Dialogue, character interactions. But with amped-up action and amped-up locales. I got lost in Hell’s Kitchen. Lost. In Hell’s Kitchen. Shouldn’t be possible. But it is. Paris, a city I despised in my first playthrough of the original so many Moons ago, now stands as a beautiful beacon, a rich environment I want to explore again and again. Much as I will do with Hong Kong and New York City.

But the real spine-tingler came at the end. Naturally, I completed all three possible endings – the New Dark Age, Illuminati and merging with the Helios AI. Now this is where I have to say a massive, huge SPOILER ALERT because I thought this was so frakkin’ cool to discover on my own. So please, exercise caution when scrolling down. As it is going to be a picture, I’ll do a sort of summation now. First off, Caustic Creative, my hats off to you. You beautiful bastards. I love you all. Keep up the good work, I look forward to your future projects. Secondly, everyone else, especially Deus Ex fans, get Deus Ex: Revision. Right now. Right. Frakkin’. Now. You’re still sitting there, reading this? For the love of the gods, go! NOW!

Okay. To the spine-tingling spoiler.

In a minute.

I want to make sure no one scrolls to the picture by accident.

Really.

I’m that nice of a guy.

Honestly.

Really nice.

Almost tediously so.

Okay, you get the picture now.

Speaking of pictures...

It’s a simple thing. A detail. But it’s in the details, isn’t it? The beauty, the sublimity of it all. I think you get the point now. Deus Ex: Revision is amazing, it has revitalised a classic and is just so beautiful. I’m going to have so much fun replaying this in years to come.

And then out of nowhere...

Okay, so I’ve let my obsession with doing one post a week slide a little. Sure, we can start by blaming Christmas Eve, but there’s a simpler explanation. Couldn’t think of anything to write. In those situations, forcing myself to sit down and write is very, very counterproductive. Tearing my hair out and screaming at the sky counterproductive. I’m melodramatic. Deal with it.

However, side-stepping this melodrama for now, we take a trip back in time to August 2014. Somewhat fitting, given what I’m about to start talking about. Anyway, it was in that month of that year that something caught my eye. An article about a new game Square Enix were going to publish. What caught my eye was that the screenshot of the game’s central protagonist bears a striking resemblance to a lovely young lady whom, at a friend’s wedding that year, I was arranging flowers with. Yes, that’s right. I got roped into arranging flowers at a friend’s wedding. It was awesome and possibly my favourite wedding experience ever. Also I have a flower-arranging buddy. That part is pretty cool too.

The game is called Life is Strange. It was released today, a fact I discovered yesterday, caved and bought the whole thing on Steam. It’s a five-part episodic videogame created by Dontnod Entertainment that focuses on eighteen year old girl Max Caulfield (who bears striking resemblance to my awesome flower-arranging buddy). Max is a student at the prestigious Blackwell Academy in her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon, a place she had long since escaped. One day, in her beloved photography class, she discovers the most curious thing.

She can rewind time.

There’s the hook. My housemate is a big fan of TellTale games, I’ve watched him play The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us and I’ve dabbled in the latter myself. Need to dabble some more I suspect. Of course, these are games driven by player choice and build the action of the next act from the consequences of the player’s actions. What Life is Strange offers is the chance to rewind, test the waters and see where you want to go from there.

Naturally, there’s a limit to how far you can rewind time. You have to make a choice and stick with it. But it is interesting to experiment with where those choices can take you, then make a decision, rather than having to make the split-second determination.

Time travel. Check. Next up for what draws me to this game? Visual style. It’s beautiful. Thanks to Max’s penchant for photography, a defining characteristic that no doubt has huge parts to play in the upcoming action, there’s a lot of emphasis on visuals. And boy are they something to behold. Plus, Max doesn’t have a half-bad eye for a good shot – or at least, the developers made sure the right opportunities were open to her.

The other, slightly more curious, draw for me is the teen angst/teen drama aspect of the game. Underlying the main plot are the subtle intricacies of a high school student’s life. The social pitfalls, befriend this guy, snub that girl, help them out or let them suffer. I am sure the developers have figured some way into making all fit into the overarching plot and have all those neat little consequences too, but as a kind of side-quest kick, I like it.
Episode two of Life is Strange is due in March. Between now and then, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunity to replay it and have fun playing with the laws of time.

You were my sire, man! You were my...Yoda!

Today I'm going to be doing something a little bit different. Well, kind of mixing things up a little. Something from Column A and something from Column B. On this particular day, Column A is similar to a little something I did back in June. Anyone remember this little gem? I talked a lot here about being a writer, about the community of writers that exist in this wonderful world of ours. Or, as I called it, The Writerverse. It is in the name of The Writerverse that I commence babbling this particular eve.

The quotation in the title is a reference to one specific writer. Her callsign is Spike. As a fellow fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was only fitting to name her after one of the most awesome characters from the series. Especially as she is, in some respects, my sire. If it weren't for Spike, I may never have discovered that I enjoyed dancing. Going out...having fun. Having that funny odd thing called...a Life.

So there it is. She is my sire, man.

Anyway, Spike is a fellow alumnus from university. In the intervening years between graduation and now, my sire's been up to a lot of very productive things. Take her blog, Review Diaries. I was about to say for example. I wouldn't say for example. I'd say this is pretty big really. While I'm here babbling every which-a-way about all the geeky sci-fi things I love and occasionally talking about awesome books in a vaguely review-like context, she's been solidly reviewing all of the things she loves. And has become something of a big deal in the blogging circles for Young Adult publishing. So much so, she's made it into the top ten for a competition to become the new in-house blogger for Mira Ink Publishing.

Now, this is where we get to the substance of this ramble. Round two of the competition involves making a video, posted to YouTube, wherein the finalist explains what makes them so perfect to be the new voice of Mira Ink Publishing. In this very, very energetic video, Spike very awesomely explains why she is the best choice. To further convince the judges of this...well, this is where we need the good will of you, the gracious people of the Internet. Watch this video. Like the video. Share the video. Rinse and repeat. Ensure that your friends do the same thing. That random kid who walks past Ebenezer Scrooge's house in A Christmas Carol, make sure he does it too.

So there you have it. My sire is awesome. Help her prove it to the Mira Ink judges. Like and share the video. Pretty please!

Lastly, there's the Column B ramble. It's slightly sire related. For this, my sires are Thief and Dragon. And the GRRM Reaper himself, George R.R. Martin. You see, reading the Song of Ice and Fire and a lot about all of the awesome dragons, I actually found myself listening to the whispers of dragons in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I found myself reading up more, investigating the game more and being very tempted to buy it.

Finally, last week, during Steam's autumn sale, I caved. I mean, Skyrim and both DLC add-ons for £26 when the non-sale price is £34.99. Pretty good deal. And now, as a result of this, I am incredibly addicted. Well, maybe not incredibly as instead of spending every waking moment playing Skyrim I'm babbling here, but hey-ho. I'm finding it to be a very compelling game. Don't know how far am I at the moment. So far, I'm a level eleven Dark Elf with a particularly speciality for burning things. What can I say. I like fire. It works for me.

That's the news from my end of the worlds so far. In summation, dear readers, I'm hooked on Skyrim and please, please help out my dear friend Spike.

Also, totally indulging in some old school music from the 90s. To whit...

(Song of the Mind: My Favourite Game - The Cardigans)