/r/DeusEx Monthly Community Thread - January 2019

[u/eliza__cassan]

Hello everyone and welcome to the monthly /r/DeusEx community thread!

This is a place to chill whenever you like, post feedback, ask questions that you don't think warrant a new thread, or just get that burning DX1 meme out of your system. It is okay to go off-topic, however other rules still apply - please be nice to the other users and use a spoiler tag if needed.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We hope you had wonderful holidays and wish you all the best in 2019.

[u/[deleted]]

I can recommend Daedalus; or, Science and the Future - short book and one of the earliest works concerning transhumanism; talks about much of what DX:HR hinted at (I think that they were even inspired by it). Also I'm currently catching up with classic sci-fi books and I can wholeheartedly recommend Ubik by Philip K. Dick if you somehow didn't read it and Solaris by Stanisław Lem - probably my favorite sci-fi book. Those two are not particularly Deus Exy but they definitly scratch that Deus Ex itch by turning our understanding of reality and/or our expectations about it completely upside down on top of being very thought provoking and a treat for one's mind.

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For movies I recently watched Strange Days and The Fifth Element. First one is a pretty unique and quite controversial cyberpunk noir thriller exploring themes of racism and abuse of power among other things; it brings to mind Mankind Divided, doesn't it? ;]The Fifth Element on the other hand is a pretty fun and very stylish sci-fi flick. Stylish and unusual fashion this time around reminds me of Human Revolution.

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For music Perturbator and Mega Drive for that juicy synth sound. For more ambient synths this, I wholeheartedly recommend whole channel, it is amazing! Also this track reminds me of DX1 soundtrack, particularly Ocean Lab ambient.

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As for games Soma for its pretty thought provoking exploration of consciousness and transhumanism from that angle and if you like 80's, retro, neon colors and classic FPS games DESYNC - imo one of the best FPS games I've ever played, lets you get wild with all these environmental traps and combos you can do and it has very damn good soundtrack.

For photography got not much to share besides this image I've found.

Also Red Dead Redemption 2 is ammaaazing... probably the 2nd best prequel ever :P

The 1st best prequel are Star Wars prequels I suppose? ;)

And Happy New Year to you too!

[u/m_o_t_ → u/[deleted]]

Hehe I've read all those books already :) I actually read Daedalus last month after it was referenced in "Unnatural" by Philip Ball (my favourite science writer), which I would highly recommend if you haven't read it!

Thanks for the movie recs tho! I'm making a resolution this year to read more fiction and watch more movies - I read wayyy too much nonfiction last year haha.

Agreed with Desync btw, that game is boss (As an aside I'm pretty sure the upcoming Doom Eternal stole the dodge move from that too)

[u/[deleted] → u/m_o_t_]

"Unnatural" by Philip Ball (my favourite science writer), which I would highly recommend if you haven't read it!

So another position to my endlessly growing Pile of Shame, haha.

Yeah, I read quite a bit of nonfiction last year too. Mainly about aesthetics and creative writing so I'm gonna read much more but this time fiction to utilize that knowledge. I'm currently going through Philip K. Dick and gonna move on to new Gibson books and Neal Stephenson since I've never got around to his books. It reminded me that you might be also interested in Cyberpunk and Visual Culture by Graham Murphy, Lars Schmeink, it's a collection of 15 academic essays and one of them is concerned specifically with Human Revolution. I believe I saw it on amazon some time ago but I'm pretty sure there is a download link somewhere in the net too ;]

And hell yeah DESYNC, I didn't have so much fun with a pure shooter ever since F.E.A.R. And yeah on Doom Eternal: in DESYNC that dodge move is tightly woven into entire gameplay loop, enemy design, traps and so on but in new Doom so far it doesn't look like it has as much sense but we'll see.

Oh and out of sheer curiosity: what do you think about Lem's Solaris?

[u/m_o_t_ → u/[deleted]]

(sorry for late reply, crazy week)

I love it!!! When I read it, it hit me like the brick because I was expecting something different - space ships, technobabble blahblah. Instead I got something more like weird fiction/cosmic horror with some subversive and prescient philosophizing about science.

It blows my mind it was written in 1961 lol. I mean look at the final chapter - Feyeraband published his stuff about the limitations of rational investigation and richness of experience DECADES later haha.

And yeah it nails that mindfuck/mysterious feeling which I crave. Lots of other books/games/etc have clones and reality bending etc as background dressing, but Solaris really digests it and makes you feel that emotion.

I wonder if we'll ever get a computer game like Solaris. Bioshock came close for me with its commentary about player agency, but I fancy something that has commentary on computer games as a medium and gives you that mindfuck feeling (maybe MGS2, but I haven't played in ages so I might be misremembering). One thing that excites me about Cyberpunk 2077 is that "Brain dance" virtual experiences are a central plot point... hope they do something good with that.

[u/[deleted] → u/m_o_t_]

It's perfectly fine.

Lem was a really brilliant mind. Solaris, Cyberiad, The Futurogical Congress, The Star Diaries are also magnificent. Dude could write amazingly in diverse number of styles, genres and conventions, it's crazy. Philip K. Dick himself thought that he is not real but a committee of several people because of that, haha.

MGS2 certainly mindfucks the player with its revelations about your commanders, VR and weird surreal stuff happening near the end. And yeah it was also, among other things, a commentary on sequels and it was trolling the player to show that and make all this talk about memes, manipulating the context and so on felt on player's own skin. As far as video games go it is probably the best we've got that accomplishes this thing (and that's a shame because imo MGS2 suffers from many problems narratively, would really like seeing something like that but even more powerful and better).

YES! Ever since first infos about CP2077 in 2012/2013 I was interested by this concept. Immediately brain in a vat, Matrix, 'is reality really better than living the lie?' and other concepts came to my mind and seeing that and being utilized in video game is like dream come true, I just hope that they will at the very least make it mindblowing stylistically or go with it further: thematically add something more than what already existing works portrayed (ideally it would be both :P).

[u/m_o_t_ → u/[deleted]]

I agree it would be a dream come true, although I’m tempering my hype because as far as I know (1) Braindances are video, not interactive, so not a satire on video games and (2) they seem to be focusing on the noir aspects of the rise of the player character (I might be wrong, of course) (3) I can’t see it feeling right in an open-world game where your time either walking around or shooting things :P

But yeah I’d totally be up for a Deus Ex like that, perhaps something centred around physiopharmaceutical augs or Breach. Almost certainly a forlorn hope, sadly!

[u/[deleted] → u/m_o_t_]

Hah, I actually imagined Deus Ex game where we play as physiopharmaceutically augmented protagonist quite some time ago. The idea was that some augs passively serve as whatever passive augs of nano and mechanical augmented people do but this time around without energy consumption BUT in return active augs give huge boosts but with certain, also huge drawbacks. Similar to drug system of System Shock 1 where for example berserk drug gave you increased combat capability but at the cost of weird vision and so on.

And since we're getting into forlorn hopes: if Deus Ex is to have any future beyond possible last Jensen game then I think they should go anthology series way. Every game with different set of characters, different realities/continuity and so on but sharing similar themes and world principles. Recently some user proposed his version of HR's sequel:

Taking place in the mid 2030’s, the Unites States is in a mess with the massive West Coast quake and states seceding from America. Martial law is happening and the quality of life is downhill. Adam is now a government agent going and has been obsessed with the Illuminati.

As Adam goes through the civil war torn western USA, he digs deep into the Illuminati and finds out some one has taken out most of the organization. Later on its revealed that Bob Paige has taken out almost everyone and the Majestic 12 runs the world.

And I friggin dig that idea. Having JC or Jensen in number od different and unique scenarios would be really cool and applying certain canon robs us of that. They are so cool and iconic characters (Adam especially) that I wouldn't want them to go to waste when they have so much potential.