T w e n t y S i d e d

A side note: I’ve updated the Spoiler Warning page. Hopefully this will make it easier to surf the archives. I know I get lost looking for particular episodes, and I’m thinking maybe being able to see the titles will help.

As I mentioned in the episode, the “vast underground complex filled with guards and control rooms” is pretty much a required component of the Deus Ex conspiracy-driven story, but it flies apart if you do something foolish like think about it. Having fifty or a hundred people all pile into an abandoned building every morning would be a pretty big giveaway. At lunchtime a half dozen people would file out, grab huge piles of Starbucks and take-out food, and disappear into the building again.

You could fix this by saying the people live in the base, but then you have the problem of needing to bring in truck loads of food every couple of weeks. You’d need laundry infrastructure, dorms, and a plan for getting rid of all the trash. There would be little bits of traffic every couple of weeks as personnel rotated in and out of their six-month shifts. Again, people would notice.

Which brings up the question of why this base needs to be in a city at all. What is this place for? I understand they were spying on Sarif from here, but certainly they didn’t need ALL of these people for a job like that. And those people could have worked out of an office tower downtown without really raising any eyebrows. What is it that the bad guys want to accomplish that requires a sprawling, Dwarf-like warren under the earth?

EDIT: For the record, I’m not saying these are plot holes or anything. I’m just musing.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Am I the only one who misses that synth music they used in Deus Ex, Unreal, and Unreal Tournament? I remember opening up Unreal Ed and using it like a music player back in the day, having it play through all of the available tracks.

I also loved the MIDI music used in Descent. That was great stuff. I was actually really disappointed with the music in Descent 2, which replaced the beep-boop electronica with real CD tracks and a more “hardcore” musical vibe. Maybe it was the tonal shift that put me off, or maybe this is a case of me preferring chicken nuggets and cheese doodles over roast chicken and baked potato. I never claimed to have refined tastes.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Oh no! Somebody changed my internet show and now it’s different! Change it back! I fear things that are new and strange!

Once you get over the shock, please welcome Chris Franklin to the show. You might remember him as Campster, the guy who had the AUDACITY to not love Half-Life as much as we do. Josh, Rutskarn and I have been plotting our revenge for weeks. After a long discussion, we couldn’t come up with anything more unpleasant than being on the show with the rest of us. So here he is. Our plan is to subject him to Rutskarn’s puns until he agrees to wear a “Half-Life is #1 game with no flaws” foam finger on his right hand at all times.

He didn’t crack this week. In fact, he pretty much just talked about Deus Ex the whole time. During the show about Deus Ex! Can you believe it? Whatta n00b.

On a less absurdist note: If you want some bonus content today, check out his take on Duke Nukem Forever, where he argues that people hated it for all the wrong reasons. This is just the sort of meta-commentary that makes me happy.

You might notice I didn’t review DNF. I couldn’t do it. Despite all the jokes I made at the expense of the game, deep down I really wanted to like it. When the game failed, I wasn’t angry. Just disappointed. I actually quit playing when I got to the platforming section in the burger joint. I meant to go back and give it another try, but I never did. I could never stockpile enough indignation to get a good rant going, and so I let the game slip by in silence.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.