are video card prices going to stay this low?

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Solver

[LOTM, like Spikie says, don't bother. Cheap cards are always available. Each new series of cards has a lower-end cheap model, and with each new series the previous one becomes really cheap. And since this happens often enough, you better wait until you actually need a new video card. You don't need it while you're playing Civ4, much less for Deus Ex (yes, go finish it already ).

I'm taking a break from Civ4 to go back and play through DE (have to restart, cause my old last game was corrupted and not recoverable, a Gametap issue) BTW, theres some real stupid political stuff if you restart some convos - the command you capture at the SOL tells you that in 1900 98% of Americans worked for themselves, and now its many fewer, as evidence of plutocracy - evidently Mr Spector (?) was not aware of something called "industrialization".

You move through the games slowly enough...

You are overlooking that Ive played the Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Age of Sail in the meantime

[Solver]

Hey, what people in Deus Ex say doesn't have to be what Warren Spector thinks. I daresay you can find quite a bunch of very different comments in the game, from the various groups - UNATCO and NSF guys surely offer dissimilar perspectives. And try to finish the game this time... it really is a better experience if you can finish it before forgetting what the first half was all about

[Alinestra Covelia]

Deus Ex also has some awesome mods for it.

I'm following this thread with interest. I would like to build a PC at some point and my brother is too far away to help me do so.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Solver
Hey, what people in Deus Ex say doesn't have to be what Warren Spector thinks. I daresay you can find quite a bunch of very different comments in the game, from the various groups - UNATCO and NSF guys surely offer dissimilar perspectives. And try to finish the game this time... it really is a better experience if you can finish it before forgetting what the first half was all about

I havent seen a "case" made by UNATCO, other than Denton's lame responses to the NSF case. Its not THAT hard to see what side the author is pulling for. Indeed, its pretty heavy handed, IMHO, unless theres a "24" type plot twist coming up (that there may be one, is why I put a question mark in parens, to note my uncertainty whether its Mr Spector or the charecter - in any case, there are stupid little "factoids" like that in several spots). But I will hold off till I've finished. Going much faster this time, I've done all I did before, got past the roving bots with a camo suit.

edited - I realize I dont have to attack the copter

[Alinestra Covelia]

UNATCO's case is made mostly by Gen. Carter, with a certain degree from Manderly and (if he likes you) Gunther Hermann.

It's probably the weakest of all factions in terms of moral weight, but there are some arguments made in its favor, doomed though they may be.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Second point: I got a quote from Khalil Gibran when I made that post about Deus Ex. Result!

At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all
my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my
ignorance upon the shore.
-- Kahlil Gibran

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
UNATCO's case is made mostly by Gen. Carter, with a certain degree from Manderly and (if he likes you) Gunther Hermann.

Y'all are missing the point. Those guys say things about the GAME world. The things I'm referring to are out of context factoids about the 20th century US.

[Solver]

I've always viewed those as evidence of how Deus Ex's society chooses to interpret the history of the 20th century.

[El_Cid]

Indeed. I always felt the UNATCO's theme was a 'cybervision' version of the dark underbelly of American politics in this last half century. The United Nations (real world) is really often toothless because *America decides it to be. UNATCO is the version where by *America has finaly developed it into what it really wants.

Note: *America here as a group term of national identity doesn't mean all americans. Just the political/corporate driven elite that runs most of the world from the background, and just happens to be mostly based in the usa or very strongly affiliated with those powers.

As 'just' a game, i felt the story(especialy in todays 'war on terror' world) was a reasonable attempt at a prophetic vision of the future. I would argue one we are closer to now than when the game was made.

But yeah finish it atleast once this time LotM!!! then you have 3 or 4 other endings to follow

[Alinestra Covelia]

If you like Deus Ex, and your computer can run it, you may want to give Fallout 3 a whirl. FO3 has even more sweeping game-changing choices you can make, and a load of optional quests. The scope of its main plot is not nearly as sweeping as DX's, but it is intensely personal and I found it very moving.

This may be a little beyond the subject matter of the thread though, because I gather you do need a pretty high end rig to play the game decently on a PC.

[DrSpike]

LotM will get to Fallout 3 in about 3-4 years.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike
LotM will get to Fallout 3 in about 3-4 years.

Fallout 1 is now free on Gametap. So my current plan is finish Deus Ex, than some more civving, then Fallout. Then maybe buy a game. Probably a pre-2005 game, like TW series, one of the fantasy TBS or RTS I haven't gotten to yet. So yeah, 2011 might be it for FO3.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by El_Cid
Indeed. I always felt the UNATCO's theme was a 'cybervision' version of the dark underbelly of American politics in this last half century. The United Nations (real world) is really often toothless because *America decides it to be. UNATCO is the version where by *America has finaly developed it into what it really wants.

Note: *America here as a group term of national identity doesn't mean all americans. Just the political/corporate driven elite that runs most of the world from the background, and just happens to be mostly based in the usa or very strongly affiliated with those powers.

As 'just' a game, i felt the story(especialy in todays 'war on terror' world) was a reasonable attempt at a prophetic vision of the future. I would argue one we are closer to now than when the game was made.

IE this game reflects your worldview. That was precisely my point.

Now if there are lots of games that are like "USA! Yay! Third Way! Yay!" i would consider that balance. HL wasnt that though. IIUC COD4 isnt that.

Do I have to play a WW2 game to have the US Govt as unabashed good guys?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Solver
I've always viewed those as evidence of how Deus Ex's society chooses to interpret the history of the 20th century.

Sometime in the future they will interpret the decrease in sole proprietors not as the inevitable outcome of the rise of manufacturing, the mechanization of agriculture, and the decline of small crafts, but as evidence of a tendency to plutocracy? IE a dystopic future where even basic economics has been forgotten? Or where 1900 is seen as the BEGINNING of plutocracy in America - IE where the ACTUAL plutocracy of the guilded age is forgotten, and the era when the plutocracy was fought from TR's Square Deal to the New Deal, is seen as a period of RISING plutocracy - IE a dystopic era when americans have forgotten their history.

Or is it just that that dystopia of ignorance was already upon us in 2001, in the form of militias, survivalists, gold bugs, anarchists and assorted conspiracy theorists, with at least one game designer either falling under their influence, or deciding that this stuff sells (but since the 20th cent refs are pretty hidden, Im assuming this isnt marketing)

any how, the game is decent. Im at the airfield now (why should I ask for accuracy in historical asides from a game that place La Guardia airport an easy walk from lower Manhattan ? ) and it seems to be a bear, so to speak.

I will give it a more considered try, than report back.

And on the HW front, I think I'm going to buy an external HD right now, we need that (kind of sort of) and as I said, dont really need a video card. Still those deals are mouth watering.

[Quillan]

LOTM, go through the whole game, and perhaps then you'll understand. There's a whole lot going on that hasn't been revealed yet by the airfield. You have a long way to go still.