Deus Ex 3 novel tie-in. - by Ostriig
van HellSing on 14/7/2010 at 05:52
The thing that gives me a bit of optimism is that the author also works on the game, so at least he has first hand knowledge of the game world.
Illuminatus on 14/7/2010 at 16:36
Quote Posted by Bluegrime
Think of how rich the world of the original Deus Ex would have been if it had a series of novel tie-ins to flesh out details that they couldn't reasonably cover in the game
Deus Ex did have an incredibly rich game-world thanks to the ample (and well written) reading material (a huge amount of sub-plots and foreshadowing goes on just in the emails, newspapers, etc). Invisible War did away with a lot of that flavour, and the story and characters feel far more wooden and inconsistent as a result. It would be awesome if EM included that level of detail again in the game itself rather than release some cheesy cash-grab side novel.
SubJeff on 18/7/2010 at 01:56
Quote Posted by Papy
Not video games, but several books based on AD&D were quite enjoyable.
Which ones?
Papy on 18/7/2010 at 16:11
That was a long time ago, but I remember some of the DragonLance series, like Chronicles and Legends, were quite readable, particularly for people who were playing AD&D. I was also able to enjoy others like Azure Bonds. Of course, none were great literature (but to put things in perspective I think Tolkien was not great literature either), but I had no problem finishing those books. I certainly read worst things.
Matthew on 21/7/2010 at 15:39
That reminds me, I really need to try to pick up copies of the Alpha Centauri tie-in novels.
<Username> on 18/3/2024 at 21:55
The Icarus Effect was on my list of "books I want to read" since 2011. It got surprisingly good reviews for a videogame tie-in novel. After finally reading it now, I agree: The book is better than you would expect. Sure, there is an overreliance on violence and the prose is not exactly high art, but the pace is brisk and something interesting happens in every chapter. Befitting for the Deus Ex series, the plot revolves around conspiracies, double crossings, and human augmentation technology.
The two main characters are not very complex, but adequate for this kind of book: Anna Kelso was the more interesting of the two, because she has character flaws and vulnerabilities. Ben Saxon is a more stereotypical good soldier character, but he also has some flaws that are exploited by the antagonists. I enjoyed how the Tyrants from Human Revolution get more fleshed out, especially the character of Jaron Namir. Reading this novel before playing either Human Revolution or The Fall could definitely improve the experience.
From the book, some of the dialogue between Ben Saxon and Jaron Namir as well as the episode with the Tyrants in Moscow appear almost 1:1 in the prologue of The Fall. A vision of "crowds of panicked people desperately trying to flee hordes of crated rioters, all of them augmented, all of them mad with wild fury" heavily foreshadows the finale of Human Revolution.
For an additional bit of fun while reading the book, I tried to collect all mentions of elements that appear in any of the Deus Ex games published to date:
People:
Adam Jensen (mentioned)
Ben Saxon
Bob Page (mentioned)
Eliza Cassan
Elizabeth DuClare (mentioned)
Gunther Hermann
Isaias Sandoval
Jaron Namir
Juan Ivanovich Lebedev
Lawrence Barrett
Lucius DeBeers
Mikhail Kontarsky
Morgan Everett
Philip Riley Mead
Sam Duarte
Stanton Dowd (mentioned)
Widow
William Taggart
Yelena Federova
Locations:
Detroit
Moscow, Hotel Novoe Rostov
Paris
Organisations:
Belltower
Gang of Five
Glass Curtain
Harvesters
Humanity Front
Illuminati
Juggernaut Collective
Majestic 12
New Sons of Freedom
Picus News
Purity First
Red Arrow Triad
Sarif Industries
Tai Yong Medical
Tyrants
Technology:
Boxguard security robot
Hermes leg augmentation
Hyron Project
Killing Floor
Neuropozyne
Weapons:
Buzzkill stun gun
Pulsar electromagnetic pulse grenade
Steiner-Bisley assault rifle
Zenith semi-automatic pistol
Other:
Australian Civil War
Operation Rainbird
Quotes:
"If you want to make enemies, try to change something." (spoken by D-Bar in Icarus Effect)