Marecki on 17/11/2002 at 16:02

---

<U>Warning, some spoilers within</U>!

<small>I'm not sure if it has been done already; if it has, just treat this as another tactics guide</small>

The idea came to me a couple of months ago: to finish Deus Ex without killing anyone or anything. Sadly, it is impossible: there are two organic (so to speak - more about this later) and two robotic AI which have to die/be destroyed because of the plot and which are immune to all means of non-lethal takedown. There is however a mitigating factor - in either case it is possible to let the enemy die rather than killing them ourselves.

Anyway, the rules I have imposed on my gameplay were:

* Don't kill anyone - with definitions of both terms as broad as possible, namely: humans can only be rendered unconscious, robots can only be attacked with EMP, animals cannot be harmed at all (they have no "unconscious" state, they're either alive or dead); no shooting at guns, cameras etc.; setting different kinds of enemies at each other, including reprogramming bots/guns for such purpose, is out of question as well (it allowed however to let them fight if they meet by accident, provided JC takes no part in arranging the meeting);
* Complete all the objectives, both primary and secondary;
* The above have to be done properly: no cheating and no exploiting the bugs.


The inevitable deaths are:

* Anna Navarre and Gunther Hermann - apart from the fact their deaths (especially Anna's) are crucial to the plot, they are immune to all three available non-lethal weapons. Luckily they can both be taken out with their own augmentations, using killphrases. Anna's can be found in two parts in computers at UNATCO HQ, while Gunther's will be revealed by J. Reyes in Paris if you ask him to stay with the Coalition (right after leaving the MJ12 facility under the HQ);
* Two military bots at Vanderberg - they have to be destroyed to complete a primary objective and they seem to be immune to EMP, you can however use X-51's own military bots to do the job for you.
* Four greasels in the sewers in Paris - killing them is a secondary objective and they simply cannot be rendered unconscious. You can however pretend you didn't kill them by taking them down in a normally-nonlethal way eg. with a baton.

Everyone else in the whole game can be either drugged with tranquiliser darts, stunned with a prod or knocked out with a baton - or simply avoided.
The interesting thing is, Deus Ex doesn't see much difference between dead and unconscious: the only two cases I've noticed it mattered was Paul in Hell's Kitchen commenting on your work at Liberty Island ("Use reasonable force like you did on Liberty Island" vs. "You took a lot of lives on Liberty Island") and taking down Rock the drug dealer at Brooklyn Bridge station (if you render him unconscious rather than doing what El Rey said, the latter will get a bit angry - but, after a rather menacing comment from JC, gives what he was supposed to give). In every other case it doesn't matter at all, the extreme being the MJ12 troops at a metro station in Paris - even though I put them all to sleep with tranq darts, JC would still say "They're dead" to the arms dealer who gives you that objective.

More later, I must do something else now.

Marecki on 17/11/2002 at 19:33

---

A tranq dart. Like I said above, DX doesn't give a toss whether the mission's target is dead/destroyed or barely unconscious/disabled. That's why only the military bots at Vandenbeng have to be trashed, the other two can be shut down with EMP and it counts, that's why you can "kill" Joe Greene, the three MJ12 troopers in Paris... and that's why Anna tells Manderley "the courtyard of Castle Clinton was a graveyard" even if no single terrorist got actually killed.

ferret on 17/11/2002 at 20:02

---

You only need to kill those two robots. You can get aways with not killing, for example, Anna Navarre, and Gunthy.

Errr, why did you have to kill Gunther? Why didn't you just run away from him? You can avoid killing Anna with the grenade-door-opening trick. Throw a grenade near her and she'll open the door for you.

Also, do note that you can in fact completely avoid killing or knocking out anyone in the game, with exception of Howard Strong at the Silo. He has to at least be knocked unconscious.

I know this because I've played all the way through doing this. :p

ferret on 18/11/2002 at 15:15

---

Apologies in advance for picking on your post, but these sorts of things intrigue me, and they're why this game is my favourite game of all time.



That's the beauty of this game: even though you're not supposed to get past this point without having killed Anna, iirc he doesn't whine. At the very least, he doesn't do the datalink message as you are leaving UNATCO HQ for the last time. I think certain other later messages also only play if Anna is dead, which is odd because according to the game story she has to be dead by this point. This kind of attention to detail, even not entirely purposeful, is what sets this game apart. I mean, in reality it is possible to imagine throwing a grenade at Anna in such a way that her only chance to escape is through the door - and that you take advantage of it? I would say it's not so much of a game bug as I might have mentioned. More like a minor oversight which, considering the genious of the game's structure and scripting, is actually not a totally invalid course of action.



You don't get this message if you don't kill him. That particuar message console doesn't get used. You can, however, still use the computer over the other side of the room.

Hehe, I just loaded up the level and checked. By doing this, of course, the flag for Anna dying hasn't been set. Even here, instead of mentioning that you killed Anna, he says "I do not forget that you left me as a prisoner of the NSF", and JC replies "You came all the way to Paris to tell me that?". That's given as the reason for Gunther's personal grudge! I LOVE THIS GAME.

And since I just tried it: yes, if you don't kill Gunther, you don't get the old "we only sent that old box of bolts because he kept moaning, he was the last of the mechs". I realise that if Anna is still alive this sentence isn't wholly accurate, but can't it just mean that Anna is older than Gunther is?

Some more interesting stuff... and it's again part of the amazing way the game is designed: if you kill certain characters before you should have the ability to (such as Gunther), they will often not turn up later, and there are some minor conversation changes for these events. That's just... wow. Of course, it doesn't entirely work, in particular with computer messages: the game engine isn't quite sophisticated enough to allow easy changing of these dependent upon variables, and so that doesn't happen. In those, and in books, you hear about Gunther's mooning about over his loss... which obviously no longer makes sense. Such a shame, but we're already getting more than I would ever expected from this odd line of enquiry!



True, but as I think I might have just mentioned, it's not entirely unrealistic. But that's rubbish, of course: you are perfectly right in this respect. I'm just showing that it's very interesting what happens if you take advatage of this 'bug'.



Yes, as I've just seen that does happen. It is a bit of a shame.



Indeed, but being realistic it is not actually plausable to complete all of the secondary objectives. Some of them are there to be NOT completed, like the killing of Lebedev, for example. As a point of interest, and noting your emboldened rescuing, I assume you are preventing me from pointing out that letting the hostages die actually completes that object. Too right, I would have said this. :p

Oddly enough though, I did manage to rescue the hostages, on two seperate times playing this non-lethal type method. The first time took huge advantages of game bugs, and involved a helluva lot of running around in circles around the MJ12 soldiery with Speed and Regen augs on. The second time was just amazing and totally stealthy - almost like Mission Impossible, or something. Everything was just at the right place at the right time, I made the right amount of noise in one place, and people went off to investigating it, allowing the hostages to escape...

But I won't lie to you, that was on the 30th or so attempt. I refused to use the method of saving every 30 seconds, in the successful attempt I saved but once halfway through and never loaded that particular save. The hostages had an annoying habit of running completely the wrong way when they see troopers, but after leaving that area they become far more sensible.

Joe Greene, I didn't kill, but I did "do" the objective in my eyes. I went to see him, and I "believed" him. I then went back and told the guy in the bar this. I would consider that a "completion" of the objective. :p

There were a few totally impossible secondary objectives, and one primary one: the rescuing of Tiffany. I got oh-so close to completing this one also, I had her standing right up against the helicopter before she suddenly became scared again, ran off, and got shot.



I have never ran out of styles, I generally have a new unique one for each time I play (which is something like 17 times to date, I'm not entirely sure). I have a few more planned also: next time will be the absolute minimum of saves, and the time after that will be no augs, no-items (except a knife), no skills (except maybe combat, not sure), and no cheating by remembering codes and logins. The time after that will be the speed-version.

Marecki on 19/11/2002 at 18:36

---

I've heard this before. What I've never heard is how this can be achieved... Got any proof?