Ali on 27/8/2003 at 03:31
NOTE: DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETED DEUS EX YET!
I'm playing through Deus Ex again before IW comes out and the last time I played it was just over a year ago. I had forgotten all about lots of things especially around the Paris area and I've just experienced the emotional situation with Lucius again. I'd forgotten, but this almost brings a tear to my eye I have to admit it. Everett the bastard! Losing Paul was only a horrid shock when I found out by mistake one day that I could have saved him way after I had completed the game (I was crushed) but Jock's death made me feel like I'd lost a friend and it was my fault straightaway. The thing with Lucius though (I told him the truth and then cut his life support both times) and his words about taking one last breath...:( . That gets to me. I'm again realising just what an achievement Deus Ex is. Art.
Rogue Keeper on 27/8/2003 at 08:53
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Originally posted by Ali Art. No, just a quality craft.
BlackCapedManX on 27/8/2003 at 10:03
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Originally posted by BR796164 No, just a quality craft. You bastard. Nah, but Ali may not be far from the mark. HL is considered quality craft, a hell of a lot more lovin' has to go in to make a game like this.
Personally I amend the situation with DeBeers by telling him, than leaving before he tells me to kill him, and tell myself that after I become god I'll let him free and assure him that though the Illuminati are done fore, the world is in good hands, and that he may have his last breaths of fresh air. Because when I'm god and all, karma will reign!!!
Rogue Keeper on 27/8/2003 at 10:54
Well, I'm sorry but perhaps I am more careful before I call something an "art".
Judging Deus Ex from several perspectives, I think "quality craft" or "very quality craft" is more than appropriate evaluation of this game. Nothing more, nothing less. In such crazy times of mass overproduction of movies, games, popular music etc. we can be easily overenthusiastic over something. Remember that a real art is usually not massively popular, not to mention its profitability. Only time will tell what really is art and what is not. And time can also make "art" out of "quality craft". Sometimes it's well deserved, sometimes not. In the end, only the level of our own aestethic sense, experience and taste tells us what remark we should give to the work.
Frankly, I do not feel for Lucius DeBeers much. He's a man whose main desire was to rule the world. As he said "the presidents and premiers have been eating from his hands". To get to the position he once had and to remain there for a long period demands a big sarcifices of your morality. It demands plotting. It demands to start large-scale war conflicts. It demads treachery.
In the end you have many lives and pain on your responsibility. Certainly not job for an altruist. The opportunity to choose to lie to him or tell him truth is a really good option, although I don't feel for this old tired and senile man much.
BlackCapedManX on 27/8/2003 at 15:01
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Originally posted by BR796164 Well, I'm sorry but perhaps I am more careful before I call something an "art".
Judging Deus Ex from several perspectives, I think "quality craft" or "very quality craft" is more than appropriate evaluation of this game. Nothing more, nothing less. In such crazy times of mass overproduction of movies, games, popular music etc. we can be easily overenthusiastic over something. Remember that a real art is usually not massively popular, not to mention its profitability. Only time will tell what really is art and what is not. And time can also make "art" out of "quality craft". Sometimes it's well deserved, sometimes not. In the end, only the level of our own aestethic sense, experience and taste tells us what remark we should give to the work. Dude, chill... Ali was expressing his opinion, you were expressing yours. I was being sarcastic (if that wasn't obvious I apologize, I honestly understand that it's hard to understand what other people are trying to express when you're reading it instead of hearing it.) Though I do think that Deus Ex had a hell of a lot more than going
into it than some other games, with not as much coming out. And the thing with art is that not everyone agrees that it's art, you may not have been moved by the game as much as some others who would draw the opinion that it's art worthy (myself included). Whatever, it's just an opinion. As for being careful, it's again a matter of perspective. I count myself amoung the few who look at Dali's work and say, "no that is not art, that is an unfeeling man making money soliciting feelings". He makes good paintings, but What he put into it is less than he got out, he addmittedly was a painter for the money, not for the artform, so while I may call his work inspirational, or moving, I will not call it art. All a matter of perspective.
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Frankly, I do not feel for Lucius DeBeers much. He's a man whose main desire was to rule the world. As he said "the presidents and premiers have been eating from his hands". To get to the position he once had and to remain there for a long period demands a big sarcifices of your morality. It demands plotting. It demands to start large-scale war conflicts. It demads treachery.
In the end you have many lives and pain on your responsibility. Certainly not job for an altruist. The opportunity to choose to lie to him or tell him truth is a really good option, although I don't feel for this old tired and senile man much. It takes a lot of work to get to where he was, regardless of whether the work was devious, war inspiring, trecaherous, or whathaveyou. But to do all that, on your own, and have it ripped out from under you on the promise of return, while in reality you exist only as a pool for ideas... has got to hurt. Deserving or not, it's gotta be painful.
Fred Chook on 27/8/2003 at 15:13
Oh, no. Don't start a "what is art?" argument. That'll get you nowhere.
My DeBeers policy is thus. Tell him Everett's not gonna revive him, then leave BEFORE he can demand you kill him. That way, your conscience is clean and Everett's left with the angry frozen guy. They can deal with it themselves.
doctorfrog on 27/8/2003 at 16:09
Art is whatever you say it is. Art is whatever I say it is. Art is whatever.
And deBeers isn't my problem in the game. The situation is very distasteful, but I leave it to these crooked old men to play their games on their own as the world slips from their grasps. I did, however, tell dB the truth about his devious little partner.
Z on 27/8/2003 at 18:32
I must admit I like the DeBeers thing. It may be totally inconsequential to the ultimate game outcome, but it's still highly interesting. I do consider it sad that a man has had to go through all that, and be deceived to such a degree by his friend and protegee. However, one can only have so much sympathy for a man who was the architect of a clandestine, machiavellian plot to subvert world governments and ultimately to assume absolute control of everything.
As to what I do, I would do something different each time I played. I like to role-play game characters, and play a different character each time. The difference is defined not just by their appearance, skill and inventory choices, but also by their actions, opinions, manner and general behaviour. Definitively, I would almost certainly tell DeBeers about Everett and his incarceration, but I'm not sure whether I would end his life.
And I, personally, always thought of DX as being an artistic achivement, although how it is viewed in years to come remains to be seen.
Z
Ali on 28/8/2003 at 01:18
...and I am careless in calling it art? At the very least Deus Ex is art within it's field. It's not just a FPS, it's not just a game. Games are the most under-rated and abused form of entertainment we currently enjoy. Deus Ex is very possibly the first game to encompass a huge area of not just playing possibility but also in communicating the ideas and themes behind the work. Much like 'Watchmen' was the first comic book series to realise it's medium (another that, like computer games, was written off as childish). The very fact that we are here discussing the game is a testament to it's achievement. The fictional novel 'Jacob's Shadow' isn't included for fun, it's an integral part of the story and the concept of the game. 'Quality Craft' would sum up any game that plays well, not one that involves you to the point of actually thinking about the situations involved and the themes it presents. I didn't just carelessly conclude that it was art after the DeBeers incident, I'm enthusiastic about it because I truly understand what it means; to games, to art, to me.
Are you saying that something can't be art if it is popular or successful? In no way is Deus Ex over-produced either, the fact that Spector and his team sacrificed visual quality to ensure they could achieve their key goals shows this. It wasn't expected to be as successful as it was and therefore didn't have so much resources behind it, this is not an example of 'over-production'. Right now we can see that Deus Ex is to be hailed. We can look back at many a game for it's technical merit or entertainment value but how many will we look back upon and remember as something that presented us with questions to ourselves as individuals and to our perception of our surroundings?
Hell, if you told me before playing that I would be genuinely upset about the death of my virtual helicopter pilot, horribly guilty about accidentally knocking a homeless womans cat off a building and killing it, AND purchasing a book relating to the game (G. K. Chesterton's 'The man who was Thursday'). I wouldn't have believed you.
Perhaps DeBeers is no saint, but then neither is JC Denton. To achieve the greater goal innocent people die and sometimes beyond your control, for example when the ship is scuttled there's no way every soldier and the helpful electrician will survive being drowned. I think there are parallels you can draw with Lucius and JC. Does the end justify the means in both cases? It is therefore better IMO to judge the DeBeers situation in the present and that draws sympathy even from me. Imagine if someone you held as your greatest friend betrayed and used you like that. ART.:cheeky:
Rogue Keeper on 28/8/2003 at 09:34
BlackCapedManX
Fair enough, but when you were sarcastic at least you could put ebil smiley after “You bastard.“ remark. As you said, Ali has expressed his opinion and I have expressed mine. I didn’t said my opinion is better than his or yours.
Ali
I didn’t say you are not careful, it was reaction to BCMX’s post. Perhaps I just have different standards for art than you or whoever. We are different. I assure you that I understand DX in my own way, but now it seems that in some communities to call their favourite works as something less than „art“ is a serious social faux pas. As if the label „quality art“ was something despising...
Actually... Maybe you’re right. Screw my sceptical, cautious nature.
:(
