Happy New Year! It’s been a while since the last post but I’ll try to update every day this week and get Deus Ex finished. I got distracted briefly by Braid which I picked up in the Steam sale. Very nice little game, well worth the £1.49 or whatever it cost me. Don’t think there has been a day in the last week where I haven’t picked up one or two of the daily offers on Steam but I’ll leave them for the moment and it’s Deus Ex all the way now.
Our arrival into Hong Kong doesn’t go smoothly and the helicopter computer is bypassed and flies us straight into a locked base. There is no immediate reception committee but we can’t get out unless I free the helicopters weapons.
The base isn’t very large. There are a load of guards in the basement that I have to get past. They don’t seem to expect me despite having diverted me here so I have the element of surprise. I struggle with them for all that as I keep getting overwhelmed. I find my best tactic seems to be using the tranquiliser dart. These drop anyone with a single hit so I shoot a few, back off and repeat until they are all down. A bit of locker searching gets me the key I need to access the control room and release the helicopters weapons.
Jack blasts the doors open and I head on through avoiding a couple of security bots that just appeared.
This gets me straight into Hong Kong near a market. Jack advises me to check out a compound that my brother used to visit and reminds me that my kill-switch is 12 hours old.
The graphics are a bit different for Hong Kong and there are lanterns and the like so it’s all a bit more colourful. I can explore the stalls at the market and talk to the vendors and customers. It’s a bit of a change from New York anyway and overdue as I seemed to be doing the same levels over and over. I learn from asking about that there are two warring Triads here called the Red Arrow and the Luminous Path.
I find the compound and speak to a guy with the unlikely name of Gordon Quick. He knew my brother but wants me to earn his trust with the obligatory quest. The triads are at war as the Red Arrows nanotech sword was stolen by a woman named Maggie Chow but the Luminous Path have copped the blame. I need to explore Maggie Chows house and find this sword.
I don’t know my way around yet so I just go and explore rather than heading straight for Maggie Chow. I stumble into a subway and a war between triads. They ignore me so I go round robbing all the corpses for goodies. There is a police blockade at the far end of the subway which I get a skill point bonus for jumping over and exploring but I can’t get through so I turn back for the market.
A bit of exploring yields some signs to point me in the right direction. I follow these and getting instructions from a local triad member make my way to Maggie Chow’s building.
She lives in the penthouse of this apartment building. Surprisingly she allows me straight in and I take the lift up.
Maggie Chow claims to have known my brother and to have been developing the sword before it was stolen by the Luminous Path. She says I can find proof in the police station and sends me off there to check for myself.
I head down the Lucky Money club to talk to the Red Arrow leader before I go to the police station. Asking around, I find out that he is in the back somewhere. I don’t manage to talk my way in so just barge through the bar and head straight into see him. This seems to be a bit of a waste of time for now as he doesn’t want to see me without his sword.
I find the police station next. It’s just a small observation block really with a basement. I have to stun a few policemen and hack a computer to get into the storage vault. In here I find out that Maggie Chow was lying after all so I head back to her place to confront her.
The police report did mention other possible approaches to Chow’s apartment but I’m not going for the subtle approach and head straight in. The maid summons a load of guards who have fancy lazer guns which are seriously painful. I use the tranquiliser gun on them again from a distance while they are hitched up on the scenery and then set to exploring.
Hacking into Chow’s computer gets me access to open a door to a fancy looking room with the sword in the middle of it.
I grab the sword. Tong wants me to take it to the Red Arrow leader. I also find a message from Simons to Chow. This whole triad war is a conspiracy to weaken the triads and allow Majestic 12 to take over.
The Red Arrow leader takes a bit of convincing but he believes me in the end. The club is raided before we are done chatting though. It seems I’ve led MJ12 straight here.
There are a load of MJ12 super soldiers with weapons on each arm in the attack. I get to keep the sword though and it takes them down in a single hit. This is definitely going to be my weapon of choice for close range combat. Once the place is clear the Red Arrow leader agrees to make peace with the Luminous Path so I head back to see Gordon Quick.
Gordon is pleased with my work, lets me straight in and tells me Tracer Tong’s lab is in the basement.
Tracer agrees to deactivate my killswitch in return for a favour. I also learn that Alex has come over and joined him.
He sends me into a scary looking machine…
..and after a garish lightshow my life expectancy has improved substantially.
Tracer’s required favour (the first of a few I gather) is to recover the technology for the swords from a company called Versalife. He also gives me a new email account. There is some interesting stuff in my email about Simons taking over back at UNATCO + a message from Daedalus telling me that I need to destroy the universal constructor which creates the grey death virus.
Surprisingly, I’m allowed straight into Versalife and can just wander around with impunity. This guarantees that I’m going to have to fight my way out later I expect but I can at least learn my way around in the meanwhile.
One of the employees is working later covering stuff up but is strangely keen to talk about it. He seems to think his life is in danger as everyone doing his job disappears after a while. He talks about secret labs through a locked door and offers to give me the code if I kill his boss. I’ve already met his boss who offered to give me a tour for 2000 credits. I go for the cheap option and shoot him at point blank range.
I don’t think he actually expected me to do it but he gives me the code and I’m in. The lab looks awfully familiar from the games intro. I’m still free to wander around as I got security clearance along with the passcode.
They don’t exactly want me here but no one attacks me so I look around and find a glass walkway showing the extensive labs below.
There is a computer up here which I can hack to open a few doors, including a hatch in the floor of the room with the giant hand.
I head through the hatch and this takes me straight to where I need to be to grab the sword ROM data. I head up the platform, hack the computer and upload the information. At this point all the alarms go off and the predicted fight to get out starts.
The sword does it’s job well. I have to fall back on guns for some long range soldiers but I don’t have much difficulty in clearing the place out and head straight back out through the main entrance. Tracer Tong wants me to go to the temple to meet the triad leaders now.
The triads make peace and unite against MJ12. Tong has more work for me in the meanwhile.
There was a locked level 2 lab that I couldn’t get access to in Versalife. He now tells me that he wants me to look around in there. This would have been a lot easier before.
He tells me about a back entrance that he wants me to use somewhere off Canal Road.
He also gives me a secondary mission to locate the body of someone who was responsible for developing my nanotech technology. I expect I will find upgrade canisters if I do this. These upgrade canisters allow me to improve my nanotech features to the next level. I’ve found a couple so far and boosted my healing as this strikes me as the most useful skill by a mile. I’ll try to locate this guy next as I’m attempting not to leave any subquests uncompleted when I find them.
Deus Ex has continued where it left off and Hong Kong has been a more interesting environment than New York. Some of the dialog has been ludicrous as ever and the environment still feels cramped but at least I’ve never been stuck for what to do next. It feels a little like I must be drawing somewhere near to the end of the game although I’ve not had much chance to upgrade all my skills yet so I could be mistaken. I’ll see what I find in the labs tonight, although I’m fully expecting to see the machine that manufactures the grey death and to switch it off.