Not sure if yesterday’s post made much sense as it was rushed and not proof-read but I expect there wasn’t much difference to usual. I managed to push on and finish IW last night anyway. I had a request a few days back for IW save games so for anyone who wants them, the link is https://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/DXIWSaveGames.rar

Every side of this conflict is gathered on the island and it is a seriously dangerous place for me to be. Since I’m supporting JC I find some refuge in the statue itself. Paul and JC are both here and want me to proceed into UNATCO and upload the Aquinas protocol. Other sides are still contacting me though and it looks like I can still change my mind even at this stage. I’m guessing that the options I’ve chosen so far simply decide who attacks me on sight on this island but have no effect on the ending.

I carry on exploring. A lot of the factions are just a few seconds walk from each other but they don’t fight between themselves and instead just wait for me to come along. If I can lure them into range of each other they will start fighting but it’s more than a little unrealistic. After starting to clear out the immediate area, Tracer Tong wants me to go and see him for some reason.

While other sides have elite commandos or the armoured troops, I get greys on my side. I try to get a couple to help me out in a fight but they are fairly pathetic and die quickly. I appear to have picked the weakest side here.

Tracer Tong wanted to go and join Paul and JC, but he is instead hanging around on the docks with 3 crates of robots. If I had any multi-tools left I could open these and release a friendly hunter/seeker bot but I’m not sure if there would be any point at all to this since there is a friendly giant bot roaming around this area anyway.

It’s hard not to notice that this entire area is frozen solid. I learn from Tong that the nano-bots that Paul is using are drawing energy from the atmosphere hence the cold temperatures.

Leo is here and hanging around just outside UNATCO. He offers me a fourth option of letting humanity look after itself and killing off the leaders of all sides. This is the best option I’ve been given and I agree with Leo entirely. I’m going to stick with the JC ending for now and then come back and try this one. Leo will help me wipe out the Dentons but other than that he is no use so I head into UNATCO on my own.

UNATCO isn’t the building it once was although the layout is familiar from the 1st game. There are a few bums hanging around, one of which sells me some ammo. There are a whole lot more of these armoured troops.

I’m half expecting to have to work my way through the secret part of the UNATCO base but I only need to go to Alex’s old computer. I still have a choice of who to upload the protocol to but I stick with JC. I’m just about out of ammo on this point and the upload triggers a fresh batch of troops. I’m reduced to running through them which works better than I might have expected and I get back to the statue and step into the machine in the middle.

This triggers the end cutscene. Humanity is converted by the nanobots I release and JC becomes the ruling center of all humanity. It’s all a bit sinister and I don’t get to see how it works out in the long run. It’s a very short cutscene all in all and I possibly expected a bit more.

At this point, I go back and play the ending where I wipe out the leaders of all the groups. I’ve already killed the Templar leader when I inadvertently stumbled into their base earlier so I head back to the statue with Leo. Leo does most of the work while I hang around in the background helping out. Killing the Denton’s is much easier than I might have expected and JC dies in a flash of light.

I then have to blow up JC’s machine with a few grenades. Chad appreciates this and even now I could go over to his side if I went and uploaded the protocol.

Instead I head for the Illuminati encampment to murder him. This is in a frozen bit of sea as far as I can tell with a small caravan in the middle. Nicolette is inside and I mercilessly gun her down.

I then get a message from JC which is odd because he is supposed to be dead. He has somehow come back from the grave and reappears in a flash of light when I get back to the statue. I have literally no ammo left but since he is only concentrating on shooting me and ignoring Leo, I simply hide behind some boxes while Leo does all the work for me. This triggers ending #2.

It appears that I have taken the side of the Omar in this. Humanity enters a new dark age. Most of the Earth is destroyed along the way but the survivors go on to master all of time and space. It’s another dark ending with natural selection winning the day in the end by the sound of it. I prefer this to the previous ending but if we all end up like the Omar then you could say we’ve lost our humanity just as much as with the JC ending. Why the Earth should end up wiping itself out just because the Illuminati and Templars aren’t around to guide us I don’t know.

They may be short but these endings are about as final as it gets leaving no scope for sequels. I did gather that there was talk of doing a sequel for each ending for Deus Ex 1 although Ion Storm more or less managed to get all of those endings into the one game here which would make it difficult as it would just be retreading old ground.

I might go back and look at the other two endings before I call it quits for IW although I’d rather be playing Bioshock 2 so I’m tempted just to look them up on youtube. The ending section of the game has been good though and clearly the best part of IW. It’s stretching feasibility somewhat but it’s still a good bit of game design to leave the options open like this.

All in all, this hasn’t been a bad game without being anything too special either. I’m a bit surprised to see my game time down at not much over 6 hours given how much time I feel to have spent on it. If I were to play it again, I’d possibly try some of the other biomods and see if I could use a different approach but I can’t imagine this is a game that I’ll ever go back to.

There will be another gap before I start on the next game as I must have about 20-30 unplayed ones kicking around. I’d like to have a go on at least a few of these before the next one on here. I can make it through a game a lot faster when I don’t have to worry about blogging it though so I’ll probably not be too long. Not sure what it will be yet but I still feel tempted to have a look at one of the Apple II games on my list.