Deus Ex: Invisible War
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| Deux Ex: Invisible War | |
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| Developer(s) | Ion Storm Inc. |
| Publisher(s) | Eidos Interactive |
| Release date(s) | December 3, 2003 |
| Genre | FPS |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Mature (M) PEGI: 16+ |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Xbox |
Deux Ex: Invisible War is a computer game. It is the sequel to Deus Ex (2000), and (like its predecessor) is the product of Austin, Texas based developer Ion Storm. It was released (for Microsoft Windows computers and the Xbox game console) in the US on December 3, 2003 (with a worldwide release scheduled for January 2004). There is no indication of the game being ported either to Macs or to other consoles.
Overview
The protagonist of the game is "Alex D.", a 21-year-old (players can pick both Alex's gender and race). Some of the characters from the original game reprise their roles in this sequel - including Paul Denton, Tracer Tong, and JC Denton (the previous game's protagonist). As before, the action takes place in a number of real-world locations, including Seattle, an arcology and surrounding Medina in Cairo, the Black Gate and its environs in Trier in Germany, Antarctica, and concluding on an ice-bound Liberty Island, the starting point of the first game.
Like its predecessor, the game features nonlinear gameplay, while still retaining a largely linear central plot. Similarly, nanotechnology and conspiracy theories again play a major role in the action, and action once more concerns the conflict between the Illuminati and Majestic 12. However, some players feel that an in-depth story line took a back seat for more action. This is possibly due to the removal of some items from the original Deus Ex, such as computers that allow the player to read email, as well as less character development.
Unlike the original game, Invisible War was intended from the outset to run on both the PC and a console platform, and its design reflects this; many elements of the game appear to be a compromise between the abilities and environments of both platforms. Some players perceived this dual release as Ion Storm "selling out" to the console crowd. Indeed, the initial (unpatched) default.ini file had many irrelevant configurations or misconfigurations; this ranged from Thief: Deadly Shadows references (a game also developed by Ion Storm) to outright misconfigurations that included the Field of View being set to Xbox settings.
In fan communities, debate has raged over what effect various design changes have had on the experience of the game: some fans have voiced concern that the game has been "streamlined" (simplified) too much, with others agreeing that the changes were for the best. The game received generally positive reviews on its release, although devoted Deus Ex fans were quick to reveal the occasional low-scoring rating. The game was criticised for its inability to run on certain graphics cards, such as the GeForce 4 MX line of graphics cards from Nvidia due to its lack of pixel shaders and for the relative shortness of the game compared to Deus Ex.
Ion Storm has already released two patches for the game to address some major concerns. However, many players argue that these do not go far enough and that the game is still problematic. At the time of release, a pinned thread on the official forums was available for configuration modifications, although the most offending problems were corrected with the aforementioned patches.
According to the publishers, Invisible War met sales expectations both on Xbox and PC.
Gameplay
Similar to the original Deus Ex, gameplay consists of a mix of exploring city environments and conversing with the inhabitants, and infiltrating facilities patrolled by hostile guards. Players are usually presented with multiple approaches to any given problem; they can bypass obstacles by crawling around in the air vents, use shadows to sneak past enemies, or simply use their weapons to kill everything in sight.
Presentation
Invisible War uses a heavily modified version of the Unreal II engine. Like Unreal II, the game contains such graphical and technological features as real-time lighting, rag-doll physics, and collision detection.
Invisible War uses the Havok 2.0 physics engine seen in Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne and Painkiller. Every object in the world has a size, weight, and mass, and can be picked up and thrown, nudged, or blown around by the force of an explosion. Lights can be moved, and this alters the shadows cast by objects.
As a consequence of console-oriented development, the game's levels are significantly smaller than those seen in the original Deus Ex. Console-oriented development also has had consequences for the game's graphics: the game's characters are a bit less detailed and have somewhat lower polygon counts than those seen in Unreal II. Another console-oriented graphical feature is "bloom", which creates a slight blurring of the game's lighting, causing objects to have softer, less jagged edges. This requires significantly less processing power than anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, but causes the image produced to be somewhat fuzzy and out-of-focus.
Differences from the original Deus Ex
- Character development has been simplified significantly in Invisible War. Players no longer earn "skill points" from completing objectives for upgrading their character's abilities. Instead, the player character starts without any limits to his or her normal abilities (such as aiming, proficiency with items, etc.) All upgrades are achieved through acquiring biomods that give the player character special powers (such as increased strength, invisibility, or the ability to control robots) but cost energy to use.
- Combat is also more action-oriented than in the original Deus Ex. Weapons no longer have a varying reticle to simulate weapon inexperience or inaccuracy while moving — a player simply needs to point and shoot. Both the player and enemy characters can withstand more damage than in the previous game, making player death less common. Enemies are more manueverable than those in the original game (capable of side-stepping, rolling, and running behind cover), but compared to other first-person shooters released at the time, the AI is slower, less responsive, and inefficient at navigating the game environment.
- Instead of different weapon types for each gun, all weapons draw from the player's reserve of "Universal Ammo". Each gun uses a different amount of Universal Ammo per shot, with weak weapons such as the pistol using very little ammo, and strong weapons such as the rocket launcher using large amounts of ammo. The drawback of this system is that, once a player runs out of ammo, none of the weapons are usable. At most, the player can only carry enough ammo to kill about a dozen people before running out. This tends to discourage players from heavy participation in combat.
- Biomods function similarly to the nano-augmentations of the original Deus Ex. The major difference is that they are not permanent, and can be swapped for a different biomod if the situation requires it. Some biomods, such as the ability to hack computers, replace abilities that are acquired in Deus Ex through use of skill points.
- Damage is no longer modular. Instead of having separate health for the player's head, torso, and appendages, the player has a common pool of 130 hit points. Similarly, enemies sustain the same amount of damage regardless of where they are injured. For many weapons, headshots do not do extra damage (the only weapons that do still cause headshots are the pistol and the sniper rifle). Headshots no longer instantly kill an unarmored enemy, it usually takes 3 or 4 headshots with a pistol (in contrast to Deus Ex, where one shot with a pistol is sufficient). Besides being unrealistic, this also causes the player to run out of ammo much more quickly.
- The inventory system has been simplified. In the original Deus Ex, objects take up different amounts of space in the player's inventory. In Invisible War, object size is irrelevant, with the player being able to carry 10 different objects (such as weapons, keys, or healing items) at any one time.
- The game no longer records the player's conversations with NPCs.
- The player can no longer access character's computers and read their emails to learn more about the story. Books and newspapers in the game world are still readable.
- Levels are significantly smaller, not just in raw size, but also in terms of the numbers of different rooms and pathways they contain. This limits the amount of enemies and other NPCs in each level.
- The original Deus Ex renders certain characters invulnerable to damage, to prevent the player from disrupting the plot at various points in the game. Invisible War handles this differently, by designating certain areas in which player weapons are disabled, and throwing heavy objects causes no damage. All characters outside of these areas can be harmed and killed.
Plot
The player character, Alex D, begins the game learning that there was some sort of terrorist attack in Chicago. The terrorists appeared to be seeking some sort of laboratory in Chicago. Alex is one of the trainees of this laboratory. Alex and the project leaders are safely evacuated before the city is seemingly destroyed. After being moved to the Seattle facility, Alex and fellow program trainees Billie Adams, Leo Jankowski and Klara Sparks are kept in the dark about what really happened to Chicago. However, they are attacked by Seeker warriors of The Order Church. The player, as Alex, must then escape the lab, and find out what has been happening.
Characters and organizations
In Deus Ex: Invisible War, just as in the first Deus Ex, not everyone is as they seem, and allegiances and enemies can change in a second. Here is a list of main characters and their respective organizations:
Alex D
Alex D is the player character throughout the game. Alex may be male or female, depending on the player's choice at the beginning of the game (for simplicity, this article will refer to Alex as being male). Alex begins the game allied to Tarsus, but may change allegiances at the end of the first level. Alex later discovers himself to be Alex Denton, a clone of JC Denton. His life up until now has been an elaborate cover-up by ApostleCorp, with his school, Tarsus Academy, merely being a front for the corporation. Alex questions his allegiance to them and decides to his own path in the world. However, luminon Saman, who becomes Grandmaster Saman and leader of the Knights Templar, tells Alex that he is in fact a normal person who was made into a Denton, rather than a straight clone of a perfect individual like JC.
Tarsus Academy/ApostleCorp
Tarsus Academy is (supposedly) an academy for biomodification and nanoenhancement of its students, as well as giving them major combat, infiltration and stealth training. They are then hired by corporations to perform their deeds (eg: political assassination, infiltration of opposition buildings etc). This is however a lie. Tarsus is in reality a front for ApostleCorp, a corporation dedicated to restoring JC Denton to life. The organization was formed in the wake of the collapse, and took research from old Versalife facilities around the globe. The lead scientist is Paul Denton, JC's older brother. ApostleCorp has been trying for years to restore JC, and Paul subjected himself to an unstable prototype formula and went into a coma and also needs reviving. Both ApostleCorp and Tarsus bases have been attacked (and most destroyed), and nearly all staff killed by The Knights Templar. The only confirmed surviving ApostleCorp scientists and staff are the Tarsus project leader Stan Carnegie, Dr Leila Nassif, Paul Denton (in a coma), JC Denton (needs special DNA mergence to revive him) and Tracer Tong. After being revived by Alex, J.C. Denton initiates the final confrontation on Liberty Island when he attempts to bring about about "The Great Advance": worldwide biomodification of all humanity, allowing all human minds to communicate with the Helios AI. The player can choose to either join J.C., or oppose him alongside one of the other 3 factions who are against ApostleCorp's plans.
J.C. Denton
The protagonist of the original Deus Ex, J.C. plays a major role in Invisible War even though he does not appear in person until near the end of the game. A clone of his older "brother" Paul, JC joined UNATCO, discovered their corruption and left, eventually joining his brother and defeating MJ-12. JC assassinated MJ-12's leader, Bob Page, then merged with the A.I. Helios in the hopes of creating the world's first truly benevolent ruler. Unfortunately, defects in J.C.'s nanite architecture resulted in an imperfect merger than would eventually kill J.C., forcing him to put himself into stasis and wait for a cure.
J.C.'s ultimate goal is to bring about the world's first "post-human civilization". By giving all humans the mental and physical advantages of biomodification, J.C. hopes to eliminate the stratification of humanity encouraged by the Illuminati. Additionally, biomodification will allow all human minds to communicate with the Helios A.I., which has the processing power to gauge the desires of each individual human and instantly respond to them, thus bringing about an "instantaneous democracy". Unlike the Omar collective, J.C. intends for Helios to communicate, not to assimilate. However, because Helios would know each and every human thought, many of J.C.'s enemies (such as the Illuminati and Templars) fear that the "Great Advance" would bring about universal slavery rather than universal democracy (the Illuminati believe that perfect slavery and perfect democracy are the exact same thing).
The merger with the Helios A.I. has given J.C. total control over nanotechnology, transforming him into a walking universal constructor and gifting him with incredible powers such as the ability to control the weather and even to alter matter on a molecular level (provided the temperature is cold enough), allowing him to shape objects and even buildings out of the very ground.
Despite his powers, J.C. behaves the same as every other human being in combat, other than the fact he has more hit points than any other character in the game.
If Alex assassinates J.C. and sides with either the Templars or the Omar (the two most disruptive factions to human prosperity), the Helios A.I. will sacrifice itself to revive J.C. in one final attempt to prevent global chaos. J.C. loses Helios, but gains a rocket launcher, and tells Alex that "You want to plunge the world into chaos? Come and take it from me", then proceeds to engage Alex in one final desperate battle to prevent what J.C. and Helios see as the end of the world.
Paul Denton
Paul Denton is the older "brother" of JC; MJ-12 used his DNA to clone JC. He was also a former member of UNATCO, and the first to be nano-augmented, but left when he discovered the truth about the organization. Being clones, the two look alike, but have totally different personalities; JC is cold and stolid, while Paul is passionate and empathetic. After the Great Collapse, Paul and J.C. founded ApostleCorp to find a way to save humanity from its current condition. Paul became the head of ApostleCorp's facility in Cairo.
In an attempt to hasten the revival of his brother after J.C.'s merger with the Helios AI, Paul subjected himself to the test formula for a new breed of universally compatible nanites (against the wishes of Tracer Tong). Paul's body violently rejected the formula and Tong was forced to place him in cold storage, to preserve his body, until Tong and his scientists were able to cure him as well.
Tracer Tong
Tracer Tong is an extremely powerful member of the Luminous Path Triad organisation in Hong Kong and is a dangerous enemy of the Illuminati and its splinter groups such as MJ-12. He was viewed as a powerful threat by MJ-12, and while Paul and JC were employed by UNATCO they were both ordered by their superiors to kill him, but they both defected and helped Tong in his work.
Tong was the major organizing force in the resistance against MJ-12, and was primarily responsible for influencing J.C. Denton into initiating the Great Collapse. Tong believed that the end of global communications would bring about a new enlightened age of small government, local city-states free from the control of secret, global superpowers like MJ-12. He was horrified when instead the Collapse brought about global chaos, anarchy, and warfare, and eventually helped the Denton brothers found ApostleCorp in order to find a less destructive way of advancing human freedom.
In Invisible War, Tong is the leader of the ApostleCorp facility in Germany, although he is forced to flee and hide when the facility is attacked by the Templars. Tong meets with Alex in a tavern in Trier, where he reveals to Alex the final truth about ApostleCorp, J.C. Denton, and Alex's true origins and purpose.
In the final showdown on Liberty Island, Tong brings a small army of robots to aid JC Denton against the Templar and Illuminati armies alligned against him.
Dr. Leila Nassif
A member of ApostleCorp, and Project leader of Tarsus' secret biomodification experiments. After the attack on Tarsus Academy in Seattle, she orders the trainees to escape and then regroup with her when she contacts them. None of the students do so however, as she never gives them the orders. She flees to Cairo, leaving the Project Director Stan Carnegie in control of the Mako Ballistics facility. Wanted dead or alive by the Illuminati, WTO, Order, and Templars, Nassif spends most of the game on the run. She is pursued by Alex D, because Alex sees her as the one person who can reveal the truth. When Alex finally catches up with her, she tells Alex the truth about Tarsus and what its real purpose is: to create a suitable match between human DNA and nanite biomodification to help revive J.C. Denton. Coming from a poor Egyptian family living in the Cairo Medina, Nassif has seen the inequality and injustice brought about by WTO/Illuminati policy, and joined ApostleCorp in an attempt to bring an end to human suffering.
Alex and Klara Sparks track her down to the ApostleCorp facility in the New Cairo Archology, where the player is given the option of killing her or interrogating her.
Stan Carnegie
Stan is the Director of the Chicago Tarsus Academy, and a member of ApostleCorp. He and Leila Nassif are shown discussing the "invisible war" in the game's opening movie, although it isn't certain what his exact hierarchical status relative to Nassif is. He remains behind at Apostlecorp's undercover cell at Mako Ballistics while Nassif flees to Cairo. He is the one who gives the Tarsus students the order "to run" during the game's opening cinematic sequence, as Chicago is destroyed by Saman's nanite bomb. Alex meets up with him later at Mako Ballistics, where he reveals a little about ApostleCorp's true purpose.
It is possible than Stan is the undeveloped clone of Walton Simons seen in Deus Ex. Although Stan appears older and has a beard, he has the same distinct low voice as Simons, and is played by the same person, Deus Ex developer Tom Hall.
The Illuminati
The Illuminati (of Deus Ex) are decendants of the original Bavarian Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt. They have controlled the world "behind the scenes" for centuries. They carefully manage the world's economies and engineer wars and viruses in their quest for complete global control. To reach this goal, they control as many businesses as possible (with only a select few having knowledge of the organization) then keep their competition up to keep prices down. In Invisible War they control two of the most influential groups in the world: the Order Church, and the WTO. Both are completly different in appearance and nature but actually act as "front companies" for the over-arching organisation and create a false paradigm of power. Also, the Illuminati owns the two coffee shop chains Pequod's and QueeQueg's (these two chains are violently competitive, and their connections to the same organisation are cleverly masked by their benefactor). The Illuminati are one of the four groups the player can join, bringing about the "Age of Light" ending, with the select few managing all of the world's economies, via the WTO orbital platform "Ophelia".
Chad Dumier
The joint leader of The Illuminati (along with his lover Nicolette Duclare). In his youth (during the events of Deus Ex), Chad was the leader of the French revolutionary group "Silhouette", vocally opposed to the MJ-12 conspiracy and the sort of totalitarian, globalized dictatorship they represented. After the chaos of the Great Collapse and the destruction of MJ-12 along with all other world governments, Chad abandoned his idealistic anti-establishment philosophy and joined the Illuminati, eventually becoming the group's main leader. In public, Chad is easily recognized as the Chairman of the WTO and the most powerful man in the known post-Collapse world. Through his total control of all major media outlets, he broadcasts a message of globalization and controlled economic development. Because he and Nicolette are unable to conceive children, Chad is looking for a gifted protege to train as his successor, and as such takes first Klara Sparks and then Alex D. under his wing. However, Chad is also a ruthless and demanding figure, and does not hesitate to threaten and even to kill his underlings if they disappoint him (he detains and eventually tries to execute Klara Sparks when she develops pacifist feelings, and uses Klara as a hostage to get Alex D. to do his bidding). Chad also does not hesitate to swiftly and mercilessly silence those who stand in the way of the Illuminati's goals, whether they be world-altering entities like J.C. Denton, or merely inconvenient coffee shop owners who learn more than they should know.
Nicolette Duclare
The joint leader of The Illuminati (along with her lover Chad Dumier). Nicolette is the daughter of prominant Illuminati member Beth Duclare, who was killed by MJ-12 in the first Deus Ex. In her youth, Nicolette was a rebellious teen who joined the Silhouette revolutionary group and fell in love with Chad Dumier. Like Chad, she provided assistance to J.C. Denton in his original mission to bring down the MJ-12 conspiracy. Although she originally rejected her mother's Illuminati philosophies, Nicolette was greatly changed by the events of the Great Collapse, and she eventually used her mother's Illuminati connections to join and eventually gain control of the organization in order to reshape the world in the wake of the chaos caused by the Collapse. In public, Nicolette poses as "Her Holiness", the leader and figurehead of The Order. Nicolette and Chad have been unable to conceive children and so are unable to continue their family bloodline for The Illuminati, an aristocratic society which has traditionally passed down power along family lines.
The WTO
The WTO (World Trade Organisation) is a global capitalist trade corporation, though they are secretly owned by the Illuminati along with their political rivals the Order. They offer economic aid to cities (in the economic depression of the Great Collapse), provided they submit to certain levels of WTO laws. These cities which agree (like Seattle), have "enclaves" created or in other cities (like Cairo) they create "arcologies". However this creates a huge divide between the rich and the poor. The rich reside in the cosy protection of the enclaves while many live like feudal peasants in the streets of the post-collapse world.
Donna Morgan
A British citizen, Donna Morgan has climbed the ranks of the WTO to become its Chief of Operations in Seattle at a relatively young age. She treats Alex as a WTO operative, and issues Alex mission objectives from the WTO and Chairman Dumier.
Loyal to a fault, Donna Morgan believes strongly in the economic stability and prosperity brought about by the WTO, and strongly opposed to what she perceives as the religious fanaticism of the Order. Thus, she is shocked and rather hurt when she learns that the WTO and Order are both parts of the same organization, the Illuminati, a fact she was not informed of despite being one of the most powerful members of the WTO. However, she eventually comes to terms with this information, and is recruited into the Illuminati by Nicolette Duclare and Chairman Dumier. Her dedication is such that she personally detains WTO operative Klara Sparks when Sparks eventually disappoints Dumier, and even personally executes Sparks to punish Alex if Alex also disobeys Dumier.
The Order
The Order is an attempted merger of all world religions. Like the WTO, they are secretly a part of the Illuminati. While very popular in the immediate post-collapse world, they have recently become challenged by the Knights Templar, a more radical religious faction that preachs action rather than words, and who have taken a lot of the Order's popular support, especially in areas that, as High Augur Lin-May Chen informs Alex D, are more financially challenged. The Order flourished in the poorer districts around the WTO enclaves and arcologies, but the Templars have been stealing members through the deceptions of Luminon Saman, who has secretly been recruiting the more extreme Order members as well as the poorer classes.
Lin-May Chen
High Augur of the Order Church and second in command to Her Holiness (Nicolette Duclare). Lin-May Chen is responsible for attempting to convince Alex to ally with the Order, as well as providing Alex with mission objectives favorable to the Order.
Chen is the daughter of Maggie Chow (Actress who was part of the Majestic-12 conspiracy and an agent for Bob Page) and Max Chen (Leader of the Red Arrow Triad in Hong Kong). She grew up in post-Collapse Hong Kong, and was one of Her Holiness' first disciples during the founding of the Order Church. Due to her parents' involvement with MJ-12, Chen has vowed never to dedicate her life to a dubious or deceitful cause, and fervently believes in what she perceives as the Order's noble ideals.
Like Donna Morgan, she is appalled when she discovers the Order is merely a front for the Illuminati. Due to her feelings about her parents' relation with MJ-12, she eventually dedicates herself to opposing the Illuminati, insteading of joining it like Donna Morgan does. When Alex revisits Cairo, Chen is there in the Medina, preaching against Her Holiness' lies on the street and attempting to expose the masses to the truth. She is mostly ignored by the gullible populace, and presumably is eventually silenced by Duclare and Dumier if the Illuminati are not wiped out in the final confrontation on Liberty Island.
The Knights Templar
The Knights Templar of Deus Ex: Invisible War believe themselves to be decendants of the original Knights Templar. They believe in the "purity" of the human body, and the complete elimination of biomodification and nanotechnology. Templar Paladins have a zealous belief in their religion and their Grand Master: Saman. Their devotion to their cause means they constantly clash with The Omar, a race of biomodified cyborgs, as well as with ApostleCorp, the hidden force intent upon bringing about universal biomodification. Many of the Templars are former Order members, including their leader Saman.
It is unclear whether the current incarnation of the Knights Templar is directly descended from the version seen in the original Deus Ex (which was wiped out by MJ-12), or have simply co-opted the name for their own. The original Templars were bankers and financiers, while the incarnation seen in Invisible War is a radical, religious organization. Regardless, it seems that the new Knights Templar have managed to gain access to the massive gold reserves of the original Templars, as they have vast financial resources and are even attempting to bankroll an army "larger than all other armies combined".
Knowing that their refusal to biomodify their troops puts them at a serious disadvantage against biomodified enemies, Templar scientists have developed a special Power Armour suit, making them as tough as a biomodified human. The Templars also commissioned the development of a powerful new weapon, the Mag Rail, but this research was intercepted by the WTO/Illuminati. The Templars have therefore been forced to equip the bulk of their new heavy troops with standard rocket launchers. Ironically, the Mag Rail is the most effective means of combating the Templar's new Power Armor, and most of the Illuminati's troops carry one.
Despite the fact they become the main antagonists about halfway through the game, the Templars are one of the four groups the player can join at the game's finale, creating "The Templar Flood", in which the Templars unleash a nanite plague that eliminates biomodifications without harming the host. This drastically weakens the Illuminati (who are dependent upon biomodified troops for their military power), allowing the Templars to eventually seize control of the planet.
Luminon / Grand Master Saman
The leader of the Knights Templar. He speaks in a philisophical manner, often using archaic analogies and biblical allegories, such as referring to Alex as the "Young Pliable". He believes that all Templars are expendable to achieve the purification of humanity, and that the Templars will die for their cause. He has an extremely forceful and charismatic personality, having converted many Order followers to his cause, turned Billie Adams against her own best friend, and even managing to get the better of WTN's obnoxious "Talk Bullet" political pundit.
Saman believes heavily in the "purification" of the human race by wiping out biomodification and will stop at nothing to achieve it. It is Saman who is responsible for the terrorist attack on Chicago, killing roughly 7 million people just to destroy one ApostleCorp facility.
Saman witnessed the world's descent into anarchy following the Great Collapse. He was eventually one of the first individuals to be recruited into the newly founded Order religion, eventually becoming a high ranking Luminon in charge of the Order Shard in Trier, Germany. However, he became desillusioned with the Order and its leader, Her Holiness, eventually covertly forming the Knights Templar and taking the title of Grand Master of The Knights Templar. As the Grand Master, Saman concealed his identity and continued to operate as an Order Luminon, all the while diverting resources and intelligence to the Templars, while secretly influencing his Order followers into developing extremist beliefs in line with that of the Templars. As a Luminon, Saman calls for a more strict interpretation of the Order's original scripture, opposing perceived compromises made by Her Holiness towards the materialism and globalism represented by the WTO.
Saman knows the truth about the Illuminati, the Helios A.I., and the Aquinas Protocol. It is possible that this knowledge is what turned him against Her Holiness and the Illuminati-controlled Order in the first place.
In the game's finale, Saman is the only leader who actively pursues and attempts to kill Alex if the player ends up opposing his faction. For a supposedly non-biomodified human, Saman is incredibly tough, able to survive as much damage as specially biomodified agents like Billie Adams or Paul Denton. Coupled with the fact he fights with a rocket launcher, and Saman is second only to JC Denton in terms of combat strength.
The Omar
The Omar are a large group of heavily biomodified cyborgs. They originated in Russia, where a group of Russian scientists submitted themselves to radical biomodification in an attempt to survive the harsh global conditions following the Great Collapse. In the 20 years since the Collapse, the Omar have spread around the globe, their heavily biomodified bodies earning hatred from the Templars and fear from others. The Omar are not individuals, rather each Omar is part of a merged collective consciousness, achieved through replacement of their frontal lobes with a wireless cortical interface. Thus, if an Omar is killed, then all Omar will know about it and will seek revenge upon the player character. The Omar expand their ranks through covert recruitment of unmodified humans. It is unclear how voluntary this "recruitment" normally is. The Omar are constantly in search of new technologies to improve their existing cybernetic modifications. Their ultimate goal is to become capable of surviving in any environment, no matter how harsh, so that they may eventually inherit the Earth through Darwinian natural selection. Like the Illuminati and Templars, the Omar are opposed to J.C. Denton's proposed "Great Advance" (which would biomodify all of humanity and make the Omar collective obsolete), however they lack the resources to actually mount an opposition to Denton and ApostleCorp.
To finance themselves, the Omar quickly found a niche dealing in Black market biomods and weapon mods. They are rapidly dominating the field, often by aggressively squeezing out their competition whenever they move into a new area (either through assassination or assimilation). Because the Omar are hunted by the WTO and Templars, they often use human agents as fronts and intermediaries while conducting their business. However, the Omar also sell their wares directly, normally in areas outside WTO control (such as the Cairo Medina and Old Seattle). There are many Omar Traders all over the world. They are always accompanied by one or two Omar Protectors, combat-oriented Omar who act as bodyguards for the Traders.
Currently, Omar biomodifications allow them to survive comfortably at a range of extreme temperatures, from sub-zero artic climates to harsh desert heat. They are also fire-proof, immune to chemical weapons, and resistant to radiation. However, their extensive biomodification has made them partially susceptible to EMP.
The Trainees
These are the Tarsus trainees of the Seattle facility. They are all loyal to Tarsus in the first level of the game, and all manage to escape safely when the Academy is attacked by the Order (whom were secretly under Templar control). They all learn of the true purpose of Tarsus, and each goes their separate way. The trainees, while all starting together at Tarsus, are reunited in Cario (though they don't meet each other).
Billie Adams
Alex's best friend and only other surviving member of the Chicago Tarsus Academy. Billie is the first student to learn of Tarsus' true purpose, and knows of the attack on the Academy beforehand. She allies herself with the Order, and goes to Cairo, where she meets Luminon Saman. He recruits her into the Knights Templar, where she develops a zealous hatred of the biomodified. Alex is forced to confront her in JC's sanctuary.
Leo Jankowski
The most physically able of the trainees, Leo is mildly arrogant and can be bigheaded. He doesn't really care much about who he works for, as long as he gets paid. Beneath his enormous ego, however, he is just a normal, sensitive person, proven when he is almost subjected to a sinister "Phase II" of the Omar biomodification. After leaving Tarsus, Alex meets Leo in "The Greasel Pit" bar in Lower Seattle. He reveals he has been employed as a bodyguard for the Omar in Cairo. The player meets him again in Cairo and on the return to Cairo, with the option to aid him several times, making him one of the strongest allies in the game. He goes with Alex to Liberty Island and is the only person who is a guaranteed ally.
Klara Sparks
The smartest member of the trainees, but extremely naive. She turns to the WTO after leaving Tarsus. She there gets a security assignment, which she says is all she wanted anyway. She aids Alex in invading the ApostleCorp facility in the Cairo archology. On returning to Cairo, she is found being held hostage by Donna Morgan in the nanotransformer room and will be executed unless Alex does exactly as Dumier says. The player is given the option of letting her be executed, doing as Dumier wishes, or rescuing her by killing Donna Morgan. She does not continue her life as a trainee if rescued, saying that she has had enough of the mercenary life.
See Also
External links
- Official Website (http://www.dxinvisiblewar.com/)
- Ion Storm Homepage (http://www.ionstorm.com/)
- PlanetDeusEx Fan Website (http://www.planetdeusex.com/)
- Retexturing Project for the PC Version (http://www.dx2rebirth.offtopicproductions.com/index.html)de:Deus Ex: Invisible War