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22Feb/1213

The Real Interloper

Morpheus: "Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are."

JC Denton: "Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance."

Morpheus: "The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms."

If I ask you who worked on Deus Ex, what would you answer? Most would cite Warren Spector, others Harvey Smith. Personally, I was obsessed with Sheldon Pacotti, responsible for the writing on both Deus Ex and its sequel.

Yes, the game offered players a cornucopia of agency and a story of epic scope but what impressed me were the philosophical depths that Deus Ex merrily threw itself into. The superfluous conversation with prototype surveillance AI Morpheus, of which the opener above is just an extract, was one of those moments where I felt good to be playing video games. It was 2000 and the golden era of video games had arrived.

Or so I thought. I waited and waited for Pacotti to turn up against other projects of interest but, although his name surfaced here and there, there was nothing suggestive of Deus Ex's writing calibre. Eventually I stopped checking and made the decision to move on. There were other writers to develop amorous attentions for. What a shame.

Then in August last year, Rock Paper Shotgun let me know that Pacotti was linked to a game from new indie developer New Life Interactive called Cell: Emergence. There was even an inscrutable trailer.

RPS said it was due for release very soon. Except "soon" was delayed until two weeks ago.

Now that trailer plus “Pacotti” equalled instant buy. Cart Life, forgotten. Mass Effect, postponed. It’s Pacotti time. I bought it right off the bat without checking the demo.

And then: damn.

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