#5:

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution


This literature-like piece deserves the most honourable award of all:
'The one game every single person should play and consider'


I had a really hard time trying to write a fitting piece for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It’s a phenomenal philosophical game and I love it for many reasons, but one of them I feel is so incredibly important, it is the only thing that matters.


Deus Ex: HR does something games (or any other entertainment medium) rarely dare thread upon: it addresses issues, events, hypotheses and scenarios about the world we live in in today and does so by questioning it from multiple perspectives. Some examples: after a terrorist attack one of the NPC’s on the street comments something in the sense of: “Was this an inside job like 9/11?”. Augmentations are very close to becoming reality as real life scientists already messing around in the brains of rats, purposely disabling their brain functions to later 'fix' them with brain augmentations. Who are we to cut up these creatures? Aren't they good enough what they are already? Are we not good enough? And how arrogant are we to consider us more valuable than any other living thing? And what about Google glass goggles and the cellphone in your pocket? Will they eventually be implanted in your own body? The list goes on with bigger things like theories on information control, media controlling the masses, the difference between poor and the rich, indoctrination, what is humanity and who has it or who has lost it, fraud in politics, a society that is being distracted at all times so the big players can keep their power and how much can one pawn in this insane world change?


This rat's brain was hooked up to the internet and transmitted it's sensory information to another rat thousands of kilometers away.


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The endings that got a lot of negativity are in my opinion excellent. It rises for a birds eye view of morality from different perspectives and because it provides those different perspectives and does not give judgement itself, it is a sign that this is a message derived from an honest vision. A scientific one. One open for discussion. The game sets an example that should be followed by every single person in the world. Yet whenever I have these idealistic discussions others often jump to conclusions, do not consider others’ perspectives and hide back in their safe, tv-show distracted environment and refuse to see how deep things really go in the long term perspective.


That said I wonder why I haven’t put Deus Ex on number one, as it does something more important than any other game. It educates, considers morality, humanity, our use of technology, our past and our future.


That can not be praised enough.