[En]Compassing Computer Games: Deus Ex and the Point Shoot Binary

When discussing narrative in Deus Ex, I had to decide whether to refer to the story as happening to the player or Denton. Denton is the Player’s avatar, a virtual puppet capable of interaction in a virtual (game)world. Given the context of grand narrative arcs, I chose to refer to Denton when the plot directly involved him. But it is not a clear distinction. Is Denton anything more than a glorified user interface? In what language can we speak of lead characters, like Denton, in computer games?

-- From [En]Compassing Computer Games: Deus Ex and the Point Shoot Binary



This is an article I wrote over four years ago on Deus Ex which is, imnsho, one of the best computer games ever.

I've now placed it online as a (large) PDF. Except for correcting a few typos, I've left it as it was. It has its flaws, but it has its moments too. Ultimately, I think it succeeds in its mission: "It is a tour, signposting possible departure points for further investigation, both on Deus Ex and computer games per se."

I've been inspired to post this by the discussion at Digital Poetics on The Sweet Sadness of Real Time where computer games where mentioned in passing (they often get mentioned in passing there which, imnsho, is also a great site :))

Feel free to leave comments! Its a big essay, around 7000 words including foot notes. I plan to post a few of my other essays over time and then actually have a 'writing page' just to remind myself that I write more than I do *anything* else.

[P.S. I just discovered that MarsEdit rather awesomely uses the same 'send to weblog' keyboard short cut as Mail.app uses for 'send e-mail'. That's so fucking cool! Go ranchero for having smart-design!]