I am Adam Jensen

I will probably write quite a bit about Deus Ex: The Human Revolution over the next few months as I play the game.  It has been an interesting experience.  As I mentioned in an earlier post I mostly started playing because I wanted to explore the idea of playing through a “shooter” and not leaving a single body in my wake.  It has been tough even in the small bit of the game that I have played so far, with lots of sneaking around, a couple of well placed tranquilizer darts, one case of sprinting through a police station throwing flash-bang grenades, and a lot of, well, this…

Yes, it’s a crazy world in the Detroit of the near future.  What has really grabbed at me, though, is the ongoing discussion found everywhere in the game about the nature of humanity, and what we lose as mechanical pieces start to replace flesh and blood.  You play as a man named Adam Denton, a former SWAT officer turned corporate stooge security  director who becomes largely bionic / cybernetic after surviving a terrorist attack.  Adam picks up lots of casual conversation on the street where people say that “Augments” are less than human, and the dependency on anti-rejection drugs that augments require is debasing.

Excuse me, had to take a quick break there, the sounds of my mechanical valve distracted me from my allotted pill time.  Off to take my rat poison anti-coagulant, or else my valve might seize up.  You know, I have had people tell me I should stop taking anti-coagulants because they are based on rat poisons.  Let them feel what it is like to have the valve get stuck and see how they like it (hint: it sucks and is highly disturbing).  I also had one person tell me that I should have come to him to design a more efficient valve that wouldn’t require chemicals to integrate with my body.  Note this man is neither a doctor nor an engineer, but he is an asshole.

I had planned on buying this game when it first came out in August 2011, but I am glad that I didn’t.  It’s taken two years of yoga & meditation and a year answering cardiac infused existential questions with a psychiatrist to get me to relative stability.  If I had seen the opening to the game (see below) before now, I probably would have had a minor breakdown.  Funny, I’ve watched similar surgeries on Youtube without problem, but the stylistic way that they show the heart beating followed by the buzz of the bonesaw really sets kicks the flashbacks in high gear.

Namaste.