So I recently bought Deus Ex and starting playing it for the first time. I just finished the second mission, with Hell's Kitchen and Battery Park. One of the biggest reasons that I bought the game was because reviews said that you could take any route you wanted to complete the missions, and that characters would react appropriately to how you completed your missions.

So, since I prefer a stealthy and nonlethal approach, I played the first two missions without killing a single enemy, not by explosives, gunfire, or turning turrets against them. Yet the reaction to both missions seemed wildly inappropriate:

* For Liberty Island, after I took pains to leave everyone alive, the UNATCO forces come in behind me and kill everyone. Later, however, I am told that there are a ton of prisoners that I spared who are being interrogated. While I did spare the NSF forces, they should not be alive for interrogation because the braindead UNATCO slaughtered them all. What gives?

* In Battery Park, I again worked very hard to ensure that I didn't kill any NSF. But when I return to base, I am reamed by my comrades for my ham-fisted approach, and for killing so many of the enemy! This is absolutely ridiculous, and I am never given any credit for things like freeing the hostages in the subway station without taking any lives (very, very hard). The only thing I can think of is that while I was stealthily exploring Castle Clinton, my idiot partner, Anna Navarre, was slaughtering troops left and right. Why does my character get punished for something I have no control over? And why does he not stand up for himself?

So I am very frustrated that the reactions of the NPCs seem completely disconnected from what actually happened in reality. It completely breaks immersion for me and ruins the sense that I can make meaningful choices in how to complete a mission. If this keeps up, I will have to leave this game behind.

When you capture the NSF commander on Liberty Island, script actions automatically kill all of the remaining NSF troopers. It's just game mechanics; I consider that some of them were taken alive, but the engine didn't permit doing it that way.

The check at Castle Clinton is bugged such that if ANY of the NSF die by ANYONE'S hand, you're treated as having massacred them. This is fixed in most community patch efforts.

It's been a while since I played the game without Shifter or something similar, but I'm pretty sure I don't remember anything like that. You'll be fine.

Actually, the thing with castle clinton is that you're not allowed to take the stairs next to the ambrosie barrel, set foot on the area upstairs and the game will assume you went in guns blazing. Don't go near the castle's main entrance either, even if no firefight ensues, the game will mark it down as violent approach. Your first issue, as has been mentioned, is completly normal and the only possible outcome, even if you've killed every enemy yourself.

And yeah, this is one of the biggest "But I didn't do it!" glitches, the only other one I can think of right now involves a window, though appearently that wasn't as much a bug as it was a lack of foresight.

Oh dear, I completely forgot about the window glitch/oversight.

Are you talking about the window in New York that has to do with a meaningful choice?

Yes, that's the one.

SPOILER WARNING!

So I've played further and you're right, I'm not seeing many more cases where NPCs react poorly to how I play (though it's mostly because they've stopped reacting at all). However, I'm still finding the game, while undoubtedly having great gameplay, to be frustrating in the way it railroads my character into situations that don't make any sense.

The first example would be in the NSF HQ where I make a pivotal turning point to leave UNATCO. Paul tells me I need to break in and find evidence to corroborate his claims. That's great, I think, because up to now I have no reason to believe him. However, when I get there and search the basement, all I find is a note from the terrorist leader, spewing his usual lies! Paul tells me over the intercom to look around for evidence of Manderley's bribes, but I came up empty. And yet, the game forces me to launch the NSF evacuation signal and join their side! This is completely ridiculous and makes no sense to me, that when his brother LIED about there being evidence JC trusts him anyway, enough to completely switch sides.

The next, more serious problem is Anna Navarre. I got this game because I was told that you have a choice between fighting and stealth, and the game allows (and even encourages) a nonlethal approach. And yet here I am, forced to kill Anna before I can leave UNATCO HQ. What a stupid contrivance that Alex won't give me the key before she is dead, AND I can't talk or torture the key out of him, AND even though Alex is a regular person I can't knock him unconscious to grab the key, AND there is only one exit door, AND that door is unbreakable and unhackable. I mean talk about a fire hazard!!!

I checked online, and even so called "pacifist" walkthroughs claim she must be killed. I found one obscure Youtube video that shows an exploit someone found to save her, but it looks to involve tons of skill and even more luck to pull off. I'll try for a while, but if I can't make it happen I'm done with the game. After going to every effort to spare every other enemy in the game, I will NOT kill my partner, especially when she is a member of the fairer sex.

The evidence Paul speaks of is on a datacube on top of a server rack in an underground room in the NSF HQ. It spells out what the evidence is, but it doesn't actually show you that evidence.

http://imageshack.us/a/img4/6108/shot0000z.png
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/shot0001ig.png/

As for Anna Navarre, yes, she is one of two people in the game who "must" be killed. Yes, Anna can be glitched past (the other guy can't) but the game is not set up to consider the possibility of her surviving.

What exactly did you do with Lebedev on the 747? If you keep talking to him, Anna eventually opens fire on him, then claims that he was attempting to escape if she succeeds in killing him. These actions, attempting to execute a man who has yet to be proven guilty, show that she has no regard for the law, and so my JC Denton steps in and protects that man by killing her right then and there.

If it's the skills needed to kill her you can kill her using her killphrase as well. You need two parts, one is on Anna's computer, one is on Manderley's.

I assume you have invested points in your hacking skills, seeing as you're playing a pacifist character, but if not the logins are:

JManderley
knight_killer

ANavarre
scryspc

Both could be found on your first visit to UnatcoHQ.

You can kill her with a simple dialogue choice now.

And yeah, if there's one person inside HQ right now that deserves to die it's her, the game holds enough evidence that she knowingly executed dozens of innocent civilians and that she knows of and agrees with MJ12's evil ways.

Don't really get why people go out of their way to avoid both confrontations with Simons, (Which is a legitimate choice.) either.

By the way, personally I would never advertise the game as some kind of open world action RPG, though it tries to hide the fact you're pretty much railroaded from mission to mission and the things you do influence rarely reach outside of that mission. You can't do actual character role play all that well either as the game rarely let's you pick dialogue choices, instead your response is based on how you approached things which doesn't necessarely match your intent. (J.C. being a total dick about everyone he kills for example.)

What's great are the open levels with lots of ways to confront or evade your enemies, matched to all the possible skill sets, NPC interaction, while not often having any meaningful story impacts might open up other possible ways to reach your goals and whatnot.

For a lot of people the game doesn't really click until they're in Hell's Kitchen and for some it doesn't happen until Hong Kong. I'd keep at it a little longer and if that part doesn't do it for you you're good to quit.

Not any sooner though, or else.......!

You don't have to kill Walton Simons either. You can simply avoid him the two times you'd fight him. The other person who must die is Howard Strong, as his death is the trigger that causes Jock to appear at the location you find him in.

That's what I said, I just don't get why you'd want to spare him.=p

Oh by the way, about the whole changing sides thing...

Yeah, you're railroaded into helping Paul but listening to their conversation before that it kinda feels like JC never intended to completly change sides and more like "Okay, since you're my brother, I'm going to do this one last favor for you after that we'll part our ways", but of course Simons just had to activate the killswitch.

Hey guys, thanks for the detailed responses. I appreciate seeing other perspectives on these issues. Let me try to respond: Thanks! None of the walkthroughs I looked at afterwards mentioned that, and it was pretty well hidden. My complaint still stands, though, since that note looks to be written by Paul. Since I know he has defected to the NSF, why should I trust anything he (or Juan) says? I was hoping to see, for example, a note from Manderley requesting more bribe money. That would make sense if it were a small favor where JC's life would remain more or less intact. But he had to know that transmitting the signal would mean that he would be turning his back on all of UNATCO and joining a terrorist group. That is a HUGE choice and one that shouldn't be taken so lightly. I see, so you believe in "an eye for an eye"? Even worse, you believe it is justified to kill someone before they've committed any crime, just because you are confident they will do so? Sounds like a pretty slipperly slope to me. I believe that all human life has value, and it's not right for anyone to intentionally kill another. I agree Anna is pretty despicable, but the answer is to lock her up or incapacitate her, not kill her. I think you misunderstood. I could easily kill her (I've done so many times by accident in my futile attempt to get her to open the exit) but I refuse to. Oh great, so even if I make it past Anna I have to kill this dude? So what's all these youtube videos and walkthroughs labeled "nonlethal" and "pacifist" here for? And why are there all these reviews praising the fact that you can choose to kill or not based on your personal morals? I do have to admit I like the gameplay, especially the stealth/hacking aspect, and that rush of power when you make it to the inner sanctum of a well-fortified fortress without killing anyone. That was the main attraction for me, the feeling that I can accomplish my mission without compromising my morals, instead of many FPS games which treat people like cannon fodder. But if this game forces you to kill, not due to a lack of skill at stealth but due to contrived scenarios that don't make much sense, then it's not the game for me. I'll keep trying to glitch past Anna but if I can't, I would rather stop playing than kill her, and that's my choice to make.

P.S. Want an example of an FPS that does allow you to fight human enemies in a "non-lethal" style? Crysis 1. You can knock all the Koreans unconscious (yes, even the nano-suited ones and the boss) by punching them out. It takes a lot of skill, but it is so fun. That was the kind of experience I was hoping for in Deus Ex, and I seem to have been disappointed.

Eye for an eye is not what I believe at all. My JC Denton steps in to protect Lebedev, an unarmed prisoner who has surrendered, from Anna, who is trying to execute him in cold blood. The only way to do that within the confines of the game is to kill her before she can kill him. You have to consider, Deus Ex game out when then Unreal Engine 1 was cutting-edge. There's only so much that engine can do.

As for Howard Strong, I misspoke. He CAN be knocked out but considering what happens when you depart the area you find him in, odds are he'll die off-screen anyway.

If you can't manage to glitch past Anna, you could always just load the next map with cheats. Enter the console command set DeusEx.JCDentonMale bCheatsEnabled True then enter the command legend to bring up the cheat menu. From there, hit Load Map. The next map in the game sequence is 05_NYC_UNATCOIsland. Be aware, though, that as has been said, the game is not set up to consider the possibility of her surviving, and so going forward it will treat you as if you had killed her.