Way way way back in the early 2000's (oh god it was more than a decade ago?) there was a game called Deus Ex, or Dear Sex as one of my friends in a more surreal moment though I was saying, was released.
This game is astonishing.
For the time it was graphically ahead of the curve. Reflections and effects that worked on almost any machine at the time. I was especially lucky back then rocking 2 Voodoo 2 graphics cards for my 3D gaming pleasure. Yes it was decadent but it was also utterly delicious. But it wasn't the graphics that really drew me into the world it was the narrative.
What made it especially great was something I'd never seen before in a game not even adventure games of the time. There was a moment early on that I discovered something in this game that I never had expected or even assumed was possible in a game.
This moment was when I walked into the ladies toilets just after the first mission and came face to face with a woman walking out of a cubical. She was indignant that I was in the wrong room and quite rightly so being a male security agent in the ladies lavatory. That wasn't so special but it was later on when at the briefing I was already on route to when the call of nature, or the gamer desire to look behind every door, kicked in and the head of the division I was reporting to finished the briefing with a dressing down for being in the wrong toilets.
I'd never seen something like that before and rarely seen it since. It was an early lesson to the game that was an indicator that actions really did have consequences, even in the digital world.
