The French have a word for this, but no language has a word for when something is both figurative and literal at the same time. Archer thought the French might have a word for it, but sadly they do not.
Well, I suppose that is better than Deja Fu: The art of kicking someone's ass before they know they've been hit... Thank Sir Terry Pratchett for that one.
The most influential story driven video game ever developed, Deus Ex, has turned 20 years old this month . I know most of you on L-O aren't much into video games, much less PC games, but Deus Ex with all its flaws impressed me very much with its gameplay and storytelling. It gave the player an unprecedented amount of agency in an age where video games were heavily one-sided, one-minded. You could solve a single objective in a myriad of ways. You could release lab manufactured mutants on guards and scientists, clearing the path for your objective. You could sneak past roving bands of terrorists, take them down non-lethally, and some of the characters will congratulate you for the pacifism, whereas some will scold you and vice versa if you kill them. You could give a chocolate bar to a rude, starving kid and he'll reveal a secret passage way to the objective, substantially making the mission easier. You can kill a few of the bosses early when they're defenseless, preventing them from facing you later on in the game. And many other note-worthy opportunities that can be taken advantage of, or completely missed. I know a lot of these things are pretty simplistic, especially with today's technology in video gaming. The funny thing is, not one video game has managed to replicate what Deus Ex had achieved: a seemingly living, breathing narrative that responded to the player's actions and decisions. It was memorable and especially note-worthy to see characters make side gestures and jokes on the things I did that I never even thought of at all until they brought it up with me (especially going into the woman's bathroom and looking for more ammo and loot. You definitely get scolded for that by some of the characters ). I hope, then, at some point this gem of a game gets a remake at some point like many of the other popular games such as Halo. It's too big, too inspirational for many of the games released in the following years and decades to just be left to the annals of video game history. To only be remembered by its fans and modders.