Parts of Deus Ex: Invisible War (the sequel to one of the best games of all time- Deus Ex) take place in cities such as Seattle and Cairo, where a recurring theme is the separation between 2 worlds- the dirty, poor and in some cases toxic slum areas, and the selective, upper-class arkologies. The player navigated between these world, accomplishing various tasks to move the story forward. Another recurring theme is the numerous side missions involving the game’s two competing coffee franchises, Peequod’s and Queequeg’s, which are in vicious competition. These two companies, which are obviously modelled on a certain real-world coffee mega-chain, take their name from “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville. In the book, the character Queequeg serves aboard the Pequod with Ishmael and Captain Ahab, along with the first mate of the ship- Starbuck.

This is probably obvious to anyone who has played the game and read Moby Dick, but I hadn’t, so it was pretty cool to find out.

Here’s another one that was fun to discover: Games by the company Blizzard typically have cheat codes which allow the player to skip levels. In Warcraft II it was “Tigerlily”. In Starcraft it was “Ophelia”. In Warcraft III it was “Motherland”. Tigerlily, Ophelia, and Motherland are all Natalie Merchant albums.

I noticed that last one while playing Warcraft 2 in my basement at home as a kid. My parents like Natalie Merchant, so they’d be blasting Tigerlily while I was playing, and I noticed the coincidence. Once Starcraft came out I realized that it wasn’t just a coincidence, which made it that much cooler. In fact, she is even given “special thanks” in the Starcraft manual.

Thought that someone, somewhere, might find that interesting!