Deus Ex: Invisible War

Rating:
Summary: First was amazing and this looks it too
Review: Reviews are popping up and saying this is great, perhaps not quite as revolutionary than the original, but the original was one of the best games ever made for the PC so its a bit hard to surpass it even if you make a truly great game.

Rating:
Summary: Pale Imitaion
Review: This game was made for the console only, all the great things about the first one have been taken out, from the skill sets, ammo, reloading, the inventory. Everything has been super simplified so now its a FPS not an action rpg. ALso your looking about around 15 hours of gameplay. The most revolutionary thing they did in this game was put in the console market nowing it it is going to sell well becuase it has a great name. FOrgot to mention a very weak AI and no head shots or body specific damage like the first one. They should of named it DIET Deus Ex

Rating:
Summary: DOES NOT SUPPORT GEFORCE MX OR OLDER ATI
Review: I downloaded the demo and it wouldn't launch. Turns out your 3D card MUST HAVE pixel and vertex shading, T&L is not good enough. This is according to the Readme file that came with the demo. Thanks a lot Eidos/Ion Storm. At least Lucas Arts and other game companies games RUN with older hardware minus a few bells and whistles. I guess I'll buy this from the cheap stack in Wal-Mart 3 years from now when I can afford to upgrade my computer.

Rating:
Summary: cool but not the best
Review: If you liked the first one you will like this one.But do not I repeat do not buy this for your child thats it short and sweet

Rating:
Summary: Wow Factor: High
Review: This game looks excellent, for the info go [online].P>First, this is the sequel to one of the best games ever. The original has won countless awards and has received very high reviews. Definitely a game everyone should own weather you like FPS or not.

Deus Ex: Invisible War is going to expand on all of the concepts of the first including, better AI, much better graphics, and much better physics to just name the main points.

"Roughly 15 years after the events of the original, the world is just beginning to recover from catastrophic depression." They state. "As an elite anti-terrorist agent, you must fight numerous militant factions bent on violently reshaping the world to suit their own agendas. Using high-tech gadgetry and futuristic body modification (or biomods), you are granted near superhuman powers." You are Alex D. A clone of the original JC Denton (Male or female, your choosing.) You're pretty much trying to find the original host. (The Hero of Deus Ex.)

This time around, the game will not be nearly as linear as the original. You will be able to make more choices. There will be no scripted shootouts or cut scenes. Everything is game play, it's your choice how you play the game, and the environment will react to it.

Along with the better graphics, the physics and AI will be noticeably better. They will react to nearly everything and will be much smarter this time around. But the AI will be smarter, but to the extent of making the game fun, not smarter to make it hard and difficult, therefore taking away from the game play experience. If you were to fill a room with toxic gas, would it be more fun for an enemy to walk into it and die, or avoid it and sound an alarm because he could notice it. That is what the developers have to try and accomplish.

The game follows a combination of all 3 endings to the original Deus Ex, relying more on the "New Dark Age" but still having parts of the other endings in it. (Not that bad of a spoiler.)

And then there is of course, the compelling and dynamic storyline set in a somewhat Cyberpunk setting like the original. You will have 3 possible factions to join, (Two at the beginning and one mid way.) Each will have completely different motives and goals. There also will be the large branching conspiracy that kept you going and kept you paranoid, doubting your allies, and making you think about whom to trust.

These are just a couple tid-bits on this wonderful game. Check it out.

Rating:
Summary: Beware of compatibility problems
Review: If you think you've got a nice, relatively new computer, therefore you should be able to play Deus Ex. Be careful and read the video card support list very carefully. I have a Dell Dimension 2.4 gHz machine with a Geforce 4MX video card. Deus Ex will not play on this video card. Your card must have Pixel shader 1.1 capability to run. I bought the game and it will not work on my machine. I fell into this trap because I didn't know what the exact video card in my machine was. I assumed that, because it was relatively new and not bottom of the line, it would run pretty much any game out there. Live and learn. Don't make the same mistake as I did.

I'm rather discusted with the deus ex creators. I've been eagerly waiting for this game and now I can't play it. They didn't even give me the option of defeating pixel shading. So what if it wouldn't look as nice, at least I would be able to play it.

Oh well, The reviews I have read say it was a real disappointment anyway. I'm just glad I didn't run out and buy it for $50 when it was first released. I only got stuck for $20.

I guess this game will sit on my shelf until I upgrade my system in a few years. Hopefully it will be compatable with the system I buy then.

Rating:
Summary: There is no god in this machine.
Review: The original Deus Ex was an incredible game. Although each of its individual parts (the action, the graphics, the stealth) had been outdone by numerous other games, it managed to mesh them together into something much greater, thanks to superior writing, characterization, and immersiveness.

This game is not Deus Ex.

The plot of this game is practically identical to that of Deus Ex, except it makes you think even less of the issues at stake. No matter which side you support or actions you take, they have NO relevance until you near the end of the game. The characters are limp and lifeless compared to the first game, and the recurring ones are shadows of their former selves. I couldn't find myself CARING, though I did try. The plot consists of running to and fro doing things not because they're important to you, but because others tell you to do so. The non-linearity is a joke, and despite what the hype implies, you have no control over the storyline except at the end. Game-critical characters are STILL rendered invulnerable in lame ways (people shut down your weapons or when you enter the area. Including batons and other melee weapons. How does THAT work?). Anyone you can kill is simply not important to the story, or has outlived their usefulness.

The game allows you to play a male or female Alex D, but this is really nothing but a cosmetic issue (a couple of lines of dialogue by NPCs change, but that's it). Neither model looks particularly good, and lacks the "personality" of JC from the first game.

The graphics have a brief "neat" factor, but are nothing special. The lighting is superior to most games, but the textures, models, and movements feel stark, bland, and artificial. In some ways, the same charge could be leveled at the first game, but the time put into creating this new engine was not time well spent.

The smaller size of the levels (due to the hardware limitations of the XBox compared to PC) gives you a feeling of claustrophobia, and requires numerous level loads. Not only is the constant interruption disruptive to any feeling of immersion, but the loads can take around 30 seconds of waiting, AND the game consistently minimized during loading, showing off my desktop until it was ready to load. Total failure to captivate me. Level design is fair, but nothing special. The small size of the levels means exploration is easy, short, and not very entertaining.

The skill system has been removed altogether from the game, as has the traditional augmentation system, replaced by the "biomod" system. You may select different biomods for 5 slots (2 "normal biomod" possibilities, and 1 black market). The biomods are merely convenient little tricks in DX: IW, but not even close to critical in the way you play the game, minor "powerups" instead of demonstrations of your superhuman nature.

Inventory has been drastically changed. Instead of shuffling your gear around (which was sometimes an annoyance in the first game), you are granted a number of inventory slots, each slot capable of holding ANY object. Whether it's 5 rocket launchers, or 5 knives, they use up the exact same amount of space. It feels contrived and tends towards the inconvenient.

Universal ammo and weapons. The UA concept seems to attract universal hatred, and rightly so. All weapons use the same ammo (although different amounts of it), which means if you run out of ammo for one gun, you're screwed unless you have a melee weapon for backup. There is no reloading, either, which makes the game blander.

The game allows you to add 2 modifications per weapon, although these modifications have no visual effect, nor do they really contribute any "cool" factor to them.

The weapons are not well-balanced, either. The small size of the levels removes the necessity of the sniper rifle, the SMG eats through lots of ammo while doing less damage than the pistol, and it takes several seconds to render anyone unconscious with the riot prod (as opposed to quick thwack with a melee weapon) My secret to success in the game was in using nothing but the police baton. And without sneaking. That's right, I'd run up and hit things with the baton and take them out. From soldiers to giant battlebots...the baton took them all in just a few hits. This is wrong.

The length and depth of this game is extremely shallow. I finished it in about 10 hours after completing all the sidequests, and there was maybe only an hour or two of replay value. There are some news terminals and "datacubes" (universal replacement for books, newspapers, etc.), which have some neat things to say, but compared to the first game, they are sorely lacking. No longer do you punch in PIN numbers and such, the game does it for you. There are no more lockpicks, only multitools, which kills that kind of variety. The game has devolved into a simple substandard action shooter, with a few gimmicks that have been done better elsewhere.

From a hardware perspective, this game is terrible. My machine is a 3Ghz, 512MB RAM, 64MB ATI Radeon Mobility card (laptop), and even on the MINIMAL settings, I ran into consistent choppiness. When I did turn all settings to max (for grading the graphics), it became a LONG slideshow. I am sure that XBox players would have a better time of it, the PC version of DX: Invisible War is merely a port of that version.

Compared to the first, this game is a MAJOR disappointment, and I would urge those lucky enough to play the first to save their money, unless they wish to collect IW in a bargain bin. The failed attempts to "streamline" and convert the game to XBox specifications go only to prove that less is...less. But despite all the negative criticism I have given in this review, the game is not TERRIBLE, just "fair".

Rating:
Summary: Opting out - - -
Review: It didn't meet my expectations, not after the original, but I enjoyed it just the same, that is until it came to the end, Liberty Island... I could not find any resolution that suited me. Not liking any of the choices I was left with, a real disappointment, I made my own ending, finishing by going out on one of the docks of Liberty Island and then just closing everything, removing it from our computer and leaving the results of my final actions to my own imagination... I enjoyed the game along the way but in the end felt cheated...

Rating:
Summary: Invisible Fun?
Review: I really want to like this game, and I do; but it does it on the back of its predecessor, to which it does not live up. The reviews I have read on this page are mostly on the money. First the good things:

As a sequel, it's nice how the previous Deus Ex storyline, and characters therein are tied into this game ('the collapse', JC, Tracer Tong, and others). For anyone who played the first installment, this provides insight as to what happened after you finished the first game (depending on how you actually finished it). Because of this, much of the mood of the first game can be felt in DE:IW.

As a stand alone, the game is unimpressive but casually entertaining; it's an FPS, which tries to add RPG elements. The black market biomods are cool and Alex D.'s character is fairly interesting. I guess graphics are okay, but I'm not an authority on those things.

Ironically, the tie-in storyline to the first DE and DE:IW that makes this newest sequel enjoyable, also overshadows the game also makes it a poor cousin to its predecessor. So now the bad:

The RPG improvement system is not present in this game. You start and finish the game with the same skillset, with the exception of biomods you choose. This is by far the most rewarding part of DE1, and therefore the most disappointing part of DE:IW. Moreover, your choices in the game do not affect the outcome except near the end, and sometimes the poor AI can screw that up for you (I was going to go with the illuminati near the end one time, but their sentry attacked me, and soon my prospective allies were choking in poison gas and died in front of me). Whereas killing versus stunning people in the first DE could affect character interaction and therefore how goals were to be completed, DE:IW has no such repercussions. BTW, concussion grenade concuss people to death. Although Alex D is somewhat well rounded, most of the other characters are one dimensional, including the JC and Paul Denton, which is sort of sad.

Inventory: I never have enough slots, and I'm always dropping items in lieu of another. Dropped enemy weapons do not yield ammo, as I found out at the start, when I suddenly had 5 pistols at my disposal, and hardly any ammunition.

Overall, weak storyline. Although it hearkens back to the first game, providing continuity, the story here has very little intrigue to offer, and no bombshells like the first game. As the end of the game approached, there was very little in the way of bringing everything full circle, and no real moral dilemma as to what choice to make.

I'm a crappy gamer, but I finished the game in just over 12 hours. Simply put: it's too easy. Whereas stealth could be the best option in the first game because of too many enemies to face, I would walk into a battle against 4 or 5 guys and mop the floor with them lickety-split. Although I began the game using stealth, I soon realized that walking in guns-a-blazing was just as effective at minimal risk, with higher inventory payouts.

Now, I didn't know this when I bought it, but when I started playing the game I thought to myself, "This feels like a console interface." I.e., oversimplified with small level design, and repeated levels. Looking to see if anybody else had this sense, I found out it was designed for the console. I think this is the root of the problem with this game. I bought it cheap, and this game is a reminder of why I wait a year and a half before I buy a release (plus the fact that patches for glitches are usually available by then).

It's a no-brainer game and better than some I have played. I recommend borrowing it, or waiting another year yet until it's even cheaper, however. If you played the first DE, then this is a must for curiousity's sake. If not, I highly recommend you pick it up instead.

Rating:
Summary: What could go wrong? The answer is everything.
Review: Veteran hardcore FPS fans will have fond memories of the original Deus Ex - a game which has easily stood the test of time. It's successful combination of Role-playing and First-Person elements won many admirers, and its labryinthe anti-terrorism storyline is extremely relevant to modern events. So when a sequel to this classic PC game was to be produced by Warren Spector and the developers at Ion Storm, what could possibly go wrong?

Unfortunately, the answer is - almost everything. The biggest innovation in the original game were the modifications you could make to both your players skills and his physical abilities. This was implemented using a point system - the points were acrued as you successfully accomplished mission objectives. Another cool innovation was the use of biomods, which you could use to add deadly new abilities to your character. The second game has an inferior dumbed-down version of this system - the points system has been completely eliminated, which effectively destroys the role-playing element which made Deus Ex such a huge success. Unlike the original game, the sequel doesn't allow the player to adopt different gameplaying styles to accomplish the same goal. In general, it seems that sneaking and sniping enemies is more rewarding than outright combat. This essentially limits the number of useful biomods that a player should use during the game - hacking and bot domination being compulsory.

Music is also another big letdown - it'd be hard for any player to forget the wonderfully thunderous bombastic theme that played over the menu of the original game. It seemed that every single map and situation in the original Deus Ex had a piece of music composed for it. It's fair to say that music in the sequel is either non-existent or played so softly it virtually becomes background noise. The only time it's allowed to come to the fore is during the NG Resonance sequences.

Apart from the lack of a points and sophisticated biomod system, the biggest fault is the level design. The opening map of the original Deus Ex was absolutely huge - it comprised the Statue of Liberty, the interior of the Statue, the Harbour, and the entire surrounding environs of Staten Island. And that was just for starters. In the sequel, we're expected to believe that the entire German city of Trier consists of only four blocks of streets - which is patently ridiculous. The sequel's storyline demands big levels - especially during the latter half of the game. I suspect this design decision was possibly due to the perception that the XBox would not have the required processing power. Anyone who has seen the massive levels in Knights of the Old Republic or Halo will realise this is simply not the case.

The biggest mistake Ion Storm made was to simplify the game for the X-Box. As both Bioware and Bungie have proven so successfully with both Knights of the Old Republic and Halo, it isn't necessary to remove or simplify gameplay elements, simply because it's being ported to a gaming console. The result is an insult to the old fans of Deus Ex, who expected the same sophisticated user interface and role-playing elements. It's also an insult to the X-Box crowd as well, who have been lumped with a diluted gameplay experience.