Deus Ex: Invisible War

Rating:
Summary: Worth a look, but a bit patronising.
Review: I loved Deus Ex so I'm trying to not be biased. This game is worth playing: parts of it are great. The Bot mind control, the in flight controllable missles, and the way you pick up optional tasks on the way through the game.

I didn't mind the universal ammo or the lack of skill advancement. The graphics/design/music was average. The storyline was a bit hacky, but fine.

What I didn't like about this game was the difficulty setting. The first level was fun, but by the end of it I had all of the mods and practically all of the weapons. Difficulty had peaked. After that it was just a case of keep finding ammo. With most games you end up hoarding equipment and ammo, saving up grenades for big baddies. In DX2 you've got so much of everything, you don't need to bother. Nothing is really hidden from you, and you don't have to search much.

It plays like the designers don't want you to ever feel in difficulty, they have made all of the interfaces dead simple. they don't want to burden you with character development or having to tell between different types of ammo (or even having to reload between clips), they've made sure you'll never run out of anything or get stuck with out a key (there's always a grating to go through two steps to your left).

I find this very odd as the best thing about the first Deus ex was the unguided open-ness of it. It was a challenge and you had to make some difficult choices about who you were and who you were going to tackle the challenges ahead.

My girlfreind played it through first and warned me how easy it was, so I played it on the hardest setting. But even with that it wasn't any kind of challenge. For more serious gamers may I suggest seeing if you can play the whole game through without installing a single bio mod.

It's still got more to it than your typical storyless First person shooter, so it's still worth a play.

Rating:
Summary: A sequal thats far from equal
Review: The first Deus Ex was an extremely fun game to play. I had high hopes for the sequal but while some of the new physics (ragdoll effects) were a nice change, the interface changes were a turn for the worse. It felt like a console game and for me thats a big negative. I don't really care to see the inventory screen on top of everything and I don't see why they had to dumb down the handling of ammunition and lockpicks. It was obviously designed with a minimum of controls in mind but is that neccessarily an improvement. I don't think so. What happened to the days when a game was redesigned to be ported to console?
Even all the conspiracies in the plot seemed somewhat less interesting in this game. Overall though it was entertaining and while maybe not worth the full price at its release, if you can find it cheap it's a worthwhile buy. If you have to choose though and you don't own the original, buy that one instead.

Rating:
Summary: Not as bad as some people say it is...
Review: I found this to be an interesting and entertaining game. Sure, a lot of fans of the original game did not get what they were looking for, but for gamers new to Deus Ex there is a lot to like.

For one, the story is much better than in most other games. Here, you can team up with any side you like and apply your view of the world to the game. It will probably take to the very end (and a few surprising turns) before you really know which way you want to go. No other game before has presented so many meaningful choices to me.

Of course, compared to Deus Ex 1, there are a number of simplifications. Unified ammo is something a lot of people do not like. It didn't bother me too much, although it is a bit odd that rocket launchers and pistols use the same ammo. The bio-mods I am not to crazy about. There are too many options to upgrade your mods and not enough meaningful choices there. But there are other aspects in the game that make up for it.

Of course at this point, the graphics engine can not quite keep up with Doom 3 or Half Life 2, but it gets the job done.

Rating:
Summary: Absolute, unmitigated rubbish.
Review: It's no prettier than Dark Forces, and the levels aren't as complicated. Play the original Quake instead. It has more realistic weapons and far scarier opponents. In fact, to find less intelligent enemies, you have to return to games played in 16kB of RAM with no hard disk. Yes, it really is that bad. It would be a tragic waste of the time taken to install it and set up your keys. Do not waste your money buying this game.

Remember Jar-jar Binks? This is worse.

(...)

Rating:
Summary: Close but no cigar
Review: Basically I was dissapointed by this game, after being a huge fan of the original there was a great deal of anticipation, sadly however the game did not live up to my expectations. I blame this on its joint Xbox/PC origins and the fact the game had been over simplified. This dumbing down was my main cause of irritation. However I suggest for all those who bought Deus Ex 2 they should go to www.dx2rebirth.off2picproduction.com to get the high quality skins.

To be fair to the developers its hard to perfect perfection, and the original Deus Ex will always remain a genre defining masterpiece. In short only buy this game if you have finished Deus Ex and still want more from the same universe.

Rating:
Summary: God Of Garbage
Review: The first Deus Ex game is by far one of the best FPS games I have ever played. It successfully combined the FPS genre with an RPG, and it had so much replay value. The storyline was excellent, had cool characters, cool weapons, and so much more. So of course when I heard that Deus Ex: Invisible War was being made, I was in shock. I couldn't wait to play it. But unfortunately, this is the worst follow up to any game I have ever played.

The game is so clearly rushed, with its unispired level design, minimal detail on the backgrounds, poor animation and the buggy gameplay. Not only are the areas really small and poorly designed, but in between each area are relentless load screens. The enemy AI is awful, I found the enemies in the first Deus Ex much harder on easy, and meanwhile I was playing DX2 on normal.

DX2 no longer has skill points, which were used to increase your character in different skill areas. The biomods are cheesy and not very fun. Instead of having different ammo for different weapons, now DX2 has only 1 ammo which is used in each of the guns. There are no areas where you can swim in DX2. I remember in the first Doom game there was at least water in a few levels. The weapons are clunky and do not feel that much different from one another. You could seriously beat this game using only a pistol. If there's a door thats locked, you don't have any multitools, or you don't have the keycode, just simply sneak around the door by going the through the vent that seems to be ever conveniently placed right next to every locked door in every area.

Playing DX2 seemed more like playing a beta version than an actual game. I highly recommend the first DX, i think any RPG or FPS fan needs to play the original DX, but don't waste your time or money on Invisible War. This is almost a big a let down as Kill Bill Volume 2.

Rating:
Summary: The name "Deus Ex" should not be part of its title
Review: When viewed apart from the would-be Deus Ex franchise, this is an OK game. Not one I'm really glad I bought, but not overly horrible to play either. It feels like a console game that's been ported to PC.

But, since they did tout this as a sequel to the first DX, I think all and any comparative criticisms are valid. Basically, this game lacks so much of the depth, intelligence, and COMPLEXITY of the first game, I can't bring myself to keep playing it. It's like they didn't have any clue why the first one was so endearing to most of its fan base.

I'll be sticking to the occasional nostalgic return to playing the first title once in a while. Playing this one just makes me sad.