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"Deus Ex Lite" is an accurate description

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 91 / 94
Date: December 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has merits that make it worth playing, but it's still vastly inferior to the first game (Which I gave five stars). This game has a lot of good ideas, but they are largely negated by some really bad design decisions.

There are two HUGE faults that keep this from being a great game. First: the role-playing system is bad. Plain and simple. It's not very useful, flexible, robust, or strategic. The skills system that helped make the first game so great is gone, and that was a huge mistake. The replacement, a carved up biomod system and a weak weapons mod system, requires little planning or thought. There are only five biomod slots now, and the weapons mod system is cheap and underpowered. The system in the first game was so wonderful, because it was loaded with choices and tradeoffs. You could spend your skills system to become a tank, a hacker, a ninja, a frogman, or any combination that you wanted. It's nonexistent here. There is no sense of power development like what you get in a good RPG, where you start off as a complete wimp and end up the game as a demigod. That is why "Deus Ex: Invisible War" is very shallow as an RPG.

The other major fault of this game is the size of the maps. They are ridiculously tiny. Most of the areas are tight, indoor cramped spaces. You have to get to the end of the game before you encounter any big open outdoor areas. Exploring an area to find the alternate "secret" entrance to a well-guarded facility is laughably easy. Part of the fun of the first game was wandering around the huge open maps and maybe sneaking into a huge building through the roof. In this game, the front door and the air vent that takes you around it are only five feet away. What's the point? Small maps also mean frequent (and long) loading times.

One welcome change from the first game is a big improvement in the voice acting. Both the male and female Alex voice actors sound very good. Except for voice acting though, the rest of the sound in this game takes a big step backwards. Alex Brandon's music is scaled way back. Forget about hearing another great soundtrack like the first game. The weapons sound like toys, and the noises in the game don't do a good job of letting you know how stealthy are your being. That's part of stealth just not being very useful in this game. The riot prod is useless and the tranquilizer dart gun takes two shots now instead of one to take down an enemy. Silent takedowns are too hard, but you don't need them anyways, since most enemies aren't much of a threat to you. You can take most of them out easily with the overpowered sniper rifle.

Deus Ex: Invisible War has some saving graces that make it worth playing. The storyline is still excellent. I think that it would have helped to make the game longer and give it more character development, but it's still great. The story has one or two very surprising twists in it, and it gets you to think philosophically, just like the first one. It all makes for a good legitimate sequel story, instead of just a thrown-together rehash of the first one (which is common for sequels). Warning: if you did not play the first game, then you will be totally lost, since the plot for "Invisible War" is pretty convoluted too.

The developers had some good creative ideas too. Some of the "black market" biomod canisters that you find are wicked, like one that lets you control bots, and one that imparts EMP to your melee attacks. The rocket launcher has a guided missile mode that puts you into the first-person view of the missile. I also got a lot of amusement out of the NG Resonance character, a holographic AI that provides some comic relief, as well as some hints and side quests. And, even with the scaled-back role-playing system, "Invisible" still has tons of good dialog and lots of open-ended problem-solving. Plus, there's nothing else like it out there as far as action/RPG games go. It's too bad though, that there was so much removed for this game. If it had been a full-fledged sequel instead of "Deus Ex Lite", then it could have been as good as the first one. I would love to see a third Deus Ex game that combines the best elements of the first two.

What could go wrong? The answer is everything.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 24 / 24
Date: February 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

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.

The game that killed the best game developer in North America.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: December 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

To understand this game's place in gaming history, it will help to understand the history of its developers. Ion Storm was founded by John Romero and Tom Hall, the minds behind Doom. Doom was, and probably still is, the most widely known game in the FPS genre. With its creators breaking off from ID software to form their own company, all eyes were already on Ion Storm from the very beginning. The company had 2 branches: One in Austin, and one in Dallas. The Dallas branch of Ion Storm spent years working on the game Daikatana. Due to the amount of publicity the company and their game were receiving, Daikatana was highly anticipated by many gamers, who were champing at the bit to get their hands on what promised to be the best game ever made. However, due in part to the excessively long development time (for the day), and the frustratingly wonky AI, Daikatana was finally released to painfully bad reviews all around. The game ended up selling very poorly, and was directly responsible for the both the closing of the Dallas IS branch, and for the departure of Romero and Hall from the company.

Daikatana should have been the death of Ion Storm, and surely would have been if it hadn't been for what was happening in the Austin branch. About the same time Daikatana was released, Ion Storm Austin completed work on and released a little known game called Deus Ex. Deus Ex was a mix of FPS and RPG, which played like an interactive "choose your own adventure" sci-fi novel. Unlike Daikatana, Deus Ex was released to critical acclaim, and went on to sell very well. It even won 2000s Game of the Year award. Deus Ex singlehandedly saved the should-be-ruined Ion Storm from collapse.

Fast forward 3 years. News of Deus Ex 2 comes. Once again, in what can only be a cruel act of fate, Ion Storm was plagued with a long development process, as well as the attention and anticipation of gamers everywhere. You know where this is going, right? The reviews on this site should deem it unnecessary for me to describe what happened when Invisible War was released. I'll just say that it was universally panned, and die-hard fans of Deus Ex were, almost without exception, entirely disappointed with the game. Shortly after DX2 was released, Ion Storm released another highly anticipated game, Thief III. While not as critically panned as DX2, the game didn't sell very well, and was plagued with many of the same issues that DX2 apparently suffered from.

As a result, Eidos, Ion Storm's parent company, decided to close the doors at Ion Storm forever.

What should have been a return to greatness ended up being the end for one of the most ambitious and talented game development companies in the world.

Personally, I like DX2. It's a bit smaller than the first game, and the story doesn't seem as inspired, but it's still a couple of steps above your average gaming fare. There is a lot of freedom to enjoy yourself in this game, and, like the first game, you can choose what type of person you will be. You can chose to be a diplomat, a hardcore killer, or anything in between. The only thing that I don't like about this game is the size of the play areas. At times, the buildings are so tiny, you can't even move without bumping into something. Other than that, the game is worthy of the Deus Ex name, in my opinion. Even if it lacks something that the first game had, it is still worth checking out - ESPECIALLY at this price.

Too much has changed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: December 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is in no way like the original. In some minor ways, that is good. But, mostly, it just takes away from the expectation of the 'follow-up' to an incredible game. The biggest downside for me ... I have an AMD athlon 2800 w/ a geforce fx 5800 128 DDR and 512 meg DDR ram, Sound Blaster audigy 2 card. All have updated drivers, and the required direct X 9 is installed. That being said, i have to pull the graphics setting down to 640x480 to play this. Anything above that creates an unplayable framerate. Why is that? I far exceed all system requirements, and i'm playing this on an alienware computer. They are 'designed' for power gaming. Someone made a grave mistake here. Unless there are some major patches right quick, i fear there may be no Deus Ex 3 in the future. I will try to continue this program and see if i begin to enjoy it. Right now i am only playing it because i'm out 50 bucks. That's a real shame. I would honestly recommend buying a copy of Deus Ex game of the year edition instead of this. Hope i've shed some light.

We was robbed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 27
Date: December 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's very hard to understand the deisgn choices that were made in the production of this game; everything from the graphic design to the gameplay is out of whack. This might be an ok game for someone who has never played Deus Ex. But most people familiar with the first one will find this a major disapointment.

First, there is just something that is not right about the way the game looks; it's not that it runs slowly or that the graphics are "bad;" but they seem to look sort of fuzzy, washed out, or indistinct. I suspect that this has something to do with the port from the televison-based console game. The console port has also taken its toll in other aspects of the game. For example, in the old Deus Ex, when you hacked a security computer, you got a graphic display of what the computer interface looked like. Now you just get a little text menu; "Turn camera off; Turn turret off" etc. And then there's "universal ammo." I don't know what genius thought up the idea of a single ammo pack that powers your rocket launcher, sniper rifle, and electric prod. One of the challenges of any shooter game, and especially the Deus Ex/System shock games, is making the best use of the ammo for your different weapons. And where are the skills? One of the great things about DX and System Shock was the ability to gain skills as the game progressed, leading to the potential for very different skill sets by the end of the game. Skills have been entirely removed from the game system.

The character AI is unbelievably bad... they just stand there while you shoot them in the head, or rob them of their items. At least the voice acting is better than in the original.

Is this the most disapointing game sequel ever? It's hard for me to think of another one that comes close. This also does not bode well for Thief 3, next in line from this studio.

Just a few months away from perfection.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: December 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It hurts me to write this review, it really does. The original Deus Ex is my favorite FPS and one of the best games I have ever played. Invisible War seems hit and miss in so many categories, but overall it's still a good game.

After a year of waiting I finally headed to stores to pick up Invisible War. I was like an anxious little kid by the time I left the store to return home for hour upon hour of enjoyment. After installing it I immediately started playing it. The menu, yes the menu, is beautiful and the opening cinematic enthralled me.

The first thing you notice when you start playing Deus Ex is it's graphics. They are amazing, even in 640x480 which I had to play in for awhile. The next thing you notice are the physics as the building around you is shaking. The engine is a bit wild, but it's kind of fun to watch people do backflips when you shoot them in head. Of course, these two things combined are the two major innovations in Invisible War, and after awhile you get used to them, but you never forget they are there.

The new interface is clean and runs pretty well (A patch is coming out soon to clean it up even more). There is no longer ammunition for every gun, but universal ammunition usable by all weapons. This may sound stupid, but this forces you to choose weapons and how you use them carefully. A nice touch really. There are only 6 biomod slots available (one is your "flashlight"), making for 15 total biomod options. A few from the original reappear in Invisible War, but most seem to be entirely new. 5 of these options are Illegal biomods, giving things like bot domination, hacking, and leech abilities. Biomod cannisters are available a bit more than they probably should be, but it's alright.

While those are minor changes, the major change in Invisible War is the gameplay style. Where the original had upgradable abilities IW has... well, it has something. The best description I've come up with it is Thief-esqe. For those that have not played Thief, stealth was required since you abilities in up-front combat were very weak and all your weapons did drastically less damage when the enemies were aware of your presence. Imagine that, but the bonuses of using stealth taken mostly away, and simply catching your enemy offguard was the only "bonus".

What can possibly make up for this, you ask? Style, lots of style. It may just be the fact that IW is the first to use these hefty graphics, but the environment seems right on target, all the time. The world is dark and light seems to hit everything perfectly. It never gets old and makes Invisible War something to behold.

The story, on the other hand, is a mix of good and bad. Overall, IW's story holds you to finishing all 12 hours of the game. Many old friends come back to visit you, such as Chad, the leader of Silhouette. He's now in power and leading his own faction, the WTO. Opposing the WTO is The Order Church, lead by Her Holiness. All of this is wonderfull but many characters become lost in the story and are never given an ending like in the original. Also missing from this game are those characters you fall in love with. For the most part it's just you. No Jock's, Reyes', or Alex's.

Now for the general listing of flaws I've noticed.

1) The AI isn't too intelligent. Their memories are much better than the original, but they just aren't very agressive or deadly. They don't notice anything dangerous, like the fire or gas leaking from boilers or barrels, they just walk into them like nothing is wrong.

2) There are a few glitches due to the physics and sometimes your character magically teleports across rooms or up ladders when stuck.

3) Damage location is nearly inexistant.

Many things have been simplified. Multitools now act as lockpicks as well, logins are stored and no longer need to be typed in, and weapon mods do not take up inventory space.

It feels like Deus Ex: Invisible War was rushed out by pressuring CEO's or something of the sort. It feels more like a big patch for the original Deus Ex, and they forgot to add a lot of fixes to the new things they created. Luckily, the DX team will be working steadfastly to fix both versions of Invisible War because its engine is the same as Thief III's, which is coming out in 2004. Hopefully Invisible War will be made into the gorgeous game it should have been, making it the classic it should have been.

Wage war as you choose?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 18
Date: December 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I just completed the game twice now. The second time I made it a point to kill everyone I could. You would think it would make a difference but it doesn't. Your actions will mean nothing for the first 90-95 percent of the game. The game is fun but it is not a challenge even on hard in my opinion. The game does have some major performance issues even on top end systems. I had to edit the games ini file to make it playable above 800x600 on a 3Gig P4, 1Gig ram, 9800pro machine. I also had to reboot my computer more times with this game than any other game. The levels are very small making load times annoying. Weapons can only have two mods installed. There is no character skill devolvement which allows you to use any weapon and tool exactly the same each and every time you play. The AI is retarded. They don't even notice the guy next to them is on fire and screaming. He might even walk into him and catch himself on fire too. The new physics are broken. You can not pick up a chair or certain box but if you bump into it it will go flying arcoss the room.

On and plus note, they did add some hidden unique weapons and some of the blackmarket biomods are fun to use. You can also change your biomods if you want to try something different during the game. Some might see that as a bad point since your character is never really unique. But in my experience the game doesn't change too much no matter how you choose to play or which biomods you choose. The game is quite short to boot, around ten hours even with the limited exploration you are allowed. This is an action game not even remotely close to an RPG in my book. I had some fun playing it but I'm not going to have any fond memories about it like the first one.

So is this game worth a possible 50 dollar headache?
It is a sad thing to say but I would recommend waiting a year for them to fix it before you buy it.

There is no god in this machine.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: June 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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".

Textbook case of how to ruin a sequel

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: January 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I really liked the first Deus Ex game, and so it hurts me to have this say this, but Deus Ex invisible war is one of the worst games I've played and one of the biggest computer game disapointments ever. It almost seems that the designers intentionally removed all of the good stuff from the first game.

First, there is the way the game looks. I am not talking here about performance issues. I have a new computer with a 9800xt graphics card and 1 GB ram, and the game runs smoothly on my machine. The problem is that it just does not look very good. When you consider some of the amazing graphics that have been done in computer games in the last couple of years (Splinter Cell, for example, or even in budget titles like Devastation) it is hard for me to understand why this game looks so bad. Maybe part of it is the the artwork and design; the character animations look like weird cartoon figures. Also, the game areas are too small. Forget about the big, sprawling environments in DX. Here you will be constantly waiting for the next little area to load.

Forget about the much-hyped physics; dead bodies flop around in a ridiculous way, and bumping into objects sends them spinning through space like Babe Ruth hitting one out of the park.

The skill system, which made DX (and its predecessor System Shock) so awesome are gone. Why? The ability to customize your character and evolve through the course of the game was one of the most satisfying parts. You've probably already heard about the Universal Ammo thing, another serious design mistake IMO. The game is also quite short, and seems much shorter than the original. Also, without the various skill paths through the game, there is little replayability.

Basically this is a textbook case of how to ruin a game sequel.

A total and utter disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: February 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The first Deus Ex was, hands down, the best game I've ever played. I am a realistic person, however, so I tried not to go into this game hoping for a repeat of that experience. Even with lowered expectations, however, this game really does not cut it.

Following is a list of major disappointments:

1) The RPG-style skill system is gone.
2) Multitools are both lockpicks and, well, multitools
3) Ammo is generic (i.e. all weapons use the same ammo), which pulls a lot of the mental arithmetic of a first-person-shooter out.
4) I had played for 30 minutes before I had the pistol, the energy blade, the shotgun, the sniper rifle, some grenades, and the submachine gun.
5) Most weapon mods had no visible effect, since the lack of a skill system meant that you weilded your weapon perfectly from the word "go."
6) Scant few enemies
7) Terrible AI (worse than most FPSes, and worse, I think, than the original)
8) Cramped level design (the vast expanses of the original are gone, and it is necessary to change maps more than any game I think I've ever played)
9) On an Athlon 2700 with 512MB dual-channel DDR memory and an ATI 9600XT, this game ran choppily, even after tweaking video settings.
10) The storyline is almost identical to the original, minus the sense of intrigue and discovery. I don't want to spoil one of the endings, but given the first story, it was absolutely ludicrous because you needed to do something that you did as JC Denton in the first one--for the same reason.
11) Despite doing every sidequest I could find, and being a pretty lousy gamer, I finished this game in about 10 hours.
12) This is maybe a minor thing, but since you are a clone of JC Denton, wouldn't it make sense that when you meet him, you're the same ethnicity? I played as the black Alex D, since that is how I played JC Denton. But then when I finally meet JC, he's some white guy I've never seen before. And if I'm black, how am I a clone?
13) There was no innovation on the biomods. Yes, there are black market biomods, which are touted as super-cool, but honestly none of them really do anything important, and they're all you can find for most of the game. The only good one is the hacking biomod, which used to be a skill in the first one, so giving up a biomod slot for that rather upset me.
14) It was easy. Really, really easy.
15) There were plenty of times when I said "Hmm. Pretty level design." I did not, however, say "COOL!" even once. When you're playing a game for entertainment, you shouldn't be noticing design, you should be noticing content.

I suppose I should stop there. If you play this game, you won't be bored out of your head. It's still better than a lot of FPSes out there. It is not, however, anything too terribly special, and it is certainly no comparison to the original.

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