Deus Ex: Invisible War

The Good
The story has a lot of twists, the graphics are very atmospheric, the biomod upgrade system adds a lot of strategy and depth to the game, the speech is great, the gameplay is non-linear.

The Bad
Most of the models have been heavily reused through the game, the story has more twists than required, You can't use more than 6 different upgrades at a time.

The Bottom Line
Deus Ex 2 is simply a breathtaking joyride through a dark world of corruption, lies, heroes and demons, with a lot of story twists. You start as Alex D. (either male or female depending on Your choice at the beginning of the game) and are about to uncover that the fate of the world is not decided by the people, but by 4 groups which have different interests and aims, and You are just a puppet in a big conspiracy game.... Since this is a mixture between roleplaying game, FPS, adventure, You have a lot of choices on what You will do and who You will work with. You meet a lot of friendly or neutral NPCs who will give You jobs, ask for or offer help, want to trade with You, like in any good RPG. The nice and immersive thing is that You can accept jobs from different parties resulting in changes of how the story evolves. Sometimes You are told to kill someone by one fraction and ordered to save him by another... There's also quite a nice variety of real-world weapons, like flamethrowers, missile launchers, knifes, swords etc. Besides that, there is the biomodification system, that offers You slots (body parts) to be "enhanced": You can modify the brains (to hack computer systems via a neural port), the eyes (better sight, remote control killer drones...), the body itself (becoming invisible...), the legs (faster, higher jumps, safe landing from high altitude, sneaking...), the arms (more strength, built-in bioweapons...).... In each slot, You can only have one modification, but the choice between three different ones (including mods called "illegal"). The best part is that You can play Deus Ex 2 the way You want.Each problem can be solved in different ways, You can infiltrate buildings via the ventilation system, by using "multitools" (a kind of digital lockpick key set), by using a weapon (missile launcher), by getting a code card....that code card could be obtained through a dialogue, by stealing it, by finding it in a chest....it happened to me to actually reload the game several times to try different approaches, and in almost any situation, You can find a non-violent way to solve a problem. There's always the option to fight Your enemies with bio-toxine which will render them unconscious, instead of having to kill them. Or, like in Splintercell, You can just try to sneak by (using Your biomods to become invisible for as long as the bio-battery holds...). Plus, there's multiple ways to combine Your bio-modifications, so at the end of the day, Deus Ex 2 offers a tremendous amount of non-linear ways to play the game and experience it YOUR way, and it has real lastability, because You would find new ways to play it even when playing it for the third or fourth time. Add to that the four different endings depending for which party You eventually finish the game, and You have another classic game made by the awesome folks at Ion Storm.

The Good
20 years after the events of the original Deus Ex, most of the world is under direct control of two organizations: The commercial and governmental WTO and "The Order", who reject materialism and genetic augmentation. You play a young trainee at the shady "Tarsus" military academy, who finds himself between the fronts of an "invisible war" after a devastating terrorist attack wiped out Chicago. You travel various locations such as Seattle, Cairo and Antarctica. As the game progresses you can choose your allies, find out more about the main organizations, the mysterious cyborg race of the Omar, virtual holographic pop-stars... or the fierce competition between two rivaling coffee chains. There is no distinction between "good and evil", just choices - and consequences.

Yes, you can feel the talent of the original DX team in "Invisible War". The strong backstory can hold its ground and gives the gameplay some purpose. A variety of side quests and places to explore keeps you interested in a science fiction world which happens to be eerily plausible, once you look behind a surface tailored towards FPS gameplay. The action/stealth/diplomacy/hacking mix is still there, once again mixing FPS action with various RPG elements.

Music and voice acting is pretty solid. And the state of the art physics engine makes objects in the game world move a little more smoothly and realistically.

The Bad
But something is missing. And the more you look at it, the more you realize that about 2/3 of the game mechanics of the legendary predecessor have simply been cut without replacement - to make the game work on an Xbox.

That isn't just blind and paranoid jealousy towards a new platform. No, the developers were quite frank about how the memory restrictions of the console caused significant limitations which show in the ridiculously small level size, for example. While the first Deus Ex sent you on a mission on a life-scale rendition of Liberty Island, most of the levels in DX:IW consist of (literally!) 3 rooms and a connecting corridor. It just feels cramped, linear (yet you still get lost all the time!), claustrophobic and... unimmersive. Plus the prospect of seeing a loading screen every 25 meters gets annoying quickly.

Then there is the horrible interface. Let me try to explain it in pain inducing detail:

It starts with the HUD taking up 40% of the screen in a most annoying, circle-style layout. Text is in 24pt headline-size, so even small paragraphs of text which pop up frequently throughout the game go over multiple pages in tiny windows with huge, circle-shaped decorations on the side when they could as easily be of a smaller, more comfortable size appropriate for reading on PC monitors. Then there is the complete ignorance towards the possibilities of mouse input. No scroll-bars, no buttons to click for even the most obvious of tasks. Sometimes, the intro screen doesn't recognize mouse clicks and you have to navigate using Arrow Keys, Enter and Esc (that would be the 2 button + joypad controls the interface has clearly been designed for).

There are no quick save/load keys. Apparently, you cannot even change binds for items and augs for both of which only 6 slots are available anymore. The inventory has been reduced to 12 (maximally 15) indiscriminately-sized slots which individually do not distinguish between, say, a flame thrower and a soda can. Clicking stuff in the inventory and clicking another item makes the positions in the inventory switch instead selecting the next item. Drag and drop? A foreign concept to DX:IW. Annoying, to say the least. To bring up weapon modifications, you have to press the tab key(?!?) while having selected a weapon. Otherwise the tab key just throws stuff away. Because of the ridiculously big text and window-decorations, information for each item is reduced to a single sentence and ugly icons planted thoughtlessly into the middle of the screen. The rest of the space is used for permanent key-mapping info (because honestly, who would think of pressing the tab key to install weapon mods?). Every icon looks a slight bit too low res on every resolution above 800x600. Did I mention that I hate the "Neuropol" font? Normally, I wouldn't even bring that up, but it simply fits the whole story of one aimless and over-styled interface that singlehandedly manages to destroy a large part of the game's look and feel.

It doesn't stop there, however. DX:IW does not support wide-screen monitors, among other graphics-related bugs. The field of view is reduced to a smallish 68°, yet another thing to make perspective look more natural on far-away television screens - and bloated on PC monitors. Occasionally auto-aim switches on for no reason. Huge, white sparks fill the screen when punching a wood crate with a baton, adding to the Street Fighter style of graphics FX. I could go on.

To be fair, various of these issues have been addressed with a patch, but the list simply goes on and on and there is a philosophy to the game's design that simply cannot be fixed: This is a game built exclusively for the Xbox... and then ported to PC.

In order to make the gameplay more streamlined, everything but the most vital game mechanics were cut. Skill points? No more. Just genetic nano augmentations, most of which are identical to DX1's. The concept of settling for specific augmentations being a tough, one-time choice has also been removed by making them replaceable. Weapon mods are still available but now a pistol cannot shoot further than 20 meters without a "range modification"? And did I mention that there is only ONE TYPE OF AMMO FOR EVERY WEAPON?

What is really unfortunate is that they weren't even able to truly improve on the graphical issues that already plagued the first Deus Ex. DX:IW might indeed have been the first game to support real-time stencil shadows, yet the game makes no aesthetic use of it. The walls look as bland and gray as in IW's predecessor. And thanks to the unnaturally sharp shadows and emotionless faces, characters still look as if they were made out of plastic.

The Bottom Line
I remember the shock from playing the DX:IW demo for the first time. This was supposed to be the sequel to one of the best games of its generation?

I only picked up the full version for a bargain bin price, years later. Admittedly, like the first one, the game becomes better after playing for a few hours, yet it still feels disappointingly small compared to its predecessor. So many gameplay options were simply cut without any new, innovative features to replace them. It's a game designed around limitations instead of pushing the limits. It feels like a game so afraid to overexert players, it decided to rather bore them instead.

Worth getting if you keep your expectations low - but certainly not a game worth the Deus Ex title.

The Good
I consider the first Deus Ex one of the most important games ever made. Like many other fans of that Warren Spector masterpiece, I was impatiently waiting for the sequel; when I laid my hands on it, it made me shrug my shoulders more than once, until I decided it was not worth my time. However, I found myself coming back to the game in my thoughts; eventually, eight years later, my interest having been revived by Human Revolution, I gave it another chance.

All the annoying simplifications aside, the core gameplay still retains some of that special Deus Ex magic.The abundance of stuff to find brings back fond memories of a game that can become a giant scavenger hunt; even though they went over the top with that (thorough exploration rewards you with way more items than you'll ever need), it is still fun. I love collecting items, sometimes just for the sake of it, and Invisible War does satisfy that instinct somewhat.

Each level has branching paths accommodated to different styles of play. Don't want to spend multitools to disable laser beams? Maybe you could crawl through a nearby vent; but beware of spider bots. Any given area can be tackled by using different means - not necessarily by seeking out alternate routes. Tired of all this crawling? How about walking in gun-blazing, and dispatching of those giant robots with the EMP secondary fire of your mag rail? Be my guest. Think it would be too challenging? Activate a biomod that makes you invisible to robots, and quickly run past it. Every approach has its obvious advantages and disadvantages, but the bottom line is that the player can switch gears at any time, allowing for fluent gameplay. This cardinal aspect of the original Deus Ex was carried over to the sequel - though I must say that at times it felt like mechanical copying.

The world of Invisible War is fully interactive. Objects will physically react to your actions; you can move, knock down, throw, destroy, and interact with pretty much everything you see. Every single item, no matter how unimportant it is, can be picked up and put elsewhere. Moving items sometimes rewards you with a discovery of an alternate route, and throwing chairs and crates at enemies (with an appropriate biomod installed) is very cool.

The Bad
Why the hate? This is a sentence I've encountered on more than one website dedicated to the series. Many fans of the original Deus Ex loathe Invisible War; while I do not quite share this sentiment, I can certainly see where the hate comes from.

It's all been discussed many times before: removal of role-playing elements, unified ammo, dumbed-down interface, claustrophobic hubs. Side quests are always great, but the player needs to be rewarded for completing them. Without experience points, money would be the only reward; however, money is useless in the game. You cannot buy anything except food, and you don't need it. Even if you could buy other items, you wouldn't need to: everything is plentiful. Biomod canisters, in particular, are as common as bread loaves. I'm actually glad they removed shops because those would have made the game even easier. But of course it would have been better if they balanced all this without cutting out anything. And of course, there is the console habit of imposing limitations on everything.

Unified ammo - there is no way around it, it's not a good idea. Yes, I found myself rejoicing when I realized I will never run out of sniper rifle ammo. But that ruined the whole "you must survive with whatever little you have" aspect of the game; it went contrary to the concept of using different means to solve problems.

The interface bothered me enormously until I realized I could turn off the item display in the HUD by making it completely opaque. Wandering around in cities that consisted of a few narrow corridors was even less agreeable. Seriously: no city feels like one; in some places the cramped design borders on ridiculous, literally squeezing you into straight paths you can not deviate from. Add to that the painful loading times: minuscule locations are separated from each other by loading screens announced with an ironic "do you want to travel to..." greeting. Travel? You call opening a door and stepping through it traveling?

There was also something less tangible - a certain aspect of design and presentation that kept bothering me. A feeble, but constant unpleasant feeling relentlessly accompanied my playing sessions. I disliked the game's cold, calculated nature. It is as if somebody took some cool aspects from the first Deus Ex and carefully combined them together without infusing them with passion. I could never shake off the impression of artificial, deliberate planning.

Invisible War did nothing to correct the flaws of the original game. They bothered me more in the sequel than they did in the predecessor: three years have passed, and the second game lost a lot of what made the first one great, so I expected that they will at least address the weaker aspects of the original. Bad voice acting and moronic AI are still there. Hostile areas still tend to be monotonous and abstract.

The Bottom Line
Invisible War is a curious product. It's a terrible sequel, but I wouldn't call it a bad game. Even in its butchered, mutilated state, Deus Ex manages to elevate itself above the crowd.

Another reviewer passed the following verdict on Invisible War: "it's by far not as good as the first game, but it's still better than a lot of that crap out there". I think there is much truth in this statement.