Deus Ex: Invisible War

aka: DX2, Deus Ex 2, IW
Moby ID: 11253
Windows Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/29 7:29 AM )
Included in

Description official descriptions

Twenty years have passed after the events described in Deus Ex. The actions of JC Denton have eventually led to a period of economic depression, known as "The Collapse". The world is on the brink of chaos after the dismantling of the mighty biotech corporations, and multiple religious and political groups lust after power.

The city of Chicago is destroyed in a devastating energy blast by unknown terrorists. Two trainees of the Tarsus Academy, Alex D and Billie Adams, are evacuated to another Tarsus-controlled facility in Seattle. Shortly thereafter the facility is attacked by members of a religious organization called the Order. Billie admits that she has been collaborating with them, implying that Tarsus may be involved in a conspiracy. It is now up to Alex to find his or her place in the new world, and ultimately shape its fate.

Deus Ex: Invisible War is a first-person shooter that retains many gameplay elements of its predecessor, such as conversations with characters, inventory management, exploration, and mixing various gameplay styles during missions. As in the original game, the style of play helps shape the game as it progresses, from how characters interact with the protagonist to the types of situations encountered. Each potential conflict can be resolved in a number of ways, through peaceful means or through violence, using stealth or a show of force. Hacking computer terminals and unlocking doors with special tools are prominently featured.

Weapons can be modified in a variety of ways, e.g. increasing their rate of fire, silencing the shots, allowing the weapon to shoot through glass, etc. Characters can once again outfit their bodies with an array of biotech parts, some of which include the ability to see through walls, disappear from radar, regenerate from critical hits, or jump forty feet in the air. Unlike the previous installment, there are no true role-playing elements in the game. The player must search for biotech canisters to install and upgrade biomods; however, no experience points are awarded for either completing missions or dealing with enemies. Inventory management has been simplified as well.

The sequel places more emphasis on decisions and different approaches to missions. From the beginning of the game the player has the freedom of performing missions for organizations and people of his or her choice. Like in the first game, several endings can be reached depending on the player's decisions.

Spellings

  • 杀出重围:隐形战争 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 駭客入侵 - Traditional Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (Windows version)

276 People (233 developers, 43 thanks) · View all

Studio Director
Project Director
Executive Producer
Producer
Associate Producer
Lead Programmer
Programmers
Additional Programming
Director of Technology
Lead Technology Programmer
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 64 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 152 ratings with 16 reviews)

This game Rawked

The Good
This game's gritty style and customization drew me in, and it's sidequests and civilians supply many chances for entertainment. Also, I have had many fun experiences with hunting down every last weapon, just cuz I'm a completion nut. The time it took to do that added a good 5+ hours to the game, and because of multiple pathways, Deus Ex: Invisible War has great replay value

The Bad
I found that I had to crank up my TV's brightness to see what was going on sometimes. However, this is a small price to pay for greatness.

The Bottom Line
This game is a sci-fi shooter's dream.

Xbox · by lord of daedra (62) · 2007

Heavily underrated, but not as good as the original

The Good
Unlike the original Deus Ex, this game starts pretty interesting right from the start, and then as it gets more and more complicated and everyone turns their right face in the grand final, it turns out to be just another regular sequel with nothing new to offer but graphical goodies due to a time difference. However, this game holds a strong point over its originator, and that is that certain places are so well made it almost reaches the worlds created in Anachronox in its intriguing exploration and citizens. Well, far from Anachronox, but still, it poses a touch of creative design.

Unlike what other have said, I find the graphics to be quite good (after seeing how character looked in original, I can't say I expected them to be anything too great, but they are fine nonetheless), and game does support higher resolutions, so whether this is an Xbox port or not, it may be questionable. Whereas Deus Ex put you in a role of JC Denton without giving you so open choice over your freedom, this game quite vividly forces you vast selection of choices on every corner. It is neat to pretend to work for everyone's cause yet working against them all, while still trying to spare certain people you may care about to stay alive.

Physics are something I totally forgot from the first game. I expected that from Half-Life 2, but never have I thought they'll be so cool to utilize in here. I remember how cool it was the fact you could carry enemy soldiers and put them somewhere in the shadows or such unspottable places, but here, you can toss them further than those guys toss discs and spears on the olympics. The whole tossing issue puts a great deal of fun to this title, and it's done pretty well. This is definitely a much more interesting game then I ever imagined it'll be due to all those cons, it's as addictive to rid me of my sleep for the past couple of days, really driving you on.

The Bad
JC Denton looks like crap in here, I sure don't remember him like that. Not just his attitude because he's merged with Helios now, but the whole extern appearance.

Also, there's a crappy bug about the savegames, I reached the ending map, just to later figure that savegame can sometimes be buggy and drops you right back at your desktop, so had to replay the past four hours since the previous valid savegame file. Tsk tsk tsk, seems they had some serious lacks in the code, and the sound starts to crackle after some time, maybe it's not their fault, but of Microsoft's DirectX, so I guess I should look pass it, it wasn't the first game to have sound problems like that.

Also, there is some serious AI balance on the loose. For example, certain leader and his surrounding troops are not firing at me, but any other of his will be. Kinda weird to take it serious when he asks from my allegiance then, wouldn't you say? Also, there was a scene when some bum accidentally caught a fire and started yelling and running all in flames. Soon after, one bumped into another, and then that one into the third one, and they were all on fire. Kinda strange to observe, so I didn't have a choice but to put their pain to an end with a bullet through each one's head. Also, it's not good when nearby people won't talk with you after some shootout, they seem either to be afraid or just want to relax for some time but, it's strange, and not likely, especially if they're on your side and even more, if you came to rescue them.

The Bottom Line
All in all, very addictive game from the moment you start playing it. It made me appreciate a PC after long period of time of preferring console games. Sure, this game exists for Xbox as well, but still, it just ain't the same feeling, not to me anyway. Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War are two great games on their own that deserve a certain percentage of respect no matter the odds, and they aren't just a mindless shooters in a true sense of FPS way, so you guys stalking over another masterpiece called Half-Life, don't go into playing these games unless you're ready for some dialogues and a bigger story.

Windows · by MAT (240759) · 2012

A great game, though not quite as good as the original

The Good
Many of the great elements of the original game survive in the sequel - the strong story, real player choices, an interesting setting with a lot of intrigue which the PC must discover for her/himself. Like the original, you can approach the game in various ways - pure personal stealth, pure action combat, sneak and snipe, or various combinations between. Some of the changes for console compatibility, like the modified inventory system first used in the PS2 port of the original, work just fine.

The Bad
Sadly, the game does feel a little "dumbed down" for console compatibility. Removing the skill point system in particular bothered me, both because it seriously reduced the amount of character customization you could do and because it removed the ability to have small rewards for exploration; combined with the limited map size to fit in console memory, there are very few of the nifty little cubbyholes that were so fun to find in the original.

There are also terrible problems with PC graphics performance, resulting in jerky mouse response at any resolution and making resolutions above 800x600 look no better than 800x600 does. Finally, the choice to invoke the 20 second CD copy protection check on every level load, when the actual loading is only 5-10 seconds, was particularly stupid given the new small map size. It can take 2 map transitions to get back to a known repair or medical bot while you are conceptually on the same map (in the same building, etc.)

Finally, the game is a little too short. Even exploring every inch of every map and completing all possible side missions, I finished in about 20 hours of game time and perhaps 24 hours of total playing time. The original took at least twice as long to finish. By another metric, the original had about 14 mission locations (counting each visit to Hell's Kitchen separately because you have stuff to do and meaningful new encounters each time) while the sequel has only 8 (9 if you count the second visit to a particular city, where nothing much happens).

The Bottom Line
I was very disappointed in this game because I was expecting an improvement on the original. Since the original was so great, any net improvement at all would have made this one of the greatest games of all time. But setting that expectation aside and simply looking for a great game comparable to the original, I've really enjoyed it - and I did start playing through a second time immediately after finishing the first.

Windows · by weregamer (155) · 2003

[ View all 16 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
It's not that bad! Unicorn Lynx (181780) Sep 15, 2011
Screenshots Cantillon (75985) Sep 8, 2011
Dynamic Lighting St. Martyne (3648) Nov 15, 2008

Trivia

Basketball

Continuing the Warren Spector tradition, Invisible War features a basketball court. It's right at the beginning of the game and there's no missing it; one of your mandatory objectives will send you through there.

Engine

Ion Storm licensed the Unreal engine and heavily modified it for this game. Its a inhouse engine with a tiny bit of Epic's Unreal code left in. It is said that the engine programmer left mid-development with a largely undocumented code which caused the game's numerous technical problems.

Music

In order to bring popstar NG Resonance's music to life, Eidos licensed a few tracks from the industrial/techno band "Kidney Thieves". Said tracks can be found in their Trickstereprocess album. The original soundtrack for the game on the other hand, can be downloaded for free on Eidos's site.

References

The coffee shops, Pequod's, and QueeQueg's are from Moby Dick. The Pequod, was the name of the ship. QueeQueg is the Indian harpooner.* In the abandoned curio shop over the 9 World Taverns, you can find a book containing text on the care and cleaning of Ohio State Bobbleheads. Chris Carollo, the lead programmer for Invisible War is an Ohio State alumni. * The Tarsus Academy shares a name with the city that was the birthplace of Paul, the apostle. Paul Denton acts as the apostle for J.C. Denton.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2004 – Best Console Story of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2003 – #7 Game of the Year
    • 2003 – #3 Xbox Game of the Year
    • 2003 – #5 PC Game of the Year
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 04/2009 - One of the "10 Most Terrible Sequels" (It is a good game in its own right but it changes everything which made Deus Ex big for the worse, e.g. exciting story, clever level design, RPG elements and freedom of decision.)

Information also contributed by MasterMegid, Scott Monster and Zovni

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Deus Ex
Released 2000 on Windows, Macintosh, PlayStation 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Released 2011 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3...
Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition
Released 2001 on Windows, 2011 on OnLive
Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Benelux Edition
Released 2011 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Ultimate Edition
Released 2012 on Windows, Macintosh
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link
Released 2011 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - A Criminal Past
Released 2017 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One...
Medieval: Total War - Viking Invasion
Released 2003 on Windows
Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion
Released 2005 on Windows, 2017 on iPad, Android

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 11253
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Jeanne.

Xbox added by Jason Walker.

Additional contributors: xroox, Zovni, Unicorn Lynx, Shoddyan, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added December 6, 2003. Last modified March 19, 2024.