Deus Ex: Invisible War

The Good
The long anticipated sequel to one of the most satisfying PC gaming experiences, Deus Ex: Invisible War, was released for the PC and Xbox. The sequel does not live out to the original, but that is not surprising as this sort of thing often happens, when a game is just too brilliant.

In Deus Ex 2, you are Alex D. Deus Ex veterans will almost immediately know that the “D” stands for Denton. As either a male or female, you are a student at Tarsus, an academy that trains biomoded agents. 20 years after the events depicted in the first game, the world is just recovering from the brink, and once more many groups have interest in taking control.

Once more it is up to you to choose sides, and change the world, either for the better or for the worse. So Invisible War, has an interesting plot, maybe not as much as it’s predecessor, but the real problem here is that there are two many plot-holes and other glaring problems for the game to achieve the level of greatness of the original game. More on that later.

The graphics are excellent, and state of the art, unlike the first game. The lighting effects are so realistic, it will blow your mind. If Graphics made the game, then this would be a much better game.

The sound department fares well, the VO’S are excellent, as we have come to expect from Ion Storm. The sound effects are great, as is the music, thought the OST is not quite as good, as the original.

The Bad
The Bad& The Ugly: Well, as I mentioned above, the plot is good, but not great. There are just to many plot holes, and inconsistencies in it to keep it from “godly” like the original. For starters, the plot assumes that at the end of Deus Ex J.C. got all three endings, not only is this impossible, but just plain stupid. How could he merge with Helios, and at the same time, join the Illuminati, and, destroy the Area 51, thus starting the new dark age, and not be killed?

Plus, the Alex D, thing does not add up. If J.C. blew Area 51 to hell then, would not Alex have been destroyed? Furthermore Alex D? Who the hell’s surname is “D”. Aside from maybe Captain D.( You know the proprietor of the famous fast seafood restaurants;)

Some of the gameplay is often just poor. Deus Ex 2, introduces “Universal Ammo Clips”. This is pure idiocy. For some reason, all the weapons of the game be it a pistol, shotgun, or rocket launcher, use the same clips…WTF? Any astute gamer will have to question how it is possible for a civilization, that just came back from the brink of oblivion managed to not only catch up with the old world, but surpass it. Not only is this jackass from a plot point of view but a gameplay one as well. It in one fell swoop defeats the purpose of collecting multiple weapons. In most games when you deplete ammo in one gun you switch to another, in DX:IW, you cannot do this, if your ammo supply is spent than all weapons are useless.

Ion Storm claims, that the reason for the UA, is that gamers complained that in the first game that ammo was often scarce, yet it really was not, if you actually used the weapons properly, the only time in the original I ran low on ammo was towards the end, and did DX2 prevent that from happening? HELL NO! So a note to game developers, do not heed stupid complaints that have no basis in what I like to call reality.

As stated above the graphics are good, but it also comes with draw backs. Such as the smaller areas. All the hubs are too small, Seattle, Cairo, and Germany are tiny. Hell’s Kitchen, alone in the first game was bigger than most areas in this sequel. The mission areas are often small as well, with perhaps the exception of the final area in the game. You also do not travel to as many varying places as in the original. What happened to London, and Sydney, that according to early previews were in the game?

Finally, this may seem like I am nitpicking, but none of the 4 different endings are that great, there is no closure, compared to the first game, which only had 3 endings, but all of which were cool.

The Bottom Line
Overall, I am glad that we got to see a sequel to Deus Ex, yet like many sequels to brilliant games, it often stumbles and falls, where the first game soared. And I would be lying if I said, I did not have fun playing this game. Yet not nearly as much as I did with the original stellar PC hit. If you want to see a better Ion Storm game on Xbox or PC, I recommend the excellent, Thief III: Deadly Shadows. As for DX:IW, I can really only recommend it to die hard Deus Ex’ers, and even they may be disappointed as I a was.