Introduction:

Without further ado, the next installment of the Deus Ex (henceforth known as DX) series, Deus Ex: Invisible War (henceforth known as DX:IW). After I got thru playing DX, I was extremely excited to get DX:IW installed to see where the storyline went, and what was improved on as far as gameplay. I discovered some very interesting things, so to keep a running gag going, here's my .02 worth.


Information:
Published by: Eidos Interactive
Developed by: Ion Storm
Genre: First-Person Action Adventure
Release Date: US: December 2, 2003
Also Available On: Xbox

Minimum Requirements:
1.3 GHz P4 or Athlon
256MB RAM
32MB DirectX 9 compatible cards:
--nVidia GeForce3 Ti or better
--Radeon 8500 or better
--GeForce MX cards not supported
2GB hard drive space
Recommended Requirements:
1.5 GHz P4 or Athlon 1600+
512MB RAM
64MB DirectX 9 compatible card

The game came on 2 CDs, no problem with installation. Current patch version is 1.2, but I had problems every time I tried to patch to this version. However, 1.2 is nothing more than 1.1 with some extra video card specific enhancements. Patches do not have an uninstall, so if 1.2 gives you problems, you got to uninstall/reinstall the game, then patch with 1.1. Game is quite playable with no patches (surprise, surprise), but 1.1 does fix some minor annoyances.

Full patch info:
Changes contained within the v1.1 patch
- Defaulted Bloom to off when starting a new game.
- Adjusted mouse movement to eliminate feeling of "lagginess".
- Adjusted the HUD so that it is pushed toward the edges of the screen.
- Added option for turning all shadows off. This can massively improve performance, especially at higher resolutions.
- Shrunk all text sizes.
- Reworked mouse-based UI control within the inventory and bio mod screens:
- Right-clicking will now swap items in the inventory and tool belt screen.
- Added buttons for installing weapon mods and bio mods.
- The bio mod/inventory/data vault hotkeys are now toggles (the same buttons will now both open and close these sub screens).
- Added quick save/quick load keys. (F10/F12)
- Non-hostile AI's will now go hostile much sooner if shot.
- Eliminated monitor re syncing during level transition and save game loads.
- Increased the headshot damage multiplier for the pistol.
- Increased the damage of the stun prod.
Changes contained within the v1.2 patch
- Additional optimizations that will improve performance on most systems
- Fixed graphical errors for those using NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 cards with Deus Ex: Invisible War
- Fixed the fuzzy appearance of the bloom, sniper scope, vision bio mod, and other full-screen effects



Graphics & Sound
Again, very good graphics and sound. The ambient sound is well done, the voice acting is superb, and the soundtrack in the bar scenes is killer. Graphically, this game is visually more slick and modern than its predecessor, same attention to detail but the underlying graphical engine allows for a more 'polished' look.

Interface
Mouse and keyboard again. Inventory and bio mod activation are done via number keys and function keys respectively, so if you're going to use a gamepad, make sure that it can accommodate 12 functions for those, in addition to another 6 keys for other game functions (alt fire, inventory selection screen, bio mod selection screen, etc....) Most these days do, but take note just in case.



Gameplay
I was expecting the next evolution of the Deus Ex series to have quite a bit in common with the original. I was wrong. Not in a bad way, but the two games are quite different in feel and scope. The game is set 20 years after the originals Deus Ex, and implies that JC Denton made one particular choice to end that sequence.

Lets start with our character: Alex D. (3 guesses what the D stands for) Alex is going to be courted by four different organizations to do jobs/missions/whatever for them, and sometimes the missions for one group are at direct opposition for another. There is an overlying drive to the end of the story, but there are enough side quests/work to keep things a bit interesting.



As far as inventory/equipment, gone are the specialized ammunition for the various weapons that you pick up, the only difference is the amount of ammunition consumed when you fire it. A definite improvement over the first game, where you might not find ammo for a couple of specialized weapons on an entire map, so you are just wasting inventory space.

Speaking of inventory, in the first game you had a dynamic inventory where the size of each item you picked up mattered in the overall scheme of the inventory. In Invisible War, you have 12 inventory slots -- 6 immediately usable, 6 'pack' slots, no matter the size of the item in the slot. I won't say it's better or worse, just different.

Another difference is the weapon mods. In DX, each weapon could have multiple improvements, depending on how many 'mods' you found and were willing to dedicate to the weapon. In DX:IW, you can only put 2 mods on a weapon. Personally, I found this to be a slight downer, because I rather liked having an increased clip size, silencer, scope, improved re fire rate, and fragmentation bullets as part of my primary weapon. Oh well.

Gone also is the sectional damage that I was impressed by in DX. Now its just a generic bar that goes up and down based on damage, boring.



As far as bio mods are concerned, I'm torn as to whether I like the new way of bio mods or not. In DX, each bio mod canister had two options, and once you chose a bio mod -- it was yours and could not be changed. On the plus side, you had 8 slots for bio mods you could pump yourself up with, and a choice of around 20 different bio mods. In DX:IW, you have 15 bio mods you can choose from, but only 5 slots. 10 are considered legal, 5 can only be gotten via black market trading. Plus, if you are in a situation where the bio mod that you started with isn't doing it for you, you can 'overwrite' the bio mod with/a new one -- but you lose all the increases you may have put toward it.



As far as the environment, most everything can be altered or impacted in some way. But there were some serious compromises in the game design that severely change the feel of the game from the feel of DX. In DX, each map was huge, with inside and outside areas that had seamless integration. The only time the game obviously was loading a new section was when it was literally loading a new section of the city. In DX:IW, each map is made up of sections -- and there really isn't the same feeling of expansiveness that is in the original DX. To use an analogy, the first DX felt like running an obstacle course on a football field. DX:IW feels like working on a submarine that requires that all pressure doors be opened and closed to allow you access to a new area. Get used to the 'loading area' screen, you'll be seeing it a lot.

On the plus side, the game itself is brighter -- I only had to bump the gamma up to 65% and the contrast up to about the same, there are some areas that are quite well lit as opposed to the overwhelming dimness of DX. Also, money is much more of a factor in DX:IW -- bribery and theft are important things to practice, as opposed to just killing all the bad guys. Main reason is that many areas cannot be accessed until someone tells you a code, and if you just blew away the one person who had the information, well. . . . . .oops.

Conclusion:
I liked DX:IW, but the innovations that made me enjoy the original DX appear to have been toned down, if not weeded out altogether. It's still a good game, and quite challenging in it's own right, but in the Deus Ex storyline, it feels like a move to a more 'standard' FPS instead of keeping with and improving on some of the strengths of the original. The only thing keeping this game from being highly recommended instead of just recommended is the constant switching between areas, and the 'loading' screen that surrounds each one. If the maps were as large/integrated as the first, the game would flow so much better.