Games: "Deus Ex: Invisible War"

After playing the unimpressive demo, I wasn't expecting much. I noticed the game on the shelf at my friend's house and asked him coyly if I could borrow it. He agreed and I went home to install it. I was surprised by it's size and slightly impressed(2Gb), but I had to clear out a few things to install it. When it was finished, I patched it and updated my video card drivers(Note: If you don't do this, the game is quite laggy. Updating the drivers DRASTICALLY improves framerate). After starting I new game, I was taken by the graphics of the game. All of the textures and edges are smoothed out by a feature the game calls "Blooming" and it looks fantastic. After trudging through the first area, my opinion of the game was rather low and I was getting bored. Suddenly things pick up, a vent explodes and kills a nearby guard. This begins the cycle of events that leads to me loving this game.

Gameplay

The gameplay here is absolutely fanstatic. The key mapping is a little odd at first but given the fact that you never use your biomods in a quick situation it doesn't get annoying. The interface is rather large, but it contains a lot of information. Once I got a little deeper into the game I realized that the level of interactivity is huge. You can pretty much go about any way of completing an objective that you could in reality. Need to get into an office? Shoot the window, trigger the alarm, dodge turret fire and the guards that pour out, and complete your objective under fire. Or... use your weapon modded pistol to shoot the glass, dissolving it silently and crawl through the window, snipe the guards and complete your objective. Or... hack the turret, use it to kill the guards and break the glass. The possiblities are even greater. If you can think it, you can do it. One of the things that really struck me about the game was actually the smoothness of movement. Your character in DX2 moves about as realistically as a human, taking time to switch from one ladder to the other, or stepping slowly from a ladder to a floor. You can even jump and grab ledges to pull yourself up. The biomod system works like the augments of the original Deus Ex but this time around it plays a much larger part. What biomods you choose drastically affect the way you have to play the game. Everything about it just shines of polish.

Story
The story in an RPG such as this should be the main thing that drives the player and should be believable. The story here is absolutely not an exception. I was very pleased with the fact that there are no events that "tell the player but not the character". You know as little or as much as your character does at any time. All of the decisions you make affect where you reside at the end. The story here unfolds at a very nice pace and the characters are all important in some way. Excellent stuff here, and no complaints at all.

Graphics
At first when I played it I was unimpressed by the graphics at the framterate I was getting, but after installing the latest Nvidia drivers my framterate smoothed out, I cranked up the resolution and the game was stunningly beautiful. The bloom effect makes the world glow brightly and softens everything into a glorious vibrant existence. The lighting effects are fucking fanstastic. Some strangeness does occur when watching characters speak, especially if the framerate is below 60. Stunningly beautiful with only a minor error.

Sound
The voice acting is fairly good but only gets better as you develop relationships with the characters and the actors put forth more effort. The ambient sound is awesome and really immerses you into the world of the future. Sentry drones hum and they motor past you, rats squeak as you step on them, and people make sly comments as you walk by them. The sound and graphics together make the world very believable.

Final Word

If you like Action RPGs you better take up this offer immediately and buy this game. Replay factor is up there with the best for there are many ways to reach the several endings. I would definately reccomend this to even those who don't like RPGs because the game can be as fast paced or as slow paced as you want it to be. If you like FPS games, upgrade your weapons and you speed and play the game like a FPS. If you like stealth games, get Cloak and Silence Steps and play the game MGS-style. If you like talking your way through things, talk your way through the game. The game can play any way you want it to and that's why it's so damn good.

Score

9.8/10 It's that good.

This game suffers from two major flaws:

1. You can change your relational stance to everyone of the factions up untill the very end, and go back not 15 minutes of game play to get every ending. This wouldn't be so bad except that
2. The game is just too damn short. I can get all the ending easily by going back to the save before I choose which ending and playing maybe 30 per extra ending, so why play it again?

Other than that, it just suffers from being compared to it's predecessor. It's still a really good game.

I love it because although it is short, it's a hell of a lot of fun to play.

I have yet to see screenshots or anything from this one, I'd get the demo, but I probly can't play it, stupid 64mb video...