User Rating: 9.3 | Deus Ex: Invisible War XBOX
Deus Ex: Invisible War is not only a great sequel, it has a lot to offer those who missed out on the first game. For those new to the series I will keep it short by saying that DX:IW is definitely worth picking up. It offers open ended gameplay and character enhancement set in the future with a very deep storyline. The graphics and physics system are about the best it gets until Half-Life2 and Doom 3 are released. While the game is played in the first-person perspective, it is not a typical FPS blastfest. If you enjoyed Halo and Star Wars:Knights of the Old Replublic, you will probably love this game although it can’t be directly compared to either title. The difficulty and experience can depend on how you play through it. With that aside, here are my honest thoughts for those who played through the first Deus Ex game. I am very pleased with what this sequel has to offer, and after playing through it twice, I must recommend it to everyone who loved the first game regardless of any problems or shortcomings you may have read. Gamespot’s score of 8.0 was backed up by some very good points and complaints, but I feel that some of them were too demanding of current technology and this game is by far better than many others who had higher scores. The new physics system should impress just about anybody, although not entirely too realistic, are mostly just fun to play around with. The AI is not what it could have been, but to have every character/enemy react properly to every possible situation would be a programming nightmare and would probably take too much time away from the rest of the development and hardware resources. DX:Invisible war is an ambitious game which tries to do things in realistic ways, which leaves it open to a sea of criticism. Basically, if you were able to overlook any problems with the first game and walk away with a great experience, you will do the same with Invisible War. The story also ties into and continues the story from the first game. Now here are two lists, one is of improvements to the game, and the other are things I missed from the first game or are worse this time around. PROS: 1. Graphics and physics are finally cutting edge (even though it doesn’t have the best framerate it doesn’t keep this game from looking and playing exceptionally well) 2. No invisible loading areas (in the first DX you couldn’t always tell when the game was going to enter a loading screen and it resulted in many frustrating moments of unnecessary loading) 3. Black market biomods give you new abilities not available in the first game. 4. Weapons share the same ammo type (at first I hated the idea but then I remembered how lame it was in the first game when you kept on finding ammo for a weapon you didn’t have) CONS: 1. No more skill points (the first DX had so much depth and customization by using skill points to upgrade your character’s proficiency in different abilities. Skill points were awarded by using skills in different areas and by exploring the environment to find hidden locations) 2. No water or mirrors (I’m sure it would be lame to program a new set of physics for objects underwater but swimming really opened up the environments in the first game. The mirrors in the first game didn’t reflect your character accurately but gave the game atmosphere by letting you see your character. When I played through Invisible war with a female character, I kept forgetting I wasn’t male until the next cutscene.) 3. No quick augs or quick weapon select (you used to be able to select which weapons and biomods you want to activate with ease. Press a button and it will only cycle through the weapons you want, not all six slots. Press a button and all of the biomods you chose will activate instantly. Now if you cycle past the weapon you wanted, you have to press left on the D-pad to highlight the weapons belt, then up or down to the weapon of choice, then press A to activate the weapon. While this can also be done from the paused inventory menu, it was better to have this control at your fingertips in a surprise attack, rather than pausing or messing with the D-pad) 4. Weapon upgrades and other items are simplified (now you can only have 2 upgrades per weapon and they don’t have levels per upgrade. I enjoyed spending half of the first game building a sniper rifle with precision aiming. There are no more lockpicks, multitools open everything including wooden doors.) 5. LOADING!!!! (seriously, they should have tried harder to group smaller areas into one loading screen. Just like in Star Wars:KNOTOR, backtracking is tedious and requires you to sit through a loading screen after only a few seconds of gameplay. While it doesn’t ruin the game, I believe it takes you out of the experience and developers should really try to make loading as minimal as possible. A quick load would have been nice seeing as though you’ll want to experiment a lot in this game and you won’t always want to save afterwards. There’s nothing next-generation about waiting and doing nothing when you should be playing) Although my complaints seem to outweigh my praises, this game manages to provide a great experience and I recommend it to every Xbox owner. It’s definitely the best Xbox game I’ve played since Star Wars:KNOTOR.
