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Vapourware A new Deus Ex was in development at Eidos Montreal

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
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San Isidro, Argentina
Finally some appreciation for Invisible War.:salute:
The redheaded stepchild of the franchise.

The main issue with the game was that the levels were scaled down to work with consoles, giving that huge "cramped" feeling. The story and events were pretty interesting.
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
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Finally some appreciation for Invisible War.:salute:
The redheaded stepchild of the franchise.

The main issue with the game was that the levels were scaled down to work with consoles, giving that huge "cramped" feeling. The story and events were pretty interesting.
I agree.
The decision to scale down the game to accommodate consoles was a big mistake.
 

Gargaune

Arcane
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,721
Finally some appreciation for Invisible War.:salute:
The redheaded stepchild of the franchise.

The main issue with the game was that the levels were scaled down to work with consoles, giving that huge "cramped" feeling. The story and events were pretty interesting.
That wasn't even remotely IW's only sin, the progression and itemisation were near obliviated and the setting went from the original's gritty near-future noir balls first into purple jumpsuit SciFi, tenuously connected to the predecessor's plot with soap opera-grade character recycling. Even if the levels hadn't been exbawksed, it would've still been a big disappointment as a sequel.

Look, it was a better game than plenty of its contemporaries at a time of vigorous decline, but it was a terrible Deus Ex, it deserves all the flack it got.
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
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Sure.
The universal ammo thing was also incredibly dumb.
Laura Bailey was pretty good voicing Alex Denton.
There are some positive factors to be found,but the game was also burdened with the task of being a sequel to one of the most celebrated and succesful games in history. No small task...
 

SpaceWizardz

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
1,172
Invisible War was a thoroughly mediocre console shooter and it's always baffling when people come to it's defense, especially on this site of all places. I can think of only 2 (TWO) positive points to say about it:
  1. Final level where you can reject the dumbass plot and just kill everyone
  2. This one club song:
 

grimace

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
2,104
Invisible War was a thoroughly mediocre console shooter and it's always baffling when people come to it's defense, especially on this site of all places. I can think of only 2 (TWO) positive points to say about it:
  1. Final level where you can reject the dumbass plot and just kill everyone
  2. This one club song:


I'd watch a Let's Play of Invisible War. Never did I complete it myself. Kidneythieves did make the Product better.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
7,129

Look, it was a better game than plenty of its contemporaries at a time of vigorous decline, but it was a terrible Deus Ex, it deserves all the flack it got.

Agreed with most of your message. Blaming consoles is retarded, because it was shit even by console standards of the time, and most of the problems were design related not hardware related. Some of the biggest levels in the FPS genre are in Turok, a N64 game. And on that note and what I wanted to address: vigorous decline? 2003 gaming was still going OK. Not swimmingly like the 90s, but OK. In the first person RPG realm we had Morrowind, Arx Fatalis & VTM:B. Certain other genres had already started to fall, yeah, but Morrowind/Arx/VTM:B/Deus Ex 1 is quite the combo for the early 00s.
 
Joined
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Messages
15,487
Agreed with most of your message. Blaming consoles is retarded, because it was shit even by console standards of the time, and most of the problems were design related not hardware related. Some of the biggest levels in the FPS genre are in Turok, a N64 game. And on that note and what I wanted to address: vigorous decline? 2003 gaming was still going OK. Not swimmingly like the 90s, but OK. In the first person RPG realm we had Morrowind, Arx Fatalis & VTM:B. Certain other genres had already started to fall, yeah, but Morrowind/Arx/VTM:B/Deus Ex 1 is quite the combo for the early 00s.
It also ran like ass on PCs of the time, so its not like they could have easily made the levels twice as big and as detailed if not for being held back by consoles. Granted this was in a time period where you were expected to need to upgrade your PC every few years to keep running the latest games, but Invisible War was no Crysis and didn't justify an upgrade graphically.
 

Ash

Arcane
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Oct 16, 2015
Messages
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Yup, in terms of level size, Invisible War had alleged engine problems, but it also had a graphics whoring problem. It looks pretty damn good for 2003. But it shouldn't have. Deus Ex looked like ass for 2000 and IW should have looked like ass for 2003. That is a requirement for a great Underworld-like/"immersive sim" game. Perhaps the only exception is Arx Fatalis, but not really. It looks damn good, at least the environments. But alas it is a game not without problems itself (levels on the smaller side, janky animations, game length too short, balance issues etc).

The more you focus time, effort and money in graphics, the less it goes to other things. Only pumping money into the project can rectify this, but then you fall into the high risk investment trap every modern high profile game suffers from. And besides, IW was designed to be a sellout cash cow from its inception unfortunately. It was made to be dumb for the masses. Yet they had no idea what they were doing, pretending to be retarded was hard for them I guess. They didn't figure out how to sell out, the exact commercialization formula, until Bioshock and Dishonored.
 
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Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Invisible War was a thoroughly mediocre console shooter and it's always baffling when people come to it's defense, especially on this site of all places. I can think of only 2 (TWO) positive points to say about it:
  1. Final level where you can reject the dumbass plot and just kill everyone
  2. This one club song:

Imo IW was a piece of consoletard garbage.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
7,129
Console tard garbage made by PC devs for the PC and for the console that was also made by PC devs (Xbox was lead-designed by an ex-LGS dev and funded by Micro$oft), said console which ruined both PC and console gaming, because the people behind it are sellouts. IW also played nothing like any console game prior. Good one. You Sir are wise.
 
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RobotSquirrel

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 9, 2020
Messages
2,210
Location
Adelaide
I'd watch a Let's Play of Invisible War. Never did I complete it myself. Kidneythieves did make the Product better.
I mean I sort of did one at the start of covid but it wasn't a good one. I got most of the characters killed.
That tends to be a problem with me and Invisible War is that by the time I reach JCDenton I've lost a great deal of interest I had in the game so it just gets tedious at that point.
Doesn't help that the later enemies are quite spongey 1 hit your dead types so the game gets more frustrating than fun. Plus that last boss fight is pretty horrendous. By the time I hit the end I'm so over it and just want any ending that'll get me out of it quicker.
It's a shame because the early game is quite good but yeah the design and the story just ruin it. I also did the PS2 version of Deus Ex 1 which was one of the more enjoyable playthroughs because of how different the level design is, Deus Ex 1 translated much better to console than Invisible War.

Deus Ex looked like ass for 2000 and IW should have looked like ass for 2003
100% agree, they should have continued modifying Unreal 1 Engine and not moved to the newer version. It was obvious after the PS2 version of Deus Ex 1 that they had mastered squeezing performance out of that engine. To have to start entirely again is why Invisible War ended up such a mess.
They ended up repeating the same thing with Deus Ex Clan Wars which became Project Snowblind, which was even worse received than Invisible War. Basically, Eidos was running everything into the ground because they were going bankrupt.
 
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Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
7,129
Project: Blind Sellout (BLIND to the fact the entire industry consciously conspired to sellout, and succeeded in that goal).
Deus Ex: Invisible Integrity
Deus Ex: Game Design Devolution
Deus Ex: The Fall of Game Design (was well under way approximately in the mid-late 2000s)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (yes we certainly are divided, but to frame it mostly only as augs vs non-augs is retarded when you could have explored so many topics relevant to the real world just as the original did, and didn't you already explore that one subject more than enough in the prior game? Boo! Put me to sleep why don't you)
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
12,063
Location
Flowery Land
I tried playing IW multiple times. My primary impression is that it's a really shitty PC port: It's horribly unstable (the reason I've never gotten far), and half the keys can't be remapped despite garbage default binds. I'd actually give it a try if they did a remaster, but otherwise can't be bothered.
 
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Drakortha

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
2,090
Location
Terra Australis
I was 15 years old when my parents went to the rental store and randomly picked up Invisible War for me on Xbox. I had never played Deus Ex before. I remember spending hours just messing around with the exploration and sandbox elements the game had. Eventually I got to own the disk. Graphics and Immersion were through the roof as it pushed the Xbox to it's limits at the time. IW was good shit and definitely left an impression on me.
 
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agentorange

Arcane
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rpghq (cant read codex pms cuz of fag 2fa)
Codex 2012
I was 15 years old when my parents went to the rental store and randomly picked up Invisible War for me on Xbox. I had never played Deus Ex before. I remember spending hours just messing around with the exploration and sandbox elements the game had. Eventually I got to own the disk. Graphics and Immersion were through the roof as it pushed the Xbox to it's limits at the time. IW was good shit and definitely left an impression on me.
I played IW before Deus Ex as well. I think I was around 11-12 and I got the demo for IW on an Xbox Magazine demo disc. I was struck by how much I could interact with the environment and improvise solutions even in such a short demo, how I could either blast people in the face or get by with stealth, and played the demo over and over again until the full game came out. A few years later I pirated a copy of the original Deus Ex and loved it, and could immediately tell it was a far superior game, but I do think playing IW at an earlier age did inform some of my taste in video games and naturally made me inclined to like games like Deus Ex and Thief later on. Despite all the consolization and dumbing down (not to mention the egregiously bad continuation of the story and characters from the first game) there was enough of a spark of the original design philosophy in there, and the fact that you can kill every character in the game deserves praise.

Project: Blind Sellout (BLIND to the fact the entire industry consciously conspired to sellout, and succeeded in that goal).
Deus Ex: Invisible Integrity
Deus Ex: Game Design Devolution
Deus Ex: The Fall of Game Design (was well under way approximately in the mid-late 2000s)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (yes we certainly are divided, but to frame it mostly only as augs vs non-augs is retarded when you could have explored so many topics relevant to the real world just as the original did, and didn't you already explore that one subject more than enough in the prior game? Boo! Put me to sleep why don't you)

Don't forget Deus EX GMDX: Gay Men Doing Xanax
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
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May 29, 2010
Messages
36,925
Agreed with most of your message. Blaming consoles is retarded, because it was shit even by console standards of the time, and most of the problems were design related not hardware related. Some of the biggest levels in the FPS genre are in Turok, a N64 game.
Turok was on a different engine and had emptier maps, no broad environmental interactivity, no NPCs walking around. The PS2 port of Deus Ex had to redo the level design in some areas because the console just couldn't support it. Releasing a game that looks like it's from 2000 in 2004 also would have been out of the question.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,769
Most people have no idea how bad Invisible War was from a technical point of view. All of the problems stemmed from Warren Specter's insistence on using 100% real-time lighting because he thought that was immersive and believed tech demo lies about how it would be viable in the new version of Unreal.

To design around this imposition, the levels became tiny. Also, the reason load times are so terrible is because the game literally quits and reloads the entire executable when you switch maps.
 
Unwanted

†††

Patron
Joined
Sep 21, 2015
Messages
3,544
Most people have no idea how bad Invisible War was from a technical point of view. All of the problems stemmed from Warren Specter's insistence on using 100% real-time lighting because he thought that was immersive and believed tech demo lies about how it would be viable in the new version of Unreal.

To design around this imposition, the levels became tiny. Also, the reason load times are so terrible is because the game literally quits and reloads the entire executable when you switch maps.
More proof that figureheads are talkative morons who don't know what makes a game good. Without a good team reigning them in, they only create trash.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
7,129
Agreed with most of your message. Blaming consoles is retarded, because it was shit even by console standards of the time, and most of the problems were design related not hardware related. Some of the biggest levels in the FPS genre are in Turok, a N64 game.
Turok was on a different engine and had emptier maps, no broad environmental interactivity, no NPCs walking around. The PS2 port of Deus Ex had to redo the level design in some areas because the console just couldn't support it. Releasing a game that looks like it's from 2000 in 2004 also would have been out of the question.

You missed the point and lack perspective. As is Roguey standard.

1. I didn't say it should look like a 2000s game, nowhere did I say that. I said it didn't have to have the graphical emphasis that it did (thanks JIM for some further evidence in that regard RE: real time lighting). It was among the best-looking 3D games that year.
2. The piece of shit Xbox also had Morrowind and Arx Fatalis, with no reduction in level size in the case of both. Once again, blaming consoles is retarded. Please stop being retarded. I don't know how many times I have to say it, IW sucked because Ion Storm's garbage design direction and intent to make money bags the size they were seeing other studios enjoy where Deus Ex 1 had failed in that regard. And they clearly just didn't know that marketing is (almost) everything anyways. Just look at that abysmal Deus Ex 1 trailer.

Whether it released on console or not, IW would have been terrible. That was its fate. Consoles made a good scapegoat for the 'tards to focus on though. The developers were the problem.
 
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RobotSquirrel

Arcane
Developer
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Aug 9, 2020
Messages
2,210
Location
Adelaide
Whether it released on console or not, IW would have been terrible. That was its fate. Consoles made a good scapegoat for the 'tards to focus on though. The developers were the problem.
and the thing to remember is that it was the same people that wrote the story, the same people that designed the first game. This was the natural path they were already on.
The early screenshots prior to the console version indicate that it was always going to end up this way. This was always the plan well before the changes occurred. It would have still been the same game.
This isn't that different from the game we got. It's just that the UI resembles the original games a bit more closely but if you take a second look you can see all the elements people hated about Deus Ex Invisible War are present there still. What I'm noticing though is that the models are much higher polygon than what we got so really the downgrades were from visuals and UI, that's about it everything else went exactly as always planned. The plan sucked and both Warren and Harvey are on record stating they should have listened to the fans more and ignored what the industry was telling them to do because their friends in the industry were a bunch of idiots (and that very much does include GabeN because he worked on the damn first game he should've known better! lol).
Deus-Ex-Invisible-War-ss-067.jpg

Deus-Ex-Invisible-War-ss-064.jpg

Deus-Ex-Invisible-War-ss-066.jpg

What surprises me the most is Resident Evil exists, you had an example of how to do the grid-based inventory right on a console. So why redesign this in such a god-awful way when there were examples of it being done perfectly already?
 

LarryTyphoid

Scholar
Joined
Sep 16, 2021
Messages
2,233
The whole premise of IW is shit. DX's 3 endings are mutually exclusive; each ending is a complete rejection of the other two endings. The Helios ending represents complete control, the Tracer Tong ending represents complete freedom, and the Illuminati ending represents the status quo. Either JC accepts his role as the synthetic Jesus Christ of the world that he was bred for and becomes a cyber-god, or he rejects his destiny and tears everything down. You cannot mix all 3 endings into one and end up with a coherent story. So of course IW ends up just funneling you into the Helios ending again since the other endings are so shitty in comparison.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
7,129
"Why redesign...?"

Questions? I have answers: They said before the game was even released that they're streamlining to reach a wider audience (make more money). The hilarious thing is they didn't even streamline in a good way. Simpler games can still be great. Mario Bros 3. on the NES in '88 is still a masterpiece. IW's just a garbage game lacking soul. If the entire ethos behind it is to sellout one's passion and principles it's never going to be worth anything is it.

"Resident Evil 4 came after DE:IW tho."

He's talking about RE1, which features an interactive grid-based inventory.
Grid-based inventories with interactive positioning in general is just outright rare. Another game on consoles with it pre-IW is Martian Gothic.
 
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