T w e n t y S i d e d

I found Friday’s skewering of Deus Ex Invisible War to be quite satisfying. So much so that I thought I might just indulge in it again. I’m not trying to be a bully, I just find it interesting that so many things that looked good on paper wound up falling so short in practice. The people behind the game are talented, so we can’t blame the failures on simple ineptitude. Certainly the console-itis (the miniscule levels and the harsh simplification of gameplay) crippled the title for fans of the original, but that doesn’t explain everything that went wrong.

The one gameplay aspect that they retained from Deus Ex to Invisible war was in offering lots of choices in how your character can behave. The sad thing is that in Invisible War the choices you get just aren’t satisfying. They’re just little detours where you choose which of the two or three factions of idiots and bastards you want to side with temporarily. No matter who you’re working for, you’ll usually travel to the same locations and do the same mission, but when you get to the end you can choose to do A or B. Perhaps A is “kill somebody” and B is “don’t”. Your choice will earn you a reward from a faction in the game and scorn from the others, but down the road it doesn’t make any difference. For the most part other characters don’t seem to remember which side you’re on. You can call this “branching gameplay” if you like, but meeting the requirements of a definition while not meeting player expectations is a cunning way to disappoint the audience.

In the past I faulted Jade Empire (an otherwise flawless game) for having some unsatisfying choices. Like many of the Star Wars Jedi games, it supposedly presents you with moral challenges between “good” and “evil” but usually end up as a choice between “good” and “jerk”. Invisible War is slightly worse, in that you usually aren’t given choices which might somehow be related to a particular philosophy or worldview. You just choose what kind of jerk you want to be. Do I support the murderous religious zealots or the murderous bureaucrats? The game repeatedly asks the player to make distasteful yet ultimately meaningless choices. (And of course the game is always filled with the meaningless faux-choice to gun down irrelevant NPCs.)

Consider the following scenario, which was offered in the original Deus Ex:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Deus Ex – Invisible War:
Poor Choice”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

After my praise for Deus Ex, a few people solicited my opinion on its successor, Deus Ex: Invisible War. Never one to turn down the opportunity to over-analyze at length, I offer the following:

The biggest flaw with Deus Ex: Invisible War is that it was a complete departure from what was established in the original. Invisible War was weak in precisely the ways that its forbearer had been strong. This alienated fans, and probably earned the game a worse reaction than it deserved. It wasn’t a terrible game, it was just a terrible Deus Ex game.

Deus Ex Sr. was also famous for having a tremendous supply of real estate. Many levels were massive in scale. They didn’t always work aesthetically (the Hong Kong section of the game had some particularly awkward and inappropriately boxy level design) but they were always interesting areas to inhabit. While it wasn’t possible to actually build a working model of New York, the Hell’s Kitchen area was at least symbolic of New York, an abbreviation of the genuine article. In contrast, the world of Deus Ex Jr. was fleeting and consisted mostly of outdoor closets and corridors, connected by loading-screen airlocks. The cities failed to resemble anything of the sort, and the game never gave the impression that there was a larger world beyond the walls. The airport and subway station in particular were comical in their minuscule, playset simplicity.

About the only thing they did keep from the original was the one thing they should have remade fresh. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Deus Ex – Invisible War:
A Disappointing Success”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.