Deus Ex: Invisible War Comparison
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The original Deus Ex was messy and frequently exhilarating. The plot was so convoluted that it was practically nonsensical. At times the difficulty level was uneven, and in some places I reloaded so many times that the game just ground to a halt. However, and this is a big however, the game was ambitious. It was wildly ambitious, and if at times it failed, the ambition certainly redeemed the failures. I also think it was a game that had fairly high expectations of players, and that was also something I very much appreciated. It was a game that very much felt ahead of its time.
As I said in an earlier column, Warren Specter said everything right in interviews about Invisible War. The problem is that the game in no way reflects what he said. He made it sound like a smart, challenging game, like a game we all wanted to play.
Here's an example of 'smart and challenging.' Very early in the game, I found a 'spider-bot' or some such creature in a ventilation shaft. I blasted it six times with a pistol to kill it. Within mere feet of that event, I open the ventilation shaft and emerge in a room with an enemy (no spoilers, but it's someone with a pistol and they don't like me) who is totally unaware of what just happened. I can't have been more than fifteen or twenty feet away, yet as far as he knows, it's all good. There are beams directly in front of me that I can crawl across, but to do so successfully I need to disable a security camera by using a multi-tool. When I use a multi-tool, it looks like I'm practically arc welding, but the enemy still doesn't notice. I then decide to drop off the beam and bash him into unconsciousness with a baton. As stupid as he is, I'm probably doing him a favor.
