Deus Ex: Invisible War review (Xbox)

In 2000, Warren Spectre’s Ion Storm released one of the most impressive PC games ever in the form of Deus Ex, a sublime mix of role-playing game and first person shooter, with some of the most open-ended gameplay and arguably the deepest, most well referenced plot in gaming history. Creating a decent follow-up to such a benchmark title was never going to be easy but Warren and his crew have given it a go with Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Following on….

Invisible War follows on about 25 years after one of the many different ends of Deus Ex (don’t worry, there’ll be no spoilers from me here). You star as Alex D, a promising new bio-mod recruit at the Tarsus training facility who is rudely awakened one morning to find the base under attack. Basic investigation during this attack reveals that Chicago has been levelled in a recent nano-attack and that you’re not so much a recruit as a test subject. This sort of revelation fuels the storyline of Invisible War, which is riddled with twists and conspiracies. Nothing is quite what it seems and no-one can be trusted. This is all very much like the original Deus Ex, but there have been changes made in an attempt to create a genuine sequel rather than a lazy upgrade.

Firstly, and rather controversially, the game has been made much simpler than its PC predecessor. A couple of years after the release of the PC original, a PS2 version was spawned. As the PC version had an immense array of controls and shortcut keys, a streamlined version of the HUD and inventory system was created in order to be more suitable for the DualShock system. It seems that the creators liked this control system though as it’s been retained for this, the sequel. I’ve got to say that even as a fan of the keyboard/mouse combo used on the PC, I think the control method here is great. There could be some tuning of the analogue sticks themselves, but other than that, all the controls you could want for a complex game of this type are present and correct.

Mods galore

As well as the controls and HUD system, the concept of bio-mods has altered slightly. The system breaks down into five areas of skill that can be modified. Each mod class has three different upgrade “paths” but only one can be taken per class. For example, in upgrading your legs you can opt for speed or stealth but you can’t choose both: you can’t be stealthy and fast. This generates some interesting and important decisions from very early on in the game, for if you feel you’ve made the wrong choice, you could choose to correct your mistake by upgrading in another direction, but do you really want to lose your hard earned investment in your existing bodywork? Some bio-mods are available only through black-market upgrade canisters. These are generally more powerful than the legal alternatives, but are harder to find and tend to lend themselves to an aggressive play type, which doesn’t suit all situations.

The variation in the gameplay mechanics is what sets Invisible War above the competition. In the same way as Knights of the Old Republic you can easily follow a life style of your choice. Fancy being a goody two shoes, sneaking rather than killing or would you rather turn a bit nasty and make the most of your weaponry? Either path (and a few more) are fully available to explore here and will result in slight variations in the story.

Shiny things

The main area of re-vamping that’s occurred in bringing this sequel to light is in the graphics and physics. Whilst they don’t quite match up to the likes of Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six 3, the graphics here are very nice indeed. Texturing and lighting effects are used to their full advantage and whilst Invisible War’s not a complete stunner, it’s certainly one of the better looking games out there. The animation of all characters is unfortunately very stunted, but this is more than made up for by the superb physics engine. Everything reacts as it should do: boxes and chairs can be knocked over and they fall with the right “bulk”. There have been better physics engines in games (Max Payne 2 and of course we’re dying to see what Half-Life 2 turns out like) but these are superb fun and really add a level of atmosphere.

In a similar vein the sound has been worked on but it doesn’t really hit you with the same impact as the graphics. That’s not to say the sound is bad by any standard, it’s just not as good as we’ve seen from the likes of previous Xbox games.

And finally:

Invisible War is a bit of an odd game to throw into a single category; whilst the previous Deus Ex was an RPG from a first person point of view, this is much less so and relies much more on basic shoot ‘em-up gamepaly. For Deus Ex to shy away so much from the RPG elements upon which it was built just doesn’t “feel” right. It’s difficult to convey a story in first person form without the use of heavy scripting and this is something that Warren and the boys haven’t gotten quite right. If you’ve not played Deus Ex before then there’s still a lot for you here and Deus Ex fans will still find something in this but be warned that like most hyped products it’s not going to live up to the expectations you may have had for it.