Support NeoGAF

[nexen]

If you make 200 choices in a row favouring one side, all the opposing sides will still ask you to pick them up until about 5 minutes before the ending.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the original Deus Ex do this as well? Maybe I'm getting the two mixed up but I remember it shattering my immersion pretty hard.

Meh. I just don't think Deus Ex deserves the praise that it gets and I feel that the hate Deus Ex 2 recieves is largely due to this love for Deus Ex 1. Had it been a totally different franchise I highly doubt we'd be continually reading hate threads about it years later. I thought that first was good but not great and that the second was mediocre but not horrible.

I was hyped and played DX1 day one to completetion and liked but didn't really love it. The over-the-top-conspiracy plotlines just left a sour taste in my mouth. Also I felt that the rpg elements were just flat out weird and stealth wasn't as usable without the light gem from Thief. It really was a little ugly when it shipped and the levels were more constricted than I expected. Underworld II was a far better FPRPG and predated DX by a number of years.

 

[Sciz]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the original Deus Ex do this as well? Maybe I'm getting the two mixed up but I remember it shattering my immersion pretty hard.

DX1 doesn't give you the choice to work for different factions at any point throughout the game up until the end. They'd planned a separate branch where you could stick with UNATCO instead, but it was scrapped in development.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the original Deus Ex do this as well? Maybe I'm getting the two mixed up but I remember it shattering my immersion pretty hard.

No, and if they did, it'd be bullshit. The endings of Deus Ex 1 are bullshit specifically for this reason.

Meh. I just don't think Deus Ex deserves the praise that it gets and I feel that the hate Deus Ex 2 recieves is largely due to this love for Deus Ex 1. Had it been a totally different franchise I highly doubt we'd be continually reading hate threads about it years later. I thought that first was good but not great and that the second was mediocre but not horrible.

Most of what's in this "hate thread"--seriously, read the OP--is a dissection of what I think Deus Ex 2 gets wrong. I kinda feel like your response and several others in this thread basically amount to "I didn't read the OP, but I heard someone else criticize Invisible War once and I didn't agree with him".

 

[charlequin]

Had it been a totally different franchise I highly doubt we'd be continually reading hate threads about it years later.

Had it been a totally different franchise it would've been a forgettably mediocre title that no one cared about enough even to hate and the most we'd ever hear about it now is "hey remember that game Goose Sex Invisible War? No? Me neither...."

 

[nexen]

No, and if they did, it'd be bullshit. The endings of Deus Ex 1 are bullshit specifically for this reason.

Yeah it was the ending I'm remembering - you could basically switch sides right at the ending even if you'd been sticking it to the other sides the entire game from word 1.

Most of what's in this "hate thread"--seriously, read the OP--is a dissection of what I think Deus Ex 2 gets wrong. I kinda feel like your response and several others in this thread basically amount to "I didn't read the OP, but I heard someone else criticize Invisible War once and I didn't agree with him".

Sorry dude, I wasn't really criticizing you. I was only stating my opinion. I agree with most of the points you brought up at the surface level but not the overall tone of "sequel that gets it wrong". You could probably find many games that are worse sequels to their predecessors than DX2 was - this one just gets unecessarily bashed imho. If it were Near Future Game 1 it would've been forgotten now and that is just plain odd to me because I never saw the appeal of DX1 to begin with.
For example: Ultima 8 and Ultima 9 are way worse sequels than DX2 was.

Had it been a totally different franchise it would've been a forgettably mediocre title that no one cared about enough even to hate and the most we'd ever hear about it now is "hey remember that game Goose Sex Invisible War? No? Me neither...."

Which was exactly what I said and a key part of my point. DX2 wasn't really a bad game for the time. That coupled with the fact that I feel DX1 is severely overrated leaves me scratching me head at the hate DX2 receives.

 

[stuminus3]

I can't argue with what's wrong with this game, because it really does suck.

Yet somehow, for some reason, I was compelled enough to play though it 3 or 4 times. Even as I type this I've got this strange itch to play through it again.

Weird. Same thing with Postal 2, another dreadful game from a similar period of time that for some reason I find utterly compelling.

 

[Prime crotch]

Which was exactly what I said and a key part of my point. DX2 wasn't really a bad game for the time. That coupled with the fact that I feel DX1 is severely overrated leaves me scratching me head at the hate DX2 receives.

Even if we set the name and legacy aside, it's just an okay game at best and deserving of all criticism even if only because there were no pcs that could run it smoothly back in the day.

 

[Sciz]

Yeah it was the ending I'm remembering - you could basically switch sides right at the ending even if you'd been sticking it to the other sides the entire game from word 1.

You never take sides or stick it to anyone prior to the ending, aside from being diametrically opposed to Majestic 12 the whole time. It doesn't matter whose ideology you agree with prior to the end because there are bigger things at stake.

 

[Stallion Free]

Which was exactly what I said and a key part of my point. DX2 wasn't really a bad game for the time. That coupled with the fact that I feel DX1 is severely overrated leaves me scratching me head at the hate DX2 receives.

It might have been fine on Xbox, but it was a slap in the face on PC. It ran poorly, had ridiculously small areas compared to the original, and removed/stupified a ton of features that people enjoyed.

If you thought the levels in Deus Ex one were constricted, I don't know how you managed to get more than 10 minutes into Invisible War.

 

[nexen]

Even if we set the name and legacy aside, it's just an okay game at best and deserving of all criticism even if only because there were no pcs that could run it smoothly back in the day.

I never said it wasn't above criticism. I said it was a mediocre but not horrible game. I can, and often do, criticize games I find fantastic. I just find it perplexing that DX2 is the game that keeps getting pulled out of the dusty archives for derision. The number of better targets available out there are absolutely legion.

Actually the more I reflect on it I think that the root of my discomfort with this topic is just that I dislike the ongoing canonization of DX1.

Either way I'm starting to feel like I'm unfairly pulling this topic off course so I should just shut up.

If you thought the levels in Deus Ex one were constricted, I don't know how you managed to get more than 10 minutes into Invisible War.

I agreed from the get go that DX1 was better. I just didn't agree that it was so much better as warrant roasting DX2 over the coals for all of eternity.

 

[charlequin]

Which was exactly what I said and a key part of my point.

But all you're really saying here is that this bad game isn't so bad that it would be infamous on its own, it took being really bad and being one of the most disappointing sequels ever to be infamous. That's not much of a selling point!

DX2 wasn't really a bad game for the time.

No, it was definitely a pretty bad game for the time. There were much, much better shooters and RPGs coming out on both consoles and PCs in 2003.

The number of better targets available out there are absolutely legion.

I don't know that that's true. What you can learn from your run-of-the-mill garbage game is often limited to "don't make a game that's garbage," but looking at a failed sequel lets you isolate the elements that worked in a game's predecessor and dig into how changing them hurts the game in particular.

 

[nexen]

But all you're really saying here is that this bad game isn't so bad that it would be infamous on its own, it took being really bad and being one of the most disappointing sequels ever to be infamous. That's not much of a selling point!

Not trying to sell the game. I keep saying I think it is mediocre. I simply disagree that it is one of the most disappointing sequels of all time. I know I'm at odds with the world on this one.

No, it was definitely a pretty bad game for the time. There were much, much better shooters and RPGs coming out on both consoles and PCs in 2003.

There were many better shooters and RPGs. There were many, many worse ones too. It was mediocre.

I don't know that that's true. What you can learn from your run-of-the-mill garbage game is often limited to "don't make a game that's garbage," but looking at a failed sequel lets you isolate the elements that worked in a game's predecessor and dig into how changing them hurts the game in particular.

No, what I meant was that we could a better example of a "sequel that gets everything wrong" than DX2. I'm disagreeing that the quality drop from DX1 to DX2 is all that severe.

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

Yeah it was the ending I'm remembering - you could basically switch sides right at the ending even if you'd been sticking it to the other sides the entire game from word 1.

Like Sciz said, up to the very end you had no choice whatsoever about who you wanted to align with. It was predetermined and linear. You could make some simple decisions (kill or spare some characters, save Paul or not...), but they had no real bearing on the story development. In that way, I found IW an improvement over the original because it at least gave you the illusion of choice, however poorly executed.

 

[charlequin]

No, what I meant was that we could a better example of a "sequel that gets everything wrong" than DX2.

Not a lot of options come to mind. Ultima 8 was definitely disappointing but most of its mistakes were pretty superficially obvious (and it was coming in after four consecutive successful entries, not a single lightning-in-a-bottle game.)

I'm disagreeing that the quality drop from DX1 to DX2 is all that severe.

I would like to see someone who claims this actually try to sort of justify it with examples and evidence, the way stump did for the opposite in his OP.

In that way, I found IW an improvement over the original because it at least gave you the illusion of choice, however poorly executed.

I don't get this at all. How is it better to be lied to by the game about what choices it's offering you than to have a scenario where you can't change everything but each thing you can change is a legitimate choice?

 

[VGChampion]

I'm really glad I decided to play Invisible War first. I remember getting the demo in OXM years ago and playing the hell out of it. Fast forward some time, I play the game and really enjoy it and pick up the first one. Like it even more but because IW was my first game in the series, I enjoy it probably as much as the first one.

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

I would like to see someone who claims this actually try to sort of justify it with examples and evidence, the way stump did for the opposite in his OP.

I would gladly do that if I had the time to replay both games. Unfortunately, I don't and it's been years since I've played them.

I don't get this at all. How is it better to be lied to by the game about what choices it's offering you than to have a scenario where you can't change everything but each thing you can change is a legitimate choice?

Not everything, in the original you can't change anything as far as your alignment goes. Not until the very end.

And Invisible War wasn't lying to you about possible choices, you were really able to make them and feel like your input did matter. However, the consequences of your actions weren't being handled realistically, that's why I said the execution was poor, but I still prefer that to no choice at all.

Spoiler

Of course, later on you find out your early decisions didn't really make any difference as both factions are controlled by the same organization, but at the time you made them they did matter to you. It's a commentary - admittedly, rather ham-fisted - on real world politics.

 

[Prime crotch]

Not everything, in the original you can't change anything as far as your alignment goes. Not until the very end.

That is exactly why the original maintained a better illusion than IW; the sequel didn't manage to create one, long enough to set in at least.

 

[tiff]

Like Sciz said, up to the very end you had no choice whatsoever about who you wanted to align with. It was predetermined and linear. You could make some simple decisions (kill or spare some characters, save Paul or not...), but they had no real bearing on the story development. In that way, I found IW an improvement over the original because it at least gave you the illusion of choice, however poorly executed.

i guess it's a matter of whether you praise a game more for being ambitious and failing or playing it safe and succeeding (or the the case of DX1's story, it's probably more "not fucking up too bad").

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

i guess it's a matter of whether you praise a game more for being ambitious and failing or playing it safe and succeeding (or the the case of DX1's story, it's probably more "not fucking up too bad").

Sure, but I'd much prefer for Human Revolution to try and follow IW's lead while (vastly) improving upon it, than to give us another safe, linear (story-wise) experience.

 

[nexen]

I would like to see someone who claims this actually try to sort of justify it with examples and evidence, the way stump did for the opposite in his OP.

I gave a few examples previously of why I thought DX1 was overrated. I'm afraid I do not have the time to mount an epic assault on the game as Stump has done for DX2 and I apologize for that. I'll add a little detail to my stance though:

Design:

* I thought stealth in DX1 was poorly implemented. There was very little way to tell when you were in or out of shadow. To me this ruined the stealth game, especially since I was coming off of the most excellent Thief.

* The much vaunted RPG elements of DX1 were already pretty watered down and the upgrades had lots of useless chaff. Also having magic spells masked with the word "nano-augmentations" does not a sci-fi system make. There were also too few of them imho.

* Levels felt constricted. (I'm sure this was a technical limitation)

* Gun combat was extremely clunky.

Writing:

* Dialogue was hamfisted. It felt like a poor imitation of X-files. I couldn't care less about the characters because nothing they did or said felt genuine to me.

* The world was far too convoluted and the factions felt more like "Sekrit Klub - No Gurls Allowd!" than overarching, global power structures.

* Underutilized fiction. There are some genuinely interesting stories lost in the maze of conspiracy nutter's folklore. Deus Ex took the names and jargon from this culture but very little of the fun stuff and really nothing that hadn't been represented better in other media.

Art:

* General art direction of DX1 was a weird fusion of robocop and the matrix. There was nothing original about it and it was so obviously cribbed that it just felt lazy to me.

* The animation was very clunky and the character models looked terrible.

And since I know I'll have to say it again: I liked DX1. It was pretty good despite its faults. I kind of liked DX2. It was mediocre but not terrible.

edit: I kind of feel mean picking on the art direction. I really liked what they did with ed-209 walker things. The sunglasses+trenchcoats thing was offputting to me though.

 

[bhlaab]

Location based damage is gone.

Keep in mind that this means a FPS with sniping and stealth elements, that was released in 2003, did NOT include headshots. I think they patched in headshots later but even then it didn't work too good.

 

[Splatt]

I agree with this, but I must say that Deus Ex has also aged poorly as well.

I mean, the design is still pretty damn impressive (shames most 'RPGs' released today), but just about about everything placed on top of it has not suffered the ravages of time gracefully.

I say this as someone that only played the game about 2 years ago. It is like reading Joyce; structurally the game is elegant, and it makes for great conversation but it really is not all that enjoyable when you get down to it.

I have to say, as someone who has finished Deus Ex only last week, it didn't age as poorly as I thought it would. The beggining of the game, when you have no upgrades is a bore to get trough, but as soon as I upgraded pistol and started stealthing my way, things started picking up, mostly because of the great level design. Later on in the game I just sniped everyone in the head, and threw LAMs at robots.

 

[Snuggles]

I admit that I liked it back in the day. I wasn't as "experienced" as a gamer, though, and I played it on the Xbox after playing DX1 on the PS2. Forgetting it's a Deus Ex game, it was a solid console RPG FPS. However, after playing the original Deus Ex on PC recently I can definitely see where the sequel failed, I probably couldn't play it at this point. Deus Ex 1 is still ahead of most choice driven RPGS but the sequel seems to exemplify everything that is outdated and backwards about choice driven RPGS.

 

[Jerk]

I have to say, as someone who has finished Deus Ex only last week, it didn't age as poorly as I thought it would. The beggining of the game, when you have no upgrades is a bore to get trough, but as soon as I upgraded pistol and started stealthing my way, things started picking up, mostly because of the great level design. Later on in the game I just sniped everyone in the head, and threw LAMs at robots.

Yeah, it definitely could have been worse (I.E. Planescape).

I sniped my way through the entire game my second time playing it. Much more that my first run (stealth).

I do not want to give the impression that I do not like the game (it #10 on my list) but I think people tend to overstate the game and it s relevancy to the modern gaming audience.

 

[Youta Mottenai]

Guess I´m lucky. I´ve bought it on a bargain bin but couldn´t make it run (on an ATI Radeon 9600). Crashed to the desktop after (very slowly) loading a level.

I remember having problems installing it (the installer would stuck at x% for several minutes or sometimes would crash halfway the installation).

I tried it in January this year in my brother´s machine (the installer seems terrible regardless the machine you´re using) but got bored by the third load screen.

 

[Sciz]

* Levels felt constricted. (I'm sure this was a technical limitation)

There are legitimate criticisms to make against Deus Ex (and you touch on several of them), but this is not one. Excepting maybe the PS2 version.

 

[nexen]

There are legitimate criticisms to make against Deus Ex (and you touch on several of them), but this is not one. Excepting maybe the PS2 version.

Felt constricted to me. They felt small. Except some snipery one in an office building I have a vague recollection of.

Maybe this one is just my overexpectations of the game though? I was (am) a big fan of Warren Spector's because of Ultima VII: Part 2 and Ultima Underworld 2. When I heard he was making a conspiracy theory themed fps/rpg hybrid I came into it expecting the world to be as massive as in those games.

 

[Zeliard]

Deus Ex was once described by one of its designers, I believe, as a series of hubs. The sandbox aspect of Deus Ex comes in through its gameplay options more than through open world-style freedom of movement (though DX maps allow for plenty of the latter).

 

[Deleted member 30609]

just bumping this after being linked to it in another thread to say, surprise surprise, "thanks for the interesting read, stump"

 

[TemplaerDude]

I like this thread because the OP is right on every point.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

The only thing you didn't mention is how even the multiple endings in Invisible War were terrible. Deus Ex had you deciding which of three characters' views for the world was correct (while denying one option because it was absolutely absurd for JC Denton to ally with such a villain*), and then presented that vision of the new world to you without any spin. Terrifying and awesome in the literal sense, each ending could either be an optimistic view for a better future or a chilling hint at a species' decline.

Meanwhile Invisible War just finds four different ways to say "the future is fucked up, super-apeshit-dystopia" where even the "good" endings have unnecessarily sinister overtones.


*Something they never considered in Invisible War, where one option is to grant world rule to an organizations whose stated goals include the mass murder and purging of all individuals with augmentations... like the ones you have.


EDIT: Also for full disclosure, I played Invisible War sometime around release, found it boring and its choices very thin and cheap even without any expectations. I knew little of Deus Ex other than that the first game had a very good reputation.

I played Deus Ex for the first time in 2008 and found it to be a superior game in almost every aspect.

 

[I should be doing hw]

You really hit the nail on the head. Vastly inferior to Deus Ex in every way possible - yet, of course, praised by reviewers because it's linear, simple, and didn't feature the horrid horrid voice acting of Hong Kong nor the ugly visuals of the original (even though the voice acting was still bad and the game is plenty ugly and even buggier than the original).

Great write up OP, but missed this as the punchline. Did you forget to add this? I felt like you were leading to something but you ended up just listing IW's faults, which everyone knows is shit.

 

[thetrin]

The only thing you didn't mention is how even the multiple endings in Invisible War were terrible. Deus Ex had you deciding which of three characters' views for the world was correct (while denying one option because it was absolutely absurd for JC Denton to ally with such a villain*), and then presented that vision of the new world to you without any spin. Terrifying and awesome in the literal sense, each ending could either be an optimistic view for a better future or a chilling hint at a species' decline.

Meanwhile Invisible War just finds four different ways to say "the future is fucked up, super-apeshit-dystopia" where even the "good" endings have unnecessarily sinister overtones.


*Something they never considered in Invisible War, where one option is to grant world rule to an organizations whose stated goals include the mass murder and purging of all individuals with augmentations... like the ones you have.


EDIT: Also for full disclosure, I played Invisible War sometime around release, found it boring and its choices very thin and cheap even without any expectations. I knew little of Deus Ex other than that the first game had a very good reputation.

I played Deus Ex for the first time in 2008 and found it to be a superior game in almost every aspect.

People who say DX has aged to a point of being unplayable are dumb. The game still stands up today as one of the best RPG hybrids in gaming history.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

I haven't played either. I have both sitting in my Steam account.

I might just start DE1 soon.

 

[itxaka]

There's no reason to try a no kill run--the stealth system is busted as hell (enemies hear from across the map) and non-lethal weapons are just weaker versions of the lethal weapons you already have. There is absolutely no plot or mission reason to ever use a non-lethal takedown.

I don't know which game you played, but on mine this isn't true. You could stealth with no problems behind enemies and such?

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Deus Ex certainly did do this:

Spoiler

Blatantly failing mission after mission at UNATCO (Killing the terrorist at Liberty Island, hostages at battery park) and killing their best agent (Anna Navarre) at the airfield and this all being "forgiven" if you do one more mission.

and

Spoiler

Killing Lucius Debeers, at Everett's house and Everett doing nothing more than scold you over the infolink.

Because in DX1, it was slightly different.

Spoiler

Killing hostages and the terrorist at Liberty Island were failing secondary objectives, and killing Anna Navarre was covered up by Alex as being an accident or the NSF leader killing her in an ambush. At no point during those early missions did you just start murdering UNATCO agents openly and start telling Manderley that you would kill him while declaring your allegiance to the NSF. That eventually happens for plot purposes, and working with UNATCO is logically cut off forever as a result. (though they did originally plan to let you work a UNATCO path but scrapped it for size considerations)

Likewise, DeBeers was not essential to Everett's plans.

In contrast, Invisible War let you actively murder entire factions and work for their bitter enemies in openly opposing that faction's plans and declaring your allegiance to another, only to be able to switch sides at the very end without any real plot justification.


Same thing with the "oh, but Deus Ex 1 let you switch alignments at the end!" argument. Not true, because you were never explicitly aligned with any of the people you chose at the end. It was a mix of allies who had all helped you in along in the main plot (

Spoiler

Helios, not entirely, but Daedalus was in him so he counts

), who weren't fighting each other because they were focusing their efforts against Page and MJ-12's plans. It was only once you reached the final showdown that suddenly the question of what would happen to the world afterward became relevant, and JC was faced with a sudden decision of which of his allies to trust.

 

[jaundicejuice]

I'm not even going to waste time complaining about how huge--you can't understate this--a step back Invisible War is from Deus Ex in terms of complexity in every facet of its design. There's nothing to really say on that subject that hasn't already been said. But here's the plot...

Spoilers ahoy if you haven't played either game and intend to.

One thing that really confused me about Invisible War was that it used both the Tracer Tong and Helios endings as the loose foundation for the world of Invisible War. In the beginning of the game when you exit the Tarsus Academy and see the holo-broadcast by the president of the WTO, it appears as though the Tracer Tong/Collapse ending is the foundation for the world, but by the time you get to Trier, you discover that J.C. did in fact merge with the Helios A.I. but somehow failed to become the benevolent dictator of the world, the merger was incomplete and the global network somehow got shut down at the same time. Which is honestly kind of muddled.

It took until Trier, Germany for Invisible War's story to even get remotely interesting, have a vague connection to the first game and actually provide the player with a semi-decent motivation for doing anything in the game. And by then you're pretty much half-way through a really short, disappointing sequel. For the first half of Invisible War you're bounding back and forth between two entirely unlikeable factions, with completely ridiculous objectives for no real valid reason. Your first mission outside of Seattle is to track down one of the chief scientists of ApostleCorp, the company that ran Tarsus Academy and helped to modify all of the students/corporate mercenaries in training. You fly to Egypt, the WTO wants you to wreck her families illegal greenhouse (why? because they're douche bags?) and track her down so they can pick her brain while The Order wants you to murder her outright because you're supposed to be mad over the voluntary body modifications you underwent at Tarsus. you're presented with these ridiculous extremes, with tracking her down as the least distasteful option.

In the first Deus Ex you're a bad ass modified government agent fighting terrorism that stumbles across a sinister global conspiracy, in Invisible War you're a modified corporate mercenary-in-training just sort of going places and doing stuff without any real rhyme or reason until Trier provides some tenuous hooks from the first game and the only sort of likeable faction. In Invisible War your choices are support a sinister conspiracy, ally yourself with a bunch of bigots or pick up where the Denton's left off and go for the super Helios ending. Hmmmm.

Because it's so badly written there is no real choice in Invisible War's ending, whereas I contemplated the merits of all three factions in the original Deus Ex. I was actually conflicted over my decision.

I'm actually pretty glad that Invisible War is so damned short and don't care if Steam doesn't properly track it's play time. Awful, awful game.