Widescreen Gaming Forum

[quote]I enjoyed Invisible War for heaven's sake.

You actually admit that?

The door is that way, dood. ;)

I already opened it for him too and have installed a self shutting, locking mechanism and augmented a "cameleon" wall texture to the back of it so no one can open it as it will look like the wall.

:lol:

That aside, that short for DuesEx looks sensational. Please don't stuff it up.

The scotch and the cigarette are very promising signs though. At least they are not afriad of going against the NANNY STATE attitudes around now.

THe dream sequence was pretty fat too!

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I enjoyed IW as a cyberpunk shooter game with some RPG elements, which is what it was. I didn't need it to be a real Deus Ex sequel to find it enjoyable, just like Oblivion is a piss poor sequel to Morrowind but a great open world hack and slasher.

The scotch and the cigarette are very promising signs though. At least they are not afriad of going against the NANNY STATE attitudes around now.

Probably the Montreal influence. They know how to party there. :D

I enjoyed IW as a cyberpunk shooter game with some RPG elements, which is what it was. I didn't need it to be a real Deus Ex sequel to find it enjoyable, just like Oblivion is a piss poor sequel to Morrowind but a great open world hack and slasher.

I can understand and hesitantly admit to agree with that.

It was just the pivital point of gaming where the gaming community for the first significant time came together and voiced its disapproval at the result. It has now become a natural movement which is created afresh when ever a game designer does something stupid. Ie ModernWarFail's dedicated servers, BioShocks widescreen debarcle.

So I guess that game brought the significance in gaming as the french revolution...then again that might be a little over the top. You know what I mean.

So when you say you liked the game it strikes a few "game-boy" emotions.

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The big difference between the original and the sequel for me was the loss of the intelligence that suffused pretty much every location of the original. Invisible War felt like a port of a console game made by people who played the first game and (for the most part) only remembered the actiony bits and some of the jokes.

Examples of what I mean: the guest book at the 'Ton referencing Gully Foyle from Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, and naming the cook down in the Templar's castle "Swelter" after Abiatha Swelter from Mervyn Peake's incredible Gormenghast. These were light touches that deepened the gameworld. Even if one didn't recognize the sources of the names, those characters had names. These literary references could very easily have been cut out to make time for more shooty-bang-bang stuff, but they weren't. And what about the consequences of J.C. going into the women's bathroom at UNATCO HQ? What about the nods to G.K. Chesterton? What about Gunther complaining about the soda machine? The original Deus Ex team clearly cared about building a world to experience, not just a rail shooter, and it showed.

The level of debate between J.C. and several of the characters was another high point of the original game. Ion Storm took a topic that was controversial even before 9/11 and the Patriot Act -- how far is it right to go to preserve individual human liberty? -- and let the characters of the game help the player explore their own views on the subject without ever taking sides. Most developers who take on political subject matter can't resist using the platform of their game to put their personal beliefs into the mouths of the game's characters... but it didn't happen in Deus Ex. The folks in Austin did a tremendous job of showing through both gameplay and dialogue the strengths and dangers of both sides -- individualism and collectivism -- and managed to make it exciting fun in the process.

I have to wonder whether game developers in Montreal, Canada, feel the same kind of political tension that denizens of liberal Austin in conservative Texas felt when designing Deus Ex. Maybe it's not necessary that they do. But given the degree to which the original was both political and balanced, will the third game feel enough like the original if it doesn't skillfully evoke that tension?

The sequel wasn't all bad. I liked the notion of the Omar, and the NG Resonance storyline was interesting until it just sort of quit. But what I really go for is depth in my gameworlds -- it makes the action more fun for me -- and Invisible War did not have the depth of the original.

If being wedged into a console is what squeezed the depth out of DE:IW, then I don't hold out much hope for DE:HR. But we'll see.

I have to wonder whether game developers in Montreal, Canada, feel the same kind of political tension that denizens of liberal Austin in conservative Texas felt when designing Deus Ex. Maybe it's not necessary that they do. But given the degree to which the original was both political and balanced, will the third game feel enough like the original if it doesn't skillfully evoke that tension?

Wonder no more. Montreal is part of Québec, the French province in Canada, if you will. There have been strained English - French tensions in Canada since the country was formed. Québec has been on the brink of separating from Canada before, where referendum votes were very close. So anyone living in Québec, and Canada in general, is quite familiar with political tensions. Québec often feels that it deserves more recognition from the rest of Canada and the rest of Canada often feels that Québec gets too much special attention as it is.

So...the political tension aspect should be well served. :wink: