Deus Ex: Invisible War

Deus Ex was one of the best games of the last few years, blending first-person action with intelligent and engaging role playing progression. How does Ion Storm's sequel match up to such a benchmark game?

At this point, I suppose I should say a few words about the graphics and the sound quality. The graphics are decent, but it's clear that some quality was sacrificed in textures and models in order to make the game run in the Xbox's limited memory footprint. As the game received no alterations from Xbox to PC versions (even .ini files that configure the size of the heads up display and the lag of mouse movement were left at Xbox defaults, forcing players to manually edit them, or wait for a patch), PC players are left with a game that would have been visually impressive two years ago. Particularly disappointing are the weapon models, which never manage to look like anything more than plastic models. Perhaps it's due to my overexposure to 'realistic' shooters, but the guns in DX2 feel fake and unsatisfying. One point in DX2's favour, however, is its shadow generation - the game generates real-time shadows, based on light sources within the game. Those light sources can be moved or blocked, in many circumstances, altering the lighting, and creating new shadows. This doesn't impact the gameplay in any real way, but it looks pretty neat. Point to Ion Storm.

The sound effects are sub par. Weapons don't sound particularly impressive, explosions aren't visceral, and the voice acting is universally flat and lifeless. In DX1, JC Denton and his brother Paul both sounded relatively flat and emotionless, but they had a good excuse: they were grown in vats, and stuffed full of machinery. In DX2, it's as if everyone was given the Denton treatment, and robbed of their ability to emote. A noteworthy high point of the game's soundscape, however, is the bar and club music, provided by the Kidney Thieves. Good, hard-rocking songs, if a bit heavy on the goth influence. More than once, I stuck around in front of the game's virtual jukebox just to hear one of the songs play to completion, and that's quite a compliment.

Overall, this is a game that let me down. Were my expectations too high? I don't think so. I wasn't expecting a game that would revolutionize the genre, as Deus Ex did. I would have been satisfied with a graphical upgrade to the same underlying gameplay mechanics. Hell, I would have been satisfied even without the graphical upgrade. What I got, however, what Ion Storm produced, is a game that is less than its originator, in almost every way. That's not to say that Deus Ex 2 is a bad game. It isn't. It retains the "feel" of the dystopian future created in Deus Ex 1, and the storyline is fairly compelling, the first time you play through the game. In the final equation, however, that's just not enough. Deus Ex 1 was a game that set a high water mark for its genre, and set a standard that it seems nobody, not even its creators, can match. Ultimately, Deus Ex 2 is a game that could have been great, but wasn't. And that's the most disappointing fact of all.