Yep. Looking good. [Subtitles by danielsangeo] Welcome back to the Game Dungeon. Today
we're looking at "Deus Ex: Invisible War". Now this is a follow up from the last
episode where we looked at "Deus Ex" so I'm picking up from there. Here's let's have a quick recap. "I haven't seen any other game
come close to this." Okay, now on to Invisible War. We start off with a full cinematic
this time and it's pretty cool, though we've all ready crossed some
lines before this is even done. Remember how I said Deus Ex has sci-fi
elements but grounds you in reality? Yeah, that's gone. What we have now is about a quarter
reality and three-quarters "Fifth Element". We have flashy street design, a
sci-fi show dress code, flying surveillance bots with a
sci-fi'd up display, and a nanite bomb. Sci-fi, sci-fi, sci-fi. Also, because I played the first
game, I cannot shake the fact that it's so obvious to me that
this is the same voice actor as Walton Simons from the first Deus Ex. ["I told them to run."] That's game creator Tom Hall and, best I can
tell, this was his final vocal performance. I think he did a good job but
I'm all ready thinking, "That's not who you're telling me
it is. It's Walton Simons, dammit." Oh, and I mentioned there was a
nanite bomb, right? Now see, this is where I get confused. This is a pretty awesome
sequence they have here because I think they're showing
us a "gray goo event". That's where nanites replicate
themselves... endlessly, essentially, turning all available matter
into copies of themselves. Now while this doesn't exist,
this is a real sci-fi concept. In fact, this might be more realistic
than the flying hoverbots earlier. Except, as I understand it, if a
gray goo event occurs, that's it. This is all ready the
end of the game. In the cinematic here, Chicago
is being destroyed, but if this was the 'real'
thing, it would just keep going. Now the good news is this would
be contained to Earth so this wouldn't spread
throughout the universe, but uh... yeah, I don't understand why everybody
isn't going to be dead within hours. And with that, we begin. Like the original, we start off
not really knowing what's going on. We're in some sort of luxury dorms and... Yeah, okay. Let's not waste any
time here, huh? Unlike the original Deus Ex which
had an optional training course, Invisible War shoves tutorial
notices in your face right away. Now originally I was dumb and
just assumed these were mandatory, which did not help my enjoyment of the game since you are ASSAULTED by these
things the first few levels. "What is a ladder?" WAAAAA! WAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAAA! So the next most obvious thing is the HUD. A lot of people hated this; I
see it as kind of an experiment. It looks slick and neat, but
computers like their squares. Circles lost the HUD Wars of 2003. Actually there was no war. Just this game. It certainly doesn't do me any favors
now playing this in widescreen. I was hoping to talk more about
the story first, but no, we need to jump straight
to the gameplay. Deus Ex was originally a PC exclusive game that was later modified and
ported to the PlayStation 2. It was a cult classic and is one of the
best games made for the platform even today. So naturally the sequel was designed
for the Xbox first and foremost. This changed things. Not just because of the platform, but also because of the designers'
expectations of console users. The original Deus Ex was just about the
right amount of complexity for me in an RPG. I think I maybe could've handled
even one more layer. It wasn't a finely tuned system,
it was clunky like everything else, but that kind of added to the charm for me in the sense that you might be
going into unexplored territory. Well, a few of these changes are
good. Let's start with those. Guns shoot straight. You might think it's weird
I like this change since I like the aiming system
from the original, but hey, I'm fine with a gun
that shoots straight, too. What I hate are bullet sponges. As long as my character is
dangerous when he's holding a gun, I'm happy with the mechanics. I don't feel like guns should respect
how leveled up your character is. I feel like they should
blow holes in things. Food takes up the same inventory slot. It was a little annoying having
a slot for sodas and candy bars and wine and so on in the original,
especially when you can stack them. Here, it's all the same slot. Perfect. Om nom nom nom nom nom nom nom... Some augmentations work passively
and don't require energy, like strength or FLASHLIGHTS! Now this game loves its teal and will bathe
the screen in it whenever it gets a chance, but whatever, now we have a
flashlight that works. So yeah, there's some good changes in here. Yeah. ...yeah. The "bad change" list is a little longer. First, the cool grid
inventory system is gone. Now you have twelve slots. The end. I like the grid system. It
reminded me of waffles. No area base damage-- I used to be able to break my
legs and keep on crawling. Now it's a simple health bar. They're
taking the fun out of being a cyborg. No skills-- My character has no skill. Literally. He spent all his skill points on his hair. So that's another layer
of complexity removed which means less specialization and less
perks as you progress through the game. That's kind of lame for what's also an RPG. And speaking of perks, within
half an hour of playing, you get four upgrade canisters
in the game right away. To put this in perspective, this
wouldn't happen in the original game until you're maybe a quarter of the
way through, some six hours or so, and then you got excited when you
found one because it was a big deal. Nah, screw that. You haven't eaten dinner
yet but here's all your candy right now. Chunky text-- I think this one actually affected the
quality of the writing to the game. Now longer doesn't always mean better but Deus Ex made pretty good use
of its length. I mean this is the game that was
quoting Thomas Paine and debating the role of mankind and
civilization and the function of God. But now, this is the maximum amount
of text you can have on the screen before having to scroll. How does this NOT encourage shorter writing? I haven't analyzed it, but I think this
shortened a lot of conversations, too. I would estimate maybe 15-20%.
This is Deus Ex: Twitter Edition. For a game that had a strong
narrative, this is not cool at all. Simpler lock picking-- In the original, you used lock
picks for conventional locks, and wireless hacking tools for
decrypting electronic locks and a skill system related to each. This made you think more about how
you wanted to infiltrate an area. In Invisible War, you use magic
wands to cast Spells of Unlocking, like in Harry Potter. Universal ammo-- I'm sure gun enthusiasts will love this one. No longer do we need shells for our shotgun
or .30-06 rounds for our sniper rifle. Or even MISSILES for our rocket launcher! No, now it's all one happy ammo resource. In the original, you would usually
find ammo where it made sense. So private mercenaries and military were
more likely to have submachine guns, whereas regular police would have pistols. Not only is universal ammo taking
us farther away from the realism, it's almost beyond science-fiction,
getting into the realm of fantasy. The only explanation I can think of would be these contain nanites which
would build your rounds on the fly. But if we have that kind of
technology, we could build anything. It would be like having
replicators from "Star Trek". That would change the face of
the entire world, not just make your guns easier to load. The closest thing I've seen to universal
ammo was in a science-fiction show where this guy built a gun with
a constricting barrel that would adjust itself to the
size of the round. So yeah, if you're cool with firing
one bullet at a time between reloads and having questionable accuracy, I could
at least see THAT happening conceptually. Oh and speaking of reloading,
the game got rid of that, too. Your gun just fires forever until
you run out of universal ammo. If we're going this route, why not just
make them shoot lasers while you're at it? Oh. And I saved what's maybe the worst for last. Because this was designed for the
Xbox which had 64 megs of RAM, and because they were trying to push
the graphics as hard as they could, this came at the cost of map size. The memory just wasn't there for it. The graphics were simple but Deus
Ex had all of Liberty Island. It had large air terminals. See that crane off in the distance? You get
to walk and climb all the way over there. In Invisible War, we get our
globetrotting missions again, but now every single level is either
claustrophobic or else shrouded in fog. This changes the feel of the
whole game in a bad way. Now if I was playing a game in a
giant spaceship or a mining shaft, this would be fine, but these are
CITIES I'm supposed to be exploring. Here, look at the hub area for
New York in the original. That's a decently sized area
before I run into a level load. Now let's compare that to Seattle here. Level load, level load, alley. Level load, coffee shop. Level load... yeah, that's it.
We've seen Downtown Seattle now. It's a wondrous alley of a city. This kneecapped the game. Honestly this is a trend that has persisted
a really long time in the game industry and I hate it. See big game developers need the
shiniest graphics possible so they have screenshots they can show off. But they're overreaching, because then
on a console they have finite resources they can devote to everything
else farther away. One of my favorite examples of
this is "Far Cry 3". At E3, they showed off a lush
jungle that had great atmosphere. Then the actual game comes out and
they've removed half the foliage. This totally changes the
atmosphere of the game. I'd rather they just drop the polygon
count in half but give me my damned jungle. Now I know I'm a minority, but
I'd rather have Deus Ex 1 graphics if it means I can have more
fleshed out worlds. But they can't do that because
they need their shiny screenshots. I get sick of this frontloading. It's happening less now since we
have more power but it's been slow to die. Big games almost never want to
compromise on visual quality so they can have more consistent worlds. Invisible War is one of the most
extreme examples of this sort of thing. This game was simplified and dumbed
down in the name of consoles. Individually, most of these
changes are tolerable, but all together, they come across as an
absolute shock compared to the first Deus Ex. The irony is that core gameplay
is still there. It's like you're expecting an intricate
LEGO set and instead get a box of DUPLOs. You can't even argue they're not functional.
They do indeed stack on top of each other. That's really where Invisible
War is taking us. This even shows up on the box covers. The original Deus Ex had a cool cover. To me, looking up at the lights as the character is going to encounter
some new knowledge or maybe aliens, there's a cityscape and
helicopters in the background so it makes me expect some sort
of story or adventure. Now how about Invisible War? "Awww yeah. In the future, I'm-a bust a cap
in yo ass, yo. Then I'm-a go gel my hair." And on that note, let's take a
look at the story. This game takes place 20 years after Deus Ex. The original had three endings
that were all weakly portrayed. You could either blow up the Internet, merge with a sentient AI, or else let the Illuminati take over. Well Invisible War was afraid to commit
so they decided, "Let's do all three!" JC merged with the AI, which
caused the Internet to blow up, which sent us all into a period of
darkness, THEN the Illuminati took over. I'm not impressed by this. I feel like if you make a sequel
to a game with multiple endings, you should just pick the one you want. The orcs won in "Warcraft I". Liu Kang won the tournament in
"Mortal Kombat". But whatever. Here we are. Even this doesn't hold up to scrutiny. This was actually an issue I had
with the original story. In Deus Ex, the Internet is completely
centralized and flows through Area 51. So by blowing that up, we're
plunged into a mini-dark ages. Well, the Internet isn't
a centralized thing. Blowing up Area 51 isn't going to
destroy Google. You can quote me on that. But even if it did, in Deus Ex,
centralization was a recent change. So it wouldn't be hard to just
go back to the old system. The Internet is so important
now, we would adapt quickly. If we blew up every core router
for the Internet today, we would have major areas back
up in a couple of days, most of the world back up in a few months. The Tracer Tong ending
simply wouldn't happen. Although, you know what WOULD send
us into an electronic apocalypse? THE SUN. A solar storm with an intense
EMP field could hit the Earth and almost DID back in 2012 and was
severely underreported by the media. If that happened, it would've knocked out
our satellites, most of the power grid, electronics, and easily taken
years to recover from. The world would be turned upside-down. Now of course humanity would keep going
without electricity or electronics, but we depend on them so much now, there's no telling how many
people would die in the process. But realism is not this game's strong
suit. Everything is more simplified. The subtlety of the characters is gone.
They're mostly one-dimensional now. Your interactions feel much more
game-like now, too. Like how this guy is talking with a customer about how he doesn't like the coffee shop
competition, then just flat out turns to me and says I should go firebomb
the store because he'll pay me. He knows nothing about me except that
I've gone to a quasi-military academy. Lucky for him I'm not a
plain-clothes police officer. I also like how he has these glazed eyes so that he looks kind of like a
psychopath as he's saying this to me. It's all a little odd. This is Upper Seattle which is built
in the sky above regular Seattle and is connected by a gigantic inclinator. This place looks pretty fancy and we have
patrolling hoverbots with machineguns and some security standing by, yet we seem to be overrun by crime as a
local gang has killed a ticket attendant and taken over the station, and another
gang is just hanging out in an alley here. These guys try to mug you, and since
you're playing a cybernetic bad ass, I have to wonder if anyone has ever actually picked the "Don't hurt
me, here's a 100 credits" option. It just doesn't seem possible. "You picked the wrong person to mug, punk." So it's weird seeing an upper-scale district with heavy security right next to
gang members, but it is short-lived. Even the toughest gangs still don't like
getting shot up by military hover robots. I guess this is a natural selection thing. But back to the simplification: Everything
tends to flow along simple factions. In the future, all commerce is handled by
the World Trade Organization. Uh, okay? All major religions have faded away and instead, have merged into
one religion: The Order. Oh yeah. I'm sure that'll happen.
Especially in the next fifty years. ["Unifying the world's religions
is a difficult enterprise."] Y'know, all these One World Order
groups are even less believable if a world blackout had occurred because
that would mean less globalization and more local groups emerging. Anyway, even among The Order, there are Templar extremists who think biomodifications are an
abomination against God, and everyone using them must be destroyed. And on the flipside, we have the Omar who
are utterly devoted to biomodification and trying to accelerate
their own evolution. They also share a collective consciousness. Sure. Why not? That's about as
realistic as everything else. These guys also sell unsanctioned
black-market biomods, which I thought was an awesome game concept. I think they should've made these more
powerful but have bad side effects, or maybe change your appearance
to make you more scary looking and hurt character interactions. But all it actually means is you
have a red icon instead of blue. I kind of have to judge this game by
different standards than the original because we're so detached
from reality by now it's not giving me a Deus Ex feel anymore. Yeah, that's right.
Step into the teleporter. This actually reminds me of an
episode of Star Trek. Not the ones where they find
some anomaly in space but the ones where they land on some planet
where the people there are mostly like us except they have an exotic society and
value systems that they have to figure out. So by Star Trek episode standards, I'd say the story and writing actually isn't that
bad, even pretty good by game writing standards. Even though it's shortened, a lot of
the dialog still has a good feel to it. ["You know my name." ["I better know a lot more than
that if my code is going to be ["regulating protein synthesis
in the cells of your body."] It's still mostly pulp situations you see
in a lot of RPGs, but it's above average. ["Why so hostile? I'm not evil."] I think that may be the best
performance I've ever heard of someone saying they're not evil. Let's look at the music. Deus Ex had some damn fine music. Sure it sounded a little clunky in spots,
but it has just beautiful themes in it. In Invisible War, almost everything is
just sort of pleasant faded ambient music. It's almost like someone is practicing
a better song a couple rooms away and you're recording that. I think this music is generally nice and is the sort of thing
I would want to hear if I was playing a game where
I'm flying a ship in deep space, but I also think it's clearly a
downgrade to what came before it. It's very peaceful, though. It's so relaxing breaking into this
executive's apartment while he's away and pillaging everything he owns. Ahhh... This is actually a trend I've
noticed where more modern games seem afraid to have an unconventional
or more expressive soundtrack. This is a generalization of course, but it's like almost every game with a big
budget wants a generic symphony orchestra or ambivalent electronic music like this
rather than go for something more memorable. Nowadays you usually have to go to smaller
games before you find more creative music. This game did introduce me to the band
Kidney Thieves however, which I kind of dig. They present their music as pop
star music from the future. We can only hope. Now I've been saying a lot of negative
things about this game, but there is one aspect about Invisible War that I
think far and away surpasses the original and is the number one thing I
miss from playing Deus Ex 1: Ragdoll physics. The first game to use ragdoll physics
was apparently "Trespasser" from '98, but I don't think we saw a second
game using it until years later. Well Invisible War was
one of the earlier ones and by God, did they make good use of it. It's lost a little of the novelty nowadays, but seeing enemies slump over
realistically is such a bonus. I think it's one of the best technological
developments for first-person shooters. And Invisible War takes that to new heights because you can, of course, pick
up the bodies and move them. I can't even explain why but I became
obsessed with stuffing bodies into Dumpsters. Even now, it's so satisfying to
just fling somebody over a railing. This also became a great incentive to
get the strength upgrade in the game. Then you can really fling those
suckers around. Yeah, in you go. I love games that involve you
hiding bodies from the authorities and watching people freak out
if they see you. I would love to see more games where
you're secretly disposing of bodies and trying to stay cool in the meantime. "Hello, officer. Quiet night tonight,
isn't it? Not many people on the street." This is the one aspect of the original
Deus Ex that's rough for me to go back to. And back to negative things. While I'm talking about Deus Ex, I'd like to mention that at no point does
Deus Ex give me uncanny valley feelings. They look like action figures or something. It's dated but it works,
at least in my mind. Invisible War isn't quite as lucky. While I like the intense psycho
look some NPCs have, the main character seems to have
less detail than everyone else. Look, her eyes are actually
modeled; mine are just a texture. Why would you have less detail
on the character that's going to be in almost
every conversation? It looks even worse if you play
as a woman instead of a man. Her eyes seem to be not quite aligned. I can't get a reading on this face at all. If the idea was to make her look
like she's capable of killing people, then mission accomplished. This is a game of people talking
normally and looking like psychopaths which actually isn't such a bad concept
but I don't think that was the intent here. Now this game doesn't have any
total conversions like Deus Ex, but I should at least give a mention to
"Project: Snowblind" which was originally meant to be an action-oriented
companion game to Invisible War here. That plan fell through so they
just kept the game as is and changed one or two things around so it's technically not in the
Deus Ex world anymore. I tried playing this but it felt
painfully average to me. But that's the risk of
playing games nowadays. You have so many choices now,
it's really easy to get picky. In any event, I think an action-oriented
game with Deus Ex tactics is a good idea, but this game didn't convince me
it was the chosen one. Okay, let's wrap up the story. You have a similar plot complexity as the
last game, although it's easier to follow. It's mostly just the main factions
wanting you to do chores for them and bickering between each other
the whole time. You eventually find JC Denton
trapped in his ice sanctuary because I guess there's a Superman
metaphor here. I don't know. I find it a nice touch that,
when you finally talk to him, he's clearly echoing back to the original
game, talking about government, philosophy, the nature of man, is quoting
Alexis de Tocqueville, and his sentences are clearly
longer than your average character. It's like even in this game, JC
is still beyond all of this. ["I have no enemies, merely
topographies of ignorance."] I feel like he should cock a
shotgun after saying that. I also like that the history is
JC had mental instability problems after merging with the Helios AI. Oh yeah! Wonder where that came from! ["A corpse, yes; you feel something.
I must know what you are feeling. ["Closer, ye-e-e-es..."] The game didn't drop any hints
that Helios is insane or anything. ["We can administrate the world, yes, yes."] Helios was the merging of a psychotic
AI with a neutral logical one. "Psycho" plus "logical"
does not equal "sane". So yeah, I'm glad the game acknowledged
there are one or two problems there. We also come across Paul, JC's
brother, and--wait, what? He died! Yeah, when I first played this, I didn't realize it was an option to
save your brother in the original game. The game said he died; I thought
that was just part of the plot. I mean, you HAVE to betray UNATCO,
you HAVE to confront Anna Navarre... I thought it was like that. Well if you fight your way out
the hotel door with him, he lives. If you tell him to come with you
through the window, he dies. Look! He's telling me to go!
He'll be FINE! HE'S GOT THIS! DON'T TELL ME YOU'VE GOT THIS IF YOU'RE
JUST GOING TO GET YOUR HEAD BLOWN OFF! Friggin' NPCs... ["Don't worry about me -- I can
take care of myself."] Shut up, Paul! Anyway, this time we have FOUR endings and it would be an interesting
fanfic mess to try and merge these. They're actually pretty good
with actual cinematics except they're TOO DAMNED SHORT! I find it funny if you help the
genocidal anti-bionic people, they just kill your ass in the end
because you're cybernetically enhanced. Gee, who could've seen that one coming? The Illuminati ending is... same
as the first one, pretty much. JC Denton's ending is actually the closest
vision I've seen in a game to a utopian state, with maybe "The Journeyman
Project" being second. In his ending, you unleash a nanite storm
to interface and unite with all of mankind so that all of your thoughts and feelings
are deeply understood by the Helios AI, and it helps to organize society
based on the goals of humanity. So not a collective consciousness--you
would still be you-- but an impartial AI that understands
all of humanity better than itself and acts as an overseer free of
human ambitions and downfalls. That sounds like some good sci-fi.
And again, a utopian state. ASSUMING Helios isn't insane, which they say it's not anymore
because they patched it, but it still does that creepy "yes"
thing after some of its sentences. ["Let us understand and
be transformed, yes."] And the Omar ending is hilarious. If you wipe out every other main faction, they congratulate you and offer you a
discount on more black market items. ["You do not even comprehend today's
significance for the future of this planet, ["but you have our gratitude. A
discount will be applied ["to all of your business transactions
with our agents, anywhere in the world."] Yeah, that's why I did all of this. I overthrew all these powerful
government conspiracies, killed all their leaders, and left the
Earth in a state of destructive anarchy, so I could get a better discount on
more hardware. That's all this was. Okay, awards time. First award: Consolified, or Deus Xbox-- Some games don't suffer from
being multiplatform at all. This one is one of the absolute worst cases
where making the Xbox the lead platform didn't just hurt the game on PC, it flat out hurt the game, and
almost killed the franchise. If you ever want to know why there's
a PC versus console rivalry today, it's not because you own one
system over another, it's because of the industry
pulling crap like this. Second award: Good game in a bubble-- If this wasn't a Deus Ex sequel and if it
wasn't so marred by the gameplay decisions so I didn't know what I was missing, this would actually be a worthwhile
game. Just with limitations. I mean, if you're a Deus Ex fan,
this game is a slap in the face. But I'm not so biased I can't say there
was some quality buried in here also. At least, I think... The game utterly destroyed my
expectations right from the beginning, so discovering the entire thing
actually WASN'T complete garbage may have made me look a little
more favorably on it. And the final award: Best bodies
in a Dumpster-- When I look back on this game,
these are my fondest memories of it and I wish more games let you
stuff bodies into Dumpsters. So that's the game. Stay tuned for the conclusion of these
Deus Ex episodes with "Human Revolution". And to end this, I highly recommend
checking out a parody script I came across which summarizes the shortcomings
of this game fabulously. I especially like how they point out
that a bomb destroying all of Chicago completely undermines the title.
And they're right! That would make this the largest terrorist
attack in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD! INVISIBLE WAR, MY ASS! [music] ["This is a security alert. ["We have information a possible
external threat to this campus. ["As always, discuss your work
with no one outside the company. ["Communicate electronically
only on the Mako network. ["And starting now -- no visitors. ["Our automated systems won't care whether
it's a suicide bomber or your grandma. ["Be safe. Now let's make a great weapon."] Pep talk of the year.
Can anyone tech savy explain to me why this game and games like FEAR have better dynamic lightning and shadows than games made 10 years later? Even some textures have higher resolution. Hell the modern Deus Ex doesn't even have working mirrors while the original did.
The only memory I have of playing Invisible War is being in Egypt and discovering I could throw objects long distances due to the strength enhancement. I was near a coffee shop, picked up a coffee mug and chucked it across this large room. I watched it arc in the air and come down perfectly to bust a random NPC who was walking across the room right in the head and killed them instantly. Everyone in the building was instantly hostile and they all wanted to kill me. I couldn't have timed it better if I tried, and all I wanted to do was throw a mug.
I highly recommend watching Ross' video on the original Deus Ex first for anyone who hasn't.
Wow! Another Ross' Game Dungeon this soon, and on a game that I also loved to play back in the day. I can't wait to watch this when I get home!
One broken thing I remember about this game, is that you can set things on fire, and they would set other things on fire, and so on. You could make a pile of bodies, light one on fire, and it would just keep cycling through them all and it was an unlimited loop of each lighting the other on fire, over and over again.
Good times, not the best game IMO, but fun.
This was the game that introduced me to the franchise. I played through it 4 times consecutively. It's the reason I was hyped as fuck when Human Revolution was announced.
Yeah, this game was almost a Franchise Killer.
Is it true that the game actually partly crashes (or otherwise reboots) in between levels? Because that's what one of the YouTube comments claims, and I vaguely remember reading something like that at the time.
The unified religion aspect of it really bothered me. If something is fictional it doesn't mean it can throw out any attempt of plausibility. A story can have an outlandish concept and make it work, but the writing must be strong enough to support it. This was not the case here.
I loved Invisible War, and in my mind's eye it still has amazing graphics and lighting. The rag doll physics were hilarious and totally fresh at the time. I love how dark it feels, and the creatures in the sewers and the Omar really disturbed me.
I liked the story, locations, etc. Not as insanely good as the first one, but enough to make me replay it a few times. I never got the hate.
I loved that game. It just irritated me that it all seemed so small. I know it was because of the consoles and all that but it was frustrating to see these environments being so claustrophobic instead of the huge levels of the original. It was still a lot of fun.