Deus Ex: Invisible War, the demo
Nov. 21st, 2003 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solipsistnationOkay, I just finished the demo for Deus Ex: Invisible War (AKA Deus Ex 2).
It's not bad. It's got a reasonable approximation of the feel of the first game, which is nice, including the usual round of people appearing in little fuzzy video screens in your head and telling you what they want you to do. Lots of nicely interactive world-stuff to play around with, and, it looks like, a couple of different ways to go about the goal in the demo.
The demo consists of two locations, The Greasel Pit, a bar and horrible-sewer-critter-fighting-pit, and an apartment building with an attached helipad. Yeah, I know, modern convenience is great.
Once again, the protagonist must acquire a pilot, and in this case it's somebody with what sounds vaguely like an Australian accent who needs his original employer off his back so he can get his Harrier jump jet back.
Here's where the options come in. The player has a few options for reaching this goal-- steal the cash, bet on greasel fights, or just go in, shoot all the guards and the crime-boss employer, and take care of the debt that way. When betting on the fights, there are even neat things to do: get hired to go kill the reigning champion, and the fight is as good as won, plus you get a bonus from the trainer of the new winner.
The graphics are lovely, as we've come to expect from a current generation 3D game, although some objects have a surprisingly low polygon count-- barrels, for example, are a little blockier than one would expect. People look pretty good, though, and the locations are nicely detailed, with bump-mapping lending everything a sort of extra-squishy appearance. The Havok.com physics engine is put to good use, and there are lots of things to play with and move around and throw.
The interface, though, makes it all very annoying.
The game's interface, rather than following the pattern of the first game and giving the player a pop-up inventory screen and putting little displays in the corners of the screen, instead shows all status in curving semicircles arrayed around the center of the display. Unfortunately, these curves are WAY too small, and the end result is like looking down a little round tunnel at the game action. Sure, the area outside the semicircles is used, and stuff is rendered outside it, but the circle provides such a strong visual cue of a boundary that it's hard to train the subconscious to treat that space outside the circle as actual screen space. I played the game with an uncomfortable claustrophobic feeling, as if I were playing, say, Doom on a really slow system and had turned the screen size down to postcard-size in order to get it to render properly, or as if I were looking out of a pipe at everything in front of me.
I'm not sure how well I'll be able to get used to that. I could just turn the interface opacity way down, but that's kind of weird and distracting.
I'm about to try it again, and play it through as a total shooter and see how it works. That should be interesting, and I'll see if I get any more used to the tiny interface circle after a few more minutes of gameplay. For now, though, it's REALLY annoying.
Oh, and the demo doesn't save the screen settings, which is very annoying as well.
It's not bad. It's got a reasonable approximation of the feel of the first game, which is nice, including the usual round of people appearing in little fuzzy video screens in your head and telling you what they want you to do. Lots of nicely interactive world-stuff to play around with, and, it looks like, a couple of different ways to go about the goal in the demo.
The demo consists of two locations, The Greasel Pit, a bar and horrible-sewer-critter-fighting-pit, and an apartment building with an attached helipad. Yeah, I know, modern convenience is great.
Once again, the protagonist must acquire a pilot, and in this case it's somebody with what sounds vaguely like an Australian accent who needs his original employer off his back so he can get his Harrier jump jet back.
Here's where the options come in. The player has a few options for reaching this goal-- steal the cash, bet on greasel fights, or just go in, shoot all the guards and the crime-boss employer, and take care of the debt that way. When betting on the fights, there are even neat things to do: get hired to go kill the reigning champion, and the fight is as good as won, plus you get a bonus from the trainer of the new winner.
The graphics are lovely, as we've come to expect from a current generation 3D game, although some objects have a surprisingly low polygon count-- barrels, for example, are a little blockier than one would expect. People look pretty good, though, and the locations are nicely detailed, with bump-mapping lending everything a sort of extra-squishy appearance. The Havok.com physics engine is put to good use, and there are lots of things to play with and move around and throw.
The interface, though, makes it all very annoying.
The game's interface, rather than following the pattern of the first game and giving the player a pop-up inventory screen and putting little displays in the corners of the screen, instead shows all status in curving semicircles arrayed around the center of the display. Unfortunately, these curves are WAY too small, and the end result is like looking down a little round tunnel at the game action. Sure, the area outside the semicircles is used, and stuff is rendered outside it, but the circle provides such a strong visual cue of a boundary that it's hard to train the subconscious to treat that space outside the circle as actual screen space. I played the game with an uncomfortable claustrophobic feeling, as if I were playing, say, Doom on a really slow system and had turned the screen size down to postcard-size in order to get it to render properly, or as if I were looking out of a pipe at everything in front of me.
I'm not sure how well I'll be able to get used to that. I could just turn the interface opacity way down, but that's kind of weird and distracting.
I'm about to try it again, and play it through as a total shooter and see how it works. That should be interesting, and I'll see if I get any more used to the tiny interface circle after a few more minutes of gameplay. For now, though, it's REALLY annoying.
Oh, and the demo doesn't save the screen settings, which is very annoying as well.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-22 06:17 pm (UTC)the very dark maps made the hole thing very disorenting.
I liked it
Date: 2003-11-24 04:52 pm (UTC)notice the HUD except when I was looking at it. I can't wait to play the full game
on the new machine I'm about to build for the express purpose of playing this game.
DX:IW isn't the only reason I'm building a new box, but it is the reason I'm doing it
now.
Also, you told me to remind you of the Austin port and chocolate tasting on Dec 5.
The latest newsletter isn't on their website, but the tasting is 5-7pm December 5th, in
both stores. I'm not sure which of the two I'll go to, probably Shrewsbury, as its bigger.
Re: I liked it
Date: 2003-11-24 07:14 pm (UTC)Hm. I found that I didn't consciously notice the HUD, but it was ALWAYS THERE.
I'm still going to go buy it the day it comes out.
What's your new machine? 8)
And thanks for the reminder. It's on my calendar. I may be heading there from work that day-- remind me (give me a call or something) if you want a ride or something. 8)
Re: I liked it
Date: 2003-11-24 11:32 pm (UTC)New machine is still in the planning stages. I'm going to order stuff so that its
waiting for me at my parents house when I go home for winter break. Plans as of now:
ASUS K8V
Athlon 64 3200+
1G PC3200
ATI Radeon 9800Pro
74G 10kRPM WD Raptor
I already have the video card, as I saw it at best buy yesterday for $300, which beats
the best price on the web of ~$350. The motherboard is still open to question. I haven't
found a good comparison of the Athlon64 boards on the web, and haven't had the time
to compare feature lists myself.
Cool, maybe I'll take you up on that ride. I have my own car, but company is definately
welcomed. Calling you would require having a phone number for you. The only contact
I have for you is your email address. Drop me a mail with further contact info or something.
Re: I liked it
Date: 2003-11-25 04:26 am (UTC)If it's Friday afternoon, you can find contact info very very easily.
Good deal on that video card...