Jack Sheppard on 10/8/2009 at 21:16
There is an article at Gamasutra about replaying Deus Ex: Invisible War
(
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24752)
( I haven't actually read it as I still haven't played the game and want to try and avoid too many spoilers for when I eventually do...)
Papy on 11/8/2009 at 04:32
Quote Posted by Jack Sheppard
I haven't actually read it
You don't miss anything. The author is completely clueless and that article has no interest at all. Most people who post here could do better.
clearing on 11/8/2009 at 05:26
Nice. Thanks for the link.
rachel on 11/8/2009 at 08:33
I didn't think the piece was that bad. For an analysis it doesn't go very far, that's for sure, but he makes some pretty good points.
ZylonBane on 11/8/2009 at 22:30
Quote Posted by Gamasutra
It's worth pointing out that I still think Invisible War is a masterful game, mechanistically near-perfect, and certainly one of my favourites of the past decade.
Yeah, this guy is ten tons of fail.
But hey... Alexander Brandon actually posted in the comments!
heywood on 12/8/2009 at 02:30
I thought Brandon's comment was a bit strange. He said the mantra on IW was "immersive simulation", but it sure seems they tried to make IW less of a sim than DX.
Denby has trouble communicating his points, but I think he's right about the level design. The world in IW just feels too damn small, too tightly focused, too balanced, too well laid out just for the player's benefit. It feels like being stuck in a menagerie sometimes. And I just didn't have the same sense of curiosity or connection to the world or satisfaction of discovery like I did in DX.
Papy on 12/8/2009 at 03:41
Quote Posted by heywood
Denby has trouble communicating his points, but I think he's right about the level design. The world in IW just feels too damn small
I'm puzzled... Here's what the article said : "It's not got anything to do with the size of the hubs".
heywood on 12/8/2009 at 04:19
He seems to have trouble pinning down what bothers him about the level design (or the world design as he calls it). But I do agree with his main point that the level design is the biggest problem with immersion in IW.
I think level size has something to do with it, but not everything to do with it. One of the downsides of the small levels is that they tried to pack as much for the player to do as possible in the limited space. So you definitely get the sense that the levels were designed as the player's sandbox, with alternate routes being a little too obvious and everything feeling like it's there for the player's benefit.
DDL on 12/8/2009 at 11:38
Plus the way the engine is designed (lots of pre-modelled mesh-based stuff, less raw geometry) meant that EVERY vent shaft cover looked identical (hell: every vent had an identical set of fans inside), all the doors had identical keypads/switches....which accentuated the feeling Heywood mentions. Original DX was a lot more 'make it out of BSP'-based, so there was greater room for freedom of an individual mapper's expression.
Regarding the music, I think the idea Alex Brandon was aiming for was to make the experience much more seamless, so the music kinda faded into the background and hightened the experience, rather than simply "accompanying it", plus to smooth the combat/convo/ambient transitions better (no more 'hiding till the combat music stops' exploits).
ZylonBane on 12/8/2009 at 12:39
Quote Posted by DDL
Plus the way the engine is designed (lots of pre-modelled mesh-based stuff, less raw geometry) meant that EVERY vent shaft cover looked identical (hell: every vent had an identical set of fans inside), all the doors had identical keypads/switches....which accentuated the feeling Heywood mentions. Original DX was a lot more 'make it out of BSP'-based, so there was greater room for freedom of an individual mapper's expression.
Except that, weren't all the vent covers/keypads/etc made out of pre-modeled objects in the original DX as well? Sounds like the problem here is that IW didn't have a sufficent variety of props.
