Aegeri on 5/12/2003 at 02:13
No spoilers at all.
Well my friends import version arrived today (I don't know how he got it so fast though, but he has it) and so we played through it. I can't speak of performance issues, although it seems there are a few here and there even on an X-Box. For the most part it ran fine and it looks fairly nice. Clearly things like the large font that annoyed me so much in the PC version were design decisions for a console...but anyway.
Overall the game is actually quite good, that is depending on your perspective. You cannot walk silently (or crouch silently) without a specific biomod I believe (maybe surface matters?). This makes sneaking up on people rather difficult, adding to this frustration is also that it doesn't seem you can knock people out with one hit without strength biomods. Finally without a light gauge (or similar) you cannot tell exactly if enemies can see you or not, though they are so incredibly braindead you'll rarely find yourself in much worry.
The plot is, not really to my surprise, pretty damn good. There is also plenty of stuff to do aside from the main storyline too, but it just doesn't seem like the same amount as Deus Ex. Speaking of that, I've found extra stuff in the forms of books and the like to read as I've moved through. It makes me wonder if reviewers really paid that much attention, because these things ARE there. Then again, maybe these disappear later on.
To be perfectly honest, I don't really know what to say. Although it's a decent game on its own, as a sequel I felt continually let down by numerous flaws. Things like the lack of a skill system, many silly decisions, the stealth aspect being reduced to finding the nearest vent and the unified ammo (basically we're never going to run out of ammo I think) just let the game down. Does this mean it isn't a good game? If you never played Deus Ex this is a must have game and will entertain you for ages. If you can excuse its many flaws compared to the first game, I would say buy it. But for the hardcore Deus Ex fan, or a PC user, I would skip it myself.
As for me, I'll just play the X-Box version every so often when I can get to my friends house. I suggest if you own a PC only, you get a similar friend and don't bother with the PC version. It plays extremely well, with really no major interface complaints on a console.
[I have spent 4 hours on the game]
NoOne on 5/12/2003 at 08:27
Quote:
To be perfectly honest, I don't really know what to say. Although it's a decent game on its own, as a sequel I felt continually let down by numerous flaws. Things like the lack of a skill system, many silly decisions, the stealth aspect being reduced to finding the nearest vent and the unified ammo (basically we're never going to run out of ammo I think) just let the game down. Does this mean it isn't a good game? If you never played Deus Ex this is a must have game and will entertain you for ages. If you can excuse its many flaws compared to the first game, I would say buy it. But for the hardcore Deus Ex fan, or a PC user, I would skip it myself.
WORD!
have nothing more to say. that paragraph just described dx:iw pretty damn well...
-Londiste
...i'll never grow up!
madphilb on 5/12/2003 at 20:09
I've been playing the XBox version quite a bit since it came out Wednesday (in fact, I've played it far more than I should have).
I was (still am) a big fan of the original Deus Ex. The style was a merger of RPG, Adventure, and FPS. DX2 isn't as much of all those things as the last one, get over it.
The stealth system is fairly well intact, at least as much as in the original... on the XBox you have to remember it's an analog stick and you need to treat it that way! If you push the stick all the way you will "crouch run" which made a lot of noise in the last one. You also have to be aware of the surface you're on, etc.
I've yet to get a 1-shot hit to take down anyone with the Stun Prod yet, but I may be using it wrong... I do miss this from the first one.
If you think you'll not run out of ammo ever, wait till you get to the bigger guns (the SMG eats through it like crazy)... and BTW, I've found a book that talks about the unified ammo and what it is.... it's exactly what I thought it was... it's nanotech based (which is why you can use it for flamethrowers, pistols, etc).
Once I got over the fact that this wasn't the same as the last game and started playing.... it became fun. It's got a killer story like the last time, and it's been fun to see how the old game fits into the new one.
The down-side is that the game is drastically scaled back from the size of the original.... not in game play time, but in physical size of maps/levels. This I think is both a design limitation as well as a hardware one (more polys and higher-res textures take up all tha textra memory). Most newer games suffer from this to a point.
The fact is I like many of the changes.... for instance:
The "Aggressive Defense Drone" biomod... in the original game you had to turn this on... activate it (sucking down energy the whole time).... they made it a "passive" biomod in this game (or so it says). The difference is that it's now worth getting IMHO. Even with the keyboard I would have never used it, once the rocket or grenade was on it's way to me I didn't have enough time to turn it on, and if I turned it on before hand I'd have to keep using engergy cells to keep from running out of bioenergy.
I wasn't sure if I liked the fact that passwords and keycodes are automatic, but after playing for a while I find that I really do like them. I can't count how many times I had to pull up the data screens in the original trying to remember some of those crazy logins and such, here it's automatic (and prevents people from cheating by just punching in a code that they wouldn't normally know if it wheren't for the FAQ or previous play through the game).
I do like some of the old things though.... the old security terminals where cool (the flip-down panel), the new one is un-impressive.
It's a good game.... not perfect... but good... and different.
PHIL
