Deus Ex: Invisible War

[mithriltabby]

I finished playing Deus Ex: Invisible War, the sequel to Deus Ex. The game isn’t quite as good as Deus Ex— the story felt a bit rushed in how it revealed the conspiracies involved, as if there were a chapter or two cut from the script— but it was still my style of first person shooter. I don’t have the reflexes for Doom and its ilk, but a game where you can sneak around with a silenced sniper rifle and hack into the computers controlling security cameras and weapons turrets is more my style. The constraints of telling a story set 20 years after the previous game probably made it difficult to include as much real-world conspiracy theory as the original game; the sequel doesn’t have the same level of Fortean delight as the original.

The game allows play at varying levels of morality: you can choose to knock out (rather than kill) nearly every opponent you run into, except for the guys in powered armor, who explode when defeated. (This is what you get for putting a concentrated enough power source to run powered armor into one spot.) I was surprised at the lack of feedback for the choices one makes in doing so, though; the character never builds up a reputation for what kind of trail of bodies are left behind, nor is there even a summary at the end of the game.

Of course, I have Fable to look forward to for getting feedback on the good/evil meter. I hear the game keeps track of the greatest distance you’ve ever kicked a chicken. :-)

Comments

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

I was following you right up till that last sentence... A game complex enough to *let* you kick a chicken and then calculate your morality for it? Does it allow for extenuating circumstances like "I just got stuck in a wall via misrendering for fifteen minutes"?

[mithriltabby]

Dunno. It’s a present from preciousjade and grandmoffdavid; the game causes your appearance to vary based on your deeds. Everyone I know who’s played the game can vouch for the character growing horns and so on and mentions the halo as a theoretical possibility... :-)