A couple of gaming sites are posting this “new” Deus Ex artwork. Which, er, we first posted in April. Get ready – we’re going to be smug.
C&VG imply in some way that PC Zone ed Will Porter is involved, which is excellent as we know him well enough to mock him publically. (Max Console got pretty excited too, calling it the “first ever”, which is technically true).
I mean, we all make mistakes (for instance, at RPS, every day), but come on guys, the Deviant Art page with the picture states it was posted on 21st May! (Which makes our posting it in April all the more impressive, donchathink?)
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Deus Ex was a gem in the rough.
Deus Ex: Invisible War was where a great game went to die.
There’s nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there? :)
Hell yeah. It’s such a rush.
I would love to be your chamber boy.
@ Janto.
Are you really describing a proper rpg? The skill advancements system you describe sounds like the same kind of ability / item system of alot of action / adventure games. Think Zelda OoT, you can always swim on surface. Silver fin grants diving to a certain depth, gold fin to greater depths, iron boots – walk on riverbed, blue tunic – infinite air.
I agree though that that system works best, but that because I hate level grinding with a passion.
just read SBS’s comment – Why couldnt console players understand complicated stats and options? Is it genetic? I find rpg stats are usually a poor representation of skills and a throw back from pen and paper rpgs where there could be no visual representation of them. The idea of a marksman stat determining size of crosshair seems a sensible way to avoid obviously gimping a player’s skill whilst providing a developable skill / reward mechanic.
Kris: I find this system neat, however I see no way of somehow working it into a proper RPG. The “problem” is that even though this of course removes the level grind, as you get the items at fixed points of the story, it would open up the game to a backtracking mechanic as seen in the Zelda titles, Metroid, and the later Castlevanias(Which has a small amount of RPG elements, but none of those making it any less action-adventurish, they are just not that meaningful) – You basically have the whole game world at your disposal right from the start and the more items and abilities you get, the more you can explore it.
In Deus Ex you got the xp at fixed points while you went through the fairly linear objective-after-objective gameplay of the game, allowing you to spend the points you acquired in the last mission how YOU want to, and thus giving you the freedom of choice on how to tackle the next mission. This works incredibly well and is the exact point of the game as I understand it.
I would love for DX3 to be in the same vein as the first title, or even more RPG-ish. Persuasion and Intimidation feats in Deus Ex? Yes please. Like in that other game I tend to mention a lot lately.
NOLF2 does this, as does DX1 & DX:IW. However, DX1 does it to an extreme. It takes 15-20 seconds for the Sniper Rifle crosshair to shrink to a usable radius with 1 point, which is far too long.
Also, every Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Call of Duty, etc. game does this based on your movement, but returns to a usable radius independent of some “stat” (although R6/GR does use if you’ve been injured)
I actually posted this particular comment you are now reading 6 months ago on another website.
JC & PAUL WERE BLACK.
The problem with IW was that it was made for crazy racists, and you’d have to be racist to like it. It was called ‘invisible war’ because they wished my black Denton brothers were invisible so they wouldn’t ruin their perfect crazy racist white world.
Interesting thing on Borderlands, and how it handles character progression over on Eurogamer where they mention briefly that character’s develop skills for specific weapons, such as better recoil compensation and damage over range for shotguns.
I’m skeptical about the argument that treating skills as unlocking new capacities rather than incremental improvements on the same ability is somehow ‘non-rpg’, although the points about it being a potential backtracking mechanic are valid, it depends on the rhythm and mechanic through which skills and gear is acquired. If it’s a case that the equipment is readily available, perhaps from a shop or equipment locker, but you just can’t use it until you put points into it, then its far more a matter of tactical choice.
To give a further example, take a social skill very relevant to Deus Ex type games such as Intimidation, increasing ranks unlocks different dialog options and opens up ways of scaring enemies, say from being able to taunt them to stay back at the first rank, to negotiating for time and to degrade their stats through persuasion, to being able to attempt to force them to surrender or drop weapons at a higher rank.
cRPGs need to start incorporating more social options into their combat mechanics to deliver on their roleplay-ness, stuff like shooting someone to make them talk or scare their friends, or, vice-versa, intimidating someone you’ve just hurt in a fight.
and yes JC and Paul were black.
Invisible War assessment:
*kidneythieves love*
*everything else hate*
I thought they were ginger?
They certainly were not.