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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
| Deus Ex: Invisible War demo out |
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Looks like the demo is out, but so far you can get it at Fileplanet only:
http://www.fileplanet.com
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Jaz |
Fri Nov 21, 2003 9:28 pm |
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MarcusW
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Mar 2003
Posts: 10
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Woo hoo! Downloading as I type this. 224MB. Should have it in an hour or so. |
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Sat Nov 22, 2003 6:22 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
I probably should wait to spend more time with the demo before posting this...but my first impression of the demo is a little disappointing. Nothing important if the gameplay is good but...
The graphics aren't as good as I expected; textures aren't great (although it's been suggested they might have been compressed to save space in the demo), character models are a little blocky and the character style seems less lifelike and a little...cartoonish.
The control feels odd - the mouse movement doesn't quite feel linear even though I've played with the sensitivity. Just stuffing around, I shot at the first guy I saw at the start who came running and got stuck trying to run through the wire fence to get me.
My first instinct is to blame the Xbox, although that may be unfair.
Apologies for the negative post - I'm rather tired...and perhaps my expectations were too high, although I don't normally do that.
So, who's had a look at it? What do you think?
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Sat Nov 22, 2003 7:09 am |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
I'm not playing the demo yet because I botched the first download, but actually, I expect what you said - because it was not different in DX1. When I saw DX for the first time, I thought, 'Vhoa, why did you butcher the Unreal engine? You know, people managed to make good-looking games from that one! Why didn't you?' Character models were chunky - they might as well have used the Dark Engine - and animations were quite choppy. But then I got caught in the story and gameplay, and visuals weren't as interesting for me anymore.
Pretty late in the game they had one nice scene were a cyborg was patrolling a shiny, mirror-surface floor. Since the cyborg's chunky-and choppiness looked just right and natural, this took me as extremely atmospheric.
I've seen the XBox version of DX:IW, so I'll tell you what I thought of the PC demo as soon as the dl is done.
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Jaz |
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Sat Nov 22, 2003 9:17 am |
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Rendelius
Critical Error
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
Location: Austria |
Well, wasn't too pleased either. I expected more eyecandy from the screenshots and was REALLY disappointed by the mouse movement. Maybe the story will be what makes this game worthwhile, but technically, it's only so so.
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Rendelius
former Senior Editor RPGDot
now at http://www.theastronomers.com |
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Sat Nov 22, 2003 9:30 am |
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MarcusW
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Mar 2003
Posts: 10
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Well, just played about half an hour's worth. I haven't really had a chance to judge the gameplay per se, but here are a few technical/interface observations...
First, some annoyances:
The HUD is very distracting. If the menus were farther out to the edges of the screen it might be OK, but they're about a quarter of the way in, which blocks my view. On the other hand, the icons for weapons/items are so translucent I have a hard time telling a shotgun from a knife. Not to mention it's difficult to even see what item is actually activated.
Menus/HUD are hard to navigate. I liked having everything available through F1 in DX1. In DX2, weapons and items are in boxes arranged in a semi-circle along the left side, and accessed via the mouse wheel. I guess that's convenient, but in order to activate an item, you have to select it, then RIGHT-click, which seems like an extra step.
Bio-mods are along the right wedge and apparently can only be activated during play by using 6/3 on the num pad to cycle through them, then clicking the right mouse button, which means you need three hands if you're in the middle of a fight and need to activate something. You can also access and activate them through a popup menu (B key), which pauses the action, but that's inconvenient. There may be a way to map certain ones to F keys, but it looks like that may be disabled in the demo. I haven't really explored that yet.
Speaking of bio-mods, the trusty light is available (you'll definitely need it), but forward illumination is almost non-existant for some reason. Off to the sides it's bright as hell. I had a run-in with some greasels down in a sewer, and climbed back up into the street to take them out from above. With the light on, and shining down into the sewer (no more than five feet below me), I couldn't see a damned thing. Weird.
In-game text (such as reading data cubes and books) is HUGE and requires you to page through them with up/down buttons (no scroll). Obviously a side effect of making it console-compatible. Damn.
I do agree with one of the others about the mouse movement. While it's INCREDIBLY sensitive (I've got mouse sensitivity set to 10 out of 100), it seems to lag behind a bit. Hard to describe. But that may be related to my slower system being taxed to the limit.
Some demo-specific annoyances:
Saving your game seems to reset any custom keyboard mapping back to default. I prefer to have the left control key set as crouch, and had to reset it every time I saved. Maybe it's just that one. I don't know.
Quitting the game does not set my display settings back the way they're supposed to be. My normal desktop resolution is 1280 X 960. After running the game at 1024 X 768, I got back to my desktop to find it all "squished" on the sides. Turns out it set my refresh rate to Default, when it had been set to Optimum.
Performance:
First off, here's what I've got:
AMD Thunderbird 1.4
512 DDR 266FSB
Geforce3 64MB
Windows 98SE
So you can see, I ain't got much to brag about.
Surprisingly, the game runs fairly smoothly, and looks pretty darned good. At 1024 X 768, and all other settings at the defaults, I'd guess I'm getting around 25FPS, but it definitely slips below that at times, which is a problem. Not great, but I haven't played with the graphic settings at all yet to see if I can get more out of it. Also be aware that I haven't seen too much action yet, so I'm sure it'll get much worse. Changing to 800 X 600 didn't seem to make much difference.
That's it for now. Got to play a little more before I come to a conclusion about gameplay. |
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Sat Nov 22, 2003 10:31 am |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
Well, the demo and my computer don't seem to like each other - even though my drivers/DirectX are the latest, it just will not run. The best I managed to do was get to see the menu, but the moment I tried to change a setting, it was like swish, zip, dead.
I read several accounts of people not liking it for gameplay reasons (if we disregard graphics). But I'd loved to see it with my own eyes.
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Jaz |
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Sat Nov 22, 2003 11:33 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
quote:
Originally posted by MarcusW
I do agree with one of the others about the mouse movement. While it's INCREDIBLY sensitive (I've got mouse sensitivity set to 10 out of 100), it seems to lag behind a bit. Hard to describe. But that may be related to my slower system being taxed to the limit.
I have the same thing...mouse was *way* too sensitive so I've turned it down to 20 but it just feels funny...some slight lag or something. It's not my system being underpowered (P2 2.8/1Gb RAM/Radeon 9700 Pro) and people are complaining about it all over the net.
Fingers crossed the story, factions and so on are worth it.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Sat Nov 22, 2003 11:55 am |
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Ariel
Harmonious Angel
Joined: 21 Jul 2001
Posts: 432
Location: Germany |
| Re: Deus Ex: Invisible War demo out |
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
Looks like the demo is out, but so far you can get it at Fileplanet only:
http://www.fileplanet.com
Two very fast mirrors at deusex-online.com. No stupid registration required.
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“Through the sounds of falling rain, through the clouds of bitter times
I see the pure grace of your smile, in dreams of the warmth in your eyes” - Tim North |
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Mon Nov 24, 2003 9:05 am |
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goshuto
Wanderer
Joined: 29 May 2002
Posts: 1142
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Has anyone managed to finish the demo so far? Is it really as "console'd" as everybody's saying?
I can't play it yet because of my video card, but all this complaining around the net is making me nervous...
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"Tree stuck in cat. Firemen baffled."--Simcity 3K
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."--Soren Aabye Kierkegaard |
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Tue Nov 25, 2003 3:32 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
I've finished the demo although I haven't replayed it or tried to do things different ways. I am disappointed but I'll try to be moderate.
I'm disappointed with the interface, graphics and art direction but these are all issues I can ignore or accept despite not suiting my taste. There's little (if any?) attempt to modify some console attributes such as huge text but I can live with that.
The biggest problem is the simplification of many things. I've read every Warren Spector / Harvey Smith interview (I think) and they argue that designing for the Xbox does not necessarily mean "dumbing down". Perhaps. However, Harvey's design choices (even if it wasn't because of the Xbox) seems dumbed down to me.
One ammo type removes any need to watch weapons and choose different types for most situations. Even the flamethrower uses the same generic single ammo type. In DX, if you knew a confrontation was coming up you had to decide between the underpowered pistol with heaps of ammo or the better-suited machine gun that would probably run out half way through the gunfight. Doesn't really matter any more.
It can take 5 or 6 direct headshots to take someone down, so careful headshots for a "semi stealthy" approach are out. I've seen internet comments that locational damage is in but I didn't see any sign of it. This was my favourite method of play - not a true sneaker who avoided combat but being cautious and taking enemies down with no fuss where possible.
No leaning. No reloading.
Lockpicks and multitools are the one thing so that's one less skill division.
With no skills and positions for only 6 Biomods (IIRC) I'm dubious about the character development.
Basically, I can't see many reasons not to treat it as a standard shooter and blast everything.
However...it's impossible to judge the quality of the story and the strength of the faction system from the demo. There are some points in the demo that can be approached in different ways - I just think they're diluted from DX.
Personally, this was my number one game choice for my Christmas holidays. At this point I'm not sure if I'll buy it not. I'll wait to hear that the story really has some depth and think about it then.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Tue Nov 25, 2003 11:09 pm |
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goshuto
Wanderer
Joined: 29 May 2002
Posts: 1142
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Thanks for the answer, Dhruin. (you do write excellent mini-reviews, did you know that?)
Oh, well.  There's still hope for Thief 3, I suppose.
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"Tree stuck in cat. Firemen baffled."--Simcity 3K
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."--Soren Aabye Kierkegaard |
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Tue Nov 25, 2003 11:42 pm |
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Ariel
Harmonious Angel
Joined: 21 Jul 2001
Posts: 432
Location: Germany |
quote:
Originally posted by Dhruin
I'm disappointed with the interface, graphics and art direction but these are all issues I can ignore or accept despite not suiting my taste.
Same here, although I couldn't ignore the "laggy" mouse movement. Made it really hard to aim at even the tiniest critters (those slime ball throwers) effectively. Interestingly enough, the PC version of Halo has a similar problem, i.e. quirky mouse control, which makes one wonder how or why turning around in 3D shooters on consoles is so different.
From my small adventure I can only say that I didn't like:
- mouse movement (laggy)
- obnoxious, distracting HUD
- interface in general (menu swapping from right to left etc., no consistent back buttons, buggy keyboard shortcuts)
- huge text
- blurry, cartoonized characters, they obviously make everything look less real
Judging just by that it's not "Deus Ex" anymore, in my opinion. However, if the story turns out to be good and at least some of the points mentioned above will be fixed in the final game, I'm still optimistic about the game.
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“Through the sounds of falling rain, through the clouds of bitter times
I see the pure grace of your smile, in dreams of the warmth in your eyes” - Tim North |
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Tue Nov 25, 2003 11:44 pm |
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