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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| Deus Ex: Invisible War Preview @ UGO |
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UGO have posted a <a href="http://www.ugo.com/channels/games/features/ati_pcgames/deusex_invisiblewar/" target="_blank">preview</a> of Deus Ex: Invisible War. It appears to be a hands-on preview and covers a fair bit of territory. Here's a snip:
<br><blockquote><em>So while Deus Ex: Invisible War might be simplifying its character-development system a tad, you're still going to find plenty of the open-ended gameplay and brilliant storyline that made the first game so great. But there will be one more notable change. While the graphics of the first game weren't exactly state of the art, Invisible War will look like a snow cone in the Sahara. In a word: Gorgeous. My first look at the character models was enough to convince me that we are closer than ever to seeing The Spirits Within-quality graphics in games. The facial animations, from the creases in the brow to the moving eyelids, lips and nostrils, are a sight to behold. Beloved characters from the first game, like Tracer Tong, return (showing noticeable age), and look simply lifelike. Their movements, as well, are as natural as I've seen in a game, whether it's a guard patrolling an alleyway or a mech scanning an area. Where the first game was simply passable, graphics-wise, Invisible War sets a new bar, perhaps only threatened by the likes of Half Life 2 and Doom 3.</em></blockquote> |
Tue Aug 05, 2003 12:32 pm |
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dagoo77
Guest
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I don't believe they are getting rid of they exp/skill aspect of character development. One of the best things about the orignal was exploring and experimenting in each level to get exp. If you didnt want to then you missed out on some points but could still play the game.
It would appear they are pandering to an action/Xbox mentality. Why make one of the most innovative rpgs into a game that comes closer and closer to a platformer with power pickups.
This really disappoints me, I was really looking forward to this sequel. While Im sure it will still be a good game, with high production values, it doesnt sound like the game I was expecting/hoping for. |
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Tue Aug 05, 2003 12:39 pm |
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Barghest
Head Merchant
Joined: 23 May 2003
Posts: 70
Location: How in hell do I know? |
I think if they are concentrating more on the storyline, and not on the pseudo-RPG side, then it will be a good move. The RPG side was NOT realistic...!
I DEMAND a good story!
A REALLY GOOD STORY...
NOW! |
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Tue Aug 05, 2003 6:23 pm |
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green |
They are just changing the way the system works, they arent removing it completely. It will now concentrate more on the nano upgrades rather than experience/skills.
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IMHO my opinion is humble |
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Tue Aug 05, 2003 6:46 pm |
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Ariel
Harmonious Angel
Joined: 21 Jul 2001
Posts: 432
Location: Germany |
No skills, just upgrades? Duh... and the third Deus Ex (if there is going to be one) will probably focus only on the combat aspect of the game, because too many players didn't find the upgrades. 
I think it's a step backwards, the roleplaying aspect was what made Deus Ex really stand out as opposed to other first person shooters that featured an interesting, but mostly linear story.
I also wonder if they can pull off as varied gameplay mechanics as in the prequel, like sneaking/hacking, bad-ass Duke Nukem style, sharpshooter etc., without any skills. If they can do that, fine, then I wouldn't mind so much. Otherwise . . .
_________________
“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 Aug 05, 2003 6:52 pm |
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Guest
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> If they can do that, fine, then I wouldn't mind so much.
The team has repeatedly said this is exactly what they're trying to do. I recall an interview where Harvey Smith laid out the problems with the skill system -- mainly, that having two interrelated upgrade paths (the skills and the bio-mods) was inelegant and less than transparent, and that the idea of a PnP style skill system doesn't integrate very well into the kind of game they're making. Accumulating abstract experience points and spending them to improve arbitrarily ranked skills over the course of a few hours of in-game time detracts from immersion, goes the argument, and if you can roll the same functionality (allowing the player to define their experience and favored playstyles) through an in-game explanation, it's better to do that than retain the metagaming-reliant skills system. Same design goals, more elegant tool, is basically the point of it. |
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Tue Aug 05, 2003 7:56 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Hmm...that wording is deliberately negative, I think, but "arbitrary" skills systems have been in RPGs for many years because they're generally fun.
This is from a Gamespy Harvey Smith interview...
quote:
In the process of getting the game done, we came up with this maxim ... Less is ... No, not less is more ... "Lesser granularity." Some role-playing games are like "Our game is better, because our skills go from 1 to 100!" So you can have a dexterity of 97 or a dexterity of 96. And what's the difference? As a player I can't tell. That's a high degree of granularity. Maybe less granularity is better. Maybe a dexterity of 1 to 5 is even better, because the difference between 1 and 5 is huge. I can tell. I can even feel the difference between 2 and 3, it's drastic.
So there's a time to apply that concept. And we thought, "This is the way, lesser granularity, go go go!" And at a certain point through the game, we had reduced all the power-ups and all the tiers of powers and things like that down to a minimal set. And it suddenly felt like we didn't have enough little carrots to give out. We suddenly realized ... "Like, wow, sometimes, more granularity is better." And so we hacked on at the end a system called weapon mods, where we could give out these little things, and you add it to a weapon and it adds ten percent damage, and you can get five of them. So then there's multiple kinds so all of a sudden there's 20 little tiny carrots that we give out and you can find and add to any given weapon. And you have multiple weapons so you want to find even more, you know? So we realized all of a sudden that there were times for lesser granularity and times for greater granularity.
Seems to me after paring things down in the pursuit of a philisophical concept they then added some extra "arbitrary" skills (or equivalent) to make it fun. Deus Ex was fun with two upgrade paths and so was System Shock 2 etc. Anyway, like Arhu as long as I can still effectively create different characters with different paths, that's fine. |
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Wed Aug 06, 2003 12:42 am |
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