Deus Ex: Invisible War is player agency done right

[Not So Serious]

It terms of gameplay I found it even jankier than OG, coupled with less interesting environments and less combat options, and it was a nightmare getting it to run on PC

But setting the gameplay aside, it was the story, characters, and player agency that grabbed me and kept me playing.
My hot take is that Invisible War has a better story than OG.

The OG may have allowed you to approach levels however you wanted, but it was still an incredibly linear game. JC Denton made no decisions, he just dumbly went along with whatever the latest voice in his ear told him to do.
The player in OG is given no choices that have real consequences. And without consequences, choices are meaningless.

Then head into Deus Ex: Invisible War.
Starting right out the gate, right after escaping from the first mission, Alex is immediately given free range to play the sides in the titular war.
At least when I was playing her, Alex was a conniving backstabbing double-triple-quadruple agent whose loyalties switched based on whoever most benefited her to side with at that particular moment.

The best example I can give of this is an anecdote:
Not long after breaking my leash and being able to explore the first area, I found a night club. In it, the owner asked me to commit some crimes, in exchange I'd be allowed into the VIP lounge. Elsewhere in the club, there's also a police informant who will pay you money to report what goes on in the VIP lounge. So I do the crime, get the VIP access, and in there meet another criminal organization called the Omar that says "hey, we'll give you a discount for our illegal augmentations if you steal something from the club owner."
So I did crime for the club owner for cash, then betrayed the club to the Omar for augmentations, and then betrayed the Omar to the police for more cash.
And you know who told me to do all that? Nobody, that was just something I came up with and the game let me do.

THAT is player agency done right!
And it was a side-quest! In the main quest, you basically get the option to backstab the faction you're working with every single mission!
My Alex had basically 0 loyalty, and was using the main factions just as much as they were using her.
And it was amazing that the game lets you do this, and face the consequences of this behavior in the final mission. At which point I betrayed literally everybody, and accidentally ushered in a posthumanist apocalypse.

It was especially cathartic after playing OG Deus Ex, where JC gets led around the nose by everybody with his phone number and dumbly going along with whatever the latest voice in his head told him to do.
Even if you choose to remain loyal to a faction, the option being there makes the choice to stay loyal more significant. Because you could have betrayed them, but chose not to.

As JC, you're constantly getting tricked.
As Alex, you can be the trickster.
This is my call to action for folks to stop hating Invisible War on reputation alone without having played it themselves. Give it a chance! (Assuming you can get the garbage PC Port to run)

[He Who Has No Name]

Gotta disagree.

The biggest let down of IW was that because they had to make EVERY mission branch workable, they couldn't add any kind of real staying power to them. You can basically just dog back on any faction and go an entirely different way, *every level*. Sometimes even in the SAME level.

More than that, DX sold its choices with weight and consequence. The writing in IW fell far short of that. All the factions had kind of a "join us, if you want, I guess. And do this mission if you feel like it. Whatever." feel to them, and that never really improved even late in the game when the Templars started doing their thing in the open (and frankly, they were the least convincing bad guys in the first two games, which more than a few to choose from).

IW isn't a bad game. It's just not a particularly good Deus Ex, which is a high bar to clear just to get started.

[Cobra Commander]

I used a strategy guide to play, and I agree with the notion that this game gives the player freedom to choose which factions to work for but if you want to see everything, you have to complete all the objectives which for me meant doing things I didn't want to, such as destroying the greenhouse in Cairo.

I can't really compare it to the first though since I didn't finish it (the first game).

[意味のない人生]

Publicado originalmente por Not So Serious:

JC Denton made no decisions, he just dumbly went along with whatever the latest voice in his ear told him to do.
The player in OG is given no choices that have real consequences. And without consequences, choices are meaningless.

IIRC, the original Deus Ex had you make some big choices near the end of the game. Stuff that would change the fate of humanity and all that. There's a real decision to be made there, and it does have consequences enough to drastically change the ending of the game.

[Not So Serious]

Publicado originalmente por UberNova津波:

Publicado originalmente por Not So Serious:

JC Denton made no decisions, he just dumbly went along with whatever the latest voice in his ear told him to do.
The player in OG is given no choices that have real consequences. And without consequences, choices are meaningless.

IIRC, the original Deus Ex had you make some big choices near the end of the game. Stuff that would change the fate of humanity and all that. There's a real decision to be made there, and it does have consequences enough to drastically change the ending of the game.

You make one choice on the last 20 minutes of the game.

It's basically Human Revolution's heavily criticized "4 buttons" approach, but with those buttons expanded into objectives.

[Unseen]

I'm actually amazed how much of a downgrade Desu is from IW since I beat this on xbox some years ago. Trying to beat deus before I start on this again. Its funny how this is a game I'd have fun playing multiple times, but deus is a game I can barely get through once. Yet all the pc deus fans scream its inferior and drop it in deep red negatives.

My issue with deus 1 is its a bland and typical story. It feels like guberment bad, conspiracy, 2 brothers, go play pool (pool effects are nice love hitting the balls) but that's how boring the first game gets. That you wander around wondering what to do just to give in to whatever options and go with the flow since it gets dull. And you just would like to get it over with, get locked in a prison and have to cheese your way out somehow, either sneaking around or unrealistically killing and destroying everything in your way while save scumming.

It almost feels like one of those, romantic nostalgia games that people hyped more than it should of been. Just like half life.

[Lusians]

Rly DX only has choices in last 20 min? Wath a nice way of you addmiting you baraly played it at all.
DX is full of choices that affect both narative (not in ground breaking ways I addmit but they do) and your game play.
Play it like CoD? you get les points & quatermaster at UNATCO wil withold suplies if you barg about it, depending on wath you do Paul can die.
Was too lazy with hacking? Congrats now you need to face Navaro & Gunther in battle insted of using their kill phrases.
Didnt pay attention at certain points? Your pilot dies. There are more but these are firts ones that comes to mind.

Its Invisible war that is more limited & linear > maps are smaler, there are less things to do in them, all enemies till templar power armor tropers are joke (and they are threat only due rocket spam & suicide explosion).
Storys pacing flops all over place & protag is even more gulibe than wath JC was never mind your ability to flip flop from one side to another kills any sense of investment you might have, lack of consequences to your actions dosent help either.
And then thers is all that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ loading.
So no Invisible war is not superior to Deus ex, I would say its equal to The Fall.

[He Who Has No Name]

Publicado originalmente por Unseen:

My issue with deus 1 is its a bland and typical story. It feels like guberment bad, conspiracy, 2 brothers, go play pool (pool effects are nice love hitting the balls) but that's how boring the first game gets. That you wander around wondering what to do just to give in to whatever options and go with the flow since it gets dull.

It almost feels like one of those, romantic nostalgia games that people hyped more than it should of been. Just like half life.

The world was a very different place 25 years ago and the story was nothing close to bland back then.

What basically happened is that a bunch of things shown as unnervingly-plausible conspiracy theories (some of which were based on real conspiracy theories) ended up actually happening.

So when you're playing it 25 years later (and I'm taking a safe bet that you're young enough you were probably just about still in diapers when the game came out)... the story doesn't have that edge for you anymore because you literally grew up in something too close to the the world it warned about.

[matxbox360]

there is only so much contrarianism one can do before it stops being bait and becomes desperation, calling DXIW better than DX is like saying thief:deadly shadows is better than thief 2: the metal age

especially because both games are consolified garbage, storytelling in IW is also terrible as someone pointed out, all of the factions seem to fear you to a point of asking you to join them, even the templars and the only conspiracy that is worth pointing out is the controlled opposition angle from chad and nicolette as warring faction leaders, then there is the omar which is the best faction since they only care about business.

[Jet]

Out of both games, I had more fun in this one than I did the original. I liked the addition of unique weapons in this game. It gave more options for me on how I would approach certain situations in terms of combat. I could chill in the shadows with invisibility while causing havoc with the hellfire boltcaster and watch NPCs catch fire and spread it to other NPCs. Couldn't do that in the first game. The rocket launcher was one of the coolest weapons in the game as well. Had a lot of fun causing hell with it.

The story could've been better and they could've added more things like being able to revisit certain areas, expand upon said areas, and given us more side quests to do. I wanted to do more with the Omar than just be their lackey.