Deux Ex II

For those who played and enjoyed the first Deux Ex, the sequel is nothing like the first one. It's considerably dumbed down, evidently because they decided to release it for the consoles at the same time. The HUD is obtrusive (an ugly translucent thing that covers the middle of the screen.) The physics and lighting are nice, but they drain system performance alarmingly, and cause a trade-off with skin detail (Trespasser, anyone?) The sky looks like a star dotted smudge, and the NPC models look like they've all been blobbed with vaseline. The weapons are unimpressive popguns, the text font is too big (at all resolutions), and wherever you look it's almost as though you're TOO CLOSE to the object/wall/room. There's something seriously wrong with the perspective in this game. Also, you will frequently find items that are too heavy to pick up, but which literally FLY across the room when you so much as brush against them.

With regards to gameplay, the thing procedes like an old "Pick-A-Path" adventure book.
You will frequently come to a crossroads where you are literally asked what you want to do. An NPC might say: "well you can take 'em on with a frontal assault, cause a distraction while I attack, attempt to sneak around through this here ventilation duct, or
forget it altogether and go do something else." Supposedly there are 4 different endings to this game. Unfortunately, all the meat has been ripped out.

In summation, they've taken a great game (Deux Ex) and done a tremendous disservice to it by creating a seriously flawed sequel. I really need to start reading several reviews before I purchase these things. I've now been burned by Gothic 2 and KOTOR (another game suffering consolitis.)

That sounds horrible. Deus Ex was cool because it was something different--a "first person thinker" if you will.

OTOH, I've been enjoying KOTOR--the only symptom of "consolitis" I've found is kludgy controls (the inability to map your movement to the arrow keys is inexcusable).

KOTOR has the big fat HUD, the oversimplified RPG elements, the ugly "lock on" targetting. The latest in a wave of really bad design choices. I have a feeling that the much awaited Thief III is also going to be console-dumbed, and that's a real sad thing.

Totally agree that these titles are very dumbed down. I just started KOTOR and Deus Ex II. I hope I can even finished them! We need Call of Duty II..

I've been sporadically playing CoD through in single player at the highest difficulty level. I'm about 1/3 of the way through. Man is it tough without any health packs! :)

I was right about this game not getting much playing time online, but Squidly was spot on about CoD being a game that needs to be experienced. It is truly "immersive".

I play CoD online pretty much every day. It may only be a map or two, and sometimes I do it at lunch, but every day...online. It's fun.

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Originally posted by [AK]Squidly
I play CoD online pretty much every day. It may only be a map or two, and sometimes I do it at lunch, but every day...online. It's fun.

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I meant as far as [AK] playing. I check the CoD server from time to time and although it usually has people playing, I've never seen an [AK] on.

Deus Ex II is a big let down. I did the 'trial ware' download of it, and I have allready removed it off my system. I think the BUG eye syndrome was what freaked me out the most. And I was expecting big things from the game since they used the Unreal Warfare engine to assemble it. Oh well,,, on the other hand KOTOR is fantastic, you just need to get used to it. Once you get used to it, it's great. Give it a little more time before you give up on it.

Unreal 2 :XMP anyone.........

I've got the demo version of Unreal II XMP. Didn't know what I was doing half the time...just running around, sniping, hacking energy bases, and manning turrets.

i haven't been able to try deus ex 2 on my computer since i have a geforce2 card; deus ex 2 requires pixel shader 1.1.

i tried the demo on my friend's computer while i was at a lan party, and it seemed alright. yes, the hud is ugly, but this is unrealengine2 powered. practically anything can be modified by the user to what the user sees fit. by editing some lines in some system files, i made the hud more like the original's hud, which i absolutely loved to death.

i have read from warren spector's post mortem that a patch being worked on will fix most of the complaints people had regarding the game. as far as story goes, i know next to nothing, therefore i cannot comment on that.

you can't satisify everyone's expectations. every gamer has their own unique vision of what a sequel should be, and often i see they will so incredibly stay with their vision when the game is released. if it isn't like what they visioned, it surely must suck. i admit i act this way when you ask me about tribes 2. i feel this is the case with deus ex. i've read a lot of arguments saying how the game was made with xbox in mind from the start, as opposing to deus ex's original pc release then ps2 port. i argue, it's what the unreal engine is designed to do: provide ease of cross-platform development so then a game can be released on two seperate systems with minimal problems. xbox is a computer practically, and it's obviously showing its limits with deus ex. spector hated how xbox has only 64mb ram.

so i would not place the blame all on the developers of the game. blame the console's manufacturer, blame the publisher, blame yourself.

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Originally posted by [AK]Squidly
I have a feeling that the much awaited Thief III is also going to be console-dumbed, and that's a real sad thing.

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Gad, I hope not. Thief III is one I've been waiting a long time for. Thief 1 and 2 rocked and are on my all time favorite list.

The unreal engine has nothing to do with my chief gripes about the game - the fact that they've pulled out almost everything that made Deux Ex 1 enjoyable. It's a completely different game. There's not 1/10th the depth of the original game.

Everyone has a vision of what a sequel should be. Usually when your public enjoys a game so much that it sells a huge amount and is even voted "Game of the Year" by PC Gamer, you don't rip it's lungs out and replace it with something completely different.

It's like id following up Doom with Pro Tour Bowling.

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Originally posted by [AK]Squidly
It's like id following up Doom with Pro Tour Bowling.

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LOL, I tip my hat to you, that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while. I'm gonna have to remember that one. :)

I never saw the fascination with Deux Ex or Half Life. On both, I got partway in and fell asleep. I must be missing a requisite gene or something. To me, a good thinking shooter is one like Unreal Tournament or Tribes where the combat is complex but the maps are simple. DE and HL reversed that, with simple combat and complex mazes full of puzzles.

Thief was awesome, while Thief 2 was merely good. Gothic and Gothic 2 were the same way. Developer seldom manage to capture the mystery in a sequel. There's no way Thief 3 can live up to our hopes, but I'll buy it anyway.

Consoles are indeed dumbing down the gaming market while holding down the hardware. My rig is getting really old (1.4ghz, GEForce 3), but the PC games aren't outstripping it like they should. I pine for the days of DOS, when you couldn't even get a game to run unless you knew the difference between extended and expanded memory. Sigh.