Invisible War. The controversial sequel to Deus Ex. The PC port ran like shit on the best PCs, but I have Macs. Xbox might be the best way to play it but it’s still gonna suck. The game itself was good but the tech was complete trash. Literal downgrade in every way from the first one. And yet it was still a gem.
Honestly you’re not missing much. There are good things in Invisible War, but the software was just bad.
The problem with Deus Ex was, they made a great computer game, but it could not run on Xbox and they had to struggle to get it on PS2. They had to basically remake the thing. They developed Invisible War for the Xbox first, PlayStation never (AFAIK), and the PC port was a bad port that suffered the problems of the Xbox version. (This was OG Xbox, not even Xbox 360.)
If you get a chance to play Human Revolution (the third one/reboot/prequel), definitely do so, it’s very good. Came out on the 360, but plays well on Series X and PC. Had a yellow tint to everything (like the Underworld films and their blue tint). A Directors Cut came out later removing the yellow tint (though you had the option to bring it back) and integrating the DLC. Great game.
What I liked about Invisible War was, it didn’t care what ending you picked in the original. It assumed you picked the Helios ending, but explains that you couldn’t contain Helios, so the New Dark Age (destroy the compound) happened anyway, and the Illuminati moved in (so Illuminati ending is canon, but so are the other two). Invisible War’s Helios ending is awesome and terrible at the same time. You basically invent the Borg from Star Trek. The Illuminati ending is creepy, but seems like the most reasonable. Another has all the leaders killed, and I also remember an alien invasion. In short, there are no good choices. What was cool was the rival coffee companies and what you learn if you do all of their quests. And the Britney Spears/Taylor Swift chatbot.
And the ugly? In the original, though they never come out and tell you, the human race is a couple generations from extinction as the youngest woman in the Deus Ex universe is in her late teens. There are little boys, but little girls are extinct. They’ve all grown up. And once the youngest one hits menopause… no more boys will be born either. Invisible War flips this around. Now the only children in the world are female. (And you can still kill children in Invisible War, just like you could in the original.) Humanity is still doomed, but we got a reprieve of maybe a decade when girls were being born who, when they got older, could be used to continue the species. Of course, neither of these things are actually canon to the world of Deus Ex. It’s just technical limitations. It would be years before Skyrim would figure out you could use one body for both boys and girls, and just give girls longer hair.
I played it for the first time this year. Finished it in like 5 hours, so can’t say it would be worth full price…but I still enjoyed it a lot for what it was.
Invisible War. The controversial sequel to Deus Ex. The PC port ran like shit on the best PCs, but I have Macs. Xbox might be the best way to play it but it’s still gonna suck. The game itself was good but the tech was complete trash. Literal downgrade in every way from the first one. And yet it was still a gem.
Deus Ex is my favorite game. This is the only sequel I haven’t played.
Honestly you’re not missing much. There are good things in Invisible War, but the software was just bad.
The problem with Deus Ex was, they made a great computer game, but it could not run on Xbox and they had to struggle to get it on PS2. They had to basically remake the thing. They developed Invisible War for the Xbox first, PlayStation never (AFAIK), and the PC port was a bad port that suffered the problems of the Xbox version. (This was OG Xbox, not even Xbox 360.)
If you get a chance to play Human Revolution (the third one/reboot/prequel), definitely do so, it’s very good. Came out on the 360, but plays well on Series X and PC. Had a yellow tint to everything (like the Underworld films and their blue tint). A Directors Cut came out later removing the yellow tint (though you had the option to bring it back) and integrating the DLC. Great game.
What I liked about Invisible War was, it didn’t care what ending you picked in the original. It assumed you picked the Helios ending, but explains that you couldn’t contain Helios, so the New Dark Age (destroy the compound) happened anyway, and the Illuminati moved in (so Illuminati ending is canon, but so are the other two). Invisible War’s Helios ending is awesome and terrible at the same time. You basically invent the Borg from Star Trek. The Illuminati ending is creepy, but seems like the most reasonable. Another has all the leaders killed, and I also remember an alien invasion. In short, there are no good choices. What was cool was the rival coffee companies and what you learn if you do all of their quests. And the Britney Spears/Taylor Swift chatbot.
And the ugly? In the original, though they never come out and tell you, the human race is a couple generations from extinction as the youngest woman in the Deus Ex universe is in her late teens. There are little boys, but little girls are extinct. They’ve all grown up. And once the youngest one hits menopause… no more boys will be born either. Invisible War flips this around. Now the only children in the world are female. (And you can still kill children in Invisible War, just like you could in the original.) Humanity is still doomed, but we got a reprieve of maybe a decade when girls were being born who, when they got older, could be used to continue the species. Of course, neither of these things are actually canon to the world of Deus Ex. It’s just technical limitations. It would be years before Skyrim would figure out you could use one body for both boys and girls, and just give girls longer hair.
I played it for the first time this year. Finished it in like 5 hours, so can’t say it would be worth full price…but I still enjoyed it a lot for what it was.