GutterTrash
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
1 day
Last played
August 6, 2022
Platforms Played
2003 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Lighting and Texturing award nominee
For any once-PC exclusive franchise to come to console it must make a few consolidations. The UI must be designed with a controller in mind, turning what was once a glorified spreadsheet into a series of fully isolated menus each dedicated to one thing only. Any shortcuts outside of that? Ax ‘em, controller ain’t got that many buttons. Wide open, sprawling levels? Too intensive. Segment everything into a bunch of hallways so that there’s only one entrance to almost everything and everywhere feels way smaller. For good measure we should also get rid of having to remember passwords or codes to anything, you can’t type very efficiently with a controller. There we go. All nice and simple.
Deus Ex: Invisible war feels to me like, more than any other franchise, the biggest victim of consolization in history. There’s the aforementioned stuff, sure, but the sheer amount of mechanics simplified to appeal to a greater console install base is absurd: No stats, way dumber gunplay, simpler inventory system, less resources to manage, augmentation system made less permanent, incredibly linear maps, just so much feels so worse. They even made the throwing physics worse than the original!
The most bizarre part is that it’s not really in service to anything. Normally, when an RPG franchise makes strides to casualize its gameplay, it adds, say, flashier modern combat, or better roleplaying options, or a more realized world, but Invisible War just has absolutely nothing. It’s maybe the most identity-less game I’ve ever played. It’s not effective as an RPG because there’s no real character to play, it’s not an immersive sim because most everything has one solution, it’s not an action game cuz there’s hardly much combat, it’s not a stealth game because everything is so direct, it’s the video game equivalent of gray goo.
If there’s anything Invisible War does have, it’s Post-9/11 American Cynicism! Watch before your eyes as cardboard boxes argue over which will collapse our great nation first! Marvel at how they somehow attempted to tie up the loose ends of the previous game by just making everything canon! Gasp at how they once again made it so that nothing affects the ending you get until the last five minutes! I rib it but it’s really the only thing this game has going for it, it’s a weirdly captivating sort of awful, watching these writers try to squeeze anything out of the dry rag the first game left ‘em with. Grade A rubbernecking material.
Oh yeah, also this game is busted as shit. Even with fan patches the game still just crashes whenever it feels like. Never seen anything like it, to be frank. You’d think everything being so much simpler would make it run a lot better but it somehow seemed to do the exact opposite. Invisible War simply Cannot Be Tamed, in every conceivable way. Punk Rock Forever.
For any once-PC exclusive franchise to come to console it must make a few consolidations. The UI must be designed with a controller in mind, turning what was once a glorified spreadsheet into a series of fully isolated menus each dedicated to one thing only. Any shortcuts outside of that? Ax ‘em, controller ain’t got that many buttons. Wide open, sprawling levels? Too intensive. Segment everything into a bunch of hallways so that there’s only one entrance to almost everything and everywhere feels way smaller. For good measure we should also get rid of having to remember passwords or codes to anything, you can’t type very efficiently with a controller. There we go. All nice and simple.
Deus Ex: Invisible war feels to me like, more than any other franchise, the biggest victim of consolization in history. There’s the aforementioned stuff, sure, but the sheer amount of mechanics simplified to appeal to a greater console install base is absurd: No stats, way dumber gunplay, simpler inventory system, less resources to manage, augmentation system made less permanent, incredibly linear maps, just so much feels so worse. They even made the throwing physics worse than the original!
The most bizarre part is that it’s not really in service to anything. Normally, when an RPG franchise makes strides to casualize its gameplay, it adds, say, flashier modern combat, or better roleplaying options, or a more realized world, but Invisible War just has absolutely nothing. It’s maybe the most identity-less game I’ve ever played. It’s not effective as an RPG because there’s no real character to play, it’s not an immersive sim because most everything has one solution, it’s not an action game cuz there’s hardly much combat, it’s not a stealth game because everything is so direct, it’s the video game equivalent of gray goo.
If there’s anything Invisible War does have, it’s Post-9/11 American Cynicism! Watch before your eyes as cardboard boxes argue over which will collapse our great nation first! Marvel at how they somehow attempted to tie up the loose ends of the previous game by just making everything canon! Gasp at how they once again made it so that nothing affects the ending you get until the last five minutes! I rib it but it’s really the only thing this game has going for it, it’s a weirdly captivating sort of awful, watching these writers try to squeeze anything out of the dry rag the first game left ‘em with. Grade A rubbernecking material.
Oh yeah, also this game is busted as shit. Even with fan patches the game still just crashes whenever it feels like. Never seen anything like it, to be frank. You’d think everything being so much simpler would make it run a lot better but it somehow seemed to do the exact opposite. Invisible War simply Cannot Be Tamed, in every conceivable way. Punk Rock Forever.