Deus Ex - Invisible War Demo Released

revmoo writes "The long-awaited demo for Deus Ex: Invisible War has finally been released! Blue's News has a comprehensive list of mirrors for the 224MB download, including BitTorrent via GameTab and another Torrent from FileRush." Initial feedback seems mixed, with echoes of the recent interview in which Warren Spector agrees with the observation that "complexity is not the same as depth" for this 'streamlined' sequel design.

Comments

Advice to anyone trying this demo:

[Black Hitler]

First, go into the main folder, select the "User.ini" file, and deactivate "read-only." For some reason this file was set to read-only by default and this prevented the demo from saving your personal settings when you entered a new level or restarted the demo.

Then open User.ini and find the four movement speeds ("W=Move*=1.000000"). Change "1.000000" to "0.800000." This helps with the floaty mouse control and brings movement speed more in line with the original DX (you can, of course, change "1.000000" to another value if you so wish).

Then go into the Default.ini file (in the "System" directory) and change "FOV__d=61" to "FOV__d=68" (or 69 or 70). This will place the HUD closer to the edges of the screen; it turns out the default setting is for the Xbox version, where the HUD is further away from the edges so as to avoid getting cut off by TV overscan. Since this isn't so much an issue with PC monitors, change it ASAP. It's a lot better-looking. Change the settings for Volumetric Lighting and Trilinear Filtering from OFF to ON and change "CacheSizeMegs" from "1" to about 20. Change "MouseLagThreshold" from 75 to 0. Change "Use32BitTextures" to "TRUE" (if your card can handle it). If you want more realistic damage (including one-hit-kill headshots), find the "Difficulty" section and change the values for "Difficulty_AI_Damage_[insert difficulty level here]__d" to about 5.0.

You can make these adjustments with this tweak tool if you prefer (the site is in German but the download links aren't hard to find). The above fixes will address some of the main complaints about the demo; you can also play around with some other settings if you like (there are also settings for player damage, physics, and the font used for in-game text). Unfortunately the new inventory management system and the goofy unified ammo system can probably not be fixed by a mere .ini tweak.