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Deus Ex - Invisible War Demo Released

Posted by simoniker on from the try-it-yourself dept.

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.

38 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Mixed reviews are right! by Txiasaeia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I feel mixed myself about the demo. Yep, it's definitely Deus Ex, but there are a few things that seem "dumbed down" about the game. For instance, the inventory is ridiculous. Instead of a 8x8 square that DX1 uses, DX2 has this weird arc that you have to cycle through in order to access your stuff. Sound confusing? That's because it is. There are a couple other things that make it feel too console-ish, but on the other hand, it most definitely feels like DX1. Will I be buying the game when it comes out? That's really a tough one -- I loved DX1 so ya, I'll probably get it, but I really, REALLY hope they get those performance issues dealt with, as the game is pretty choppy in even 800x600 (Athlon XP 2000+, 512 MB DDR, Geforce 4 4200 128MB, WD Caviar Special Ed 8MB Cache 7200RPM, SBLIVE!); take it for what you will.

    --
    Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
    1. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      really, REALLY hope they get those performance issues dealt with, as the game is pretty choppy in even 800x600

      Damn. I was hoping to avoid computer upgrades. Well, at least with the demo, I have a couple of weeks to upgrade stuff before the actual release. OTOH, your idea of choppy and mine may differ:)

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    2. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by Txiasaeia · · Score: 1

      "Choppy" in my books means not as smooth as Doom 2 on a P4 3.06 :) High frame rate, no lag. BTW, I was just reading that some of the graphics problems can be ironed out via editing a config file... too lazy to find it, but certainly good to remember for the future.

      --
      Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
    3. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by n3bulous · · Score: 1

      You do only have GF 4200 for gfx. The 4600 Ti doesn't even get listed anymore when peformance comparisons are made (I wish they did, though) and even some of the newer cards don't do too well on the tests.

      Of course I'm just jealous because I have to buy a new card to replace a GF4MX as I can't even start the game!!!

      --
      "The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
    4. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by t0ny · · Score: 2, Informative

      Never, ever, ever buy an MX card. Hindsight is great, of course, but you would have been better off getting a GF3.

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    5. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by Amorpheus_MMS · · Score: 1

      It's slow and often choppy for me as well, and I pretty much have exactly the same specs, down to the harddrive. Except for the SBLive, where I use my nForce2's on-board sound - what's your mainboard? Others with GF4 / AthlonXP ~2000+ are running it smoothly. I'm trying to see if there may be a common denominator here.

    6. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by AllUsernamesAreGone · · Score: 1

      Which nvidia drivers are you using?

    7. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by Amorpheus_MMS · · Score: 1

      The latest WHQL certified ones - 52.16

    8. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by one4nine4two · · Score: 1

      from the readme:

      "IMPORTANT - If you are running with the newest Nvidia drivers (52.16), you may experience graphical corruption if you are not also using DirectX 9. The ForceWare drivers require DirectX 9 or higher in order to function properly. The link to the DirectX site is at the top of this readme."

      whether or not this pertains to you i don't know, just pointing it out

    9. Re:Mixed reviews are right! by Moonshadow · · Score: 1

      I ran the demo on a XP2400+/1GB PC2100/Geforce FX 5700 (NV36), and it was still somewhat choppy. It ran at probably 20-30 FPS at 800x600, without antialiasing or ansiotropic filtering. It's gonna need some performance tweaking before it's good to go, definitely.

      The lighting, though, is a ton of fun to play with.

  2. Not mixed by ScarletEmerald · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, just from reading the 80+ comments on Blue's News, I'd say the initial feedback is overwhelmingly negative. Some of the issues people have with it can apparently be fixed by tweaking the .ini files (One entry contained a comment saying the current value was for the X-box, not the PC, and offered an alternate value. Why this wasn't set as the default, I have no idea.). Some changes apparently aren't sticking though as the .ini files are installed as read-only (which can of course be changed). It will be interesting to see what Ion Storm has to say about this.

    1. Re:Not mixed by AllUsernamesAreGone · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Pretty much everywhere I've seen where people have been discussing this - from offcial ion store and eidos forums, through fan places like TTLG, and beyond - present the general consensus that Ion Storm have made a complete and utter mess of IW while the Thief fans are going insane about what this demo probably means for Thief 3.

      I'm beginning to think Spector has done a Daikatana..

  3. Not really sure what to make of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I downloaded it last night (the Gamespy release got Bittorrented) and have played it through several times.

    It does drop you straight into the middle of the game, so I don't really know what's going on, but the glimpses of plot sound pretty interesting. It's impressively non-linear, too, especially for two tiny maps - but there are problems...

    A lot of the complexity of the original has been stripped out, and I'm not sure if that's always a good thing. One of the oddest changes to gameplay is the 'unified ammunition' - basically, all weapons use the same ammo, and if you run out when using one weapon you can't change to another.

    Another big change is the apparent lack of location-specific damage. You can't neatly and efficiently dispose of enemies in a stealthy manner, instead you have to keep shooting at them until they eventually drop dead, having alerted everyone else in the vicinity.

    Oh, and the electric shock prod is woefully ineffective. Ten or more shocks are needed to take down a guard, and is blatantly non-stealthy.

    The interface is very fiddly and uses large-print text for everything, which means reading anything longer than a sentence takes numerous pages. It might be like that because of the Xbox version and television screens, but last time I looked I had a PC underneath my desk, not a games console.

    The graphics aren't significantly better than the original - yes, it's got excessively sharp real-time lighting for everything, along with normal mapping and so on, but it really doesn't look hugely different, despite requiring a fairly hefty graphics card. Halo runs way better on my old, creaky PC than this.

    The AI is pretty terrible. I lobbed barrels at a guard for a few minutes without him caring, and even vaulted over the gate he was protecting without him bothering. I (eventually) shocked him unconscious with the prod and carried him inside, to drop him in front of the other guards. Yes, they became suspicious because of the appearance of this body, but never realised I might have been responsible, even when I threw the body at them, and then down the lift shaft.

    I really hope the demo isn't indicative of the final game - it shows some promise, but it seems too much of a step down from the original. A shame.

    1. Re:Not really sure what to make of it by Jad+LaFields · · Score: 1

      I have not downloaded the demo yet, but after reading your and other people's assessment, I'm not sure if I want to. I read on the petition that you do not need to reload your weapon. Is this true? If it is, then that would seem to me to be such a incredibly stupid step away from the realism of the first game that there would be no chance in hell that I'd buy this game. Not that reloading by itself is that important, but that plus some of the other "dumbing-down" complaints seems indicative of greater problems I'd have with the gameplay (and anyone who liked the first one).

      Yes, lack of complexity does not mean lack of depth, but... "universal ammo"? No location damage? Weapons that keep on shooting until you run out of all your ammo? Might as well keep on removing every part of modern FPS game combat that makes said combat challenging and interesting until it becomes an RPG.

      Sorry for the rant which may be misguided anyway. I sure hope I'm wrong, or that the game is better than what I've heard about the demo.

      --
      [SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
    2. Re:Not really sure what to make of it by Black+Hitler · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually there is location-based damage, but they've effectively made it completely worthless by "fixing" it so enemies can now take five or six shots to the head without going down. Their rationale was that they wanted fights to be longer. So much for stealth.

    3. Re:Not really sure what to make of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What ARE you smoking? The graphics are standard for 2003, while the original's graphics were sub-par several years ago.

      Well, it's different, but not necessarily for the better. The world textures are of a similar resolution to the original, the world geometry is just as bland and cuboidal, and the models still often look stiff and unconvincing.

      Yes, there are fancy new graphical gimmicks, but compared with the (albeit few) decent-looking areas of the original game, the new game doesn't really look much better.

      I would have rather they had worked with an engine using older rendering techniques - instead of the cramped, twisty architecture required by the new engine there could have been scenes of a decent size and complexity. The open alleyway in the demo makes my computer chug a bit, and it's a tiny fraction of the size of some of the locations in the original game.

      Modern graphics hardware combined with a fairly simple engine could have provided much more impressive visuals. Imagine a decent-sized crowd shouting and cheering at the greasel fights instead of a single, muttering fan. Imagine realistic, open architecture instead of the weird vis-blocking mess that is dictated by the constraints of the 'modern' engine. Imagine standing on a rooftop and seeing buildings stretching off into the distance instead of a couple of rough, dark polyhedra.

      The Deus Ex 2 graphics might tick all the necessary buzzword boxes, but under the skin things really aren't much of an improvement on the original. Which is again a shame, because it's one of the few aspects that could have been improved in the original.

    4. Re:Not really sure what to make of it by xSauronx · · Score: 2
      i flamed a "thug" early on with a flamethrower for a bout 15 seconds before she died

      to get said flamethrower, i stun prodded a guard for about 15 seconds (while he continually flamed me) and then finished him off with a knife because after stunning him for so long, i was convinced it had no effect and i would have to shed blood to make his life end.

      i mostly play Enemy Territory and Red Orchestra...and some SoF2; people die in these games and it doesnt take a boring long amount of time for it to happen.

      That, and i think the interface is about as annoying as it can get. The HUD is around the middle of the screen, obscuring everything thats not off to the side or immediately in front of me. I found it terribly bothersome after about 20 seconds and while i _may_ try the demo some more, i won't buy the game: if its even half as aggravating as the demo its too aggravating.

      not to flame it, but im not a reviewer so it may come off as a flame. annoying interface, annoying inventory management, annoying time-lapses to kill someone, and annoying that i wasted bandwidth on this. If i had a 56k modem, id be pissed right now.

      --
      By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
  4. Petition by Sepherus · · Score: 2, Informative

    There's a Petition asking them to fix some of the more important problems before release. I hope they pay attention to the fans.

    1. Re:Petition by Mukaikubo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because, you know, major releases are always delayed on the say-so of a group of fans?

    2. Re:Petition by swat_r2 · · Score: 1

      If anything it will address the need for a patch to follow soon shortly, if anything to solve performance issues (least they can do)

    3. Re:Petition by t0ny · · Score: 1
      Wow, thats a pretty big statement. I heard the Battlecruiser games needed huge patches, Temple of Elemental Evil is going to need to be patched for playability, and there are countless other examples.

      Personally, I wouldnt really be too worried about how a demo plays. Most of them are basically cobbled together anyway. Im saving my opinion for once the game is released.

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  5. Mouse vs. control pad by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 2, Informative

    This game might be really neat with a console controller. As is, mouse and keyboard don't really fit it.

    1. Re:Mouse vs. control pad by Txiasaeia · · Score: 1

      One word, my friend: JoyToKey. Voila! Your $2000 computer is now an XBox.

      --
      Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
    2. Re:Mouse vs. control pad by MachDelta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This game might be really neat with a console controller. As is, mouse and keyboard don't really fit it. My sentiments exactly. I think DX2 will be a good XBox game, but a mediochre PC game at best. And my hopes for Thief 3 have been dashed as well. Same engine, same AI, same consol-ish simplicity? No thanks.

    3. Re:Mouse vs. control pad by Moofie · · Score: 1

      *brain explodes*

      A POV shooter, better on a console than with a mouse and keyboard? Wow. I knew there were people out there with dextrous thumbs, but to actually PREFER that!? I'm stunned.

      I mean, go on with your bad self, but if I have to use my thumbs, I'm food for any bad guy that looks crosswise at me.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  6. Response from the team? by superultra · · Score: 1

    Any time games start using new engines, there's bitching about framerates and hardware. As I recall, while I didn't have a state of the art machine, when I played Deus Ex the week it came out, it didn't run amazingly fast either (except on my brother's Voodoo5). Those I can dismiss.

    I download the demo, but decided against playing it so as to try and just sit down and play through the game without repetition. It's interesting to see the press previews from Gamespot, IGN, and Gamespy, and how those seem to have directly polarized from public opinion about the demo. Maybe the game is better?

    At any rate, has anyone seen or read any official responses in forums from Warren or the team?

    1. Re:Response from the team? by Lightzout · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apparently this game has been designed for the Xbox first with litle regard for the PC user. Another big disappointment for a title using the Unreal engine. I loved the original game. This sequel does nothing for me. It couldnt be less interesting. I was hoping this would easily be the game of the year but Max Payne and Raven Shield were both better. Yes its a "just" a demo but I wont pay $50 for this dung heap.

    2. Re:Response from the team? by Hott+of+the+World · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Im not sure about the realism responses, (I managed to use up all my ammo, it was just a demo remember)

      As for it being horrible to play, I had my fears, what with my 1.6ghz Athlon and 512 megs of ram.. But my Direct X 8 loving 4200TI played it great, a tiny bit choppy, but no slow down. I didnt have any trouble with any of the settings.

      I thought it was very close to the original, just not that complete (it was a small demo anyway). I didnt catch much of the story, but then again, that would take lots more of the missions. If I had to say honestly, I'd say yeah, they dumbed it down slightly with the ammo bit, and the AI probably could use some work, but I think it will be a fun game, and all the x-box owners can rejoice. It will probably make a great rental :)

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      | - | - |
  7. I can't play it! by Yuioup · · Score: 1

    I dont't get it. What the heck!

    I try to start the game and I get this error message:

    "Your PC doesn't have enough free space to start a new game. 'L-Mouse' to return to the main menu or 'Esc' to exit Deus Ex: Invisible War.

    What, 512 megs of ram and 4,1 GB of hard disk space not enough for you???

    What IS going on??? Have I been waiting ages for this????????????

    What the heck!

    Yuioup

  8. A problem with game development these days... by Terminal+Saint · · Score: 1

    ...is simultaneous development for multiple platforms. Here's a perfect example. You simplify a game so it can be played with a gamepad, and you screw over people who have all the capabilities of a mouse and keyboard. It's sad.

    --
    It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
  9. Advice to anyone trying this demo: by Black+Hitler · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

  10. Tron, Too by t0ny · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Actually, there was a ton of complaining about the demo of Tron 2.0, but once the full release came out people were impressed.

    Im not getting too worried about a buggy demo. Most demos are buggy, anyway.

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    1. Re:Tron, Too by johannesg · · Score: 1

      Well, why did they release a demo then? I didn't like the demo either so I _obviously_ won't be bothered to buy the game. That's the whole point of a demo, to see if you like the game or not...

    2. Re:Tron, Too by t0ny · · Score: 1
      I read an interview a while ago (dont remember who it was with, unfortunately) where they said nobody in the industry likes doing demos, even though they are often somewhat of a requirement. It takes time away from doing 'real' work, especially when they are gearing up for the release build of the game.

      Thats why most demos are cobbled together, and dont have much polish- they are essentially frankenstein versions of a beta build, put together in a rush by people who would rather be doing other, more important, things.

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  11. WineX? by joeljkp · · Score: 1

    Any word on whether this thing works with Wine or WineX?

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    1. Re:WineX? by AllUsernamesAreGone · · Score: 2, Informative

      Doesn't seem to - it starts, but crashes immediately (opens an exception window). This is wineX 3.2 compiled from source, ymmv...

    2. Re:WineX? by Repugnant_Shit · · Score: 1

      Same thing with transgaming's official binaries. Oh well.

      --
      Vote for global prefs bug
  12. flamin' rampage by Bansuki · · Score: 2, Informative

    I played through the demo once using my typical play style: mix of stealth and well-placed explosives. And it was okay. Today I went back to the demo and played for crazy kills. Walked up to guard and just started knifing him. Amazingly enough I killed him and he only fired one or two rounds - right as I knifed him for the 7th or 8th time. Weird. So I pick up his flamethrower and attack all the guards. Guess what? They all burned to death and I beat the demo without a scratch. WTF? That "unified ammo" system let me expend half and flame half a dozen guards with no trouble. This can't be right. http://www.petitiononline.com/DXIWDemo/petition.ht ml

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