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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.
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.
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.
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.