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Deus Ex 3 Announced
Gamasutra has the news that Eidos is already hard at work on a Deus Ex 3 . The company announced this project along with a brand-new studio in Montreal, which will be developing the title. "According to [General Manager Stéphane D'Astous], Eidos Montreal currently has two groups -- a Q&A group that is responsible for testing all of the developer's games from anywhere in the world, and an in-house development team that D'Astous says has just passed proof of concept for Deus Ex 3. 'This game was very highly rated at its release in 2000, and we have this great huge mandate to do the third one, and everybody is very excited,' added D'Astous"
When I say "please don't suck, for heaven's sake, please don't suck."
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Although getting rid of those nasty complicated parts like "complex plot", "skills" and "unique ammo" did make Deus Ex 2 more accessible to console game players, there were still people out there who lacked the higher cognitive functions and opposable thumbs necessary to really immerse themselves in that first sequel. So, some of those innovations will just have to be taken farther:
Linear plot: Although Deus Ex 2 successfully obliterated the choices that players could make in the first game's ending, mushing them all together into some sort of hybrid plot, some players were confused by the residual choices available in the sequel. Deus Ex 3 will prevent further confusion by standardizing the "auto aim" features and adding "auto move", as well as by replacing the "choose your own adventure" style conversations with a new "we chose your adventure, now shut up and listen" interface.
Gun: The unified ammunition, one-size-fits-all inventory, and reduced upgradability of weapon skills in Deus Ex 2 really made that game more accessible to the "can't tie their own shoelaces" audience. Deus Ex 3 will build on this success by replacing the varied and confusing weapon selections from the previous games with "Gun", a generic rifle which will shoot shiny graphics effects and will be the only weapon equipped by the player and all NPCs at all times. Gun will never hurt anyone friendly, will automatically correct your aim when shooting at anyone unfriendly, and will expend no ammunition. Gun will therefore double as a convenient way of eliminating from the game confusing questions about which characters are really good guys and which are really bad guys - shoot 'em all and let Gun sort 'em out!
Box: Because of the wonderful reception that the Deus Ex 2 levels and textures received, we now know that it's just fine to scale back level design for console systems with limited RAM. Accordingly, Deus Ex 3 will be even able to run on all popular handheld game systems, with a few minor plot and setting adjustments to fit the limited level files into available memory. Can you fight your way past the defenders of Square Tunnel and make it to the enemy's hidden Box base?
Length: Although Deus Ex 2 was significantly shorter than the first, it was still way longer than the average movie, and what kind of person wants to sit in front of a screen that long? What are you, some kind of gamer geek? Deus Ex 3 will be 90 minutes; 95 minutes in the "Directors Cut" version.
(disclaimer: Deus Ex: Invisible War was actually an okay game; it just really disappointed by comparison with the first)
I have a few words for the developers.
See that 3 in the title? That's just a number. Ignore it. Look only to Deus Ex for inspiration. There never was a Deus Ex 2 - that was all just a figment of the darkest parts of your imagination.
(fwiw, for those who haven't played, Deus Ex 2 wasn't a horrible game, so much as it didn't nearly live up to the first game of the series. It suffered from a massive case of being dumbed down for simultaneous console/PC release, from the original's PC-only origin.)
I remember reading all the articles and developer interviews as the 2nd game was being designed and built. What was clearly apparent more then anything else was how completely blind they were to what made the first game such a huge hit. They gave themselves credit for a long list of aspects of the first game that barely had anything to do with its success and completely ignored everything that made the game great. The file result was no surprise to anyone that read those interviews and dev blogs.
And then...in the aftermath of the sequel...their interviews again showed they had no idea why their game was a complete and total flop.
They'll screw it up; There's really no chance in hell of them not completely screwing the pooch again. They haven't a clue what they did right or what they did wrong. Go replay the first game; It was great, it's still great, but it was a fluke. The industry isn't setup to create great games like that anymore.
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Like most of the people who will comment here, I really enjoyed the original Deus Ex. Yet I was also very disappointed with DX2. Whenever the discussion of great single-player games comes up, there's usually someone cheering for Deus Ex, closely followed by another comment warning potential players to stay away from the sequel.
The most often cited reasons for the sequels 'suck factor' seem to be the (relative) brevity of the game, small areas with constant loading, as well as the simplification of the interface, inventory management, ammunition/weapon system, and character development. Many of these issues can be seen as the problems inherent with developing for the console market. The original Deus Ex was PC/Mac only, whereas DX2 had to get by without a mouse and keyboard. Those issues are the ones that everyone seems to cite when talking about 'what went wrong', and why DX2 is widely seen as inferior to the original. I believe that this is the case, but it's not the big problem.
The big issue I see is that people know what they are getting in to. The original Deus Ex was long and involved, with a plot that was interesting and unique. When I started the second Deus Ex game, I knew what I was in for. Not the specifics obviously, but the general outline of the game was pretty much known to me within the first hour. While there were some interesting changes made in structure between the first and second games, they were not enough. This is still the story of an augmented special agent, unraveling massive conspiracies, lies, and backstabbing, and ultimately deciding the fate of the world.
Long post short, what I thought was great about Deus Ex was the plot and how it was revealed to the player over the course of some fairly long gameplay, combined with very ambitious (for the day) interactivity. The second game had much the same overarching plot, but the surprise was gone and it didn't pull it off as well. Repetitive plots are the bread and butter of gaming, but the direct comparison between the two makes DX2 suffer.
I could be a great artist, and if I paint a nice half portrait of a young woman seated, dressed in dark colors, and appearing to look back at the viewer, it could be very good on it's own merits. Hang it next to The Mona Lisa, and tell people that there is some connection between the two, and it will garner nothing but scorn.
How to fix these issues for DX3? Good luck.
The two biggest problems with Deus Ex 2 were the levels and the perspective.
- The levels were cramped and very much like Doom 3. You didn't get the feeling that you got in the original, where long-range sniping and so on was possible as well as being way out of the hearing range of others. The original also had a lot of locations, almost reminiscent of Hitman. Multiple ways to get places and do things(and screw up as well), and a dead-simple interface.
We would rather figure out our levels and make things happen and have a lot less DOOM push the button, go through the twisty maze. Otherwise, I might as well play MYST. Pretty pictures... find the button in the room...
- The perspective in the second game as a disaster. It made everything look oddly semi-first person, but not really. So distance and movement was just off. A good example is to compare it to the original Halo. If you get this wrong, you end up with something that feels like you're playing in a PS 1 game instead of a simulation.
- #3 (there are way more than two things wrong with the second game)- The graphics in the original were fantastic. They had a simplicity and a lot less eye-candy, but game designers need to understand that raytracing and applying visual effects to everything just doesn't cure poor design. A good example of this is to compare Halflife 2 to FEAR. HL2 has a look and feel that is crisp and clean and low on silly blooming and effects, and FEAR is a CPU destroyer despite having tiny levels - because they put four tons of eye-candy in it. A good example of this is a game like Gran Turismo. Our eyes don't change how they operate short of silly speeds and acceleration, yet if you compare this to Need for Speed, where they artificially introduce motion blur...
Well, you see my point.
#4 - make it for PC only and THEN port it. Console games that end up on PC are essentially crippled right from the start.