27-Feb-2004 You love games. You suffer for your passion. Blistered thumbs, claw hands, streaming eyes and beyond.
Anyone who plays hard will be familiar with these side effects. But the original Deus Ex introduced scary new by-products to trouble players. Try subconscious guilt tripping, and full-on paranoia for starters. Now with Invisible War you may need to break out the blue Smarties once again, as the sequel to one of the biggest mind-melts in gaming history is here.
Trust No One Invisible War picks up from where the original game left off. The world has been changed via the efforts of our previous hero JC Denton, national governments have tumbled, their place taken by global mega corporations. One of which, as newcomer Alex D, you begin the game working for.
This being Deus Ex, it's pretty much up to you who you align yourself with during the course of events, and who, if anyone, you choose to believe in your first-person quest to uncover the truth. Tarsus, your starting employer, seems fairly harmless, yet the self-professed peaceful Order is trying to eliminate them and they don't seem to give a flying toss who gets in their way. Of course these aren't the only corporate players in the game - there are larger and more nefarious forces at work, each with its own secret agenda. Needless to say, if you like your fair share of mystery in your games, you've certainly come to the right place.
For those who simply want to spill blood and break things, Invisible War has got plenty to offer. As a first-person shooter, Deus Ex isn't quite in the same league as Halo, Medal Of Honor or Half-Life - the setting is rather bleak and the enemies significantly fewer in number - but the nod towards role-playing certainly adds variety and plenty of scope for replayability.
Coin-Op Rather than collect and spend experience points however, Deus Ex's RPG coin is the Biomod, a nano-chip that neatly slots into various parts of the body to augment your already super-human abilities.
Despite the oppressive mood of the graphics, Deus Ex isn't just a deeply atmospheric and grittily realistic game, but one that offers a storyline that works on many different levels, with missions that can be attempted in any order, and completed in any number of ways.
Sadly - and this is more true for PC fans - the game lacks the depth of character development that marked the original out as such an innovative classic. Even so, it looks great, gameplay is varied and smooth and you can be sure the experience will linger in the mind long after you've finished playing.
There are very few games that can claim to be as intelligent or as replayable as DX:IW. It's not as consuming as the PC original, but this is still a fantastic and stylish game.
Being such a dark and rather sullen game, moments of cheeky cheerfulness are rarer than hen's teeth. However, there are plenty of laughs to be had by picking stuff up and hurling it as far as you can. Dead bodies can be found in abundance, and with the strength biomod maxed out, you can bung these a seriously long way. Thanks to the rag-doll physics, they might land in amusing and impossible positions. Word of warning - the Xbox physics are not half as good as the PC version.
Your typical student's apartment, royally trashed in accordance with tradition
// Touched By Mod
Regular Biomod canisters are easily found, usually locked away in some cupboard or other. Black market Biomods are usually bought from scary looking people in dark, seedy corridors. Both types (and there are a total of 15 to experiment with) must be installed into the proper slot, and there are mods for your arms, head, eyes, legs and skeleton.
Cloak is a cranial implant that renders you invisible to organic enemies. If you want to sneak past mechanical foes, you'll need a Thermal Masking mod instead
// Spy Drone
Spy Drone is a black market Eye enhancement that launches a small drone that acts like a remote camera. Use it to scout ahead. Think of it as the ultimate perving gadget. It also fires EMP ammunition to take out robots and security cameras, although don't expect it to last long in a heavy firefight.
Spy Drone is a black market Eye enhancement that launches a small drone that acts like
a remote camera. Use it to scout ahead. Think of it as the ultimate perving gadget.
It also fires EMP ammunition to take out robots and security cameras, although don’t expect it to last long in a heavy firefight.
// Strength
Easily inserted into the arm this simple augmentation gives you extra strength, allowing you to pick up heavy objects, throw objects further, carry more items in your inventory and wield melee weapons with greater force.
Rockets and grenades can be rather harmful… unless you have one of these suckers orbiting you that can detonate incoming explosives before they get within lethal range
// Places T o Go, People To Meet
Sadly, while your careers' officer probably had the best of intentions when doling out advice, Tarsus isn't the safest employer in the market. In fact, as the game begins a terrorist attack is underway on the Tarsus HQ in Chicago - an attack that will leave the city uninhabitable. Hastily moved to Seattle, the game's intricately layered missions take in the murky underbellies of Cairo, Germany, Antarctica and New York.
The pretty German town of Trier hides a big secret – and some incredible technology
With its clubs, street life and other whacked-out characters, Seattle is fun
You’ll go through Cairo twice. Second-time around, it seems everyone’s out to get you
Strange creatures, big robots, and penguins – things get weird in Antarctica
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