The Invisible War

[leggy]

Hola,

Seeing as how the European release date has just passed us by I was wondering if anyone actually bought this game after the abysmal demo.

I myself did as I had a voucher that couldn't wait until the 19th for BF: Vietnam and UT2004.

Anyone care to share their experiences or first impressions? I haven't played it much yet but I have to say that the voice acting is almost comical. Anyway, I just wanted to find out if anyone actually likes it.

Legz0r

 

[Cdr]

I've played it at a mates house, and thought it was actually quite good.

Yeah, the demo was crap, and I actually told my mate not to buy it because of what I'd seen on the demo (he hadn't played it). He ignored me and bought it anyways - was playing it for a fair while on Friday. I spent most of the time throwing chairs and whatnot at civilians

Would what I've played make me buy it myself? Probably not. What with Vietnam comming out in less than 2 weeks, I couldn't really spare the time needed to play it.

Hell, I've got so many games that need completing, but are just sat on the shelf atm

 

[Louster]

I've only just tried out the demo, and I don't get what all the fuss was about. The only really dumb thing I found was the fact that the settings weren't saved upon exiting and I had to re-apply all the changes I made every time. The physics is as impressive as it was in Max Payne 2, and the dynamic lighting stuff is just awe-inspiring. Single ammo source seems fine to me, as does having only one tool type. And the thing ran nice and smoothly without any real problems... except for it completely crashing my system if I try to change the FSAA settings, but that happens in a load of other games, and I've yet to actually look into why.
The interface seems alright to me - with a low enough opacity it's hardly intrusive. The areas all seemed pretty small and enclosed, but that didn't really bother me.
If I'd had lots of technical problems I probably wouldn't have been so impressed by what's there, but I didn't really. Uhm. I'm seriously considering buying it.

 

[Louster]

Oh uh, from the demo, the voice acting seemed damned decent. But then I've been going on a demo binge recently, and uh, if you want REALLY bad voice acting, try Beyond Divinity. Absolutely dire.

 

[SilverHood]

Im tempted to buy it.... but I've sploshed out on X2, Civ3 Conquests and half of MTW Viking Invasion in the last month..... not particularly interested in spending another 30 quid on another game I'll hardly have time to play.
Maybe Next month when I get my next student loan cheque.

 

[Louster]

So I bought it yesterday. I'm liking it lots. It's sleeker and more refined than Deus Ex for sure. And I am still regularly gobsmacked by the ridiculously perfect lighting system. I can stand around for minutes at a time just knocking swinging lightbulbs around while throwing objects in the air, or opening and closing nearby doors, and watching the flawless shadows. It's too bad they've obviously sacrificed a few things for this, such as mirrors, I think, and I would imagine the generally somewhat small area sizes are due to the lighting stuff also.

 

[Cdr]

So I bought it yesterday. I'm liking it lots. It's sleeker and more refined than Deus Ex for sure. And I am still regularly gobsmacked by the ridiculously perfect lighting system. I can stand around for minutes at a time just knocking swinging lightbulbs around while throwing objects in the air, or opening and closing nearby doors, and watching the flawless shadows. It's too bad they've obviously sacrificed a few things for this, such as mirrors, I think, and I would imagine the generally somewhat small area sizes are due to the lighting stuff also.

I discovered that the other day.

In an attempt to stop some gun turret shooting me, I threw a box at it. The box hit the hanging light instead and I was treated to a fantastic shadow display. Truely amazing.

Also, the turning warning light near the start of the game, I sat and watched that for a good few mins.

 

[Doomy]

Edge summed this game up really well. I myself have been playing this on xbox for a few months and it is very good but let down by a single massive flaw.

For all of its amazing freedom, things you can do, the flawless lighting and nice physics (physics is certainly a buzz word atm, not well implemented in a game yet other than aesthetic imo), there is the exact same amount of things disproving that. For instance human interaction, you can talk (multiple choice) to most people, listen in on conversations, chuck their corpses about and do more or less what you please. This includes throwing tables, chairs, mugs, fire extinguishers and bins at someones head and all they do is shout 'cut it out', 'stop it'. Completely destroys any tangible belief of realism and considering the game basically hangs on all of these choices and thats the main draw of the game (i believe the first one was far far more interesting) its utterly infuriating in my mind.

If the game was far less linear in its levels i could forgive such nuances but its so 'on-rails' the game feels strange and frustrating, it hasnt got the same 'sandpit' feel to it as GTA for instance which it should. Yeah sure you can do more or less what you want, as long as you do it this way.

A classic case of style over substance imo. And a big dissapointment considering its prequel.

 

[Uriel]

It's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination just a bit of a let down. The main problem I had with it, apart from the fact that I just didn't enjoy as much as the original, was that for all the promised flexibilty of narrative you were still pushed towards a pretty banal set of conclusions. Also, I never found myself caring much for the character I was playing as or for the NPCs I encountered across what was, all told, a pretty limited set of maps.

It's probably fitting that this thread is in the FPS and not the RPG section since it was only when you were actually fighting people that you were afforded a little freedom. Although the problem I found in this regard was that having selected a style of play influenced by my choice of biomods the same tactic could be deployed over and over again almost without fail.

I think Ion Storm needed just need a hit since Deus Ex achieved a fair bit of critical acclaim but didn't sell too well iirc. It's a bit of a shame that this bid for financial success appears to have turned what could have been another classic into merely an also ran.

 

[Doomy]

Heres for Thief 3 .

Dont get me wrong, i do enjoy it but it could have been so much more.

 

[Cdr]

Heres for Thief 3 .

Dont get me wrong, i do enjoy it but it could have been so much more.

heh assuming they dont 'mess' it up like they have DE2

 

[Louster]

Yeah uh. Having completed it I've revised my opinion somewhat. I really liked the intro, and I liked most of the stuff for, say, the first half of the game, but it became ridiculously repetitive and meaningless towards the end. And especially, the last level was so goddamn badly made. I still like the inventory and tool system, but the augmentations were rather badly thought out. The fact that it was so ridiculously short was annoying also, and really, I'm not sure I can be bothered to go back and try out the various branching pathways, as yeah, it does generally feel utterly linear despite your options.

Does anyone know if it'll be moddable at any point? That could save it, I guess.