<P>Additionally, many parts of the game had been considerably simplified; for example, the game would now remember keypad codes for you and activate any keypad to which you had obtained a code instead of letting you enter the code yourself like you did in the first game. This may seem like a small thing, but a lot of people including yours truly were very sad to see it go, as it was a nice little thing to make the game seem more real. The computers in the game had been stripped of some of their functionality, most notably the ability to read other people's email. The augmentation system had received a huge overhaul, the specifics of which I won't go into here. And the single most despised simplification among Deus Ex fans was the inclusion of a single type of universal ammunition for weapons. In IW, all weapons - from the flamethrower and the rocket launcher to the pistol and the stun prod - use the same type of ammunition. Hopefully you can imagine what this did to the immersiveness of a game which previously featured up to three different types of ammo for each weapon.
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<P>All these simplifications didn't make IW a bad game of course. But it truly fundamentally removed the game from its predecessor. Even though the game was set in the same world that used the same timeline and featured the same characters, nobody could shake the feeling that this was an entirely different game. A far simpler game. This is of course not necessarily a bad thing, and indeed it would've suited me perfectly fine if they had just aimed to create a new game in the spirit of the old one. Unfortunately, when you choose to use the same world, timeline, and characters (not to mention name) as another game, your fans will expect a game which feels like a sequel rather than a new game capitalizing on old intellectual property. Either you make a proper sequel or a new game entirely. The Invisible War approach will only create disappointment.
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<P>Paradoxically, Deus Ex: Invisible War was a great game, and I enjoyed it a lot. But I would doubtlessly have enjoyed it far more if it hadn't attempted to be a direct sequel to Deus Ex. As it is, I have to actively distract myself from thinking of Deus Ex when I play Invisible War. When I succeed in doing this, IW becomes a very solid and fun game with great (if not optimal) graphics, hilarious physics, and a rather solid artificial intelligence, but it would have been far easier for me to enjoy if I didn't have to spend mental energy deceiving myself while I play it.
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<P>It was really nice to get that off my chest. And now I have somewhere to link people to every time somebody starts ranting in the PDX forums about what an awful game IW is.