I was far from a fan of the original Deus Ex
so thought I'd give this sequel a try given that it's been four years since I stepped in the shoes of
J.C. Denton, a "nanotechnology-augmented" agent for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition. The
reasons why I didn't go a bundle for it you can read
here,
and I have to report that things haven't exactly advanced a great deal for this follow-up.
We're seventy years on from the first game, wars are going on and terrorism is rife - so just like the
present day then. To cut the complexities of the plot down to size, the city of Chicago is under attack
including the facility you work in which gets bombarded as you make your way about. This time, you play
Alex D., although there's an option to be either male or female, with dialogue recorded by both sexes
so I presume this is a way to appeal to the girlies.
There was no lengthy training section to this title, but you get to learn the basic of moving around
and talking to people as you get to meet the people in your team who are scattered around the complex
and you'll complete minor parts of the beginning just to meet them.
What you'll also realise initially is that while the environment may be nice-looking, the graphics are
very jerky indeed. There's nothing like the kind of smoothness you'd expect from a first-person-action
game so what were the designers thinking? This is complemented with obvious jaggies.
On the plus side, though, the sound fares a little better since as the place crashes down around you,
it gives an effective representation of this with sirens and warning tannoy announcements echoing
constantly. That said, this isn't exactly original and neither are the SFX of weaponry when a fight
kicks off.
You can interact with pretty much everything tangible in the environment, which is fun for a while
but since everything seems to weigh the same and how it doesn't matter whether you hit a random
guard with a basketball, jug, metal bucket or huge bin from the toilets - or even ramming them
with a trolley, this becomes rather tiresome rather quickly and doesn't help you get further on
in the game.
Go up against someone and you'll find the enemy AI completely lame. You can even shoot those on
your side with no apparent consequences to follow. Whoever you kill though, there's no skill to
just blasting away, the good/bad guy collapses and then you can just fling their body around to your
heart's content like they're a rag doll.
Interactivity beyond that seems to extend to no more than selecting the options to take by picking
lines of dialogue when the need arises. You can also pick up biomods to boost strength in your
arms, head, eye, leg and skeleton, but this is no different to being a human and collecting power-ups
- so just like the last game then.
But I persevered as long as I could and all I could conclude was that running around in the dark
got me so bored to the point where it was making me want to fall asleep. I'm not a big fan of RPG
games, which is the genre that's blended in here with the aforementioned FPS and this does nothing
to change that fact.
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
There was no lengthy training section to this title, but you get to learn the basic of moving around
and talking to people as you get to meet the people in your team who are scattered around the complex
and you'll complete minor parts of the beginning just to meet them.
You can interact with pretty much everything tangible in the environment, which is fun for a while
but since everything seems to weigh the same and how it doesn't matter whether you hit a random
guard with a basketball, jug, metal bucket or huge bin from the toilets - or even ramming them
with a trolley, this becomes rather tiresome rather quickly and doesn't help you get further on
in the game.
