Reminiscing Deus Ex With Sheldon Pacotti - Part 1

[Liquidize105]

I caught up with Sheldon Pacotti (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14623) (ex-writer and developer of the now defunct ION Storm Austin) for a little 1v1 on what makes Deus Ex revelant, why it's considered to be the quintessential videgame that ushered in the new millennium, and how its sequel failed to live up to the promise.

Happy Independence Day!




http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/6955/dxpc27yc.jpg

Come back tomorrow for the concluding half of this live interview with Sheldon Pacotti
The Invisible War Dilemma

[The Iron Weasel]

Why is invisible war's picture up there, I don't think Borys will be happy.

[Liquidize105]

Man I've been so busy these past 2 weeks, I had to tighten my belt to get this done; finished it Sunday night, saved it for today.

The belt's off now. Tomorrow's half will be even better (2nd halves are just always better for some reason!?).

[sTubbs]

Why is invisible war's picture up there, I don't think Borys will be happy.

Forget Borys, I am not happy and I am here right now. Invisible War simply does not count as a Deus Ex game. I still can not fully comprehend how one of the best games of all time could be turned in to such a steaming pile of shit. It has earned my label of worst sequel ever. While there are obviously sequels far worse than Invisible War, none have betrayed their source so completely. Fuck Invisible War.

Deus Ex, on the other hand, is the best game of all time.

[devicelimit]

Invisible war was a disgrace to Deus Ex.

[mpsmith]

Fuck Invisible War.

Deus Ex, on the other hand, is the best game of all time.
Quoted for the damn truth. Deus Ex was amazing. If someone made another game that was as intriguing as it, I'd buy two copies... But I don't know if they will.

Invisible War sucked.

[Klade]

From the wording of this news post I kept waiting for the interview to talk about what the hell went wrong (beyond say the obvious) but the topic never came up. Hopefully tomorrows post will talk about this.

[JazGalaxy]

I really do not for a second understand all the Invisible War hatred.

That game is easily one of my favorite games of all time.

I think anyone who doesn't like the game simply didn't play it right. I tried to actually play the game as I would if I were really in that situation, and as a result all the moral and ethical decisions, which were the meat of the game, were incredibly gripping. I actually had to sit my controller down and just THINK for a half hour before I made my final decision at the end of the game, and the games solution actually told me something about myself. While I am very much a revolutionary and constantly kvetch about the system and how it needs to change, I wound up fighitng for the status quo because I don't think anybody has the right to choose for anyone else how the world should be. I had the opportunity to rewrite the world into a utopia and I chose instead to fight to leave it just the way it is. Filth and all.

And I thought the sidequests with Quequegs and Peaquods as well as the NG Resonance side story had endings that were hilarious, well concieved, and socially poignient.

Just a great game around.

[Adewade]

Deus Ex is probably my third favourite game of all time (behind The Longest Journey and Bubble Bobble), but I've steered clear of the sequel because of everyone's complaints.

Is it really not worth playing through? Or just not very good at all when compared to the original?

[Savok]

Failure is an understatment.

No, it's not even worth playing through as something other then Deus Ex, it came with my video card and I tried to play it, oh how I tried. It was just so fucking awful I couldn't take anymore.

[Mozgus]

I never liked Deus Ex, yet I love Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines. I always see the two compared. Strange.

[Scaryboy]

Is it really not worth playing through? Or just not very good at all when compared to the original?

It depends. Are you what Arnold Schwarzenegger would refer to as a "girlyman"? If so, steer well clear. Your need to bitch and moan and cry will turn moderate faults (lots of loading, bad ammo management system) into armageddon level disasters. Otherwise pick it up if you are a Deus Ex fan, as it has enough good points to make it worth the struggle, and it must be available for dirt cheap at this stage.

[easi]

Anyone defending IW needs to shut the fuck up and NEVER SPEAK AGAIN. That thing was a dumbed-down console-biased piece of crap that pissed all over the legacy of DX. The menu, mods, UNIFIED AMMO - everything that made DX smart and engaging was twisted and made to appeal to NASCAR watching idiots and 5-year-olds. You even had to edit the ini in the RETAIL game just to get the mouse movement working properly. As well as the text size (although I'm sure Hans Moleman appreciated it). It was so poorly optimized, here's a fun thing: try to run it on a current high-end card and watch your fps dip into the 20s without the patch.

Death of a legend, death of a genre. I'd like to send out a hearty 'fuck you' to anyone that bought the xbox version.

[zapata666]

Anyone defending IW needs to shut the fuck up and NEVER SPEAK AGAIN. That thing was a dumbed-down console-biased piece of crap that pissed all over the legacy of DX. The menu, mods, UNIFIED AMMO - everything that made DX smart and engaging was twisted and made to appeal to NASCAR watching idiots and 5-year-olds. You even had to edit the ini in the RETAIL game just to get the mouse movement working properly. As well as the text size (although I'm sure Hans Moleman appreciated it). It was so poorly optimized, here's a fun thing: try to run it on a current high-end card and watch your fps dip into the 20s without the patch.

Death of a legend, death of a genre. I'd like to send out a hearty 'fuck you' to anyone that bought the xbox version.

So, to you, a game can only be good if it has tiny text, lots of different ammo and released only on one platform? Personally, plot and fun factor are taken into account when I purchase a game.

[easi]

Those were additional points to highlight the way PC gamers got fucked over. But you chose to quote only them in true Internet argument fashion. Bravo, Mr 22 posts.

[Liquidize105]

Careful with that reductionist argument, IW is still better than 4 fifth of the games that are coming out today by a long shot.

They took out some of the trimming like ammo types, skill points, inventory (a lot of people liked those, including myself) etc. to make it easier to understand. And if everything else had gone right, it would've been a-ok.

There's a deeper reason why it didn't live up to its name. You'll see.

[Sensei-X]

IW failed because unlike the original, your decisions had very little bearing on what ultimately happened. No matter how you played, you could still get any of the endings up until 10 minutes before the end of the game. The game gave you the illusion you were changing things but ultimately it was on rails, and it nudged you into one of the pre-determined courses, like it or not. Add to that the horrible VA and frequent loading, and I don't see why anyone could say this game was anything more than mediocre.

[Cubfan]

I was never a big fan of Deus Ex. But I finished it. Now Invisible War I only played for a couple of hours. I just could not get into it, the small chopped up levels, the mediocre gameplay and poor performance.. ugh.

[EvilBob46]

I think anyone who doesn't like the game simply didn't play it right.

That's a bit of an odd statement. The whole idea behind Deus Ex is to have a game you can play the way you want to. Even if you think carefully about your decisions in the game, and use your own moral standards to decide them, it doesn't change/affect most of the game's shortcomings at all.

[mpsmith]

I tried it for free. My friend got it (for some reason- I can't remember, since he never played the original) and played it for a while, so I figured I'd give it a shot despite what I'd heard (I couldn't play it when it first came out because my video card wasn't good enough). So I played through the introduction and a little further but it just seemed.... cheap. And stupid (in that it was dumbed-down). I wanted to like it because DX was my favorite game and I had prayed for a sequel... But IW was shit.

[Savok]

They took out some of the trimming like ammo types, skill points, inventory (a lot of people liked those, including myself) etc. to make it easier to understand. And if everything else had gone right, it would've been a-ok.
Trimmings? Trimmings? What, you're a god damn shill for a dead company now? And of course it's better then the latest torrent of Deer Hunter games and games based on shitty reality TV shows, it's hard to even consider those games.

[Vandabo]

Deus Ex was one of the most thought provoking games I have ever played. Both times I played through it I had a great time, and it seemed like a different game both times, because you could handle most things in more than one way. Even one friend of mine who was never a big gamer got totally into the game, and was able to play it even though he had next to no gaming experience other than Street Fighter II. The game was fun, accessible, thought provoking, cinematic and very rewarding. I wish they would make a proper sequel.

[JazGalaxy]

So, to you, a game can only be good if it has tiny text, lots of different ammo and released only on one platform? Personally, plot and fun factor are taken into account when I purchase a game.

exactly. A lot of the arguments I hear against the game are of the elitest variety.

Granted, I played the game on Xbox. There were frame rate issues to deal with, and the loading got on my nerves, but that didn't stop me from playing through the entire thing, and coming from me that means a LOT. I'll give up on a game extremely quickly these days simply because I don't have enough time to be bored while trying to be entertained.