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Deus Ex: Invisible War
- September 17, 2003 16:09 PM PST
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The Deus Ex series creates a near-future dystopia so dark you may never see daylight again.
If sci-fi stories these days are to be believed, the near future will be a world filled with conspiracies, ?ber-corporations, and invasive technology. The Deus Ex series, including the forthcoming sequel Invisible War, takes these topics head-on to create a near-future dystopia so dark you may never see daylight again.
Near-Future Fiasco
The original Deus Ex takes place in around 2015. You are J.C. Denton, one of two nanotech-augmented humans created to serve a government organization called UNATCO. You and your brother, Paul, represent the pinnacle of human biological modification technology, a huge advance over the clunky and malfunction-prone cybernetics that your UNATCO colleagues were given. You are the future.
Something goes wrong, though, and you are dragged into a web of lies and conspiracies so deep that this article couldn?t begin to lay them out. Along the way, you develop specific skills of your choosing, from weapons mastery to computer hacking, and obtain more nano-augmentations that give you super strength, enhanced vision, stealth camouflage, and much more.
Deus Ex was an action game with a character development system deeper than that of many RPGs?and it established a dark future that?s burned in the minds of many gamers to this day.
Deus X-Files
Invisible War will take place 15 years later and star Alex D., a state-of-the-art biomodded human. Nanotechnology is much more widespread in 2030, but Alex D. represents the future of the future. Biomods replace the ?old-school? nano-augs, and enough different organizations have access to nanotech that the twisty factions and conspiracies in the Deus Ex universe have more at stake than ever. At the beginning of the game, a terrorist detonates a nanotech bomb that disintegrates?not just destroys, disintegrates?Chicago, and you must figure out who did it and why.
To do this, you?ll have access to what developer Ion Storm has called ?biomods.? Biomods are nanotech implants that enable you to access special powers or skills. A neural interface will enable you to hack into computers and security systems, while the bot-dominator will give you the power to possess robots and see through their eyes?or shoot through their guns. For the more politically courageous, there will be a ?black market? where you can obtain more twisted implants?the government frowns on things like the Health Leech Drone, which searches for nearby corpses and unconscious enemies, breaks them down, and uses that raw organic material to heal your wounds. You?ll have nine slots for biomods and three choices per slot?plenty of room to customize your own future super-soldier.
The Deus Ex Machine
The Deus Ex future isn?t the only high-tech showcase here. Ion Storm is bringing some shiny new technology to the game?s development to make sure you get the coolest, most immersive simulation possible. They?ve taken Epic?s Unreal engine and done amazing things with it, such as plugging in an insane physics engine that gives every object in the game realistic behaviors; for example, you?ll be able to block doors by pushing a couch in front of them.
They?ve also created a new renderer and lighting system that does more than just make the game look pretty. Every light in the game is dynamic, meaning that you?ll be able to extinguish, push, knock over, carry, or place most lights in the game. You?ll be able to create your own shadows and hide in them. If you turn the lights out in a room, guards will turn on flashlights to find you.
Invisible War also employs a technique called ?normal mapping.? In short, this means that the artists can make flat textures react to lighting as if they were 3D polygons, enabling them to mimic the detail of high-poly models with fewer polys. In that way, Ion Storm frees up processing power to handle the dynamic lighting.
Begun This Invisible War Has
On track for a December release, Deus Ex: Invisible War will not only let you become a future soldier with molecule-sized machines swimming in your bloodstream, but it will also be the sequel to one of the greatest games of all time. For Xbox and PC gamers, this should make the dark future seem pretty bright.
