System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition Update & Community Participation

[685324f2066afZylonBane]

T3 was ported to xbox and we know how well that ended. for everybody.

T3 was written FOR the Xbox. If it had just been a port the PC version would have been better. Slightly. Still the same semi-competent team so let's not expect too much of them.

[685324f206994JDoran]

Mind you, when the 2014 Thief game came out and managed to so spectacularly miss most of what made the previous Thief games so fantastic, I think Thief 3 (the XBox/PC game) went significantly up in many people's estimates.

And there was one really good thing about Thief 3, the Shalebridge Cradle. The atmosphere in that level was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and the level continually appears in forum threads talking about the most frightening levels in video games.

[685324f206b64voodoo47]

yeah, should have worded that differently, they basically made just one build to fit all (or rather, fit the lowest common denominator, so the pc players got a gutted product, this was not rare in that era, hence my disdain for that console).

the only good thing about thi4f is that it makes T3 look like a masterpiece.

and honestly, with all the community fixes (too bad restoring rope arrows is impossible without the source code, iirc), it's a pretty good game, and wraps the trilogy up nicely.

[685324f206ebcJDoran]

T3 was written FOR the Xbox. If it had just been a port the PC version would have been better. Slightly. Still the same semi-competent team so let's not expect too much of them.

I've never understood why they went with such an unsuitable game engine. It's only plus point was that it did real time shadows, but in every other way the engine was so lacking (to judge by this game and Deux Ex: Invisible War). The areas/levels were too small, the graphics were so lacking in colour that it's bordering on monochrome (compared to other game engines), the animation and look of NPCs was extremely stilted and unconvincing, and the engine might have been unable to support in-game swimming (or maybe it could, but the designers of both Thief 3 and Deus Ex: Invisible War decided for some reason to not include swimming even though the earlier games did).

[685324f207025ZylonBane]

They probably picked Unreal because, after making Deus Ex, it was the engine they knew best. It didn't natively support shadows though. That's something they added.

The tiny levels and dull texturing were certainly due to the Xbox's piddly 64MB of RAM. That's the same amount of RAM required by the original Deus Ex. So trying to cram next-gen visuals into the same memory footprint meant some things had to be sacrificed.

[685324f207287Livo]

I don't doubt the limited console memory and the combined platform development severely screwed up things, but I do wonder how much was due to Ion Storm management incompetence and/or publisher interfering? If the Deus Ex team had decided "Real-time lighting requires too many compromises on beefy computers in the early 2000s, let alone on much weaker consoles. Thief really needs it for their design goals, but Deus Ex doesn't. Let's just go with a standard Unreal 2 lighting solution that works on Xbox like Unreal Championship", we'd have bigger levels with far more NPCs for sure...but we'd still be stuck with universal ammo & other questionable design choices.

Did Invisible War even actually *use* its fancy lighting engine in a way that affected gameplay, that wouldn't also work in an old lighting system btw? Or was it mostly a case of "We can't have two different Unreal engines during development for both titles, we  unfortunately have to only use one engine which isn't great for Deus Ex, period."

Alternatively, if you *really* wanted per-pixel dynamic lighting on Xbox for your game, Riddick showed it's possible with relatively good performance for a console at the time. That came out on both Xbox & PC in 2004 with a fully custom engine with per-pixel lighting a la Doom 3, Invisible War, Deadly Shadows. I know it's NOT an immersive sim type, but its levels were bigger than Invisible War, with faster load times. You had neat graphical effects like glowing bullet holes, good NPC model detail, several options to stealth or distract enemies, you could hide bodies in dark areas, do some optional exploring etc.

A proper Deus Ex game with a fully custom per-pixel lighting engine (instead of a cobbled Unreal 2 engine mess) on Xbox/PC, would obviously have necessitated more compromises than Riddick, but it was technically do-able with a much better engine.

[685324f20740bJDoran]

Did the developers of Invisible War ever say why they made such terrible decisions when making the game? I mean, they were making a sequel to one of the most popular and most fascinating games of all time, yet with the sequel they decided to get rid of things like:

- exploration points,

- upgradable skills,

- a lootable inventory for every unconscious or dead NPC,

- the way in the first game you were a terrible shot with every weapon until you upgraded the relevant skill,


etc. You know, much of what made the first game so great. Why did they get rid of all this and more?

I really wish that they had brought the original Deus Ex instead of Invisible War to the XBox.

[685324f20754dvoodoo47]

same deal as with T3, they made just one build of the game that had to run on every platform, so a lot had to be sacrificed in all areas. the proper approach here is to make the full, proper game for the best platform, and then pay a completely different team to port/cut it down to fit the target console. but that is expensive, so..

not mentioning the poor performance of the pc version, it ran really bad even if you had a very good machine.

[685324f20775eZylonBane]

Invisible War was the poster child of "dumbed down for consoles" for a very long time. They wanted to make it "accessible" to every shmoe playing it on their couch with a gamepad in one hand and a beer in the other. Simplified hacking, simplified upgrades, simplified inventory, simplified levels, simplified everything.

[685324f2078f3voodoo47]

and friggin' UNIVERSAL AMMO. a rocket launcher consuming the same resource as a pistol. I kid you not.

maybe they should have just made everything drain the health bar an universal bar, can't dumb down any further than that.


as I've said a couple of times, they should just reboot the series almost fully, leaving the first game as the only one that's canon and follow up with a new, proper DE2. or DE0, or whatever. burn the other garbage.

[685324f207ae3Livo]

Deus Ex on PS2, whilst having smaller levels broken into chunks and health being a single value (instead of legs, arms etc) STILL had leaning (yes, leaning on a Dual Shock), body searching, moveable bodies, inventory, skill system, etc from the PC version, as well as USB keyboard & mouse support too! As voodoo47 said, the standard/common option at the time was to have a PC version, with a console port developed separately by another team, but if you *had* to make a simultaneous release with only one team, their previous PS2 port shown you can have those features on a console game.

I remember a very old Warren Spector interview where he admits that Harvey Smith came up with many of the widely disliked decisions, particularly universal ammo. His reaction was "Universal ammo? That doesn't sound like a good idea but I was too nice to tell Harvey 'no' as he was the head designer, so I let him do it", which he says was a mistake in hindsight. I don't know whether publishers also put pressure on Warren to vastly over-simplify stuff (very likely), or if he'd simply told Harvey "No universal ammo, we also need an inventory & skills at the bare minimum!", then we'd have gotten those in the final game...

[685324f208023JDoran]

Invisible War was the poster child of "dumbed down for consoles" for a very long time. They wanted to make it "accessible" to every shmoe playing it on their couch with a gamepad in one hand and a beer in the other. Simplified hacking, simplified upgrades, simplified inventory, simplified levels, simplified everything.

That doesn't explain anything. Deus Ex was released on the PS2, and was largely identical to the PC version. The XBox version wouldn't have had to have cut down levels to compensate for less RAM, as the PS2 had to do. Though I don't know why the PS2 has a simplified health system (just one cover-all health value, instead of the PC version's each limb specific health value), you'd hardly have to be Einstein to understand the original game's system.

Console gamers aren't inherently stupider (or smarter) than PC gamers, and a gamepad can very adequately control almost any manner of game genre, especially if the game's control mechanics and GUI are intelligently designed and not just a rushed port of the PC version of the game with it's mouse and keyboard input. And I can't believe that Invisible War's developers thought "Hmmmm, we'll have to leave out swimming, NPC's inventories, exploration points, etc, because console gamers won't understand them. Oh, and we can't have both multitools AND lockpicks, 'cos that will really confuse XBox users". The only reason I can see that the developers might have wanted to dumb down Invisible War's gameplay is to appeal to more gamers who otherwise would be put off by the first games deeper mechanics, but that would apply to PC gamers as well as their console counterparts.

[685324f208818JDoran]

and friggin' UNIVERSAL AMMO. a rocket launcher consuming the same resource as a pistol. I kid you not.

They didn't even tell you how many shots you had left with whatever weapon you were currently using, IIRC.

So many terrible design decisions.

Deus Ex on PS2, whilst having smaller levels broken into chunks and health being a single value (instead of legs, arms etc) STILL had leaning (yes, leaning on a Dual Shock), body searching, moveable bodies, inventory, skill system, etc from the PC version, as well as USB keyboard & mouse support too! As voodoo47 said, the standard/common option at the time was to have a PC version, with a console port developed separately by another team, but if you *had* to make a simultaneous release with only one team, their previous PS2 port shown you can have those features on a console game.

The PS2 version is a great conversion, and well worth playing if you couldn't play the PC version, and a nice curiosity if you could play both versions. The PS2 version even had a few fixes, and some small but good changes to levels (new routes added, etc), but for some reason, they never fixed the bug where Ford Schick, after you have saved him, is supposed to give you an upgrade cannister as a reward.

I remember a very old Warren Spector interview where he admits that Harvey Smith came up with many of the widely disliked decisions, particularly universal ammo. His reaction was "Universal ammo? That doesn't sound like a good idea but I was too nice to tell Harvey 'no' as he was the head designer, so I let him do it", which he says was a mistake in hindsight. I don't know whether publishers also put pressure on Warren to vastly over-simplify stuff (very likely), or if he'd simply told Harvey "No universal ammo, we also need an inventory & skills at the bare minimum!", then we'd have gotten those in the final game...

I didn't know that, thanks. Sounds a little like the Duke Nukem Forever saga, where nobody ever said to George Brusard "No, let's stop adding new stuff, and just finish what we've got planned, then release the game."

[685324f208b63voodoo47]

Console gamers aren't inherently stupider (or smarter) than PC gamers

maybe not now, but late 90ties and early 2000s you had to keep the computer going yourself, so the tech knowledge of an average pc gamer had to be fairly high. whoever didn't want (or was not smart enough) to deal with that bough a console - limited, more expensive, no mouse and keyboard, but you just plugged it in and it worked.

either way, whatever they were thinking, we ended up with something that would be better off erased from the timeline.

[685324f208ebaZylonBane]

The only reason I can see that the developers might have wanted to dumb down Invisible War's gameplay...

If that's the only reason you can see, that's a "you" limitation.

Here's a crazy idea: Maybe the developers of Invisible War had a certain stereotype of console gamers in mind when they were making Invisible War, and so designed it to cater to that stereotype.

Back when IW was nearing release, there was a Warren Spector interview where he said something like "This game was designed for consoles first, and I think players will be able to tell." Hoo boy yes we could.

[685324f20902cvoodoo47]

I was actually thinking about how to maybe salvage the game somehow back in the day (similarly to how T3 Gold+Sneaky update are salvaging T3), but.. there just isn't anything worth salvaging. hence, "proclaim everything but DE1 not canon and just start from square one". or rather, square two.

I actually hope this will happen at some point. I mean, it's not that crazy of an idea.

[685324f209202Stingm]

I thought Human Revolution and Mankind Divided were actually pretty good.

[685324f20934ficemann]

Same here. Enjoyed both. Was not a fan of the boss battles in HR, but beyond that a great game.

[685324f209465voodoo47]

yes, but no chance in hell they are set in the same universe. things just don't fit. make them their own franchise.

[685324f209e16Livo]

I didn't know that, thanks. Sounds a little like the Duke Nukem Forever saga, where nobody ever said to George Brusard "No, let's stop adding new stuff, and just finish what we've got planned, then release the game."

It's in a 2003 Eurogamer interview, there's probably other later discussions or retrospectives on the design process I haven't found yet. It's amazing the thought processes they had at the time like, "Oh, we had to modify the PS2 UI for the first game, but rather than simply copy our successful and hard work over to the sequel, we'll somehow make it far worse by removing skills, proper inventory, ammo types, not give the ammo indicator any values, just a rough bar size value, and make the HUD a stupid circular shape that's harder to read for no good reason!" Like, for all the streamlining for console stuff that was preached, they couldn't even do proper values for weapons!

Kieron Gillen: From what I've seen, Deus Ex: Invisible War is very much about streamlining. Some people before they sit down and play it don't really understand. They go "They've lost the skills... so it's not as deep". Which is obviously insane: complexity is not the same as depth. To choose an example which I haven't seen anyone talking about online yet, is the choice to go for a single ammo reservoir for all weapons rather than dozens of them, specific for each weapon. Can you talk about the thought process behind that?
Warren Spector: That's another ulcer Harvey [Smith, Project lead on Deus Ex: Invisible War -Ed] gave me. Oh my Gosh!

Okay - is making a plan about whether to shoot and which weapon to use, based on "How much Ammo do I have?" or "This weapon takes a .357 round and that one takes a 7.62 round and this one takes a... oh, who cares?" All the decisions we made on the design side of Invisible War, and on the tech side, were based on what is required to meet our core gameplay needs.

Differentiated ammo types? I personally think that's a way of grounding the game in reality. Players, even normal human beings, know that there's a bunch of different kinds of ammo in the world. That's an invisible way of sucking the players into the world. Harvey and team disagreed.

Did I think that was important enough to say "No... you must do this?" Obviously not. We'll see how that plays out. I'm a little worried about that too...

Warren Spector: We're trying to remove barriers to belief. Trying to remove barriers to action, trying to remove barriers to plans. That's true. I would call Invisible War a more sophisticated game. Deus Ex was like early automobiles. They didn't know what they were doing! They were putting Wagon Wheels on this, and a steam engine and... they were making stuff up! And that's where we were in Deus Ex. Invisible War is a very calculated attempt to streamline and make more sophisticated.

Also, this IGN interview from 2003:

Jonric: What are the main lessons you learned in making Deus Ex and also in making a console version that have help you most in the creation of Invisible War?

Matt Baer: Well, Deus Ex was conceived as a PC game with no intention of heading to a console. But we decided to do a PS2 version of the game, and it was obvious that this was going to be no small task. For one thing, PCs generally have much more memory than consoles. So, we had to optimize our systems and content to fit in a very small memory footprint. Then, we had performance problems. We had to do a lot of custom coding in order to really tap into the power of the console. And finally, the interface was a huge issue. Consoles really force you to think about your interface and make it as streamlined as possible, otherwise your game suffers dramatically. We pretty much had to throw out the PC interface and come up with something entirely new.

So, when we started working on Invisible War, we targeted the console from day one. This time it wasn't an afterthought. Every decision we made along the way considered that we would be running on a console. And I think you'll notice the difference.

Ricardo Bare: I think accessibility is something really important that we've been trying to get better and better at. How do we provide a great Deus Ex gameplay experience and at the same time make it easier for the user to get into? Working on a console imposes some interesting constraints that force you to think about these things - and the benefits of that thought process make for a better PC game as well, I think.

Jonric: In some minds, accessibility and "dumbing down" are related or even synonymous. Would you care to comment on this in relation to Invisible Wars?

Ricardo Bare: We've gotten better at providing the same gameplay but simplifying the process for getting at it. Some people think that in order make a game easier to play, you've got to make the game 'dumber' or less complex. This is a fallacy of the either/or variety. Deep gameplay and simple interface / reduced learning curve are not mutually exclusive options.

Sometimes, there is tension between those two objectives, but you generally do not have to sacrifice depth of gameplay to gain accessibility. There are examples of games that have simple gameplay but are unnecessarily hard to use or learn, and games that have deep gameplay but are easy learn and play. So in summary, I think for Invisible War, we've succeeded in making much of the game more accessible than previous Deus Ex games, but there is still a lot of room for improvement...

[685324f209fb1voodoo47]

why would accessibility be considered a good thing? games are supposed to be hard, you feed your brain with (cool) problems to solve, satisfaction comes out.

why would I want to do something that requires no effort? would you want to shoot a gun that never misses the target no matter what you do and where you aim it? win by default (and receive a steam trophy)?

if the answer is yes then we can't be friends.

[685324f20a9ffJDoran]

maybe not now, but late 90ties and early 2000s you had to keep the computer going yourself, so the tech knowledge of an average pc gamer had to be fairly high. whoever didn't want (or was not smart enough) to deal with that bough a console - limited, more expensive, no mouse and keyboard, but you just plugged it in and it worked.

For some PC gamers, yes. But most of my PC owning mates just left me to sort out their PC technical problems, install game mods, upgrade their hardware, etc. Not because any specific person was too stupid to manage their PC, or because I'm so much smarter than them (I'm not), but most of them had no real interest in the technical aspects of a PC, whereas I did (plus I had little social life, but I loved computers).

either way, whatever they were thinking, we ended up with something that would be better off erased from the timeline.

And yet Invisible War, from what I remember got mostly really good reviews from the magazines of the time, for reasons that escape me.

If that's the only reason you can see, that's a "you" limitation.

Here's a crazy idea: Maybe the developers of Invisible War had a certain stereotype of console gamers in mind when they were making Invisible War, and so designed it to cater to that stereotype.

Maybe, but if they were chasing more sales at the (deliberate) cost of dumbing down the game, they seriously misjudged what mentally demanding (ahem) features to leave out of the game. The result was a bland game with unconvincing shooting and levels set in various real world cities that felt like they were set in a biodome on another planet, with just enough upgrade options and GUI use to frighten off the most simple of first person shooter plans but not nearly enough to interest people who wanted more than just a straight FPS game. Add in a storyline that starts with a terrorist killing thousand of people and takes the player all over the world and involves various secret and powerful organisations and yet somehow manages to be both boring and forgettable, and well it's just a total failure whatever way you look at it.

Back when IW was nearing release, there was a Warren Spector interview where he said something like "This game was designed for consoles first, and I think players will be able to tell." Hoo boy yes we could.

Can you give a link for that please? It's difficult to believe that a developer would ever say something like that about his own game, as he would very obviously be (a) implying that the upcoming game was bad and probably not worth your time and money, and (b) risking console owners taking umbrage with him and boycotting the game. Like that time Gerald Ratner said his jewellery shops sold crap, and unsurprisingly lost most of his customers.

I was actually thinking about how to maybe salvage the game somehow back in the day (similarly to how T3 Gold+Sneaky update are salvaging T3), but.. there just isn't anything worth salvaging. hence, "proclaim everything but DE1 not canon and just start from square one". or rather, square two.

I actually hope this will happen at some point. I mean, it's not that crazy of an idea.

No, I wouldn't be interested in a remake of the game, unless it significantly changes things like the gameplay, the atmosphere, etc.

[685324f20ad7cvoodoo47]

I didn't mean a remake, I meant someone who understand what made the first game so great sitting down, and making a proper sequel for it from scratch, completely ignoring IW. a reboot from a certain point, I think I've seen this happen with some manga or anime.

Can you give a link for that please?

CTRL+F you'll notice the difference

[685324f20af0bicemann]

A requel, as it's called nowadays like with some movie sequels, that completely ignore the later sequels to a movie, and then go from there. More of a modern trend. Can be very hit and miss. Like I really enjoyed the Halloween requel, but then the sequels to that dropped in quality bigtime.

Games wise, I can't recall any instances of that. I'm sure there must have been some.