(Originally posted 10/11/2011 here)
Nonviable Levels: a blog series devoted to the losers, revisits financial and critical failures in video games with my initial optimism I will take a trip back in time to take a closer look at these unsuccessful games. My unique rating system is split into three ratings Hidden Victory: a game I genuinely enjoyed despite the reputation, Dud: a game I disliked, Cosmic Bottle Rocket: a game I didn't like but found some redeeming value that saves it from being completely unremarkable.
2003 was real turning point for the games industry, leaving many of the studios responsible for classics of previous years in tough spots. Squaresoft and Enix had merged with key people leaving shortly after the failure of Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within, Irrational Games had begun development of two projects one of which ended up canceled another one was sold in India finished by a different developer until eventually becoming 2K Boston for a while, and former Nintendo second party developer Rare Ltd. was struggling to find an audience on Microsoft’s Xbox system with poor sellers like Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Few of them fell harder that Ion Storm, a company formed by a high pedigree and suffered under poor management. After producing a string of disappointments ION Storm released a highly successful game critically and was a moderate success commercially with Deus Ex, It was an inventive twist on common game genres and is in many minds the first great example of a Shooter-RPG hybrid. It made money for it's publisher Eidos so naturally a sequel that would iterate and improve what was made before would follow right?
Well not really, Invisible War feels less like a sequel and more like a console spin-off, I mean it doesn't even carry a 2 behind it. Invisible War is considered by almost everyone who enjoyed it's predecessor to be lackluster in scope and over-simplified in general. The lack of scope can be said about the smaller level designs but is it any less ambitious than it's predecessor?
Invisible War was designed with a modified version of unreal engine 2. I've heard others say that they believed that it running from an engine designed for Tomb raider and I could believe that if it contained block shaped trees. Somehow this game's visuals have aged even worse than its predecessor, there's more colors onscreen but it draws attention to the puppet like animation with much bigger eyes and an uncanny stare. The art design also seems intent on removing the game from reality, an odd choice given the tagline “The future war on terror” of course many silly things happened in the years after 9/11.
Of course the original fooled nobody with it's robotic character animations and it's er..less than convincing voicework but when you got yelled at for “Accidentally” walking into the ladies room or get mocked for not killing anyone on your first assignment those things tend to disappear and suddenly the graphic snob inside you burns in the sight of real immersion. Invisible War has a few moments where you really feel like someone's watching your actions yet somehow those watching you in this game don't seem to care that much.
Invisble War's big selling point is real moral ambiguity, in this game there is no obnoxious karma meter to tell you that your dickhead points have increased or an obviously evil sidekick to give you a high-five when you torch little jimmy's teddy bear, the villain of the game is whoever you want it to be, and there is no happy ending or right way to beat this game. On paper this sounds like a game that could kick anything bioware's made right in the karma meter and make a realistic and cynical game that shows that there is no right answers in life, however this game's execution of said ideas reminds many gamers why we need big bads in the first place.
The game opens with a futuristic Chicago being blown up by a maniac with a liquid bomb and within minutes your introduced to the games protagonist and occasional side characters. You play Alex D. a orphaned guy (or girl, this so far being the only game in the series where you can play as a female) who becomes suspicious of his current stay with in a sort of futuristic boarding school called Tarsus Academy when his red-head friend Billie discovers that all the students are being used as Guinea pigs while a bunch of hooded religious extremists attack the place. You also meet two other students a guy that runs in circles and a perky soon to be deadly blonde girl, these people do have names but they're not a memorable as “bionic jock” and “killer barbie”. Billie the crazy red head becomes disgusted when finding out that the Tarsus employees have been spying on the students through see-through walls and decides to join the religious terrorists. After you get out of the school you are let loose in a hub world and given a choice between two factions that simultaneously communicate to you. These two factions include the extremists who attacked the school and a government agency of some kind.
The two factions are then eclipsed by other factions including a Russian bio-humanoid group with a hive mind called the “Omar” the Tarsus group later becomes a faction along with another pack of crazy religious folks unsuspiciously called the “Knights Templar”. Each faction has their good and bad qualities yet there's not much in the way of characterization, it's a little hard to care about one voice giving out a laundry list of orders over another one especially if there not particularly well developed. The other students supply a sort of surrogate role in picking factions each displaying how they feel there option is the lesser of the evils while Billie seems to run to the faction that no one with common sense would join, an idea that might have worked if I cared for Bionic jock or killer barbie or insane red-head.
In it's superior first half however I did like the open-ended level design and how multiple objectives took you to different places throughout the levels, yet I was often annoyed by intrusive loading times and small hub areas that made the towns in Ocarina of time seem huge and densely populated. The combat in the game is where most of the criticism of the game comes from. Unlike it's predecessor you have a decent enough ability to shoot in a straight line right from the start and there is no RPG like skill points in an effort to make the game accessible, also to make the game accessible are the controls that feel halo-inspired and the canister upgrade system. The shooting works well enough but the upgardes are a little unbalanced, on my recent playthrough on realistic mode I found out that I could get every augment that I needed (hacking, bot domination, health regeneration) in less than an hour and even on that difficulty (the birdbrain A.I. Doesn’t present much of a challenge). Another common grip is the universal ammo, which can be implemented well (I thought ME1's overheating guns where fine myself) and isn't in this game, why use a pistol when you can use sniper ammo and rocket launchers with barley any consequence due to easy to find ammo? The game barely presents much of a challenge but hacking robots and turning them against your enemies is always enjoyable.
Meanwhile later in the game a plot twist reveals that your decision of factions where not all that important after all (and apparently neither are the leaders who you can kill and still get on the good side of the guy who sent you to find them). At this point in the game the story goes full-blown pseudo-philosophy babble that was popular after the first matrix film. Your encounter with original game hero JC Denten revels that all the endings in the original game somehow happened and now he wants to make the world a better place via human hive minds. The climax of the game puts you in control of the worlds outcome yet due to the said lack of characterization and small exposure to the world you inhabit it's a little hard to care but at least the factions stop bugging you when you finally reach liberty island.
The non-climatic climax of the game puts you against whoever you pissed off in the last level but you can still jump ship to the totally not insane Templars even if you killed thousands of their minions. The ending of the game plays out in a selection of 4 per-rendered cut-scenes that somehow provides even less closure than the other games. The later half of the game feels so rushd it's a little hard to recomend.
Despite selling a little more than it's predecessor Invisible War's lukwarm reception and lackluster consumer interest killed interest in a Deus Ex film and potential spin-offs (an ion-storm multiplayer spin-off was retitled Project Snowblind separating it from the franchise) for nearly a decade. Invisible War promised to be a painless game that would be easier to get into than it's predecessor, even though it's playable from beginning to end and rarely frustrating it feels underwhelming and half-finished. It's effort to engage players to think about their worldview rather than manipulate them emotionally is more interesting in theory than it is in practice, but certainly not an idea worth discarding entirely.
Rating: Cosmic Bottle Rocket
For more looks back on failed follow ups see my 1up blog