[Rictor]

Celebrating the unveiling of the new studio, EIDOS-MONTREAL invited media, partners and industry stakeholders to take an exclusive tour of the cutting-edge facility. Executives from the new studio also announced during a news conference the exciting new project that will be driven by the new studio: the development of Deus Ex 3, the highly anticipated next instalment to the award-winning AAA franchise.
“This is a very exciting day for Eidos,” said Rob Murphy, Managing Director of Studios at Eidos. “Deus Ex is one of our finest franchises, often cited as one of the best PC games of all time. By developing this game at our new cutting-edge Montreal studio we have the opportunity to really push the boundaries of expectation for Deus Ex 3.”

“We are thrilled to be working on such a prestigious franchise as Deus Ex in Montréal, which has a well-known reputation as a hotbed for experienced, talented developers. Our new studio enables us to work with a passionate and talented group of people and helps strengthen our position as industry leaders,” says Stéphane D’Astous, General Manager, EIDOS-MONTREAL.

Teaser trailer here:
http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/19299/PC/Deus-Ex-3

Now...I take it for granted that this is going to be cross-platform, because most AAA titles these days are. But I'm still holding out hope that it won't be consolized to death, given that there are a number of cross-platform games which have been executed properly.

I think we can all agree that the first Deus Ex was a unique gem, one of the best computer games ever, while Invisible War was....bad. I haven't even played it and even I know it's bad.

[Mefustae]

I still feel burned after the abortion that was Deus Ex 2. I don't think i'm quite ready to love again.

[Polpolion]

It's either going to totally suck, or it's going to the bestest ever. Not like over-hype, bestest ever, I mean literally bad-grammar-constituting bestest ever.

IMHO the reason they had trouble in DX2 was because of 3 endings they had to incorporate.  Either they're going to somehow really screw it up with even more endings, or they're gonna do something else. And given that this is Deus Ex, that something else is likely to be good.

Anyway, huzah!

[Ransom]

DX2 wasn't really that bad in its own right. It's just terrible as a sequel to the first game.

[CP5670]

The trailer is not very informative, but any news about this game is good to hear.

I think we can all agree that the first Deus Ex was a unique gem, one of the best computer games ever, while Invisible War was....bad. I haven't even played it and even I know it's bad.

Invisible War was quite good compared to most games. It was just nowhere near as good the first game.

[Sarafan]

This is a good news, I didnt played Deus Ex 2 so cant say about that. What I fear the most is that due to way current FPS games are made, this may end up a pretty empty shell and nothing else.

[nvsblmnc]

DX2 was a solid game, but the first was such a hard act to follow...

Hopefully DX3 will go back to the feel of the first, where you're dropped on location, given an objective and basically left to find your own way.

[Marcus Vesper]

Deus Ex worked partly because of the setting, partly because of the way you could play through any given level in multiple valid ways, but all of that was made possible by the RPG/augmentation system they threw out the bloody window in the sequel!  Every single aspect of the interface, inventory system, augmentations, health management, etc was a step WAY backwards from the wonderful design of Deus Ex, and we all know it's because those menus were designed for a mouse.

If they bring back all the elements they lobotomized from the original to appeal to the Madden and Halo crowd, then I'll consider playing it.  It's strange how Eidos managed to butcher Deus Ex and then bring us Thief: Deadly Shadows, which used the same engine and was a REAL sequel to an established and well loved setting.

[redsniper]

You know, I first played Deus Ex as a PS2 port, not on PC, and it worked just fine. They changed some stuff, like inventory management is simpler and you just have one big pool of health rather than location specific HP. I haven't played DX2, but it sounds like they didn't even need to dumb it down so much to work on a console since DX1 worked so well.

[Kosh]

Invisible War was quite good compared to most games. It was just nowhere near as good the first game

I have to disagree, I thought compared to most other games it was mediocre at best. The characterization was poor, the combat was horribly unbalanced, and there was no location damage.

I haven't played DX2, but it sounds like they didn't even need to dumb it down so much to work on a console since DX1 worked so well.

Too bad that didn't stop them though.

If they bring back all the elements they lobotomized from the original to appeal to the Madden and Halo crowd, then I'll consider playing it.  It's strange how Eidos managed to butcher Deus Ex and then bring us Thief: Deadly Shadows, which used the same engine and was a REAL sequel to an established and well loved setting.

Then again I think what went wrong was that Warren Specter had a much greater say in the sequel than in the original, and rightfully took a lot of heat from the fans because of it. But now he's gone, so I think there's no longer any problem.

[Rictor]

Actually, I think it's the opposite. Warren Spector was the lead guy on DX1 and Harvey Somethingorother was the lead on DX2. Apparently, most of the controversial design choices were his calls, though that wouldn't account for low production values if indeed they were low (haven't played the game).

[Flaser]

I played both titles, and while Deus Ex 2 is not as horrible as it's touted to be, it's a lot dumber game then DX1 was. I also find it hard to think that the same Warren Spector who brought us Systemshock would have fallen in with the console crowd.

[CP5670]

I have to disagree, I thought compared to most other games it was mediocre at best. The characterization was poor, the combat was horribly unbalanced, and there was no location damage.

It did have major flaws, but look at the good points of it. The story was excellent and actually more original than DX's in some ways, even though it had nowhere near the same amount of depth or detail. Most of the levels were also fairly nonlinear despite being small and had more believable layouts than the progressive sequence of rooms we see in many games these days. As for the location damage, that applies to most sci fi FPSs I've played. The first Deus Ex was somewhat unique in that respect.

And of course, you could spend hours screwing around with the ridiculous physics. That was almost a whole game in itself.

[Marcus Vesper]

Well we can NOW, back when it was first released it ran horribly, and even playing it patched, with improved textures, on a much more powerful system, I STILL get this disconnect whenever I move around, interact with the environment, etc.  It's hard to explain what I mean by that, but it just doesn't feel like I'm there; Alex just doesn't move right somehow, and every time a light switch disappears when you look at it from the wrong angle it keeps driving home the point that you're playing a game. 

True story: When I first fired up the game I was convinced my sound was broken, because everyone sounded tinny and robotic, and I spent hours scouring forums trying to find the setting I needed to fix it's "rampant misconfiguration".  Except all the voicework really IS that low grade, every single character sounds like an obvious recording!  They spent so much time on the graphics (and didn't even get them playing properly on monstrous systems when it was released) and they release it with horribly compressed audio?  Once again, every time anyone talked I was pulled right out of the experience because the sound was so bad.  It wouldn't surprise me that they compressed the audio because the graphics were already pushing the poor X-Box too hard, giving me one more reason to hate the blasted contraption. 

If I had never played the original, I would still contend that Invisible War wasn't a very good game.  Having played the original, most of what I loved about it was cruelly stripped away, and all the good things they kept were dumbed down, ugly, soulless imitations of the original.  There were some cool settings, some interesting plot twists, but they didn't overcome the overwhelmingly bad elements (everything else).  I know empirically that the story wasn't bad, but it didn't have the same level of resonance with me partly because it tried to reconcile all the various endings from the original and threw them into a world that didn't feel like ours anymore.

So in short, yes Deus Ex 2 WAS as horrible as it was touted to be, it's just there are tons of even more horrible FPS games to compare it with.  Just because something is better then a crappy game doesn't mean it's not a crappy game itself.

On a related note: Being the best FPS on a console is like winning the Special Olympics, so what's that say about the competition?

[ZylonBane]

This announcement inspired me to fire up Invisible War again to see if it was as bad as I remembered. And yes, it really is. And no, I don't mean bad by comparison with the original. It's just plain bad. For example--

In the first few minutes of gameplay, you see a guard get killed by an exploding air vent.  When you walk around literally the next corner and report this to the first guard you see, his only response is a disinterested "These things happen." Then you spend another five minutes or so hearing distant explosions, but everyone you mention this to shrugs it off like nothing's happening. The entire game is like this. It's like a world populated by crazy people, and it makes it pretty much impossible to get immersed in or even care about the storyline.

Oh well, at least Harvey Smith won't be involved in DX3. And from some of the frames in the teaser, it looks like it might be a prequel.

[Polpolion]

I think the world is supposed to be populated by crazy people. Maybe it suggest something about the times that they live in.

[Kosh]

Actually, I think it's the opposite. Warren Spector was the lead guy on DX1 and Harvey Somethingorother was the lead on DX2. Apparently, most of the controversial design choices were his calls, though that wouldn't account for low production values if indeed they were low (haven't played the game).

Yeah, you're right, I get them confused sometimes. Speaking of which it looks like Harvey;s latest game bombed pretty bad.

http://games.slashdot.org/games/07/11/29/1953246.shtml

The story was excellent and actually more original than DX's in some ways, even though it had nowhere near the same amount of depth or detail.

I will give the story credit for being different, but not having the depth or detail of the original kind of sank it. The entire premise of DX is the wacky conspiracy theories (the "New World Order" stuff) come true, but it seems to me that this aspect of the sequel was kind of shoe-horned in. In a straight FPS it wouldn't matter so much, but DX has always been much more than that, and so having a great, detailed, great story line matters a lot more.

But yeah, the Havok physics engine was a lot more fun to play with than Karma was.

Oh well, at least Harvey Smith won't be involved in DX3. And from some of the frames in the teaser, it looks like it might be a prequel.

I think that's probably the best way to go, although I'm not sure what they would do about Gunther's voice, since the actor is dead.

[CP5670]

Well we can NOW, back when it was first released it ran horribly, and even playing it patched, with improved textures, on a much more powerful system, I STILL get this disconnect whenever I move around, interact with the environment, etc.  It's hard to explain what I mean by that, but it just doesn't feel like I'm there; Alex just doesn't move right somehow, and every time a light switch disappears when you look at it from the wrong angle it keeps driving home the point that you're playing a game.

True story: When I first fired up the game I was convinced my sound was broken, because everyone sounded tinny and robotic, and I spent hours scouring forums trying to find the setting I needed to fix it's "rampant misconfiguration".  Except all the voicework really IS that low grade, every single character sounds like an obvious recording!  They spent so much time on the graphics (and didn't even get them playing properly on monstrous systems when it was released) and they release it with horribly compressed audio?  Once again, every time anyone talked I was pulled right out of the experience because the sound was so bad.  It wouldn't surprise me that they compressed the audio because the graphics were already pushing the poor X-Box too hard, giving me one more reason to hate the blasted contraption.

Performance was definitely a problem when the game first came out. I think that was the biggest issue with the game back then, as it ran like trash on everything until the X1800 cards came out a good two years after its release (and it never looked that good at all, except for maybe the NPCs). However, there are no such issues on current hardware. Like several other Havok games, the physics engine is capped at 30fps, but you and the other characters still move around at a normal speed. I haven't seen this light switch thing you're talking about.

I didn't find anything that bad about the voice acting, with the exception of Alex Denton's own voice which was quite boring and generic. The rest seemed pretty good to me. Some of them did have a noticeable recording-like feeling to them (just in terms of the sound quality), but it didn't bother me much.

This announcement inspired me to fire up Invisible War again to see if it was as bad as I remembered. And yes, it really is. And no, I don't mean bad by comparison with the original. It's just plain bad. For example--

In the first few minutes of gameplay, you see a guard get killed by an exploding air vent.  When you walk around literally the next corner and report this to the first guard you see, his only response is a disinterested "These things happen." Then you spend another five minutes or so hearing distant explosions, but everyone you mention this to shrugs it off like nothing's happening. The entire game is like this. It's like a world populated by crazy people, and it makes it pretty much impossible to get immersed in or even care about the storyline.

Yeah, the whole intro sequence was pretty bad, but the game got much better when you got out into the Seattle streets.

Speaking of that guard, is he the same guy who asks for your help a bit later when you come back up there? I never figured out if that was the case. He's in roughly the same place where you saw the other guy but seems to have quite a different personality.

[NGTM-1R]

I think we can all agree that the first Deus Ex was a unique gem, one of the best computer games ever, while Invisible War was....bad. I haven't even played it and even I know it's bad.

Funny thing, I still have 2 but can't seem to get it to run...

[Rictor]

Oddly enough, me too. I've got it sitting on my shelf right now, but for some weird reason it kept crashing on my old comp (I think it had something to do with audio drivers). I haven't gotten around to playing it on my new system, but I will eventually.