Slashdot Log In
Deus Ex 3 Announced
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Nov 26, 2007 02:33 PM
from the machina-goes-without-saying dept.
from the machina-goes-without-saying dept.
Gamasutra has the news that Eidos is already hard at work on a Deus Ex 3 . The company announced this project along with a brand-new studio in Montreal, which will be developing the title. "According to [General Manager Stéphane D'Astous], Eidos Montreal currently has two groups -- a Q&A group that is responsible for testing all of the developer's games from anywhere in the world, and an in-house development team that D'Astous says has just passed proof of concept for Deus Ex 3. 'This game was very highly rated at its release in 2000, and we have this great huge mandate to do the third one, and everybody is very excited,' added D'Astous"
Related Stories
[+]
Prognosticating Deus Ex 3 43 comments
Deus Ex is a big deal(tm) for PC gamers, and the news of Deus Ex 3 now being on the way is well worth celebrating. Rock, Paper, Shotgun takes it to (perhaps) an unhealthy level. Kieron Gillen starts with the brand-new trailer, analyzes the imagery from the piece, and jumps off into an intensely detailed theory session about what the newest chapter set in our dystopic future might entail. "In a list, the themes are fairly striking - we hit the primary icons of the human body and perfection in nature, with Da Vinci's work as the perpetual primary shorthand. The other trend is that of social upheaval and prejudice - the signs are all deliberately retro, harking back to the more obvious prejudice and societal injustices. The key bit relevant to the plot is the Biopolitic vote of 2027, which places it twenty-five years before the start of the first Deus Ex game. Which would imply prequel or (as an outside bet, which is a shame, as it's my preferred option) alternate time-line story."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
I think I speak for everyone ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You might want to try The Witcher. FWIW I had no problem with DX2 but I played it before DX1 so I wasn't influenced by nostalgia. DX1 was epic mind you, while DX2 was just decent.
Re: (Score:2)
I tried Invisible War on the Xbox. The look stick was backward from the PS2 layout, and I couldn't even move well enough to get out of my bedroom. Never tried it again.
How hard is it for game makers to allow the configuration of the controls?
Re: (Score:2)
I played the first title on the PS2. The controls were great, I could circle strafe and everything.
I tried Invisible War on the Xbox. The look stick was backward from the PS2 layout, and I couldn't even move well enough to get out of my bedroom. Never tried it again.
Actually, DXIW was one of the first major tragedies brought on by the attempt to develop console games while simultaneously porting to the PC. You think the interface was bad on the console? You should've tried the PC, it's like they didn't even attempt to make it work there. That along with the tiny levels and several other bad design decisions were responsible for the dumbing-down of the game and the beginning of the consolitis that we started seeing all over the place.
Re:I think I speak for everyone ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess I was one of the lucky ones who had no problems running DX:IW smoothly. (Vampire Bloodlines, OTOH, can suck my...). I loved the original DX with a passion, as one of the few games that broke through the glass ceiling into art from mere entertainment. I liked the sequel very much (from the looks of the comments around I'd say I was one of the few), and while it wasn't quite art the way the first was, it had its own charms, and FWIW in my opinion it did not sacrifice the philosophical and environmental richness of the first, but merely extended it in a direction most people didn't care for.
The "Pequod's/Queequeg's" mini-story was fantastic, and previewed the main plot twist without being clumsy.
Parent
The Missing Moment (Score:3, Interesting)
For the first part of the game, you spend a fair amount of time killing bad guys. Or, at least, you have the option of killing them; you also have the option of knocking them out. And, indeed, the NPC character of your brother urges you to take this non-lethal option. But if you're
Re:The Missing Moment (Score:4, Interesting)
-spoilers here-
My favorite example was the scene where you're in your brother's apartment and the bad guys are on the way. You brother tells you jump out the bathroom window and get away. He can't follow for some reason I don't remember (he was wounded maybe). He tells you repeatedly to get out. The first time I played it I felt compelled to obey based on my experience with purely linear games. So I jump out, run away, and the scene ends. I immediately regretted it and reloaded. I decided to RP the scene and see what happens (despite the voice in my head saying that never works). All the furniture in the game is movable so I pushed the couch over in front of the door to block it a bit. Then I pushed the two chairs over by the wall opposite the door to provide cover. Then I crouched behind one of the chairs and waited for a while. I actually had to wait longer than I expected with my brother repeatedly telling me to leave. Eventually though the bad guys busted in and the fire fight started. It was sweet. They were blocked in behind the couch as I intended and I had great cover behind the chairs. Eventually, after you kill enough of them, your brother says something like "Ok, I can handle it from here, you get going".
Along with a good story, that's the sort of thing that makes a great RPG in my mind - it's not about the number of choices, it's about having a situation that forces you to actually role play in order to even *identify* the choices.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
*Spoiler alert* for those precious few of you still haven't played these two games.
DX1 had several of those "oh shit, I'm on the wrong side" moral moments (NSF are fighting the good fight?!, the Red Arrow are merely duped pawns?!, Tong wants me to end civilization as we know it?! Sonofabitch!!), but one thing I didn't appreciate about DX1 was that besides recognizing those moments, there are precious few choices that *matter* that follow from them (such as saving your brother in the Hotel escape). The ot
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have 12 buttons (4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons, select and start and L3/R3) and 2 analog sticks. Surely with properly designed UI, that should be enough. Just because one has 104 keys, doesn't mean that a game should use them all, that's just bad UI design. I remember the old days when games couldn't assume one had a joystick and defaulted to keyboard control. Keyboard control...for action games. It didn't work then, it doesn't
They learned a lot from Deus Ex 2 (Score:5, Funny)
Linear plot: Although Deus Ex 2 successfully obliterated the choices that players could make in the first game's ending, mushing them all together into some sort of hybrid plot, some players were confused by the residual choices available in the sequel. Deus Ex 3 will prevent further confusion by standardizing the "auto aim" features and adding "auto move", as well as by replacing the "choose your own adventure" style conversations with a new "we chose your adventure, now shut up and listen" interface.
Gun: The unified ammunition, one-size-fits-all inventory, and reduced upgradability of weapon skills in Deus Ex 2 really made that game more accessible to the "can't tie their own shoelaces" audience. Deus Ex 3 will build on this success by replacing the varied and confusing weapon selections from the previous games with "Gun", a generic rifle which will shoot shiny graphics effects and will be the only weapon equipped by the player and all NPCs at all times. Gun will never hurt anyone friendly, will automatically correct your aim when shooting at anyone unfriendly, and will expend no ammunition. Gun will therefore double as a convenient way of eliminating from the game confusing questions about which characters are really good guys and which are really bad guys - shoot 'em all and let Gun sort 'em out!
Box: Because of the wonderful reception that the Deus Ex 2 levels and textures received, we now know that it's just fine to scale back level design for console systems with limited RAM. Accordingly, Deus Ex 3 will be even able to run on all popular handheld game systems, with a few minor plot and setting adjustments to fit the limited level files into available memory. Can you fight your way past the defenders of Square Tunnel and make it to the enemy's hidden Box base?
Length: Although Deus Ex 2 was significantly shorter than the first, it was still way longer than the average movie, and what kind of person wants to sit in front of a screen that long? What are you, some kind of gamer geek? Deus Ex 3 will be 90 minutes; 95 minutes in the "Directors Cut" version.
(disclaimer: Deus Ex: Invisible War was actually an okay game; it just really disappointed by comparison with the first)
Re:They learned a lot from Deus Ex 2 (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
To the developers... (Score:5, Insightful)
See that 3 in the title? That's just a number. Ignore it. Look only to Deus Ex for inspiration. There never was a Deus Ex 2 - that was all just a figment of the darkest parts of your imagination.
(fwiw, for those who haven't played, Deus Ex 2 wasn't a horrible game, so much as it didn't nearly live up to the first game of the series. It suffered from a massive case of being dumbed down for simultaneous console/PC release, from the original's PC-only origin.)
It'll suck as bad, or worse, then then 2nd did... (Score:5, Interesting)
And then...in the aftermath of the sequel...their interviews again showed they had no idea why their game was a complete and total flop.
They'll screw it up; There's really no chance in hell of them not completely screwing the pooch again. They haven't a clue what they did right or what they did wrong. Go replay the first game; It was great, it's still great, but it was a fluke. The industry isn't setup to create great games like that anymore.
Re:It'll suck as bad, or worse, then then 2nd did. (Score:4, Interesting)
Hong Kong in the original was excellent. You had an entire section of the city to explore and when you got there, you had no real idea where to go. "find person X" as opposed to "here's a glowing dot on the GPS". Hitman does this well, especially in the later levels. Your target is in this hotel or other large structure. Find him, get out undetected. That's ALL you know the first time playing.
And the skills were trainable. It had RPG elements and paths and options that forced you to not change. It was common to hold onto an upgrade or even half a dozen of them in order to modify and use that new weapon you knew was coming (Sniper Rifle usually). And if you wanted to say, jump a mile high and do levels easier and in unique ways, well, stealth was forever not an option.
But this is lost in designers from what I can tell. Looks great and less filling? We can't survive on light beer forever. We also need some real thinking games in our diet.
Parent
DX2 crappy by comparison to the original. (Score:4, Insightful)
The most often cited reasons for the sequels 'suck factor' seem to be the (relative) brevity of the game, small areas with constant loading, as well as the simplification of the interface, inventory management, ammunition/weapon system, and character development. Many of these issues can be seen as the problems inherent with developing for the console market. The original Deus Ex was PC/Mac only, whereas DX2 had to get by without a mouse and keyboard. Those issues are the ones that everyone seems to cite when talking about 'what went wrong', and why DX2 is widely seen as inferior to the original. I believe that this is the case, but it's not the big problem.
The big issue I see is that people know what they are getting in to. The original Deus Ex was long and involved, with a plot that was interesting and unique. When I started the second Deus Ex game, I knew what I was in for. Not the specifics obviously, but the general outline of the game was pretty much known to me within the first hour. While there were some interesting changes made in structure between the first and second games, they were not enough. This is still the story of an augmented special agent, unraveling massive conspiracies, lies, and backstabbing, and ultimately deciding the fate of the world.
Long post short, what I thought was great about Deus Ex was the plot and how it was revealed to the player over the course of some fairly long gameplay, combined with very ambitious (for the day) interactivity. The second game had much the same overarching plot, but the surprise was gone and it didn't pull it off as well. Repetitive plots are the bread and butter of gaming, but the direct comparison between the two makes DX2 suffer.
I could be a great artist, and if I paint a nice half portrait of a young woman seated, dressed in dark colors, and appearing to look back at the viewer, it could be very good on it's own merits. Hang it next to The Mona Lisa, and tell people that there is some connection between the two, and it will garner nothing but scorn.
How to fix these issues for DX3? Good luck.
Modable + Online gaming (Score:2)
In addition, they should ensure that the game plays well in online scenarios. Allowing players to connect on a 16-player server is not enough these days - server admins must have tools, scripting platforms, dedicated game servers, etc.
Nope no Spector (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It's All in the Design. (Score:5, Interesting)
- The levels were cramped and very much like Doom 3. You didn't get the feeling that you got in the original, where long-range sniping and so on was possible as well as being way out of the hearing range of others. The original also had a lot of locations, almost reminiscent of Hitman. Multiple ways to get places and do things(and screw up as well), and a dead-simple interface.
We would rather figure out our levels and make things happen and have a lot less DOOM push the button, go through the twisty maze. Otherwise, I might as well play MYST. Pretty pictures... find the button in the room...
- The perspective in the second game as a disaster. It made everything look oddly semi-first person, but not really. So distance and movement was just off. A good example is to compare it to the original Halo. If you get this wrong, you end up with something that feels like you're playing in a PS 1 game instead of a simulation.
- #3 (there are way more than two things wrong with the second game)- The graphics in the original were fantastic. They had a simplicity and a lot less eye-candy, but game designers need to understand that raytracing and applying visual effects to everything just doesn't cure poor design. A good example of this is to compare Halflife 2 to FEAR. HL2 has a look and feel that is crisp and clean and low on silly blooming and effects, and FEAR is a CPU destroyer despite having tiny levels - because they put four tons of eye-candy in it. A good example of this is a game like Gran Turismo. Our eyes don't change how they operate short of silly speeds and acceleration, yet if you compare this to Need for Speed, where they artificially introduce motion blur...
Well, you see my point.
#4 - make it for PC only and THEN port it. Console games that end up on PC are essentially crippled right from the start.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you've missed out on #0 though:
DE was an RPG. A REAL RPG, not some wannabe with two and a half RPG elements a-la NOLF or Bioshock. Not only did it have XP and a level-up system, it had an extremely developed weapon customization system. AND, it was PERFECTLY balanced and tuned.
DE:IW was a DISASTER in this respect. The leveling system had you reach the peak of your profficiency on the second level of the game and was as balanced as a scale with me on one side and a cathedral on the other
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm in the minority here -- did not like Deus E (Score:3, Insightful)
What really clinched my negative impression is that everything just felt clunky. Combat felt clunky. The skills system felt clunky. The level design and layout was very confusing. When I feel like I have to resort to a cheat guide to get through the game the first time, that feels like bad design. I'm not talking about spoon-feeding the details to the player, I'm talking about providing enough clues so that someone of reasonable intelligence can make their way through the game without undue confusion from poor design choices.
I have to say, my kid brother made it through Deus Ex when he was thirteen and loved it. Now, he's bright, and I'm not saying that you aren't. My sticking point is that you pick intelligence in general rather than perceptiveness or just willingness to pay attention. You said pretty early on that the game felt clunky, and I take from that that you were distracted by your dislike for the game. Everything seemed straightforward to me.