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PlayStation (Games) XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Deus Ex Clan Wars Takes Series Toward Action? 33

Posted by simoniker from the ex-machina dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an Eidos Interactive financial presentation, originally from late 2003, but only noticed recently, mentioning the development of Deus Ex: Clan Wars, a previously unhighlighted title that continues the popular stealth action series. The game is mentioned in context of an "Example WIP [Work In Progress]", and a newer financial presentation on the Eidos UK site indicates Clan Wars may only be a working title, since it lists 'Deus Ex 'Action' game' on release schedules for the next financial year. Online rumors suggest Clan Wars may be a PlayStation 2/Xbox title that's in development at Eidos-owned Crystal Dynamics, who is also developing the new Tomb Raider title, and elsewhere, the recent Eidos financial presentation lists other unheralded forthcoming titles, including "Commandos 'Tactical Shooter'", presumably an extension of the Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines franchise, and new IPs called "Crash N' Burn" and "25 To Life".
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Deus Ex Clan Wars Takes Series Toward Action? More

Deus Ex Clan Wars Takes Series Toward Action?

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  • Oh dear. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rexz ( 724700 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @08:08PM (#8752074)
    Sadly this sounds like a nail in the Deus Ex franchise's creativity coffin.

    The first Deus Ex was utterly groundbreaking and beautifully crafted. The second was an enjoyable, if failed, experiment; average compared to its peers, dire compared to the original. The third sounds like an outsourced game in the dated Tomb Raider mould (the two games even share the same developer).

    Unfortunately it seems that creative games simply aren't as reliable moneymakers as unintelligent sequels.

    • Re:Oh dear. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Deus Ex is not as good as you remember it being. Invisible War has many problems, but comparing the two games it's undisputable that Invisible War is equal or a little better in every way.

      (not that I love Invisible War. maybe back when Deus Ex 1 came out the faults it has were excusable, but these days there's a higher level of polish expected. Both games are lacking in many of the same areas and it's ridiculous to pretend that Deus Ex was some perfect creation and Invisible War is crap compared to it.

      • Re:Oh dear. (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        it's undisputable that Invisible War is equal or a little better in every way.

        Err... interface? I'll grant that the gameplay isn't as dire as some like to make out, but IW's interface is totally counter-intuitive to anyone who's more used to a mouse than a gamepad. Not to mention the crazy decision to force people to use a toggle-crouch, despite the fact that the majority of PC gamers prefer hold-crouch.
        • Ok, I'll give you that one. Though personally I think the DXIW interface is a step in the right direction, the lame xbox-port-ness of it made things unnecessarily difficult.

        • Not to mention the crazy decision to force people to use a toggle-crouch, despite the fact that the majority of PC gamers prefer hold-crouch.

          Hold-Crouch is preferred for situations where the crouch action is "instantaneous" - either you are crouched or you are not. In these cases, you don't mind holding down the extra finger in order to move around while crouching to enter and leave the line of fire. This appears in games like Half-Life or other conventional FPSs.

          Toggle-Crouch is better in games where

    • Deus Ex was not that great. Unless you suffer from OCD. Then I imagine it's heaven... scouring each inch of boring levels to find every chit on the map. The game was mind-numbing at times and mediocre at best. Invisible war was mediocre, but not as irritating as DE. Neither of them were that inventive. Deus Ex's feature list read like System Shocks' and several other better games.
      • We may have played different games, then. DE was great, because it actually dared to bother you with such stuff as to type in passwords, punch in PINs and read through emails. All that stuff had an immersive effect and added greatly to the other things like sneaking around, overhearing conversations etc. And you got this wonderful archiving system, where a notbook would record all conversations and all notes ever received.
        In DX2-IW you still receive passwords and PINs, but you never needed to actually type

    • Re:Oh dear. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3&gmail,com> on Friday April 02, 2004 @10:44PM (#8752956) Journal
      The third sounds like an outsourced game in the dated Tomb Raider mould (the two games even share the same developer).

      No, they don't. Crystal Dynamics is just handling the latest game in the series. They're better known for the far superior Legacy of Kain series.

      And even if Core Design, the original developer of Tomb Raider, was making this new Deus Ex, they managed to do a pretty good job on Project Eden [eidosinteractive.com], so I wouldn't be so depressed about it.

      Rob

    • Re:Oh dear. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Chris Carollo ( 251937 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @12:59PM (#8756222)
      Sadly this sounds like a nail in the Deus Ex franchise's creativity coffin.
      I don't understand comments like this -- a studio is taking the Deus Ex universe in a different direction, and you lament the killing of creativity?

      I think there's all sorts of possibilities for a game in the Deus Ex universe that's more action oriented. Biomods and tools skewed less towards rpg interactions and more towards offensive or defensive combat, simulation based so you can make combat-interesting tactical decisions that result in emergent behaviors, etc.

      Say what you will about DX:IW (which I'm immensely proud of, BTW), but I think this could be totally cool, and I'm honestly a bit perplexed that so many people would start slamming Clan Wars without knowing more than the barest of facts about it.
      • Never in gaming history EVER has a series gone such a HUGE distance from lofty coolness, replay ability and just a generally an awesome game, Deus Ex, to a piece of crap like DXIW.

        If they had simply used the same game engine and made more maps for the original, more of the loyal Deus Ex fans would have pleased, but Ion Scum sold out to the console market to make money. Frankly, rename the series. I know fiscal concerns rule in the gaming business but don't piss off a loyal fan base by ruining games ... wai
        • (since I've already posted, I sure hope someone with mod status tags the parent as flamebait or troll)

          Um, you do realize that I was the Lead Programmer on DX:IW, right?

          As far as reviews go, DX:IW ended up with marginally worse reviews than its predecessor, see:
          GameRankings [gamerankings.com] or
          MetaCritic [metacritic.com]

          Note that the vast majority of reviews are in the 80-100% range. And then read a few of the ones that aren't to get a gauge on their quality.

          Anyway, sorry that you didn't like the game. I hope that our future endeavor
          • Um, you do realize that I was the Lead Programmer on DX:IW, right?

            I hate to burst your bubble, but you don't quite yet have the name recognition of John Carmack or Richard Garriott.

            As far as reviews go, DX:IW ended up with marginally worse reviews than its predecessor, see:

            It's funny that you link the X-Box reviews of the games. The PC reviews are lower.

            Note that the vast majority of reviews are in the 80-100% range. And then read a few of the ones that aren't to get a gauge on their quality.
          • Reviews aren't worth a squirt of piss. Well, except to one's self. IOW, I'm not terribly worried how well a game is reviewed by PC Gamer, Game Spy, or anyone/anything other than gmhowell. Black and White taught me the value (zero) of reviews by 'professionals'.

            As far as DX:IW, the levels were just too damned small.

            Out of curiosity, how much of your job was 'design', and how much 'coding'? As an example of what I mean, does the decision to have a simplified inventory system (IOW, no Deus Ex Inventory Tetri

        • Never in gaming history EVER has a series gone such a HUGE distance from lofty coolness, replay ability and just a generally an awesome game, Deus Ex, to a piece of crap like DXIW.

          Red Alert 1 -> Red Alert 2.

          While Red Alert isn't as great as it could be, and while Red Alert 2 is quite popular, those two games are a great example among a significant group of people of a game turning sour.

          If they had simply used the same game engine and made more maps for the original, more of the loyal Deus Ex fan

      • I'm honestly a bit perplexed that so many people would start slamming Clan Wars without knowing more than the barest of facts about it.

        I'm sure you know about reputation.

        When a software company is known to produce high-quality products, they are generally considerd to be good companies. If, however, a software company releases products that don't meet expectations, a bad reputation is formes. This results in an irrational dismissal of any games from that company, regardless of what merits can appear.

  • Spector as Video Gaming's Lucas? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @10:17PM (#8752814) Homepage
    It's too early to make a pure comparison between Spector and Lucas, but it seems like Spector is moving in that direction. And this is coming from someone who loved Warren Spector so much that I would've had a "re-orientation" if Spector and I met in a bar. And he'd been gay, if he isn't already. Or something.

    Now, I'm not so sure. I'm quite certain I would reject any advances, no matter how drunk either of us was. He sounded way too much like Lucas in his post-mortem defense of DE:IW, not at all unlike Lucas in his defense of the prequelogy; oblivious to the fans, tinged with arrogance, and with a sense of justification that what he did was right while everyone else knows it wasn't. It sounds like Spector has surrounded himself with yes people, a Denton Ranch if you will. I used to think Molyneux was like that, but at least Molyneux had the gonads to admit that Black and White wasn't the shiznit everyone thought it would be. Spector, I get the impression he thinks that it was us who was off base, not him.

    I remember hearing the president of Lucasarts defend the abomination that was Force Commander with something along the lines of, "This is the future, but the gaming universe just wasn't ready for it." Which sounds a little like Spector now. For shame, for shame.
  • If it ends up as some Dark Alliance/Brotherhood of Steel PS2/Xbox offshoot, I'm done. I enjoy Dark Alliance, but I'll be damned if I'll enjoy seeing Deus Ex stripped down AGAIN.
    • I wrote it already in a reply a little bit higher up in the tree: I think what they didn't realise was how much all the small thing added to the immersive effect:
      • - having to type in passwords
      • - having to punch in PINs
      • - browsing through emails like you would do at you own computer (goddammit you
      • where at home at you own computer)
      • - having all conversations, notes, emails, pictures neatly stored in your data vault
      • - having to drag'n'drop your weapons into the arsenal, fitting them into the available space
      • -
      • >> - having to drag'n'drop your weapons into the arsenal, fitting them into the available space

        - having to right click your weapons in the description area, and then picking up another weapon of similar size and having them both take up the same space.

        And, the venerable:
        (>set DeusEx.JCDentonMale bCheatsEnabled True
        (>spawnmass 40 hooker2

        That being said, I wish there were texture and model packs out there that would make Deus Ex 1 pretty. I've got a 9700 pro here, and Deus Ex isn't making it
      • Warren Spector tried to make us believe that this was non-essential rubbish

        You'd think he would have learned from history.

        This is the same kind of thing that happened to Origin with the Ultima series (which Spector has worked on) oh so long ago. Ultima 8 was stipped-down and more action-oriented than the previous games, and lost a lot of the interactivity that had been there since Ultima 6. When fans complained, Origin derided them saying Ultima was about more than just "baking bread". They were see

  • Coming Soon: Deus Ex III-D, Conspiracy Fighter! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's what you've been waiting for, the ultimate in conspiracy 3d fighting games! Over 160 motion captured combos! Pit your favorite heroes in the Deus Ex universe with your favorite villians . . . or heroes! Use J.C. Denton's flashlight biomod, or the greasels' jumping action! Combine moves! 13 different fully rendered environments, including Paul's Apartment, UNATCO HQ, and inside a black helicopter! Avoid blistering enemy attacks by jumping into vents!

    Warren Spector, producer, says, "I think we'll
  • The multiplayer add-on for the original Deus Ex was rather unique. A bit slow, true, but I found it pretty interesting, a lot like the new Splinter Cell's multiplayer missions (except more frantic).

    But if this is going downhill into Brotherhood of Steel territory, that's it. Invisible War came close enough to "mainstreaming" the series, and this might kill it.
  • Did I stumble onto BluesNews?

    #1) Most of people, and by that I mean most of you, didn't even realize how good DX1 was until it hit Europe and actually started to sell. So this rabid devotion to the original is near hilarious in light that most gamers dismissed it as a crappy Quake-Killer-Wannabe when it came out.

    #2) There were probably as many, if not more, bad reviews of DX1 than there were for DXIW.

    #3) Also willing to bet that a lot of people are bitching about DXIW because of the demo, which was poor

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