Junior Adventurer's Guild - December: Deus Ex: Invisible War

[J1M]

In order fit within the memory limitations of the Xbox, the game engine essentially shuts down and reinitializes each time you change a level.

A bunch of original xbox titles do this AFAIK, actually rather creative.

Reminds me of Walter Bright making the fastest C++ preprocessor just by stubbing out calls to free and letting the OS clean it up when it exits. OS-level garbage collection

Really no excuse for doing this with the PC version, however. Especially for a title that only existed due to PC sales of the first game.

[rusty_shackleford]

In order fit within the memory limitations of the Xbox, the game engine essentially shuts down and reinitializes each time you change a level.

A bunch of original xbox titles do this AFAIK, actually rather creative.

Reminds me of Walter Bright making the fastest C++ preprocessor just by stubbing out calls to free and letting the OS clean it up when it exits. OS-level garbage collection

Really no excuse for doing this with the PC version, however.

If *nix won the desktop wars I'd imagine fork would be used a lot in similar creative ways. At least years before modern hardware I could see using it to e.g., fork at the level selection to keep everything in memory up to that point, sharing it with the new process, and just loading the game. Upon level exit you could just exit to unload everything and be immediately back at the level select. Perhaps the biggest issue might deal with render API resource sharing.

[Tweed]

But going forward I'd probably require playing the game to be at or after the month it's for.
I just add the badges when requested tho, so any rules or decisions are his to make.

@Oyster Sauce is the one who set the precedent that recent playthroughs count even if they happened before it came up in AG. That's how I got my Alpha Protocol badge, and I had played it much earlier relative to the AG month compared to @Tweed's playthrough of Invisible War.

And Dorateen got a badge for IWD for his journals.

But when Tweed wants a badge for IW?

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[rusty_shackleford]

And Dorateen got a badge for IWD for his journals.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

[Nooneatall]

But going forward I'd probably require playing the game to be at or after the month it's for.
I just add the badges when requested tho, so any rules or decisions are his to make.

@Oyster Sauce is the one who set the precedent that recent playthroughs count even if they happened before it came up in AG. That's how I got my Alpha Protocol badge, and I had played it much earlier relative to the AG month compared to @Tweed's playthrough of Invisible War.

And Dorateen got a badge for IWD for his journals.

But when Tweed wants a badge for IW?

I don't think he should get a badge

[logincrash]

******* male Alex sounds like Microsoft Sam, lmao.

[Vergil]

My dad got this game on xbox and hated it because there was too much talking and wandering around doing nothing. I thought the cover was cool as **** tho.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

******* male Alex sounds like Microsoft Sam, lmao.

I prefer female Alex since the VA sounds better, plus I like the character design more.

[Vergil]

******* male Alex sounds like Microsoft Sam, lmao.

I prefer female Alex since the VA sounds better, plus I like the character design more.

https://translifeline.org/everything-yo ... ssessment/

[J1M]

Ironic that a game that so loves purple makes that the only color you can't set the HUD to.

[Valter]

I was just fiddling with the options before starting the game and clicking Extras played a 3 minute ad for the Thief game.
I didn't skip it because the only way I could rationalize this long ******* cutscene was that clicking this had somehow started a new game and this was the intro cutscene. Extras is usually some behind the scenes **** or dev commentary or alpha designs or something, not a god forsaken advertisement for another game.
Was this common back in these days? Just... baffling.

[Finarfin]

The small *** inventory makes me rage.

[rusty_shackleford]

I was just fiddling with the options before starting the game and clicking Extras played a 3 minute ad for the Thief game.
I didn't skip it because the only way I could rationalize this long ******* cutscene was that clicking this had somehow started a new game and this was the intro cutscene. Extras is usually some behind the scenes **** or dev commentary or alpha designs or something, not a god forsaken advertisement for another game.
Was this common back in these days? Just... baffling.

When you close Wizardry 8 you get an advertisement for a PC company


Company still exists and they still use that URL, btw. They got a lot of mileage out of one ad.

[J1M]

I was just fiddling with the options before starting the game and clicking Extras played a 3 minute ad for the Thief game.
I didn't skip it because the only way I could rationalize this long ******* cutscene was that clicking this had somehow started a new game and this was the intro cutscene. Extras is usually some behind the scenes **** or dev commentary or alpha designs or something, not a god forsaken advertisement for another game.
Was this common back in these days? Just... baffling.

An attempt to justify the poor decisions I mentioned above regarding real-time lighting by showcasing the game they actually thought that tech would benefit. In reality splitting their best people onto two teams resulted in two games that were less than their predecessors.

[logincrash]

What does the "Lookspring" option in Controls do?

[J1M]

What does the "Lookspring" option in Controls do?

I assume this is related to camera + controller input.

[Nooneatall]

This is a Thief like game. I thought it was a shooter but you barely get any ammo and there's barely any enemies. This is just a stealth game. I'm horrible at stealth games but I'm brute forcing my way through. I just go to Egypt.

[Stack of Turtles]

So that's $240 for the HQ in my name, right?

Proof:

[Zothique]

I was just fiddling with the options before starting the game and clicking Extras played a 3 minute ad for the Thief game.
I didn't skip it because the only way I could rationalize this long ******* cutscene was that clicking this had somehow started a new game and this was the intro cutscene. Extras is usually some behind the scenes **** or dev commentary or alpha designs or something, not a god forsaken advertisement for another game.
Was this common back in these days? Just... baffling.

When you close Wizardry 8 you get an advertisement for a PC company


Company still exists and they still use that URL, btw. They got a lot of mileage out of one ad.

I miss this **** so hard.

[Lord of Riva]

Invisible war is kind of ****.

I have been playing most of seattle now, it's gonna be a chore.

[1998]

Finished Seattle, it's OK.

[Valter]

I knew this was a dystopian setting but nothing could have prepared me for such horrors:

► Show Spoiler

[boot]

What is your favorite color

[Nooneatall]

Invisible war is kind of ****.

I have been playing most of seattle now, it's gonna be a chore.

Its a mediocre Thief like. I'm disappointed I didn't know that up front or I would have picked all stealth mods. I'm making it work by brute force and reloads but having all stealth mods would make this a cake walk.

[SpellSword]

I had a bit of trouble getting Deus Ex: Invisible War to work. Starting a new game allowed the intro cutscene to run but then locked everything up with a black screen. (Not even ALT+CTRL+DEL was working.)


The solution I ended up with was to alter the default.ini file so that "StartupFullscreen" and "UseFullscreen" were both set to False and play in a window. Now when it got to the point that previously the black screen froze at instead I got this:

Deus Ex IW - Loading Forever.png

However it still remained seemingly locked up... fortunately if you leave this screen alone (For several minutes) eventually whatever is holding it up resolves and...

Deus Ex IW - The Journey Begins.png

The journey begins...

What does the "Lookspring" option in Controls do?

I assume this is related to camera + controller input.

@J1M Here is what it says in the manual.

Lookspring. When On, your point of aim will automatically return to "front and center" after you've looked up or down. Default is Off.

From what I've seen this setting appears in some older games before mouse look really took over but for the most part it now usually only shows up in console games.

[J1M]

I had a bit of trouble getting Deus Ex: Invisible War to work. Starting a new game allowed the intro cutscene to run but then locked everything up with a black screen. (Not even ALT+CTRL+DEL was working.)


The solution I ended up with was to alter the default.ini file so that "StartupFullscreen" and "UseFullscreen" were both set to False and play in a window. Now when it got to the point that previously the black screen froze at instead I got this:



However it still remained seemingly locked up... fortunately if you leave this screen alone (For several minutes) eventually whatever is holding it up resolves and...

The journey begins...

What does the "Lookspring" option in Controls do?

I assume this is related to camera + controller input.

@J1M Here is what it says in the manual.

Lookspring. When On, your point of aim will automatically return to "front and center" after you've looked up or down. Default is Off.

From what I've seen this setting appears in some older games before mouse look really took over but for the most part it now usually only shows up in console games.

If you look at the links in the OP there is something called the Visible Upgrade: Unofficial patch for Deus Ex 2. I think this will solve your problems. Though you may choose not to use the texture packs for a more authentic experience.

[1998]

What does the "Lookspring" option in Controls do?

I assume this is related to camera + controller input.

@J1M Here is what it says in the manual.

Lookspring. When On, your point of aim will automatically return to "front and center" after you've looked up or down. Default is Off.

From what I've seen this setting appears in some older games before mouse look really took over but for the most part it now usually only shows up in console games.

It was an Xbox first game after all.

[Valter]

Alright done with the first city.
Game did a good job making me feel like there's no right faction to support anywhere. Also hilarious how most of the side missions are someone asking you to engage in assassination or sabotage or fraud or snitching. Everyone's such a scumbag.

Invisible war is kind of ****.

I have been playing most of seattle now, it's gonna be a chore.

Its a mediocre Thief like. I'm disappointed I didn't know that up front or I would have picked all stealth mods. I'm making it work by brute force and reloads but having all stealth mods would make this a cake walk.

I see how it heavily favours stealth like some others already said, however now that I got the EMP-on-weapons biochip, beating those piece of **** bots back to the scrapyard is pretty satisfying.

[logincrash]

Invisible war is kind of ****.

I have been playing most of seattle now, it's gonna be a chore.

Its a mediocre Thief like. I'm disappointed I didn't know that up front or I would have picked all stealth mods. I'm making it work by brute force and reloads but having all stealth mods would make this a cake walk.

I just dumped the first three upgrades into the "buff arms" augmentation and have been running around clobbering fools with a crowbar I found in a nightclub closet.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

I see how it heavily favours stealth like some others already said, however now that I got the EMP-on-weapons biochip, beating those piece of **** bots back to the scrapyard is pretty satisfying.

If there one thing I dislike a lot in IW it’s the universal ammo system . It really limits how much you can use different weapons and forces you to do stealth for the most optimal experience.