This week I’ll be reviewing Deus Ex: Invisible War, the much-anticipated sequel to the original best game ever, Deus Ex. This review has been difficult for me to write, because the original game was so very, very good and Deus Ex: Invisible War is so very, very bad. Playing the game was like watching a brilliant close friend in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease—the basic personality is the same and brief flashes of brilliance remain, but everything that makes it special and fun has been bleached out by the dementia of corporate greed.

To begin, to those of you who’ve never played the original Deus Ex, go buy it right now. It’s available at CompUSA or GameStop for about $10. Deus Ex introduced to first-person shooters the concept of free-form level design; even such past hits as Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight and Half-Life were basically linear in nature. However, the first level of Deus Ex offered not one or two, but at least 10 different options for completion. Along with a detailed inventory system and well-developed role player games (RPG) elements, as well as a great story and three possible endings, Deus Ex redefined the first-person shooter genre forever.

All die-hard frames per second (FPS) fans expected Invisible War to expand on the concept, allowing tons of options, even more inventory items and weapons, a larger list of skills, a myriad of different character interactions to really get the player into the game and a great graphics engine to boot. Unfortunately, each of these items is worse in the sequel than in the original game.

Level design is very limited. Areas feel claustrophobic and compressed—something’s wrong when a stroll through an open-air market feels the same as crawling through dank sewers. Moreover, the number of mission completion options is fewer than in the original. All aspects of inventory management have been stripped from the game. Instead, rocket launchers and shock prods, daggers and sniper rifles all take up just one slot each. The myriad ammo available in the original has also been abolished; all weapons take the same kind of ammo.

The story has been dumbed down. Instead of giving the player real choices, Invisible War gives players the appearance of choice, but really just railroads them down the same path as everyone else. This leads to a lot of frustration in curious RPG-oriented players who try to explore different story paths; the game basically heads in the same direction no matter what. The game also lacks any standout characters. The carryovers from the original lack their previous flair, and the new ones are merely blank reflections of the factions they work for, without quirks of their own.

After all of this putrescence, one might think the team neglected these necessary elements in order to improve the graphics engine, but the game looks like weasel crap. Perhaps with all settings cranked to the max it would be worth looking at, but unless you bought your machine five minutes ago, look forward to playing at 800 x 600 with all the eye candy turned off. And the best physics and light-shadow engine in the world couldn’t cover up the fact that nearly everything in the game-world is some shade of brown or gray.

In conclusion, don’t buy Deus Ex: Invisible War because it sucks. If you’ve already got it, get rid of it. If you haven’t played the original, play that, because it rocks. Lows: Everything about this game is worse than in the original.