Although it ended up selling a sizable amount of copies, and won over 30 Game of the year awards, if you ask the average gamer who usually sticks to their PlayStation, Xbox or GameCube what Deus Ex is, they'd be hard pressed to tell you much... that is if they recognize the game at all. Hopefully this will change this holiday, as the sequel to the award winning PC/PS2 game is coming to PC and Xbox. Deus Ex: Invisible War is coming, and if it's half the game that Deus Ex was (and it's looking to be a whole lot more) then it looks like we're going to have a winner on our hands.

Deus Ex was a PC game released in 1999, and then later ported to the PS2 with an improved interface adapted for easier use because of the controller not offering as many buttons as a keyboard. Although Deus Ex was far from flawless (the graphics when it came out at the time weren't spectacular, the interface, particularly how you stored your inventory was overly complicated) you would be hard pressed to find anyone who has played this game through and not loved it. Deus Ex had you play as JC Denton, a nano-augmented agent working for a Government organization in the near future. These nano-augmentations allowed JC to be 'upgraded' of sorts. You could use nano-bots to allow him to run faster, or cloak himself, or gain superhuman strength. JC Denton used his various skills throughout the game as he uncovered a vast and terrifying international conspiracy. I won't give away much of the plot for readers who are yet to experience Deus Ex (If you hurry, you can pick it up before the sequel is out!) but the game even gave you a choice of three different endings, depending on what you thought was the right decision.

Although it did give you the choice of three endings at the end, Deus Ex didn't really let you affect the story in many ways. Sure, people would comment on how you completed a mission humanely by not killing anyone, but it wouldn't change the story. Deus Ex: Invisible War looks set to push forward in this area, with developers Ion Storm promising that the story will pan out how you choose it to. There are various factions and organizations in the game, and you can try and oppose or ally yourself with whomever you choose. Your reputation in the game world also matters when you are talking to people; take for example the group in the game known as the Templars. They are violently opposed to bio-modification. As an agent with many bio-modifications, you aren't just going to be allowed to try and be friends with them. The story branching technique used in the game might allow you to (this is hypothetically of course, Ion Storm haven't given us much to work with story wise!) spare the life of one of the Templars you were assigned to kill, thus changing his/her opinion of you, and giving you access to their base, so you didn't have to shoot your way in. The possibilities are endless.

Not much has been said about the story of Deus Ex: Invisible War. You now play as Alex Denton, or Alex D for short. You also have a choice of playing as a male or a female character, with obvious differences being mainly in how other characters react to your presence. The story also takes place 20 years after the events of Deus Ex, in a world where any organization big enough can use nano-weapons and terrorism to achieve their goals. Like the first game, Deus Ex: Invisible War looks to take an extremely mature look at some important issues that have immediate parallels to today's political climate. Seemingly every big First Person Shooter on the market can boast that it has an advanced physics and lighting system, but you don't see Doom 3 confronting issues such as what makes a terrorist a terrorist, and not someone protecting themselves from a greater power. Based on the story given to us in the first game, and the promise of a branching storyline depending on your actions during gameplay, Deus Ex: Invisible War looks to set the bar for any game looking to put out a complex, mature storyline in videogames.

The gameplay in Deus Ex: Invisible War looks to be even better than the first game. As in the first game, you have many options at your disposal as to how to complete an objective. To get into a house with a locked front door, patrolling security guards and some security robots, you have several options. I could snipe out the guards, throw EMP grenades at the robots and then launch a rocket at the front door, blowing it to pieces. I could just equip a shotgun and rocket launcher, kill everything, and then find a side door that is open and get in that way. I could instead, equip a temporary cloaking device, activate an ability that allows me to run without making a sound, run past the guards, go up to a security terminal and hack into it to de-activate the robots, then sneak up on guards, spray them with pepper spray and when they are distracted knock them unconscious with a baton, then lock-picking the door open. Or I could take none of those options, and just take the sewers below that lead to a secret entrance.

Deus Ex: Invisible War is using an advanced physics system to improve not only the animations in the game by having enemies go limp and fall realistically when killed (the 'ragdoll' effect) but also by making objects in the game world have weight and move as if they were real. This was most recently popularized in the game Max Payne 2, but Deus Ex: Invisible War looks to take it one step further, with the ability to pick up and throw items. Run out of ammo and there is a guard blocking your way? Activate your strength ability and throw a metal crate right at the guards skull as hard as you can after a running start... he probably won't be getting up anytime soon.

Lighting also makes a big difference in gameplay in the game. The lighting system promises to be fully dynamic, with everything in the game world casting a shadow from the multitude of light sources in the game. You have a flashlight you can use to scout out dark areas, but if you are trying to play as a stealthy character, you might want to stick to the shadows... like in games such as Splinter Cell, the shadows will conceal you from enemies trying to find out your location. This obviously improves the stealth aspect of the game immensely. The tagline that Ion Storm has been throwing around for the game is "Wage war as you choose". With the ability to complete the game without killing a single person, the option of playing through stealthily, or just going crazy with guns, and the subsequent story branches that result from your choices, this tagline isn't far off. December can't come soon enough.