I'm finally recovering from E3. (Travelling sucks, but it was good to see a bunch of friends.)

We spent a lot of our time showing off Deus Ex PS2. I also sat on a panel with Ken Levine and Rob Fermier, talking about New Opportunities in Storytelling. (Another of the proposed panel members dropped out and our moderator didn't show up until halfway through the talk, but Ken, Rob and I just ran with it and had lots of fun.) I finally got to meet (the tall, cool) Dave Perry, if only briefly.

Interesting games I saw at the show:

Republic
This is the most ambitious game I've ever seen. It's a strategic simulation that allows the player to use various stylistic approaches to siezing power. I met Demis and Joe from the Elixir team--both cool, smart guys. I cannot wait for them to finish the game. The Republic demo implies incredible depth and freedom of expression.

Rubu Tribe
RT is a really gorgeous looking console game with some cool environment and ecology manipulation implications.

Startopia
I love games like this--imagine running a space station. From my perspective, the biodeck looked like the coolest aspect of the game.

Interesting things that happened:

Two cool Russian journalists (who are super fluent with all things DX) gave us 2 awesome, handmade awards from Game EXE magazine.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Science delivered the awards for Design Innovation and Action/Adventure Game of the Year. Clearly, they have the sexiest award--two furled metal wings enfolding a crystal sphere.

At the restaurant McCormick and Schmick, our waiter overheard us say, "...the industry" and assumed that Warren was a film producer bigwig. After that, the waiter was drooling and dropping all these little hints, like, "I'm an actor! Want to see my headshot photos? I was in an episode of Star Trek once!" It was amusing. Ah, LA.

Elijah Wood (from the Lord of the Rings movie) came by the Eidos booth. I was busy at the time--Warren and I were taking possession of our AIAS awards--so I did not get the chance to see if "Frodo" was carrying The Ring. (If he had been, I'd have been forced to take it...)

--------

As an aside, let me just thank Joss Whedon (and the cast) for 5 great years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's hard enough to create something good (and get it in front of other people), but to sustain the quality of that show for that long is just miraculous. Great ending to the series--very touching. (I'd love to think that, reciprocally, someone involved with the show plays computer games and liked Deus Ex. Wishful thinking, I'm sure.)



Harvey Smith
ION Storm Austin
Director, Deus Ex 2
Lead Designer, Deus Ex

As Lead Designer of Deus Ex 1 and Project Director of Deus Ex 2, I feel compelled to share some timely information with the members of the DX community.

I feel like I know the "DX2 Plan" fairly well, having been one of the people involved in creating it. I also know the team-a very smart, passionate group that I've helped to staff, made up of developers from ION, Looking Glass, Origin and Digital Anvil. We're super-diehard fans of both PC and console games. Let me clarify our goals:

We want to make DX2 better than DX1 in every possible way. Along with the team, I spend a lot of time working on the design doc and helping shape the game-I can tell you with confidence that DX2 is very much the follow-up to Deus Ex. DX2 is an immersive sim-part role-playing, part stealth, part action. The keys to the game are exploration of an atmospheric environment and providing the player with a lot of freedom (through the powerful simulation, self-expression and by providing multiple approaches to problem-solving, just like with DX1).

We want DX2 to ship on multiple platforms. (Just like DX1, for which we supported PC, Mac and PS2.) Right now our plans (budget and schedules) involve simultaneously shipping versions of the game for the PC and a specific console. Later, we'll probably try to support other platforms-it's a way to get the game to as many players as possible and to keep the company strong. We feel like we can bring our experience to the console world. We want to make smart games without compromising our creative goals. We take game creation very seriously and we want DX2 to be a powerful experience.

That sums it up. If you liked DX1, trust us to do the right thing. Thanks for caring enough about games to read this far. (Here-take this cookie…) If you're interested in gathering more info, I would point you to messages by Warren Spector (Executive Producer and ION visionary) and Randy Smith (Project Director of Thief III).