[GH] Please tell us who you are, and your involvement in Deus Ex: The Invisible War.
 
[Harvey Smith - Ion Storm] I was project director of Deus Ex: Invisible War. And I was lead designer of the original Deus Ex. 
 
[GH] How has the development between the PC and Xbox versions been different? Is it really hard porting the game to the Xbox?
 
[Harvey] We made the game for both. The missions and gameplay are the same. (The PC has high res modes and higher resolution textures for environments and characters.) The big difference is the interface. It's hard making an interface that works for both and feels right to gamers from both camps. 
 
[GH] Could you enlighten us a bit on how you are 'combining all three' endings from Deus Ex into the sequel?
 
[Harvey] Instead of choosing one of them, we created a rich 'background' fiction from the first game that includes all endgame elements: JC Denton went into Area 51, killed Bob Page, set the place to destroy itself, merged with the Helios AI, then allied with the surviving Illuminati. 
 
[GH] Has there been any talk to pull a Duke Nukem Forever and switch over to the Source engine? Half-Life 2 looks pretty good…How confident are you with Unreal technology standing up to behemoths such as iD and Valve?
 
[Harvey] Deus Ex: Invisible War uses parts of Unreal, but mostly it's our own engine. Doom 3 and Half-life 2 are beautiful, but our focus is emergent gameplay, plus elements related to story and RPG character advancement. 
 
[GH] No killing anybody – is it for real this time?
 
[Harvey] You can kill everyone, if you want. But you can also play without killing anyone. In fact, you can play without touching a weapon.
 
[GH] What sort of decisions were made around the weapon set for The Invisible War? Were considerations into the nano-powers taken?  Can nano-powers affect weapon use or ability?
 
[Harvey] Game elements and character powers work in tandem, but none of the biomods actually directly affect weapons. (Many of the weapon mods do, however.) We considered a "Weapon SmartLink" biomod, but decided against it. 
 
[GH] Could you tell us a bit on the evolution of the HUD? There have definitely been some interesting changes. Why the change from the old system?
 
[Harvey] Why change? Because we're constantly trying to improve things. And the new system IS better. Play the full version of the game for a couple of hours and you will see. Set your HUD colors, tweak the translucency to whatever you want and/or set the HUD to come on/turn off when active...it's great. 
 
[GH] How exciting/frustrating has the Artificial Intelligence creation been? Is there more of a reliance on scripting this time around, for story sake? How free is the AI to do as it pleases?
 
[Harvey] The AI in Deus Ex: Invisible War is much better than the AI in Deus Ex. It's very Thief-like. There's a lot less scripting this time, too. Lots of hide and seek search behaviors. 
 
[GH] Can we expect more social commentary this time around? Deus Ex had quite the criticism of the world, and characters had interesting views on the world that mirrored back to the present day (the bartender in China comes immediately to mind). You fellas must have some interesting discussions out-of-game.
 
[Harvey] Yes, we did. We left out the Twin Towers, excluding them from the NYC skyline and explaining this as a 'terrorist attack,' which is fairly horrifying. Deus Ex: Invisible War is equally political. No spoilers, but there's a lot of political commentary in the game's power struggle.
 
[GH] Which version of Deus Ex: The Invisible War will you be playing, and why?
 
[Harvey] I've played (and love) both Xbox and PC. Why? Because we care a lot about the games we make...
 
[GH] Do you believe any of that Feng Shui stuff?
 
[Harvey] No. But one of our mission designers, Steve Powers, is really into it. Ironically, his missions (Hong Kong and Cairo) are the most convoluted. Plainyellowsmile

[GH] Thanks Harvey!!