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Sound is not that poor

» Pros

With respect to the sound, I feel the review misses a few points.

Voice acting is in the main very good. The music is very atmospheric, and unobtrusive - important for a game when you may spend hours in the same map just playing around.

No-one is talking about the sound/physics system - this is pretty damn amazing. Try rolling a rubber tyre down some stairs, or chuck something at a pile of crates you've made. OK so it's not perfect but it is still really really impressive. Just have some fun playing with it.

» Cons

No Direct Sound 3D support on the PC - what a tragedy. Frankly this is just not acceptable. OK if I have an NForce motherboard apparently you do get Dolby Digital out of it, much like the Xbox does I guess, but who does?

I thought we'd moved on from the days of 3D sound being a gimmick. We know the Unreal engine supports it. The Quake 3 engine does. Someone somewhere made the decision to mod the Unreal engine for the Xbox and to leave it at that.

Unforgivable.

» Review

EAX support is a given these days, especially on an A-List title. Eidos should have insisted on this. And why the hell did Ion Storm not want to put it in? This is a game all about stealth and atmosphere. I need to hear that guard coming up behind me.

If this is the same sound Engine that Thief 3 will be using I might as well give up hope on that game entirely right here right now. The smaller map sizes, though perhaps just about OK in Deus Ex will kill the atmosphere of Thief I am sure. Who can forget the thrill of following that dark passageway deeper and deeper down into the earth, with no idea of what could be lurking in wait for you.

DE:IW is still a great game. Think of it as a playground for you to explore and experiment with. It's a very different kind of game to FPS#XXXIV and it's the kind of game I love to play.