Eye: Divine Cybermancy
this is a really
odd game made by a obscure french studio based off an aparently in
house developed board game, based on the source engine. is that already
weird enough? well it gets worse
you awake from a strange dream, in a sudden haze of deja vu, as you
head into the first portal, wondering what to make of it all...
eye is basically a really intense half life 2 mod. theres about a
hundread things you have to learn when you first start the game. the
skills system is incredibly obscure, the research, tech trees, hacking,
interface, etc, is all very forign and strange. the game has tutorials
but it really doesnt teach much. a lot of this is due to the really
rough and loose french translation thats present in the game, which for
better or worse is pretty entertianing at times.
so is any of this bad?
well not really, the weirdness of the overall experience, the wacky
but sometimes really thought proviking translations really give the
charm an incredibly unqiue and charming feel.
so its a first person shooter, with a ton of rpg mechanics
shoehorned in. the general combat and controls are fair enough, you have
a selection of weapons avalible from the very start (in the locker) and
you just pick a load out and try to gun down some crazy looking AI.
soon enough you arrive at your hub world, and shit gets real. all the
character designs / world design is truly otherworldly and unlike
anything you've seen before. just look at pictures of it, its not
possible to explain.
you have a mentor and a captian that gives you advice and
objectives, fortunately you always know where you need to know due to
onscreen hints, which is very welcome. so playing through the levels and
getting lost rarely happens.
it's on the source engine so of course the graphics are sort of
dated, but the overall atmosphere/design of the enviorment makes up for
it. it is a surreal experience to say the least. much of the writing and
plot has a very strong philosphical overtone, almost asking "what am i
doing here / is it for nothing?" which is very interesting, even if you
never quite really know whats going on...
so the general gameplay cycle is pretty basic, talk to
mentor/captain, get teleported to mission scenario, follow objectives,
kill bad guys ...and then theres one problem.. the Hacking
the hacking is basically one big timesink. its a strategy time based
game where you have 5 options to pick from and you have to outsmart the
AI. its a numbers game. it can sometimes take 30 minutes straight to
hack a required objective. until you realize theres a simple cycle you
can repeat for almost every hack in the game and it works... i dont
know, the hacking is just a total failure in my eyes. it does nothing
but detract from the overall experience and cause frustration and it
unnessesarily haults the progress of the game. so fuck that part.
other than that you can talk about EYE forever i feel. theres so
much depth in the mechanics (learning new abilites, buying new weapons,
unlocking levels and stats) it feels overwhelming, almost consuming.
fortunately you can just sort of ignore all of that RPG stuff and kind
of play it like a straight FPS, if you have the skills, you'll do fine.
its fast paced, with decent firearm mechanics and a general fun
gameplay cycle. nothing ever looks quite samey, so exploring all the
enviorments is always interesting. theres a section thats quite long,
incredibly obscure, and flat out strange called Noctis Labyrnth. it kind
of sucks, but its also really memorable. the helicoptors / enemy spawns
are pretty annoying, and you do a LOT of running back and forth it gets
pretty tedious...
theres one section where a 'King' tells you to kill '28 humans' and
theres no way to track how many, or any idea where to kill these humans
so you basically go to a camp and literally spawn camp the AI as it
spawns........pretty lame, goes to show how buggy and unrefined much of
the game is. but still, it adds to the charm factor for me.
definately an unforgettable experience, game has many flaws and
faults, bugs and oddities, but overall its certainly unique and fun
7/10
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