E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy (PC)

Super Adventures' ambitious "Year of Games That Begin With a Letter" gimmick continues in an alphabetical fashion with another requested game for you: E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. Uh, sorry I mean E.Ψ.Ǝ: Divine Cybermancy. Always nice to have a legitimate excuse to use an italic letter psi.

I've been curious about this one for a while, because I've seen the name mentioned a few times but I've never really formed a clear impression of what kind of game it actually is. Though the ambient knowledge I've absorbed through the internet is whispering to me that it's a little like an ambitious indie Deus Ex clone, constructed by a tiny development team and held together with sheer willpower.

(Click the pics to view them at double the size.)

Hmm, I'm starting to suspect that this might be using Valve's Source engine.

Interestingly there's a co-op and multiplayer mode here, though I'm going to ignore them entirely for now and stick with the single player campaign.

Instead of choosing a class or skills it seems that I modify my stats by choosing a combination of three genes, each their own bonuses and penalties. Clicking 'Genetic Fusion!' seems to randomly reroll the stats as well letting me tweak the results further.

I don't know what I'm doing though, so I think I'll start off by making the most boring Jack-of-all-trades character possible, with 33 points in basically everything.

Okay, I can't say I expected to still be in this place when I clicked 'Accept Character'. I just assumed the columns were there as a pre-rendered background to the character creation screen, but nope it's a 3D level that I can walk around. Plus  I've already found myself an 'eye'; there's one staring back at me from my katana! Though I'm not really sure that I can trust a sword which seems more interested in keeping tabs on me than looking to see what we're slicing next.

Well all these metal pillars look cool and everything, but it doesn't seem like there's anything I can do in this place but head for the green portal.

The green portal led to an empty red cave where the game immediately started running me through tutorial actions like 'pick up the gun' and 'duck below the rock', so I figured this would be a great time to investigate my menus instead.

I've actually started out with a fair few abilities unlocked, though most of them are mundane skills like 'change weapon fire mode', 'turn flashlight on', 'reload gun', and 'psychically manifest a squad of clones as backup'. Annoyingly I can barely see what PSI ability I have equipped as they all use tiny tiny cryptic icons. Plus they seem to scale to whatever res I use, so I can't see a way to make them any bigger.

Okay enough of that for now, what's next on my list of tutorial hints? Press 'T' for a tutorial huh? I think I can do that.

Uh...

I'm sorry that this is near impossible to read in its miniaturised state, but I promise you that the first of the tutorial videos is labelled '1.0 Use the Tutorial Menu', and selecting it brought up the video on the right which shows me how to select the option that I just selected to watch the video that I'm watching right now.

You know, I don't think I'm ready for the Tutorial Menu just yet; this is all a little too meta for me right now. I'm going to leave it and remain in blissful ignorance for as long as I can get away with until I inevitably I hit a roadblock of utter bewilderment and find I have to come crawling back.


ONE SHORT RIDE ON A LIFT LATER.

This on the other had is something I can get my head around. A box full of guns of all sizes and flavours, along with infinite magazines. In fact it seems that I can take as much as I like out of the box without it ever running dry and I'm limited only by my inventory slots. I imagine that if I get to buy a new weapon later, I'll actually be acquiring a licence to pull as many of that type of weapon out of one of these boxes as I can fit down my pants.

The only downside to loading myself up with ammo and grenades seems to be that it increases my 'Speed Malus', which presumably slows me down. I can also change to a heavier armour type here as well, but I think I've sacrificed enough of my alacrity already. I already land with the resounding thump of a falling cement mixer whenever I drop more than a meter or so as it is; I could do without kicking up a dust cloud with every step.

Hey, there's the marker for the extraction area over there. Only 260... something left. Hopefully not miles.

Alright then, I've successfully navigated the tutorial cave and collected my weapons and now I finally get someone to shoot at. No seriously, there are people all over the place down there. Hang on I'll switch to my rifle and show you.

Okay, that didn't actually help as much as I thought it would. Where's the button to pull out a cloth and wipe the crap off the reflex sight?

The rifle itself though is amazing, with perfect accuracy. Anything I point that little red dot at is going to get hit when I pull the trigger and there is zero sway. This is with a level 1 character I'm playing as with average stats and no upgrades as well!  The only problem with all this is that their guns ain't so bad either and they're actually able to hit me with them from down there.

I haven't actually moved anywhere since that last screenshot, so I'm going to try sliding down the slope and getting my shiny armoured ass behind a pillar at the bottom.

I feel like I should mention that this screenshot has been cropped so that you can read the text.

Well that didn't work out entirely the way I'd hoped.

I was trying to keep the pillar between me and the enemies, jumping out for a quick headshot when the opportunity presented itself, and this did work reasonably well for the most part. Until a tiny hovering robot gun flew around and started shooting me in the back.

It turns out that my hero isn't so great under fire, with his aim being knocked all over the place along with the camera, so I wasn't sure what to do or where to run. Plus it didn't help that when I pulled the trigger, bullets utterly failed to come out the shooty end. I didn't realise how much I'd come to rely on automatic gun reloads in games until now.

Fortunately my resurector activated in a few seconds [9 resurectors still remain] and I was soon back on my feet... still surrounded by enemies. There weren't many cops left through, so I was able to pick the rest off with the bare minimum of embarrassment.

"You gain Brouzouf, you gain Brouzouf, you gain Brouzouf..." the message box in the top left of the screen informs me (whatever that means), but fortunately it appears that I've also gained XP for my kills, as I've gone up a level and now have three shiny new skill points to spend.

Well seeing as all I've done so far is shoot things and get shot at, I think it'd be wise for me to invest my points into 'Endurance' and 'Accuracy' to get my health and damage up. Then I'll go back to following the marker leading to the extraction area.

You know, when I saw 'extraction area' written on that objective marker, somehow it didn't occur to me that it might mean 'waste extraction'. C'mon guys, why am I taking a shortcut through a sewer?

At least my rifle's more at home in these short tunnels... or at least it would be if the sight wasn't so damn murky. The first thing I'm gonna do if I survive long enough to escape back home, is to swap this thing out for a sniper rifle.

This creature is awesome though. Ain't he the cutest lil' sewer vermin you ever seen? He seems pretty harmless as well; he just wants to flop across the floor, minding his own business. There's actually an achievement for killing one of these creatures, but you'd have to be a total monster to do that because, well, look at him! Look at his adorable little eyes!


SOON.

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, a group of French indie video game developers set out to create the largest room in video game history. They succeeded.

Well I am finally back at my HQ and holy shit is this place huge. See those tiny brown smudges over there on the right of my pistol? Those are people. Proper adult sized ones in huge bulky armour!

At a rough estimate I'd say the room was about 50 meters tall, so you could pretty much fit the entire Statue of Liberty inside this space (though she'd have to leave the pedestal behind). All this means as far as gameplay's concerned though is that I've got a long hike ahead of me to reach my mentor over there.

Another cropped screenshot ruining the purity of my website.

Hey, it's one of those bloody floating gun-bot things that kicked my ass under the train tracks earlier. This particular scrab is on my side however and he has an important message for me from... myself. It seems that my last mission left me with a serious case of amnesia, but past me saw this coming and left me some advice.

Here's the story so far: it seems that our folks are working with the Jians to fight the federation, but I'm part of a secret task force created to betray them! Also I should trust my commander, but not my mentor... unless it turns out that my past self is evil and trying to manipulate me, in which case I should do the opposite I guess.

You know I'm not even sure what's going on right now; everything reads like it's been ran through a translator and the voices are all in a language I'm going to assume is entirely made up for the game, (though I could just be exposing my incredible ignorance here). I'm just going to keep going through my objectives and see if I'm able to jump onboard with the story as I go.

Man, this place is like a Quake II level that's been taken over by the science team from Doom 3... so retro. My objectives are telling me to go speak to my commander, who I just walked past in a hallway, but I'm going to explore this place a little first.

I can go chat with any NPC with a yellow speech bubble over their head, like that bloke on the right for instance, but I bet not one of them will actually explain who we are, what this place is, and what our organisation actually does.

This guy's selling guns though, which is nice. I can always do with an extended arsenal. Presumably anything I buy in here will appear in the next armoury box I find, along with ammo.

I'm put off though because it isn't showing me how the stats compare to what I already have equipped and I don't feel like swapping between menus to check, so I'll hold onto my money for now.

They sure like like their half-naked statues of women in this place. Funny how I don't remember seeing an actual woman around in here yet though.

It seems that this hangar bay is the end of the line and I'm not allowed to fly the transports myself, so I'm going to play around with my menu again for a second before heading back. It seems that I can collect items and research them as I go, System Shock 2 style. Though unlike SS2, in this I don't need any resources to help the process along except hard cash, with faster research costing more money.

I'll just click medkit and leave that running for a bit, see what that gets me.


LATER.

Well the research eventually finished, but I couldn't find any medkits to equip so I decided to chat with my commander and get started with my first mission already.

So I have (automatically) travelled to the city of New Eden in search of a CyberBrain stolen from an important member of the Secreta. With this game that could be anything from a PDA to literally the guy's actual brain, so it seems like a fairly important mission for my first run! Either that or they didn't want to send anyone they actually cared about into this dystopian shithole. I don't know what they're putting out into the atmosphere to end up with this lime green fog, but I'll consider myself lucky if I can come away from this mission without acquiring a permanent glow.

Great, I'd barely made it off the off the landing platform before the first bullets started invading my personal space. Fortunately I'd remembered to swap out my assault rifle for a sniper rifle, so I'm able to zoom in and remove my distant annoyances with a single click.

I'm not sure what to make of the enemies so far. They often run out and take shots at me while standing completely out in the open, but I've seen a few run for cover as well. I'm never struggling to find opportunities for a headshot though.

By the way, this is only the first zoom level for this scope, and I'm still standing near the landing platform. This gun is incredible.

Crap, this isn't going so well anymore [8 resurectors still remain].

I figured I could clear out the enemies on the street, then safely move forward, but these guys either respawn or they're good at hiding, because I keep getting shot in the back. I'm not overly fragile even with the light armour, I can survive a few shots, but my health doesn't regenerate and by the time I've figured out where the bullets are coming from I rarely have much of it left.

[7 resurectors still remain]. Bugger.


SOON.

Fortunately I was only a short walk and a ladder away from reaching a checkpoint. Or at least I hope it's a checkpoint, as the game hasn't given me any way to save so far.

I do have dialogue choices in certain conversations and it seems that in this case I have a bit of choice how I carry out my mission as well. You can see what I mean about the translation here; the text makes sense but it could've done with a rewrite by someone fluent in the language.

It seems that the CyberBrain job will have to wait, as the feds have located our little operations room here in the city and are preparing an attack. So I can either bribe them, hack them, or kill their leader. Well I've got a nice new sniper rifle and lots of points in accuracy, so I think I'll see how option 3 works out for me.

Whoa, it's a proper cyberpunk city out here! You know, this really doesn't look bad for a game made in 2004, it certain puts Deus Ex: Invisible War's microscopic cities to shame... it's just a pity that it was actually made in 2011. I don't want to sound like I'm taking the piss though; this was put together by just a dozen people, so what they've achieved here is actually bloody impressive I reckon. Interestingly this doesn't have a typical Blade Runner/Deus Ex wannabe synth soundtrack, instead they've gone with something far more mellow that has a habit of disappearing entirely.

There's some enemies down the street to my left for me to shoot at and my chosen objective is down the road leading off to the right, but I'm going to have a quick look around here first and see if there's an alley I can sneak through instead

Huh, that's weird, there's another objective marker up here above the door that simply says 'shoot' on it.

Ah, so that's what the 'Shoot' objective marker was about. I put a bullet through it and it released a pipe that swung down on ropes out of the shadows to demolish a gate. A bit of Half-Life 2 style physics action there to add variety.

So the doors came down, revealing a group of soldiers that look just like my guys and have bright yellow 'don't shoot me I'm on your side' triangles above their heads. Why I pulled the trigger is something I cannot begin to explain, but their retribution was swift and decisive. Another resurector lost [6 resurectors still remain].

But these bastards really know how to hold a grudge. When I got back up they were still shooting at me. I had to quickly open up the menu and restart the chapter to get them off my back in the end, and bringing the menu up doesn't pause the game in this.


EVENTUALLY.

I managed to find myself an alley to creep through in the end, but another one of those floating turret-bots was waiting for me on the other side. Man I hate these things. Hard to see, hard to hit and they don't even have the decency to explode in a single shot. It's in front of the 'Do Not Pass' sign on the left if you're having trouble finding it.

This time the little bastard managed to keep me distracted long enough for a fed to snipe me in the back from half a mile away. [5 resurectors still remain].

I'm not even joking by the way, look at the distances these shoot outs take place over. I suppose it could just be a lack of understanding and imagination on my part though. To a guy with a sniper rifle, every problem looks like a long distance target range.

It's possible I could've played this another way entirely; sneaking through these streets, slicing people up at close range with my katana, then fading away before the others realise what has happened. Or maybe I could've stuck the heavy armour on and brought the Gatling gun.

Anyway, the assassination mission soon came to a sudden conclusion as one of the enemies I was merrily sniping in the street turned out to be the target and I was instructed to walk back home again.


SOME TIME LATER.

Now that's over with I'm finally able to get this CyberBrain job done. I suggested to my mentor that I could pay off a pirate to recover the brain for us and save me a walk, but then I had a change of heart and decided I could make better use of my cash by upgrading my own Cyber Brain. Or perhaps my Cyber Armored Skull!

You'd think I'd need some kind of medical assistance for this, but nope I can just click one of these plus buttons at any time to perform immediate brain surgery on myself in even the dirtiest back alley.

I can't search fallen enemies for their gear, but they tend to drop their weapon and an ammo box for me to grab... which is really handy because I keep forgetting that pressing the reload button throws away the magazine in my gun and all the bullets it contains.

That briefcase is another item for me to add to my research list and then never figure out how to use, but I'm more interested in the gun right now. It's pretty useless to me as a weapon as I can only fit one rifle in my backpack and there's no way I'm giving this thing up, but I have recently discovered that I have the ability to turn guns and ammo into health WITH MY MIND. So I've been surrounded by potential health kits the whole game without realising it.

Using my PSI powers drains my yellow bar (along with jumping and sprinting), but that's not a huge issue as it regenerates over time.


TIME PASSES.

Oh come on, the shot wasn't that bad. I mean, he's dead isn't he?

I've been wandering around the streets trying to find my way to the CyberBrain for so long now that I've killed every fed in the area and their replacements aren't respawning fast enough to be a threat to me any more.

The level doesn't even seem to be that big, just a handful of city blocks, but I can't seem to find a way to get around to the place I need to be at. The game could really use a map in my humble opinion.


EVEN MORE TIME PASSES.

Aha, I've found a way around, though it's guarded by a rocket turret. I haven't had much look blowing these things up with bullets, but I'm hoping I might have more luck with hacking.

It seems that I can possess, hack, destroy or steal from anything or anyone standing in range and I don't need to walk right up to it, but the actual process is a little confusing to me right now. Well I've figured out that it's a bit like a Final Fantasy ATB battle: I take a turn to choose a move every time my bar finishes filling up, they do the same, and the first one of us to hit 0 HP loses. But they've given me a lot of commands to remember:

• Attack: Decreases enemy HP.
• Mask: Decreases enemy Attack.
• Scan: Decreases enemy Defence.
• Shield: Increases Defence.
• Overflow: Increases Attack at the cost of Defence.

While I'm using them on him, he's using them at me, so I'm having to remember which button increases which number and hit it as soon as I get the chance.

I actually managed to hack the turret, I'm so proud of myself! But then I took a few steps forward and found another turret standing guard in the doorway to the warehouse where the CyberBrain trade is taking place.

Aw screw it, I'm just going to run past it and hope that it takes a second to recognise I'm there.


EVENTUALLY (AND INEVITABLY).

Well, I got my dude killed again and this time I was all out of resurectors. Oh I don't mean it happened during the CyberBrain mission, no that all worked out just fine, but eventually I made one too many slip ups and found myself back at the mysterious columns again.

It's all fine though, because it turned out that none of that actually happened! My disastrous ineptitude was just a glimpse into a possible future, a future I can now avert as long as I'm willing to play the mission again from the start. Funnily enough I kept my character level though, so I haven't lost any stat progress. If I keep failing like this I'll eventually be unstoppable!

But that's enough screenshots.


CONCLUSION

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I'm not sure what I think about E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy at this point. It's visually dated but it's not ugly, it's awkward but it's slick, it's low budget but it's ambitious. I found that the poor translation (or maybe just bad writing) made it hard for me to get invested in anything that was happening in the story, but once I got out into the streets it became a shooter and on that level I was able to find the joy in it. Oh and I found the medkit in the end, it was a tiny little thing tucked away inside my armoury, so I got some use out of the research system after all.

I think what I really appreciate about the game is how there was no one yelling at me the whole time to shoot the guy on the left, kick open a door, man a turret, and absolutely positively stay on the path at all times WITHOUT DEVIATION. Nope, in this they gave me a box of guns and a target and said 'have fun shooting dudes'. Of course on the level after the city they made me fight groups of brainless monsters instead, but honestly I'd have been shocked if it didn't. Combine that with sanity effects that create hallucinations and jam your gun when they swarm you and you can imagine how entertaining that wasn't.

I'm not sure I'd want to recommend the game to anyone, it's a little... unpolished (you wouldn't mistake it for a triple-A shooter that's for sure). But I'm happy enough to keep playing it a little longer myself, so by the rules and regulations of this website I am officially required to award it a gold star (for not being crap).

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