EYE: Divine Cybermancy Review

A brutal learning curve and translational issues hinder the great game play and deep role playing elements of this remarkable indie title

Posted by Tim Reid on August 22, 2011 - 11:29pm EST

Another fairly significant component of the game that can warrant specialization is hacking. Hacking in E.Y.E is completed through a fairly robust mini-game where you must reduce the stats, virtual health points and defense points, of the object you are hacking to 0. You do this by selecting from a variety of options, some of which will damage the object you are hacking, others which will bolster your defenses because the object you are hacking will try and hack you back. Almost any object in E.Y.E can be hacked from turrets to doors to even enemy soldiers who are wearing armour. The twist is that you can be hacked yourself, sometimes you will die and other times you will have to hack back into your own armour.

The one thing that hinders the solid combat is the enemy AI. Most enemy soldiers simply stand around until they see you, then start shooting. When you are fighting monsters, they simply charge at you and attack. Since E.Y.E is a indie this is somewhat forgivable, but the stupid things that AI does wreaks havoc on the sense of immersion that the game works so hard to achieve. Improvements to the AI would go a long way to making E.Y.E more interesting as a shooter since the large open environments make for great firefights. Fortunately if you have problems with the number of enemies present on the default settings you can change both the difficulty and the number of enemies and the limitations on how often the re-spawn. If only more shooters had this feature.

Technically the game looks a bit dated due to the fact that it runs on the source engine, but the artistic direction is for the most part very strong and many of the levels look very unique and interesting. Despite the fact that the game runs on the superbly optimized source engine the sheer size of some of the levels can cause the frame rate to plummet at times, especially when a large number of enemies show up. The audio in the game is a bit of a mixed bag, with ambient sound effects sorely lacking, but good weapon sounds and music mostly make up for this. The dim lighting in the game combined with the moody sound track makes the game fairly atmospheric, and this makes it much easier to put up with the clunky menu design and stupid enemy AI.

For those who have the patience to overcome its steep learning curve E.Y.E will prove to be a fun and worthwhile experience, especially in co-op. The blend of fast-paced gameplay and deep character customization makes it fairly easy to overlook the rough interfaces and lack of voice acting, especially given that this is a $20 indie title.

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Our ratings for EYE: Divine Cybermancy on PC out of 100 (Ratings FAQ)

Presentation

The visuals are technically a bit dated but strong art direction makes up for this. The great soundtrack makes up for the lack of ambient sound effects.

Gameplay

Fast and fun combat with loads of ways of dealing with the sadly brain dead enemies. Gunplay is very solid and stealthing and hacking your way through levels is possible.

Single Player

If you are playing E.Y.E on your own you will find the campaign to be entertaining, but some levels can be overly challenging and others will feel empty.

Multiplayer

Co-op is definitely the best way to play E.Y.E since the pace will be faster and the large number of enemies can be dealt with more easily.

Performance

(Show PC Specs)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo e7200 @ 3.1ghz
GPU: Powercolor Radeon HD 5850 PCS+
RAM: 4GB DDR2
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit