EYE: Divine Cybermancy Review

For those who have the patience to overcome its brutal learning curve and poorly translated story and dialogue, E.Y.E might just become a game they can truly love. It has all of the elements of a classic PC title; great gameplay, deep character customization with lots of specialization options, and huge, varied environments with strong art direction. Sadly, to get the most out of E.Y.E. you will need to struggle through a few hours of confusion. You are plopped into the game with only a series of vague and largely unhelpful videos to serve as a tutorial, and expected to know what is going on. If you persevere and get past the initial confusion there is a lot to like about this ambitious and unusual game, but sadly many will be deterred instantly by the lack of polish and lack of clear instructions about the game’s many intricacies.

The developers of E.Y.E have crafted an entire world complete with lore, but to unravel the background information and plot of the game you will need to wade through huge amounts of poorly translated text. What little voice acting is present is in a strange language, so you must rely on text alone to get the information you need to understand what is happening. The story of the game revolves around a sector of the E.Y.E group, the Secreta Secretum, and their war against the interplanetary federals. Obviously a lot of time and care went into plotting the world and the story, but sadly it is told entirely through poorly translated text which makes it quite difficult to follow. If you have the time and patience there are a lot of opportunities to read more into the game’s story, but you will need a lot of patience to make sense of the world and the story, and this ultimately isn’t worth the effort.

More apparent are relevant than the convoluted plot is the creative and for the most part highly functional design surrounding the game. There is a central HQ which is used to talk to other characters and purchase new weapons. From here you start new missions, or you can return to areas that you have already visited to complete side missions. This design means that if you want, you can blast through the single player campaign in as little as 8-10 hours. However, if you take more time with the game and return to previously visited areas you will be able to expand your play-through time indefinitely and really increase the strength of your character. You also have the option to re-play the entire campaign with an already existing character.

Making the prospect of returning to earlier levels to complete side missions more interesting is the addition of co-op. While advertisements for the game mention 4-player co-op, in reality you can have up to 32 players on one server which makes things extremely chaotic. I found it best when there were two or three players since it actually felt like you were working as a team. Add in the multiple play styles possible in E.Y.E to the co-op play and you have something fairly unique and often a whole lot of fun.

While the levels of E.Y.E are large and varied with strong art direction, the real driving force behind E.Y.E is the great gameplay which is connected directly to the deep and multi-faceted role playing elements, which are very much in line with classic PC title Deus Ex. E.Y.E runs on the Source engine, and because of this the gunplay is comparable to other source-engine games, meaning it is fairly solid. Snipers, pistols, shotguns and assault rifles all pack a solid punch, and when you add in the slough of interesting abilities combat can be really fun and fast paced. Throughout the game you will find ‘armouries’ which allow you to choose your equipment. Not only do you choose which guns you want to use, but also what armour type you want. Light armour offers little protection, but allows you to be fast and agile. A melee-heavy build with light armour is an effective choice because when you block with your melee weapon you also block incoming bullets.

The armour you wear functions a bit like the nano-suit in the Crysis games, but with more customization options. Standard functions are power-jumping and increased speed, and points can be applied to these abilities to improve their effects. You can also unlock an invisibility cloak which is essential if you want to take a stealthy approach to combat. Other psi-abilities you can unlock range from one that lets you convert fallen weapons and ammo into health, to the ability to make clones of yourself that will serve as distractions for your enemies during combat. There are a slough of abilities that are all unlocked in different ways.

To gain these abilities and improve your character in general there are a number of approaches. At the base of the game is a fairly standard RPG levelling system where you gain skill points which you can apply to base attributes like accuracy, strength and agility. You will also earn money in the game which can be used on a variety of different things. At any time you can purchase mechanical augmentations for yourself which will improve your health, strength, vision and even offer certain abilities. On top of this, there is the option to complete research. Research takes time and money but can lead to new abilities and weapons being discovered. You can also spend money to purchase new weapons at HQ. All of these factors combine to make your character extremely customizable.

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.