EYE has been an interesting game to play. It feels like it's a 2000 game in 2011; it takes me back to the age of games like Thief and Deus Ex, the time when innovation and fun were more important than polish. If I had to pin it into a specific genre I'd call it an FPS RPG, but, as opposed to, say, Deus Ex Human Revolution - an RPG with FPS gameplay - EYE is more of an FPS with RPG elements and character building. And where Deus Ex Human Revolution is a console game ported to PC, EYE is very much a true PC game.
Let's start with describing the game itself.
You play as a soldier in a group called the E.Y.E., an armed branch of the Secreta Secretorum. The Secreta is effectively a coalition of several powerful corporations (one of which, Vindico, makes a lot of the weapons you use) dedicated to overthrowing the Federation, an empire of some 1200 worlds. You're not really freedom fighters or anything like that, though; the Secreta seems to aim more at taking the Federation's place than "liberating" worlds or any of that nonsense.
The setting is... well, much of it is old traditional cyberpunk, you have your neon lights and your Japanese signs, your gangsters and street samurai, your cybernetics, guns alongside blades, and so on. But there's also a fair gothic aspect; certain areas of the game are reminiscent of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Some parts of the game are based off of 40k, and there's a definite dose of Ghost in the Shell within the game's hacking mechanics. There's even a "boss" enemy type that plays a clear homage to Doom.
The game's plot is rather complex and, much as I hate the expression, deep. I want to explain more, but honestly... to explain at all would be something of a spoiler. Suffice it to say that there's a lot of puzzling over dialogue and backstory, as well as multiple playthroughs, needed to get a firm grip on it.
Onwards, to gameplay.
Guns shoot, as one would expect. Aim at enemy, shoot until dead. Just about all the weapons in the game are useful and are extremely satisfying - guns roar and blaze and smoke in all the right ways. Reloading is hefty and impressive. You also have access to swords, which can block bullets (while consuming energy, more on that later).
Hacking abilities are accessed through their own action and menu. Players select hacking, select an enemy, choose whether to Possess (directly force an enemy to move around and shoot, generally at their teammates), Hack (converts them to a minion), Destroy (causes the enemy to die, usually explosively), or Steal (simply robs the enemy of their energy and gives it to the player). Players can be counter-hacked, which ranges from annoying to fatal, but this can be avoided by upgrading CyberTech (more on that later) or simply canceling the hack.
Psychic powers have their own button, players cycle through them and activate their power. Mainly they serve the purpose of summoning minions or confusing enemies, as well as one very useful power that teleports the player into an enemy (killing the unfortunate target in a spray of flame and blood). Psychic abilities are fairly heft on the energy cost, but this can be reduced through research.
There are many ways to approach a situation, none of them scripted.
Sample ways you could clear a room full of enemies:
A) Activate aim enhancement, charge in guns blazing.
B) Set up sentries outside the room, pop in, run back out and lure the enemies.
C) Use a wall piercing weapon and an alternate vision mode, kill the enemy through the walls.
D) Don't enter. Use hacking, possess an enemy. Force him to kill his comrades. Run in and mop up.
E) Don't enter. Use hacking, hack each enemy. Walk in and collect your new minions.
F) Activate dermal sheath, run in, slice the enemy to pieces with your blade.
G) Step in, summon clones of yourself, clear the room aided by your clones.
H) Cloak, sneak through undetected.
Next, character building.
Character building is pretty simple; you select three genes that grant a bonus to certain attributes and a penalty to others; mix and match for your desired character strengths and weaknesses.
Small interjection here. Players have a health bar, an energy bar, and a mental balance bar.
- The health bar is simple. Take too much damage, you die. You do, however, have a special organ that floods you with revitalizing chemicals and brings you back to life; by default it has nine automatic uses. You may be penalized by "Fatal Wounds" on dying; near-permanent attribute penalties.
- The energy bar is drained by psychic abilities and cyber implants, and quickly regenerated by crouching.
- The mental balance bar is drained by proximity to certain types of enemies; when it hits zero your vision blurs and you hear voices, sometimes see hallucinations. However, as the medkit (a researched item available early on) restores mental balance along with health, players tend not to see that very often.
Back to attributes. Every level you gain, you get three points to give to attributes. As your attributes go up they start to require more points to upgrade. This generally means that players start off specialist and end up as generalist characters, which is for the most part fine by me. I've always preferred RPGs that don't force the player to really plan out ahead, and EYE's system suits me quite well.
Overall, attributes are not that important aside from meeting requirements for spells, weapons, or cyber implants (such as cloaking or sonar). Your main form of upgrade is CyberTech.
CyberTech basically improves a part of your body (eyes, arms, legs, spinal column, etc) and any related implants, as well as reducing implant costs. They produce the most notable benefits for characters, allowing abilities to be used longer and for greater effect. Cyber legs make characters faster and let them jump higher, the firewall makes players more resistant to enemy counter-hacking, etc. CyberTech is paid for via ingame currency (brouzoufs) rather than skill points, and as such isn't directly tied to level or attributes.
Last is research. Players can pay money to have a number of scientists research new technology, weapons, abilities, or research bonuses. Since most researches require items dropped by enemies, and most of said items are fairly rare, players do grind through a lot of enemies looking for those items, Diablo 2 style.
I think we can consider everything up till now to be the pros of the game, so now for a few cons.
- The translation to English didn't go very well. It's perfectly understandable, if you speak English fluently, but is a little weird.
- The game is presently quite buggy; crashes are semi-frequent and certain abilities aren't usable due to glitches. However, Streum On is focusing on getting these fixed, so I won't really complain about that.
- Enemy AI isn't that good; it seems to be basic Source Engine AI. There are times when it really shows its problems, such as when possessing an enemy.
- Maps are very limited. There probably ought to have been a lot more maps but perhaps Streum On will release more later. The game does not have enough exploration.
- Certain weapons are too powerful, and they make the rest of the weapons seem weak by comparison (even if said weapons are quite good on their own).
- If you like hefty amounts of player dialogue you will be disappointed. EYE is an FPS first, an RPG second; what player choice there is amounts mainly to how you will get through a mission; story choices, while substantial, aren't tied that much to alignment or NPC loyalty or any such horseshit.
Anyways, even with these cons, it truly is a great game. It's fun, it's innovative, it's very much designed for the PC. The game may be a little difficult for casual gamers to get into, but for hardcore gamers who want a classic "golden age of gaming" experience, EYE is the game for you. And it's only $20 on Steam. If you're sick of console ports, and miss the way PC games used to be, you should definitely be buying EYE.
Oh, and there's co-op. Not really much to say, it plays exactly the same as the regular game but with multiple players. Nice that it's there. Good if you have a friend or three (the game allows up to 32 players, actually). I'd recommend going through the game alone first though, and if playing with friends, I'd recommend playing with patient friends who're not of the run and gun persuasion. Certainly a valid playstyle... but it misses out on much of EYE's potential.
Let's start with describing the game itself.
You play as a soldier in a group called the E.Y.E., an armed branch of the Secreta Secretorum. The Secreta is effectively a coalition of several powerful corporations (one of which, Vindico, makes a lot of the weapons you use) dedicated to overthrowing the Federation, an empire of some 1200 worlds. You're not really freedom fighters or anything like that, though; the Secreta seems to aim more at taking the Federation's place than "liberating" worlds or any of that nonsense.
The setting is... well, much of it is old traditional cyberpunk, you have your neon lights and your Japanese signs, your gangsters and street samurai, your cybernetics, guns alongside blades, and so on. But there's also a fair gothic aspect; certain areas of the game are reminiscent of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Some parts of the game are based off of 40k, and there's a definite dose of Ghost in the Shell within the game's hacking mechanics. There's even a "boss" enemy type that plays a clear homage to Doom.
The game's plot is rather complex and, much as I hate the expression, deep. I want to explain more, but honestly... to explain at all would be something of a spoiler. Suffice it to say that there's a lot of puzzling over dialogue and backstory, as well as multiple playthroughs, needed to get a firm grip on it.
Onwards, to gameplay.
Guns shoot, as one would expect. Aim at enemy, shoot until dead. Just about all the weapons in the game are useful and are extremely satisfying - guns roar and blaze and smoke in all the right ways. Reloading is hefty and impressive. You also have access to swords, which can block bullets (while consuming energy, more on that later).
Hacking abilities are accessed through their own action and menu. Players select hacking, select an enemy, choose whether to Possess (directly force an enemy to move around and shoot, generally at their teammates), Hack (converts them to a minion), Destroy (causes the enemy to die, usually explosively), or Steal (simply robs the enemy of their energy and gives it to the player). Players can be counter-hacked, which ranges from annoying to fatal, but this can be avoided by upgrading CyberTech (more on that later) or simply canceling the hack.
Psychic powers have their own button, players cycle through them and activate their power. Mainly they serve the purpose of summoning minions or confusing enemies, as well as one very useful power that teleports the player into an enemy (killing the unfortunate target in a spray of flame and blood). Psychic abilities are fairly heft on the energy cost, but this can be reduced through research.
There are many ways to approach a situation, none of them scripted.
Sample ways you could clear a room full of enemies:
A) Activate aim enhancement, charge in guns blazing.
B) Set up sentries outside the room, pop in, run back out and lure the enemies.
C) Use a wall piercing weapon and an alternate vision mode, kill the enemy through the walls.
D) Don't enter. Use hacking, possess an enemy. Force him to kill his comrades. Run in and mop up.
E) Don't enter. Use hacking, hack each enemy. Walk in and collect your new minions.
F) Activate dermal sheath, run in, slice the enemy to pieces with your blade.
G) Step in, summon clones of yourself, clear the room aided by your clones.
H) Cloak, sneak through undetected.
Next, character building.
Character building is pretty simple; you select three genes that grant a bonus to certain attributes and a penalty to others; mix and match for your desired character strengths and weaknesses.
Small interjection here. Players have a health bar, an energy bar, and a mental balance bar.
- The health bar is simple. Take too much damage, you die. You do, however, have a special organ that floods you with revitalizing chemicals and brings you back to life; by default it has nine automatic uses. You may be penalized by "Fatal Wounds" on dying; near-permanent attribute penalties.
- The energy bar is drained by psychic abilities and cyber implants, and quickly regenerated by crouching.
- The mental balance bar is drained by proximity to certain types of enemies; when it hits zero your vision blurs and you hear voices, sometimes see hallucinations. However, as the medkit (a researched item available early on) restores mental balance along with health, players tend not to see that very often.
Back to attributes. Every level you gain, you get three points to give to attributes. As your attributes go up they start to require more points to upgrade. This generally means that players start off specialist and end up as generalist characters, which is for the most part fine by me. I've always preferred RPGs that don't force the player to really plan out ahead, and EYE's system suits me quite well.
Overall, attributes are not that important aside from meeting requirements for spells, weapons, or cyber implants (such as cloaking or sonar). Your main form of upgrade is CyberTech.
CyberTech basically improves a part of your body (eyes, arms, legs, spinal column, etc) and any related implants, as well as reducing implant costs. They produce the most notable benefits for characters, allowing abilities to be used longer and for greater effect. Cyber legs make characters faster and let them jump higher, the firewall makes players more resistant to enemy counter-hacking, etc. CyberTech is paid for via ingame currency (brouzoufs) rather than skill points, and as such isn't directly tied to level or attributes.
Last is research. Players can pay money to have a number of scientists research new technology, weapons, abilities, or research bonuses. Since most researches require items dropped by enemies, and most of said items are fairly rare, players do grind through a lot of enemies looking for those items, Diablo 2 style.
I think we can consider everything up till now to be the pros of the game, so now for a few cons.
- The translation to English didn't go very well. It's perfectly understandable, if you speak English fluently, but is a little weird.
- The game is presently quite buggy; crashes are semi-frequent and certain abilities aren't usable due to glitches. However, Streum On is focusing on getting these fixed, so I won't really complain about that.
- Enemy AI isn't that good; it seems to be basic Source Engine AI. There are times when it really shows its problems, such as when possessing an enemy.
- Maps are very limited. There probably ought to have been a lot more maps but perhaps Streum On will release more later. The game does not have enough exploration.
- Certain weapons are too powerful, and they make the rest of the weapons seem weak by comparison (even if said weapons are quite good on their own).
- If you like hefty amounts of player dialogue you will be disappointed. EYE is an FPS first, an RPG second; what player choice there is amounts mainly to how you will get through a mission; story choices, while substantial, aren't tied that much to alignment or NPC loyalty or any such horseshit.
Anyways, even with these cons, it truly is a great game. It's fun, it's innovative, it's very much designed for the PC. The game may be a little difficult for casual gamers to get into, but for hardcore gamers who want a classic "golden age of gaming" experience, EYE is the game for you. And it's only $20 on Steam. If you're sick of console ports, and miss the way PC games used to be, you should definitely be buying EYE.
Oh, and there's co-op. Not really much to say, it plays exactly the same as the regular game but with multiple players. Nice that it's there. Good if you have a friend or three (the game allows up to 32 players, actually). I'd recommend going through the game alone first though, and if playing with friends, I'd recommend playing with patient friends who're not of the run and gun persuasion. Certainly a valid playstyle... but it misses out on much of EYE's potential.
