EYE: Divine Cybermancy

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

A pretty great game

"You gain Brouzouf
My legs are OK"

–

EYE: Divine Cybermancy is an extremely psychedelic game created by French indie developer Streum On Studio, who would go onto make Space Hulk: Deathwing. It's essentially a Warhammer 40k and Ghost in the shell crossover mixed with a healthy dose of drugs and insanity. It plays like if the first Deus Ex were a modern game and takes inspiration from X-COM: UFO Defense of all things for stuff like research and fatal wounds. The game could be called an FPS, but arguably it far more built to be an RPG, and the combat is heavily influenced by your stats and choices of augmentations. There is a hacking system that is built very much like a traditional turn-based RPG.

You essentially play a space marine, but instead of armor that looks like a combination of half a car and medieval plate, you can choose up to 3 different armors (light, medium, heavy) with both Culter Dei (European/Greek based) or Jian (Chinese/Japanese based). You also get many neat weapons, from a minigun to a hammer that causes nuclear explosions. There's also augmentations that let you do such things such as eliminate all recoil or turn you invisible. And the psychic powers, possibly one of the most interesting parts of EYE. Oh, you can also throw cars like fucking shuriken with your psychic mind, get your brain hacked by a door, hack other people's brains, turrets that sometimes fire rockets out of their "head", or BOMB SPAMMING HELICOPTERS to explode or turn them into puppets, mindfuck cyber-hobos into shooting one another, and even kill harmless animals that can permanently penalize your stats when you die.

The game features systems of stress and mental health that deteriorates as you use psychic powers and get wounded. There is voice acting but, it's sparse, muttered, and the words are from a language the developers made up.

In the words of Jim Sterling: "It takes Deus Ex's gameplay, then proceeds to fuck that gameplay in the eye socket while listening to Cameo's Word Up on repeat. This is a game in which you can hack doors, turrets, computers, and even players, but if you fail, the doors will hack you back! This is a game in which your character can become mad, paranoid, or too frightened to fire his gun. In which you can have 32-player co-op, which is totally broken, but have it anyway, just fucking have it! One of the monsters is a woman in a white cocktail dress with a massive machine gun, and they never explain why, they don't have to, they're French, they can do what they like! E.Y.E. is basically what Deus Ex would be like if Eidos had spent its time licking toads and drinking Red Bull."

You'd best grab some LSD before playing. One can only truly understand this game when they are just as high as the devs were.

Character Creation

Or lack there of, the game opens with you naming yourself, picking three genetic traits from a list of Genes:

Gene	Description	Bonus	Malus
BINAH	This gene represents the concrete thinking, the intelligence.	Medium bonus : Hacking, Medicine, Mental Balance.	Low malus : Strength, Endurance.
YESOD	This gene represents the vital dash, the physical strength, the basis.	Medium Bonus : Strength, Endurance.	Low malus : Hacking, Medicine
NETZAH	This gene represents the sense, the grace, the fluidity.	Medium bonus : Accuracy, Agility.	Low malus : Strength, Endurance.
TIPHERETH	This gene represents the equilibrium, the consciousness.	Medium bonus : PSI force, Mental balance.	Low malus : Accuracy, Hacking.
GUEBURAH	This gene represents the power.	High bonus : Strength, Endurance , Agility.	High malus: Medicine, Hacking, Mental balance.
KETHER	This gene represents the absolute will.	High bonus : Psiforce, Endurance, Agility.	High malus : Medicine, Accuracy, Mental balance.
HOCHMAN	This gene represents the abstract thinking.	Accuracy , Medicine, Hacking.	Strength, Psiforce, Endurance.
METASTREUM	This gene represents the intoxicating chaos of the metastreumonic force.	Very high bonus: All characteristics.	Very high malus: All characteristics.
NORMAL	This gene represents the absence of choice, the doubt, the non-involvement.	Very low bonus: All characteristics.	Very low malus: All characteristics.

After selecting your genes you roll your character's stats and then begin the game. It's very simple, but from this selection and the rolling you can make whatever kind of character you want. If you pick METASTREUM three times, and continuously re-roll you can create an OP character, similarly you can create any character you well please as the class system is based around your stats. Such as a character proficient in hacking and PSI will be a cybermancer, all players start as a Equilibrium Fist and getting a stat or two up to 25 will get you to a different class. The issue with the class system is that classes don't do anything and not all play styles are created equal. A hacker will have a harder time leveling up than someone who runs and guns as hacking enemies, doors, or ATMs does not award you with experience.

Classes also go up in a short path, when you get you level up the major skill(s) for a class to 25 for tier 2 and 50 for tier 3, for example if you raise PSI to 25 you will rise from Adept to a psyker.

Gameplay

It is a key element in this game that you can interact with enemies and map objects in many amazing ways.

Hacking Hackers can hack their enemies and possess them, or if their targets are too well protected in the digital sphere they can at least take over their vision for map awareness or cause their arms to spasm, giving them a slight control over their weapon. You can use this to play out enemies against one another sometimes. The direct use of the hacking skill is that it unlocks drones and sentries for your defense. Some doors, shaft access grids or gates can be hacked and allow safe passage through an otherwise secret part of the map.

Slicing and Dicing and not stopping Strength and Endurance based gameplay is perfectioned by taking levels in agility. The more agile you are the faster you can run, the more enduring you are the more stamina you can use. Agility also increases the attack rate of katanas and the effing nuke hammer, and since you can keep on increasing it and even throw several cyberware implants on top to boos these stats, melee is a fun way to deal with tides of enemies in E.Y.E. You always carry one small katana with yourself but you can equip a second of the same sort to double your attack speed. Combined with the ability to either sponge, parry or outrun enemy bullets you become terrifying. The enemy will yells "Vier Gewinnt" and "Oisegoisegois" all the time! The only thing that spoils this gameplay is Deus Ex Machinas (Huge Gatling gremlins) and flying Interceptors that spam rockets. Although proof exists that you can destroy Interceptors in melee by jumping up structures or rocks and then leaping at them. You should just use the anti material rifle in missions that have Interceptors and Deus Exes.

Big Guns If you played this game for several millennia and leveled up strength agility and endurance, it becomes a good idea to invest into the precision stat and use these relic guns from an era that lies thousands of years back lorewise. The bearkiller is a four shot revolver that is so potent it can be used against Deus Ex Machinas and Interceptors. This thing explodes werewolves. It is almost stupid to use it against weaker enemies if you can just kite them and pierce several with one shot. But hey, ammo is free you just got to walk for it.

The Sulfatum, Exicidium and Suspiculum Ovum are basically scaled down vehicle weapons. Something about holy trinty and latin phrases I presume. (Suspiculum Ovum actually means Surprise Egg, these are outlawed in the states!) The Sulfatum is a minigun and is covered in the path of the Dakka. The other two heavy guns can kill you if you're stupid.

The sacred path of Dakka Sulfatum is the beginners dakka. It shoots fast and has a lot of magazine. But later you will understand, that when you seek deep in your soul and see hordes of looters and monsters fall over, that even then when you walk casually through an underground lair and spray the walls with holes and artery juice, you will always want more dakka. And this is where the HS comes into play. The HS is a rapid firing submachine gun that has a normal mode and a dakka mode. The latter rips through your ammo like a tornado through a port-a-potty and is utterly useless early in the game as it's result can also be archived by using a shotgun. But wait! You said that you eventually want to scale that precision stat right? Exactemundo my dear student, and now I will enlighten you further: Buy the cybertech that keeps your arm straight at all times. It takes forever, but if you maximize your little necrocyborg beyond the concept of gameplay, you can use the HS submachine gun as a sniper rifle replacement that sends out a pin-point stream of bullets which each'es damages scale with your precision stat. And it fits right in your leg pocket, so you can bring the minigun aswell!

Psionics and Medicine You will stop perceiving the fights as such, and merely laugh at the insolvable conflict and cycle of guilt that your soul endures, astral projecting yourself as all enemies that you encounter, sharing lifepoints with enemies, healing small critters for fun, exchanging locations with enemies, transforming enemies to furries and even cursing them to deal themselves the damage that they did onto you because hey, after all we are all the same great spirit. You will need to beat the game several times over to unlock all psi powers, and even then it takes a lot of brouzofs and experience to use them freely because the greater psi powers can give you negative stats as they can mutilate your brain on use. Overdosing on medipacks is also not a fun way to go, but worry not it will all settle down into a constant stream of amusement once you researched everything and are no longer hurt by using your powers.

Psi of course allows you to lift objects like a jedi. This is something every game that uses the source engine should have, because it is beautiful. The higher your psi level the heavier the object you can lift. Eventually you can throw cars and bury hordes of enemies under them.

The Dragon Breath ability and the Triangular Gate ability allow you to onehit enemies such as Rimanah or really fat heavy troopers. The Substitution gate allows you to link your health to an enemy and vampire them, or use your own body as a voodoo doll. It is technically Karma-mancy and probably illegal. The illusion gate stuns enemies forever, leaving them vulnerable for any hacking attacks be they digital or physical.

You can also summon copies of yourself that have stronger weapons depending on your psi level. This makes it unecessary to unlock weapons if you choose to play as a psyker in early game.

Sniping and being invisible You can play this game as a stealth based assassin simulator, but since enemies tend to swarm you as hordes this isn't always the best option.

Research

All of it, except the Plantar Shock Absorbers and the Mass PSI Catalyst.

Augmentations

Get legs first, because then you can sprint longer!