E.Y.E. - Released on Steam, Impressions

Dhruin

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E.Y.E. has suddenly launched on Steam (thanks Matt!) and you can pick it up on a 10% launch discount for $17.99. You would have thought a release date to build a modicum of hype would be a good idea but there you go. Here is the feature list as a reminder:

  • Multiplayer co-op modes directly influence solo play, and vice-versa. The limits of solo and multiplayer games are finally left behind.
  • Psychological and mental trauma management.
  • 25 weapons, different shooting modes, dynamic precision, drilling shots, iron sighting, extended zoom.
  • Complete hacking system with game play impact
  • 9 devastatingly subtle PSI powers.
  • More than 20 NPC with non-scripted, fully reactive and efficient AI, endowed with a sense of initiative. Bloody close combat with technical detail. Incredible physical movement realism thanks to Source Engine physics.
  • Excellent replayability - primary and secondary missions, dynamic environments, non-linear level progression, and random NPC spawn, type and appearance. Death doesn't penalize players: no need to restart the current mission.
  • Open-level gameplay for hours of fun without reloading.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has some impressions from Jum Rossignol - he sounds a little confused by the game, to be honest, and sums it up with "intrigued but not convinced":
The whole thing is four-player co-op, so you can play through it multiplayer as you see fit. I suspect this is the optimal way to get through it, because the combat does feel more like you are playing basic multiplayer bots than well scripted enemies. I say this partly because I haven’t really figured stealth out, and therefore have fought my way through most of the levels, but ultimately baddies aggro you from far away, and then run to get into line of sight. Snipers pick you up almost immediately, which can be a little annoying. Ultimately enemy activity is a bit simplistic and doesn’t compare well with other, similar FPS behaviours, or the diverse range of options that the rest of E.Y.E. wants you take advantage of. Also modern games have really pushed the audio-visual feedback of being shot at, and here it feels very lightweight, which makes dying (and then being peculiarly instantly resurrected) all seem a little weightless. As a consequence I’m not finding the combat particularly satisfying, but I also haven’t quite figured out how to adapt my character to stealth. It might involve starting over.
All that said, the combat has some positive aspects: It’s fast-paced, especially in how quickly enemies go down. No bullet sponges here. In fact it all speaks of hardcore multiplayer influences. Once again there’s that tinge of Source mod to it. You get the feeling that mods like NeoTokyo might have had some influence here. Streum clearly want their combat to be respected, and ignore the slow, challenge-free cover-systems that contemporary gaming tells us we want. The result of this is a game that feels old fashioned and at the same time bold and independent.
There are some player comments at RPS that are definitely mixed, so go in with your eyes open if you decide to pick this up.
More information.
 
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I love cyberpunk enough to get this, so I will post my thoughts if anyone cares.
 
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Think I'll let it pass for now. I was quite interested but Deus Ex:HR is just around the corner and the emphasis on this sounds firmly on dodgy combat, rather than my preferred stealth.

Interested in impressions, of course.
 
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I'll be interested in your impressions as well. I'll probably hold off until it's on sale and buy a 4 pack if it's good.
 
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Between the stealth release, the budget price, and some of the details I'm now finding out about it (i.e. instant resurrection), my interest has dropped considerably.

I had my credit card ready, but on second thought I'm going to hold off.
 
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Between the stealth release, the budget price, and some of the details I'm now finding out about it (i.e. instant resurrection), my interest has dropped considerably.

From what I understand the resurrection works like Diablo, you spawn at the last spawn point you passed or touched. Supposedly there is an in-game story explanation.

In any case I'll play it after my baseball game is over.
 
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There was a French review released yesterday by FactorNews.

Some point from the review:
- There 10 "lives" to your character, one you lost all of them you start back from your last save point.
- The RPG elements is mostly about the character progression.
- Not a lot of interesting NPCs
- Save point system is annoying.

They gave a final score of 8/10.
 
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Well I played the opening... impressions are similar to Rockpapershotgun's really. It seems like it has a ton of potential but it explains nothing well enough to really know what you are doing right away. Also it feels a little clunky... aiming is a bit weird, it kind of stutters for me with v-synch on. No VO is no big deal for me but may be for some.

On the plus side it looks nice design wise and not bad graphics wise. Combat seems good with nice feeling weapons and enemies that go down quickly rather than be bullet sponges. RPGing so far is all about stats but I have barely played at all. You improve stats with points every level, pretty standard. At the start you combine three mutagens to create your starting stats, which is neat... finding the right balance is interesting. You enhance abilities with money for new implants.

Gonna play some more...
 
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Played it for a few hours….

Well…. Hmm….

It's certainly unique - but not necessarily in a good way. It's not good in terms of presentation, and it completely fails to draw you in for the first vital hour.

The HUD is clumsy and scales poorly - as in it looks wrong no matter what resolution you choose. The RPG stuff seems interesting, but incredibly opaque. They shower you in stats - which would seem to be a dream for us enthusiasts, except you have no idea what anything does at first. Yes, they all have tooltips - but it's simply too much to take in. There are too many attributes - and they've made some of the classic design mistakes with them. The variety between numbers is too great - taking away the weight of each point. Also, my sense is that there are too many redundancies in the design - because for a game like this, there's no way I can imagine every one of them weighing roughly the same. That's what you want to do, when you design something like this.

The visual style is…. interesting. It looks a lot better than Half Life 2 does today, if you ask me. The 3-4 levels I've seen have all been HUGE in terms of scale. That bodes well for future levels, because I'm kinda tired of corridor shooters. But they've also been mostly empty and though it's far too early to say, they don't seem to emphasize exploration in this game - which is a very sad thing indeed.

Exploration is my favorite aspect of the Deus Ex games - and I think we all thought of DE when we saw this. The videos seemed to be a mixture of various styles - but I guess Deus Ex must have meant different things to different people.

I generally "get" a game very quickly these days, but I can't for the life of me figure out what they wanted to accomplish here. It doesn't seem like a traditional shooter at all, even though shooting is obviously a big part of the game. It doesn't seem like an exploration game, and it doesn't seem like an RPG. It's like they took a lot of elements from Deus Ex and games like Bloodlines - without really knowing what to do with them. I'm hoping it's just because it's too strange for me to guage - and that in the end it will all make sense.

For now, it seems more like a VERY odd hybrid with a lot of emphasis on team-based multiplayer mechanics. I love cooperative games - and I suppose that's how this will work best. But I doubt I can convince my friends to buy it, so I can't really test it that way. But, the way you respawn instantly on the map - and the way you "arm yourself" at the beginning of each map is very much like a multiplayer shooter. If it had been an exploration game or a more traditional RPG - you wouldn't have had access to what seems like most weapons at the very beginning. That takes away a lot of the joy of exploring and scavenging enemes for loot.

The good news, apart from the interesting visual style, is that the combat feel is solid. The weapons feel good and "different" based on how they have a variety of scopes and sights. If you're into multiplayer shooters - I expect this will be a very interesting game for you. I never played Shadowrun (the failed shooter) - but I guess this game is somewhat similar in certain ways.

I'll report back when I've played some more - but it will probably be a while. I'm in the middle of a KotOR playthrough - which I'm enjoying. There's nothing about E.Y.E. that's particularly alluring to me, sadly, so I'll let it rest for a while.
 
It's definitely an RPG in the sense of "you build your character with stats" so far. Maybe later it brings choice and consequence into it, I don't know, but for now it's much more Mass Effect than Deus Ex.
 
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So far, E.Y.E. seems to be right in line with what I was expecting: a game that is rough around the edges and not to everyone's liking, but a hidden gem for a small number of people that the game just "clicks" for. If anything, I'm looking forward to seeing the creative ambition of the game. It seems to be similar to Alpha Protocol in the sense that it has a very ambitious design, having pulled ideas from a diverse range of genres, but in the end it just can't decide what exactly it's trying to be. I tend to enjoy this type of game more for the ambition and creativity than the actual execution, mostly because I really respect developers who try to make something completely new and unique - even if the game falls short of its intended ambitions.
 
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I wouldn't know what to call it yet.

For one thing the game seems extremely coop focused. You can play solo certainly, but the basic mission gameplay is basically you being tossed into a huge arena environment and doing little missions around it. It's not like Deus Ex or a real scripted RPG is, it's more like Boderlands without the loot. Actually Boderlands without loot but with a real deep character progression and creation system would be a good way to describe this game. Instead of hunting for loot you are killing enemies and completing missions to earn more exp and money to upgrade your character in a ton of ways (though how needed that is I can't say as a simple point and shoot assault rifle method lays waste to everything so far).

Encounters are not scripted, enemies just spawn in the area and you shoot them (you can even control enemy spawn density in the options menu). Missions have story around them but in a MMO-y way. It's really not at all the game I was expecting, though it is a game I am interested in so whatever.

On the plus side combat is good, graphics are good, design is excellent. The second mission area after the opening is a large cyberpunk city environment which is really well done, it makes me wish it was being used for a real RPG.

Anyway… not at all an RPG, probably should not be covered here unless Borderlands was. Borderlands without loot but with much deeper character customizing. That's the summary I will stick with for now.
 
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This is a difficult one.
VERY counterintuitive -- but very imaginative and immersive at all points. Also kind of sucks, people. But as far as WHY it sucks -- totally subjective.
This is worthy of a far more expansive forum discussion. The main reason I say that is because the game has all the hallmarks of something decent.
 
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Word on the Steam forums seems to be the devs are hard at work on post-release support and dev, with an initial patch hopefully intended for some time next week.

IF the post-release support is indeed meaty and well wrought----nothing to say this couldn't wind up a very nice thing indeed within the span of time. If they can grow it in a matter not so unlike how the teams behind Terraria and Dungeons of Dredmor have since their respective launches, everything should work out just fine.
 
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Okay I actually judged this game too harshly and too quickly. It IS multiplayer centered, I can't imagine anyone having a real argument otherwise. It IS kind of like an MMO in that character progression is why you are playing. It is NOT Deus Ex: The Indie Version, which I think a lot of people were hoping for. It is NOT Precursors or STALKER with cyberpunk themes.

The basic gameplay is you have a hub world from which you launch missions. Main campaign missions take you to new areas and have a rough storyline framed around them. You can also take side missions in areas you already played for bonus money and exp that have no real story ("destroy the enemy radar beacons!"). In very blunt terms the hub area has like 8 doors you can enter that go to 8 different maps (huge maps) and on these maps are MMO style missions where you blow something up, kill something, hack something or simply reach a destination. In the main story these maps change every mission and there is a thin story around it all, in side missions it is just exp farming.

For singleplayer gamers if you love cyberpunk and character development in an FPS it is worth a playthrough I suspect but I doubt you will fall in love with it. The enemies are basically bots and the missions are thinly developed. For coop gamers I think this could be a real great game... like Borderlands but dedicated to the PC, cyberpunk flavored and with deeply customizable characters.
 
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I like the first few hours.The game has deep RPG systems with fun shooter gameplay.It has an interesting setting with backstory.The game has a cool cyberpunk architecture mixed with weird french flair.The game has warts and all but I think it is well worth a buy.
 
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