EPTThe backstory:
EYE has a startlingly detailed backstory that you can read in-game in the Archives in the Secreta base. To summarize, the Federation rules many planets across the galaxy. The strange creatures of the MetaStreumonic Force have been attacking planets. The Secreta Sectorum, a secret society of elite soldiers, is plotting to overthrow the Federation while they're distracted by the MetaStreums, but is beset by internal tensions between its two factions, the Culters and the Jians.
Your Mentor seeks to ease these tensions, but Commander Rimanah intends to destroy the Jians at all costs. You awaken in a cave with no memory of what just happened, and learn that you failed on a mission to destroy an influential and powerful Jian. The intricate power politics continue to unfold, made all the more befuddling by the oftentimes poor localization.
Why EYE is great:
It's a disorienting rollercoaster of craziness, with unforgettable quotes, strange mechanics, and many opportunities for hilarity. The options are diverse, the gunplay is smooth, the balance is reasonable, and the game just keeps delivering surprises.
Particular features:
Up to 32-person cooperative play through the single-player campaign.
Many ways to tackle each level, with diverse character options and many paths.
Unintentionally hilarious dialogue.
A plot that would make Philip K. Dick wet himself with glee.
BULLSHIT! ULTRA-FAILED ATTACK!
Three different endings that lead to a secret true ending.
Custom maps (now with in-game access!)
The game mechanics:
Statistics
Your character has eight attributes: Strength, Endurance, Agility, Accuracy, Psi Force, Medicine, Hacking and Mental Balance.
Strength increases melee damage and carrying capacity. (To be precise, it reduces your "speed malus", which is a percent reduction to your speed based on how much gear you're carrying. A character in heavy armor, for instance, moves about half the speed of one in light armor. So usually, strength = running faster, unless you're in heavy armor anyways.)
Endurance increases your health and your energy, which is used for Psi powers, cyber implants, sprinting, jumping, and parrying.
Agility increases movement speed and melee attack speed.
Accuracy increases weapon damage, weapon accuracy, and hemorrhage chance. (Each attack has a chance to cause an enemy to bleed, which does continuous damage until they die.)
Psi Force increases both the power of your psychic abilities and your resistance to the psychic abilities of others.
Medicine increases the maximum capacity and the recharge rate of medkits.
Hacking increases your hacking stats (more on them later), the range at which you can hack things, and your resistance to others hacking you.
Mental Balance increases your mental health. When your mental health is deleted, you suffer a variety of deleterious effects, such as auditory or visual hallucinations.
Statistics can be increased through leveling up, research, or cybertech and decreased by fatal wounds. Being shot in the leg has a chance to break it, temporarily reducing agility (this is fixed by either maintenance or medkits).
Leveling up gives you 3 points to increase statistics. Increasing a stat by one costs one point up to around 60, then 2 points up to around 70 iirc, and so on.
Research
There are 50 different technologies to research with a wide variety of effects. Some increase stats, some unlock items for purchase, some unlock other technology, and some do other things.
Research can be started at any time from the research screen. Each research costs Brouzouf and takes time; you can reduce the time by spending more brouzouf and vice versa. You begin the game with two researches available, and gain more from briefcases, which have a chance of dropping from non-metastreumonic enemies. In addition, there are four researches which are unlocked from killing each of four different metastreumonic creatures.
Cybertechnology
There are also 14 cybernetic upgrades, each with 10 levels, which you can buy. The cost varies, but they're generally more expensive than researching things. However, they upgrade instantaneously. The first level of upgrade costs between 14,000 and 28,000 brouzouf, and each subsequent level costs (level*base cost). At first, you're limited to level 3 cybertechnology, but various researches increase that to 6, then 9, and finally 10.
Here's the list:
Cyber Brain - Raises SupraHuman reflex, hacking, medicine, and mental balance, increases range and reduces energy cost of Sound Triangulator
Cyber Eyes - Raises accuracy, reduces energy cost of Cloak, Sensitive Wave, and EYE Vision, increases detection range and time on Sensitive Wave
Cyber Arms - Raises strength and arm protection
Adrenaline Pumper - Raises endurance and energy recovery
Cyber Weapon Interface - Raises accuracy, reduces energy cost of Targeting System
Wired Reflex - Raises agility and Suprahuman reflex
Nervous Control - Increases the number of resurrectors
Cyber Neuronal Interface - Raises hacking, reduces energy cost and possibly increases effectiveness of Dermal Sheath, reduces health cost and increases energy gain from Power Conversion
Cyber Armored Skull - Raises head protection
Psi Decuplator - Raises PSI and PSI resistance
Muscular Control - Raises strength significantly
Cyber Armored Torso - Raises torso and stomach protection
FireWall - Reduces chance of counter-hacking from failed hack attempts
Cyber Legs - Raises speed, reduces costs and increases effects of sprint and cyber jump, reduces noise made by moving, reduces falling damage and improves leg protection
Weaponry
Each character has a basic katana that can't be removed (even if you pick up another melee weapon, which is slightly annoying). You can also carry with you as many weapons and as much ammuntion as will fit in your inventory, though you can't go above a 95% speed malus. You can change your weaponry and armor at the mobile armories scattered throughout the levels, as well as restock on ammunition. (Changing your weaponry and getting ammo is free.) You can also pick up the weapons and ammunition from dead enemies.
You begin with about 1/3 of the weapons unavailable. They must be purchased in the Secreta base. You must meet minimum stat requirements to purchase a weapon, and some particularly powerful ones require research.
Right-clicking with a gun will look down the sight, or use the scope if available. With a melee weapon, you will automatically parry all incoming fire at the cost of energy.
Most ranged weapons have two different fire modes that can be toggled between.
Some combinations of pistols and swords will allow for wielding both the pistol and the sword at once. Either a single pistol (Black Crow, GCTG .222, or .444 Bear Killer) and the dual katanas, or the dual BK 13s and any sword.
+ Show Spoiler [Weapons] +
Arrancadora
A gigantic and extremely powerful hammer powered by distortion technology. Requires four of the rarest technologies in the game to unlock, then costs over six hundred thousand brouzoufs to purchase - assuming you have the massive Strength, Agility and Endurance required to wield it.
Damocles
A sword that cuts right through armor. More powerful than the default katana.
Katanas
One sword not enough? Have two! Attacks more rapidly than the other melee weapons.
Black Crow
Basic pistol.
BK 13 (Dual)
Dual pistols.
GCTG .222
Powerful and accurate pistol. Needs to be purchased.
.444 Bear killer
Extremely powerful armor-piercing pistol. Can take down pretty much any enemy in the game in two shots, often one.
HS 010
Wildly inaccurate but extremely fast-firing submachine gun. Makes a delightful noise when fired.
Motra
Quiet, accurate, and reasonably powerful submachine gun with a scope. Must be purchased.
Betty Boom
Shotgun with two shots per clip that does mediocre damage. Best weapon in the game, hands down. Always use the secondary fire mode, because reloading is fun.
Depezador
Very powerful and reliable shotgun with a large clip.
CAW Hammer
Even stronger shotgun that fires faster, though it has a smaller clip size. Must be purchased.
B.O.S.C.O
Quiet sniper rifle with an impressive 25 shots per clip. Incredibly useful weapon, until you start seeing more and more heavily armored enemies.
TRK A.D
Powerful armor-piercing sniper. Probably the most easily available way to deal with heavy armor.
Hunting Machine
Fires more rapidly than the TRK, has more shots per clip, and does more damage. Not as good of a scope, though. Must be purchased, and requires a ridiculous 70 accuracy.
K.A 93
Rotten Mound
The two starting assault rifles. I still can't really tell what the difference between them is.
S6000
An extremely dependable weapon with a large clip size, good accuracy, good damage, and pretty much no drawbacks. Must be purchased.
Excidium
Like the Arrancadora, requires 4 extremely rare researches, though it doesn't cost as much or require as high stats. Has ridiculously heavy ammo, and only five shots per clip, but it fires miniature nuclear warheads, so it's very rare that five shots isn't enough. Does damage in an area, and WILL HURT YOU.
Sulfatum
Heavy armor and sulfatum is pretty much ezmode cruise through the game (at least on lower difficulties), since the Sulfatum has a nearly bottomless clip and fires rapidly enough that even at a range its poor accuracy isn't too detrimental.
Spiculum Ovum
Grenade launcher. Does respectable area damage with good range. Much more practical than the Excidium. Must be purchased.
Kinder Grenade
More than just a grenade, these stay around until an enemy walks near them or you use the secondary fire, which detonates all of your live grenades. (Enemy grenades don't stick around, fortunately.) Extremely useful and quite powerful.
Medkit
Heals yourself (right-click) or whoever's directly in front of you (left-click). After use, it takes some time to recharge. Needs to be researched, but not purchased. The research is very inexpensive and is one of the two starting researches, and is one of the first things you should do.
Sentry
Deployable, indestructible turret identical to the ones you see lying everywhere. Though it can't be destroyed, it can be knocked over and you'll have to pick it up and set it back upright. You can only deploy six sentries and scrabs per level. Must be purchased.
Scrabouillor
Independent, flying drone with a small machine gun. Again, you can only deploy six sentries and scrabs per level. Unlike the sentry, it can be destroyed, and destroyed scrabs aren't subtracted from your limit of six. Can be upgraded by certain research. Must be purchased.
PSI powers
There are nine PSI powers in EYE, with a wide variety of powerful effects. Each PSI power can be bound individually to a different key, used through the Action Menu, or scrolled through with the Switch PSI Power key. PSI powers cost endurance, and each power has a chance decreasing with PSI to injure you in addition to its other effects. In older versions of EYE, the PSI drain caused knockback that would launch you in a random direction, occasionally out of the boundaries of the map or through the floor.
You begin the game with Polycloning and Alchemy and can purchase four of the other powers in the Secreta base. The other three, without getting too spoileriffic, are tied to the truth behind the game...
Polycloning creates a number of clones of you with low health, seemingly random weaponry, and whatever armor you're currently wearing. The clone count depends on your PSI power.
Alchemy converts dropped weapons and ammo into health. Higher PSI increases the health gain.
Transmutation creates a single clone, though a much stronger one. Higher PSI increases the health, armor, and weapons of the clone.
Madness causes the target to go insane and attack anyone nearby (prioritizing former allies). Higher PSI increases the chance of success and the duration.
Invocation summons the beast within the target, killing it and creating a Carnophage which will then attack anyone nearby, including you. Higher PSI increases success rate, I think.
Dragon is the best thing in the game. You teleport inside your target, exploding them. This has a very high chance of damaging you. Higher PSI decreases this chance and increases success rate I think. Maybe Dragon always succeeds. By the time you have the PSI to get it, there's not much that'll resist it anyways.
Triangular Gate kills whatever you target automatically. However, it costs about a third of your health per use and has a high chance of inflicting a fatal wound on you.
Substitution Gate curses the target, so that damage you inflict on it heals you and damage it causes to you hurts it.
Hypnotic Gate puts the target into a seemingly unending hypnotic trance. Similar to Triangular Gate, it costs about a third of your health and has a high chance of inflicting fatal wounds.
Cyber Implants
All of these but Ghost, Sprint and Jump need to be purchased from the shop in the Secreta base before they can be used, and require certain minimum statistics. Additionally, some require research. Like PSI powers, they can be used through the action menu or individually bound to keys. Togglable powers cost energy while active.
EYE Vision: Toggle on/off. While on, non-MetaStreumonic enemies will glow bright blue and everything else will take on a sepia tone.
Cyber Cloak: Togglable invisibility. While invisible, enemies will not shoot you, though they will hear your footsteps and aim at you if you're too noisy. Firing or swinging a weapon will break stealth, as will taking damage from any source, but grabbing and throwing objects, hacking, using the medkit, using psi powers, and using other implants will not.
Sound Triangulator: Togglable. While active, you can see little splashes that indicate noise, such as from gunfire or footsteps. This sight penetrates walls.
Power conversion: Each use hurts you and restores energy. The cost and gain are about equal with level 1 Cyber-Neuronal Interface. Needs research.
Targeting System: Toggle. All your weapons are perfectly accurate while this is active, making for some hilarious fun with the Sulfatum, HS010, any of the shotguns, and so on.
Dermal Sheath: Toggle. Has a fairly low cost to keep active, but being shot subtracts additional energy. Makes you massively resilient to damage. This works quite well with power conversion, and at high enough levels of Medicine, Cyber-Neuronal Interface, and (Adrenaline Pumper?) you're very near invincible.
Sensitive Wave: Unlike the other vision abilities, this isn't a toggle. Using it costs a huge amount of energy, but while it lasts you can see the position of all enemies within a limited radius, even through walls.
Hacking
Hacking is a simple minigame with a lot of possibilities. The Hack action brings up a hacking menu that displays all hackable entities in range. All non-MetaStreumonic enemies can be hacked, as well as turrets, scrabouillors, some doors, and the occasional communications relay or other important thing. Once you've selected your target, you can choose to Possess, Hack, Destroy, or Steal.
Destroy and Hack are fairly straightforward. When used on enemies, Hack converts the target into an ally, while Destroy kills the target. When used on things like doors, both will open them.
Possess is a surprisingly entertaining and useful option that takes a bit of getting used to. When you possess something, you can see out of it, even if that thing is a door. Sometimes this view is quite useful; other times not so much. If it has a weapon, you can order it to aim at a target and to fire at a target. Aim will cycle through all enemies in range, and fire will blast whatever's being aimed at/whatever's closest.
Steal is another odd one. You steal the target's "cyber energy". The main advantage of this is it fully replenishes your energy bar - and can be done while cloaked.
