The other day I picked up two games on Steam: Kairo and EYE: Divine Cybermancy. Kairo has just come out and EYE was on sale for something like five or six bucks. Kairo is something I’ve been interested in for a while but was just too lazy to go and buy it on the creator’s site. EYE, on the other hand, didn’t really catch my interest until I heard some interesting things online about it. I had seen it in the Steam store but apart from nifty armor designs, I didn’t really think much of it. But since Kairo is far easier to understand, I thought I’d talk about it first.
Kairo is a first person puzzler. I’m usually not one for first person puzzlers but this one has an atmosphere and mysterious story and that is something that pulls me in. Kairo doesn’t tell you the story by leaving you message capsules or hidden texts but by leaving visual and audio clues in various areas. I’ve only made it to what I think is the second level so I haven’t figured out exactly what is happening, or rather what happened, in the game.
The puzzles haven’t been too difficult so far but like I said before, I’ve only reached what I think is the second level. Nothing really tells you how to do the puzzles in game but there are visual and audio clues as to how everything works in the room. There are also other hidden things in the game. I didn’t think there were any at first but I found one at the start of the second level. I’m not exactly sure what will happen if you find them all but I’d bet something interesting. On a similar note, I’m not going to look at what Steam achievements are in the game until I finish it at least once to avoid spoilers.
If I said that EYE is far less mysterious than Kairo, I’d be lying. Both start with the player asking “Who am I and what am I doing?” but while Kairo places you in a world devoid(?) of NPCs, EYE drops you in and bangs you on the head with amnesiac hero trope and I’m ok with that. But what is EYE?
EYE is an RPG. That’s the best I can give you. It’s got a fair bit of FPS in there too. There might be some sneaking and also some hacking as well but I haven’t been able to do either of those very well. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been doing the FPS or RPG parts very well either. But I think it’s mostly an FPS. I know I said it was an RPG but I’m pretty sure it’s an FPS. I’m actually not very sure at all.
It’s not a bad FPS at that. I only really got to play the first intro mission and some kind of random thing a guy at the mission hub set up but it seemed solid enough. The weapons are interesting and the enemies kind of remind me of Doom sometimes but I’m not sure how smart or varied the AI is. During the one random mission thing I did, a lot of the enemies seemed to run in a straight line at me.
In the RPG department, you can assign attributes and buy perks with any money made on missions. There’s not a whole lot of complexity to it but certain items and skills require a minimum set of stats so you’ll need to do a small bit of planning but nothing that needs checking a few dozen wikis and using a skill planner in advance. The level cap is also fairly high so there’s no need to worry about capping out too soon either.
I can’t comment on the story though because I haven’t progressed in to the story much. It feels kind of like the begin of Omikron felt in the begining where you tell you what’s going on. Kind of like Total Recall I guess. I’ve seen Totatl Recall and played enough Omikron to know that the main character in the past was a manipulative dick so I’m expecting something similar to happen with EYE.
All in all, I like EYE. It’s quirky but it’s pretty fun. I’m curious as to how it ends. I’m curious as to how Kairo ends too. Or rather the story behind the games. I’m a sucker for the kinds of mysteries that both EYE and Kairo have so I’m fairly happy with both of these games.
