The return of Cyberpunk

Right, so it's been a damn long time since I last posted and that's okay. A lot of things have gone down since then and not many of them are related to cyberpunk, so how about we get back on topic, shall we?

This weekend on Steam saw the release of the FPS/RPG hybrid E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy

Here's the summary from the Steam store page:

As a member of the strange secret society E.Y.E, you wake up after a fight in which your fellow teammates were killed. E.Y.E, an armed branch of the Secreta Secretorum is attempting a coup against the all-powerful Federation, a coalition of several worlds and planets that rule with an iron fist.

To complicate matters, E.Y.E itself is plagued with its own internal conflicts between the Jian faction and the Culter faction, to which you belong. Your loyalties are torn between Commander Rimanah, your superior and the chief of the Secreta who is a separatist with an unstoppable ambition, and the "Mentor" your friend and instructor. The "Mentor" tries at all costs to unite the two rival factions. In doing so, you are thrust into the middle of a fratricidal war frought with political conspiracies and quests for power in which different groups and megacorporations are implicated.

These troubles set the stage for an attack by an unknown force bent on destroying humankind.
Key features:

* 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.


The video on the page shows gameplay and it looks pretty badass from what it shows,
so I'm really itching to give it a try. I'm especially interested in Cyberpunk FPS/RPGs as the countdown continues until Deus Ex: Human Revolution drops next month. Last month I played the preview build of DX:HR that was leaked a few months ago and all I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's everything I loved about the first Deus Ex without the crap I hated about Deus Ex: Invisible War with a lot of new and exciting additions and nostalgic references to the previous games. And considering that build was a few months old when I played it and there were still two months left until release at the time, it can only get better.

I would also like to mention here another game on Steam that was recently released that has my attention. I've been playing a LOT of Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 2 lately, so I've got a bit of Post-Apocalyptia on the brain, and naturally when I saw the page for the FPS/RTS hybrid Nuclear Dawn and some of the screenshots, I got a little excited. It seems to have a bit of cyberpunk influence in some of the character designs and that's always a plus with me! I certainly plan to check out Nuclear Dawn in the near future. I've never been very good at RTS games, but I absolutely love them. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Starcraft and Warcraft, but my heart lies with the Command and Conquer series. The first C&C was the first RTS I played when I would go to my friend Andrew's house when we were in middle school and we would tandem the keyboard (since he knew how to play and I didn't) so he could play the game and I'd use the keyboard to chat online with the people we were playing against and he'd just commandeer it from me when he needed it. Tiberium gas-spewing Chem Warriors? Check. Laser blasting, infantry disentegrating Obelisk Towers? Check. Flame Tanks? Check. There was plenty of cyberpunk for me to get excited about. I did, however, come to love the Red Alert games of the C&C series the most, but that stems from my interest in WWII, so I'm a little biased. ;)

That's it for this transmission! Next time, join us for a look at the movie I've had for some time now and only last week just watched: Babylon A.D.

William Gibson

Aside from Blade Runner, the other major cyberpunk influence on me was Johnny Mnemonic; yes, the 1995 movie starring Keanu Reeves, Takeshi Kitano, Dolph Lundgren, and Ice-T. Despite the fact that Gibson himself wrote the screenplay for this movie that was already based on his own work, the movie Johnny Mnemonic was a general crap-fest of some major proportion. The acting on pretty much everyone's part was horrible, the special effects were -very- low budget (and I cannot stress the "very" part for some of those scenes), and the story was just really hard to swallow sometimes, even for sci-fi.

However, in spite of all these things, I love that movie. Ignoring the acting, the concepts, the atmosphere, and the world Gibson created here are undeniably pure cyberpunk. It would be relatively easy to take that universe and apply a million other viable stories to it. Johnny Mnemonic Furthered my hunger for more and more cyberpunk; a hunger that has yet to be satisfied. The short story Gibson wrote of the same name, is definitely better than Keanu Reeves' acting on just about every level. The story itself had the same general feel, but definitely expressed it much more easily and with less forced emotion than the film. There were differences, of course, but good ones. So if you've seen the movie, but haven't read the story, I highly recommend it.

Johnny Mnemonic is the story of Johnny, a cybernetic data-jockey who is being hunted by the Yakuza for the data he currently has concealed in his head. All the while haunted by flashes of lost memories from the removal of his long-term memory to make room for data storage. An unintentional overload of data spells death for Johnny in only a matter of days unless he can get the data out without getting killed by the Yakuza first. If you can stomach the acting in lieu of a good cyberpunk story by one of the masters of the genre, I sincerely suggest giving Johnny Mnemonic a try. Though, if you haven't read the short story yet, I suggest reading it -after- the movie. That way it can only get better!

First Boot

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"Greetings, citizen. Welcome to the Omnicorp Public Access Nexus. We at Omnicorp International strive to bring ease of access to you, the public. Our global network of data-communications firms, as well as the OPAN system keep you up to date on all major news stories, entertainment features, and provide the quickest information reference for all your needs. How may Omnicorp enrich your existence today?"

That's how it's supposed to work, anyway. This blog is dedicated to cyberpunk and the electric beauty that lies within that word. Art, writing, and anything in between.

I'll start with a book recommendation: The Electric Church by Jeff Somers. One of the coolest Sci-fi, cyberpunk books I've read in a while. I'm a total Shadowrun whore and The Electric Church made me feel right at home.

More to come in the next transmission.

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