Game:

CyberMage: Darklight Awakening (1995)

Duration: 9:23

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CyberMage is a first person shooter game. It was produced by Origin Systems and published by EA. It was released in 1995

The first thing I can say is shame on me that I haven't played it when it came out. If I would have known about the game 15 years ago it probably would have become one of my all time favourite FPS games.

Sadly I played it for the first time just 2 days ago but it did not affect my impression about the game in any negative way as I am a nostalgic person anyway.

I'm playing the training map in this video which is just there to saughter a lot of enemies while you get used to most of the functions and controls.

The story may be not for everyones taste because it mostly seems like a normal cyberpunk game and it has a great atmosphere but there are also aliens and magical powers mixed in.

Compared to other games in that era the game features very much interaction with NPC's and the environment. There are codepads that can be used (which actually open a screen where you see that thing in detail and have to use your "hand" to write in the code) there are many items to pickup ranging from key- and ID-cards to audio logs and even weird ancient magic objects like magical stones or eyes most of which are used to open doors.

You can also drive tanks and use flying vehicles which is pretty awesome for such an old piece of software as there were only very few games that made something similar.

Because this still a shooter afterall you get a wide variety of weapons all of which you are already familiar with. From swords to laser pistols, assault rifles and rocket launchers.

In the hub level where you always return to in the mid part of cybermage there are also stores you can go into. In there you can use some sort of dispensers to buy ammo, weapons, armor and medical supplies.

Most of it has to be bought actually because you don't really get a lot of ammo for weapons so you have to get it that way.

But this is why you also have you magical powers. You power automatically recharges after some time so you can infinitely use it. You abilities can be expanded by killing enemies that also have magic. If they used a spell you hadn't before you can "pick it up" and use it for yourself.

The story is also a large part of cybermage which for most games of that era was not applicable. The game only has an intro and outro video in a comic style, the rest of the story happens right in the game through NPC dialogues. Basically the same story telling style that was later used in games like Half-Life.

But after all the praising I thought that the game also had its downsides.
I have to say I did not find any big bugs in the game but other problems.

First thing that came to my mind is that most levels are way too dark. Some of them are so dark you can't see a damn thing 3 meters in front of you. Ofcourse sometimes this was for the atmosphere but mostly it was just annoying.

The second thing was that about half through the game, the gameplay sunk rapidly down to doom level and turned to some kind of Catacomb Abyss clone in the last few levels (Right after the "nowhere land" mission).

The third thing that was annoying is that many of the levels require you to find a 3 pixel sized secret button which is so easily overlooked that you run around in circles for hours until you find it.

The last thing are the controls of the game, you can change most of them but not all and the mouse can't be configured either. For example the movement keys can not be changed which is just stupid. I use the arrow keys anyway so I had no problems but other people may want to use WASD.

All in all it is a very nice game and I regret that I played it now and not 15 years ago. It has it's problems but is definately worth a try. It is just very hard to find nowadays ;)

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