why yes, that is a horrible pun, thank you very much!

anyways, there's been talk of GOTY lists or whatever, and I had mine down until I checked my steam list and saw a couple games I had forgotten about, Magicka and E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy. Magicka I never completed, but E.Y.E.! There was lots of comparisons to it and Human Revolution, as they are both pretty clearly evolved from Deus Ex 1, with EYE coming out a few weeks earlier and at a lower price point (20-30? maybe?) Now, after playing it and DX:HR, I realized that I liked EYE better, for a few specific reasons:

1)the ending.

Ok, so, Deus Ex's ending was pretty goddamn terrible. That whole last mission was pretty bad, and the whole end cutscene thing... It really soured me on the experience. EYE's ending, on the otherhand, was a work of postmodern GENIUS. well, there's apparently a true ending and I haven't gotten it and apparently it's also not great, but the not true ending is literally one of the best endings of this year (Saints Row's ending is the only one I would consider better). You know, a bad ending can really sour opinions on everything that came before it, but a great ending can end up shedding light on the game as a whole. Nier's ending, for example, did this beautifully. Ghost Trick, even! but stuff like Deus Ex really puts me off.

2)the gameplay.

Well, I'm not saying DX was bad, but I think E.Y.E. definitely did combat better, and leveling up stuff. For example, I leveled up my CYBER LEGS to like level 4 and I was jumping 10-20 feet high! and the research system was pretty dope too. Deus Ex's combat isn't great, playing stealth is really the way to go in that game. You really COULDN'T play stealth in EYE until a patch a couple weeks after, but they are french... (just kidding) still, the gunplay in DX wasn't great, and the level up system was very basic, compared to EYE.

3)it's batshit insane.

I love games that go off the deep end. Digital Devil Saga 2, Mother 3, Deadly Premonition... Digital Devil Saga 2 in particular. Still a western game can still be crazy, like EYE, or The Void, or Pathologic, or Cryostatis. EYE's crazy because you never really know what's coming up next.

4)graphics.

Well, I'm not sayin DX's graphics are bad and it's really not the point, but both games had style out the ass, though I think EYE wins out because green is a better color than gold, and it's very inconsistent. now, that may SEEM like a bad thing, but games that are fairly samey from mission to mission is kinda boring. Not sayin DX was, Shanghai was very different than Detroit, but still.

DX obviously does some things better, but I dunno, I thought EYE was a lot more... charming? I guess? maybe because it was pretty indie? I felt it was a lot more unique than Deus Ex, because you see a lot more guys with robot arms than cyber vikings and cyber samurai. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I kinda want to play EYE again while I really have no interest playing Deus Ex again.

in fact, E.Y.E. is now only 10 bucks on steam, which is a great deal! Y'all should play it, because I killed my mentor but I am not his murderer.