Pix's Origin Adventures

I dug out this Cybermage demo from the December 1995 PC Zone magazine cover disk. No doubt it’s available online somewhere but now you can also grab it from here.

Cybermage is probably one of Origin’s least well-known 90′s games but it deserved to make more impact than it did. It was their only pure FPS (although they got fairly close with Shadowcaster and System Shock), but in typical Origin style it is far more than a Doom clone and incorporated a storyline, magic and conventional weapons, an inventory, an actual plot, the ability to control vehicles both on the ground + air, and finally SVGA graphics. I presonally prefer it to Half-Life but there don’t seem to be many people who have even heard of the game.

For all this, I didn’t buy Cybermage until years after release despite already being something of an Origin fan boy back then. Admittedly I was an impoverished student and couldn’t afford many new titles until I’d started to earn my own way in the world. I do remember playing the demo but I recall finding it quite difficult at the time and not being all that impressed.

Having just played the demo for the first time since 1995, I fully understand why I didn’t buy the game as the demo does a terrible job of selling a great product.

First I’ll go for the good points. The demo is played on an original level designed to show off the features of the game. The plot involves shutting down the combat training facility, penetrating the main fortress and verifying NeCrom’s involvement in some dastardly deeds that aren’t described in the brief text file instructions.

Since it’s showing off the game (in theory), the level includes both tank driving and flying car piloting which were both cool features at the time when you compare it to the opposition. The demo level is huge, took me ages to play through and features loads of weapons and powers from the main game and plenty of varied terrain.

Now the bad points. First and foremost, the options menu in the game hasn’t been implemented and all the keys and controls are unchangeable. Not necessarily a big deal, if the chosen keys weren’t so impossible to use. Many standard commands involve combining keys even including bringing up the help menu! I understand that WASD wasn’t standard back then, but these have to be among the worst FPS controls I’ve ever seen. I had to play through this demo without strafing, which is never a good idea in any FPS.

The demo has limited sound card support and at the time I originally played this I’d have been stuck with adlib. I was never that keen on adlib but the music in this is truly awful without general MIDI.

I found playing the demo level seriously hard and there was a lot of reloading after I was killed. This is made more frustrating than it need be by a lengthy pause between death and being allowed to reload.

The demo doesn’t appear to have the same speed controls as the finished game and the enemies tended to move a little too fast at times in DosBOX. I wasn’t able to alter mouse sensitivity either, which was another major factor in the difficulty as I had to use an unnatural combination of keyboard to turn and mouse for fine tuning my aim.

At no point in this demo map was I aware of any plot or goals. I just meandered around shooting stuff and trying to find new areas. A lot of backtracking was involved to find locations that the last item I discovered would open. The backtracking is to some extent a difference between modern and old FPS’s but the plot was a real strong point in the final game and completely absent here. You wouldn’t even know the game had a comic book theme.

All of this amounts to a level that could have been designed to delay, frustrate and not show the game in it’s best light. The graphics are still nice for the time but that wouldn’t be enough to have tempted me to buy it.

The final section of the level, involves flying my newly acquired police car into a truly lethal area filled with tanks, more flying cars and a monk with an endless stream of Nova spells. My car only survives seconds in this environment and I have to make a beeline for the other side of the room and “hide” behind a rail fence which I learn is impenetrable to everything.

From here I peek around the fence and use the only gun I’ve got that has any ammo left to take out the over-powered monk. A door to a small room opens up and there is a short message on a screen from Necrom stating that he has drawn me out so that he can run off again and wait for me. This is sounding like hide and seek to me but the level ends before I can start counting to 10.

There is a quick advert screen to finish off the demo before I’m dumped back to DOS.

I fully expected to enjoy playing this demo, and while it has it’s good points I can’t say that it turned out to be all that much fun. I wouldn’t like anyone to have judged the final game based on this, but I know I did and I can’t have been the only one. If I could have altered the controls, it would have made a huge difference but it wasn’t the most inspired level design either and I tend to think Origin would have been better off just using the first level of the game. If they had, maybe Cybermage wouldn’t be quite so obscure.

The gardens are, at least to start with, full of the same creatures as the subway was. I so find the earth mother again who warns me how she has a dark sister who I should not be tempted by.

They had to be coming sooner or later since they were in the training level and I get to a temple with a load of monks on it. I’m a lot better equipped to cope with them than I was in the training level – in fact there is no danger of me running out the huge supplies of armour seal and regen packs I brought with me from the city before the end of the game.

The outer area of the temple is crawling with the monks. I clear them all out with a bit of effort and find a load of switches I need to pull to get to the next section.

There is a demon eye I need to place in the symbol here, just like the training mission.

The demon eye gets to me the inner temple which is much the same as ouside. There are a whole string of objects around here I need to collect one by one. This bag of dust teleports itself between altars so I have to find a way to stop it.

A bit of searching around and I find a skull which I can place on the other altar. I’ve no idea why this should work, or why it has to be this skull but I get the dust.

I use the dust on the statue outside. I only know to do this because I tried using the statue earlier and it said dust was required. This opens up a cupboard behind me and I get a flying icon.

The flying icon is great. I can use it to fly over the whole map. I was expecting it to run out quickly but it lasts indefinitely. There are loads of those tough troops with rocket launchers all over the place to take out. I’m better equipped to deal with them but I still use up a load of ammo.

Just when I’m getting used to it, I have to surrender my flight icon to exit the level.

The penultimate level has me inside the inner temple. I walk into a ceremony being conducted by a Sri-Feng – the moment he finishes they all turn on me.

There are quite a few corridors in this place with moving walls and ceilings which crush or squash me. They don’t hurt as much as you might expect so I can more or less ignore them with my huge regen supply.

I find a nify looking sword which I’m expecting to be super lethal – its not bad but I soon go back to just using my lightning power which seems to be the most lethal for the mana.

 

I walk into another big hall and meet up with the earth mothers sister. She wants me to join her side and throws a nova at me as a demonstation of her powerwhich teaches me a new skill. In the end she leaves me alone and her acolytes all turn on me instead.

I have to explore the exits going off this hall room which acts as a bit of a hub. I find this room with a skull I need in the middle of it but all the carpets teleport me away. Attempting to walk through without touching one is not easy.

Another area has a motif on the wall – I have to find a stone slab which slots into here to get past.

After jumping over some pit traps I find the dark version of the earth mother again who admits that she can’t hurt me as the dark needs the light.  To get through the wall behind her I need another stone slab.

I find it in the hands of some friendly Sri-Feng who want me to defeat Necrom.

Getting the slab isn’t enough. I have to hunt out two spheres to place on this fire altar.

This gets me to the end of the level and another meeting with the dark earth mother who doesn’t want to play favorites and has a gift for me.

The gift contains mana and health boosts rather than the trap I might have been expecting.

Behind a locked door I hear the Sri-Feng discussing me. They are saying how creating Necrom was an accident, that they wish to stop him but have been unable to get me to listen.

After a while they open the door and let me in. I’m distracted from the plot here by the fact that all three of them move in unison like some sort of synchronised air guitar act.

They send me off to fight Necrom who is waiting in the next zone.

This final zone is presumably some sort of alien ship.

Its full of turrets which I just run past and don’t attempt to deal with.

I’ve been told by several people about Necrom drawing his power from some sort of flame. Necrom shows up and starts throwing Novas at me but I need to deal with the flame behind him.

All I have to do is stand in it and it slowly shrinks. I use a protect icon to keep me safe in the meanwhile.

Necrom runs off after the first skirmish and I find him in the NW corner. This time its a more conventional fight before he runs off again.

I track him down for the final time and use up all the icons I’ve been saving.

He takes some hits but I was never in any danger with all the protect icons I’ve got.

His death opens up a door behind him which gets me to a final teleport. I stand on this and the end cutscene starts.

 

The end cutscene reunites me with Katt and a couple of Sri-Feng. It turns out they were trying to stop Necrom the whole time and the rumours about them trying to take over the earth were not true. There are hints of me having to maintain the peace in the meanwhile and possible future games. The earth mother tries to take Necroms crystal at the end only to have it snatched by her sister in the interests of balance which could also have been a future plot device but the sequel never happened.

I’ve really skimmed through the plot on this last post because I’m not entirely convinced it made that much sense. On the whole I’ve gone off this game slightly with each new level since the half way point. Its a great game for 1995 but I couldn’t say it was really worth playing for anyone except Origin fans – I think the problem may just be that its hard to do much with a 3D engine this basic so it ends up feeling like you’ve seen it all before. If nothing else it makes me realise just how good System Shock was because that game is still very much worth playing and it never got stale at any point. Having said that you could leave the gameplay alone in Cybermage and wrap it in a modern engine and it would compete with plenty of modern FPS’s so it was definitely ahead of its time. Overall, its a great game for its day but not quite the classic I thought it might be. I would definitely have loved it back in 1995.

Next: Bioforge

The DMZ is full of Necroms troops – they aren’t all that hard to kill but there are loads of them including these guys who have a particularly nasty range attack but die in a single hit with my lightning power.

The DMZ is a war zone full of barb wire, fortified locations and the like.

I run into Lana’s husband who I rescued from police hq yesterday.  He doesn’t tell me much other than to head for the outpost as Necroms men are planning something big.

I’ve got a particularly poor screenshot of it here but the outpost is a real war zone with tanks trying to break through the barriers and all the good guys trying to grenade them from their trench. I help out a bit and we break the siege.

After breaking the siege I finally get to meet Katt himself who is commanding all the rebels out here in the DMZ. He tells me the Damma-cron is some sort of darklight neutraliser that I should use on Necrom when I meet him. It was intended to be used on me but the Sri-Feng have instead created the one weapon which can defeat him. He wants me to go to Necroms base of operations in an abandoned town at which point his troops will move in and seize it.

Before I can get to Necroms base there is an extremely well defended area I have to get through with trenches, turrets, tanks and locked doors everywhere.

I have to run down the trench and collect a coders globe. This then slots into here and activates a load of lifts which I can use to get into guard towers surrounding the trench.

One of the guard towers has a level to get me into the next level. This is as well defended as ever and I’m fighting several tanks at once single handed.

At the end I finally find Necrom himself. He seems to think that me being here means his plan has worked.

He changes him mind when I Damma-cron him and runs away and sets more of his men on me instead.

I find a switch to open up the big gate here and this lets all of Katt’s men into the base.

Katt now tells me that Necrom must have a hidden base in the mountains which he has run off to. This is in the unholy zone where noone without darklight power can survive. He sends me into the old subway tunnels which go under the mountains and into the heart of the unholy zone.

The level look very much like any subway but has more new things for me to fight including these flying lizards who throw fireballs.

The subway soon gives way to caverns under the mountains, complete with this wobbly bridge which sways all over the place. This cavern is full of genno which I take out for the extra life force.

I also come across giant beetles which are extremely tough. They don’t even up my stats when I kill them either.

The caverns are largely featureless although they are big and full of powerups. I grab as many of these as I can and keep exploring until I find this room heaving with these little red guys.  I learn a new skill from them (luna light). The downside is that this means they are casting it at me. There is a switch which opens up the cavern to the genno. If I hadn’t cleared it out before I could no doubt sit back and watch them kill each other off but instead I’m stuck doing this the hard way.

I climb some ledges around the room with the red men and fall down into a tomb full of ghoulies.

I find a secret button in here that gives me a bronze key. This opens up an area full of monsters.

I also get a couple of +25 powerups for my trouble though.

The exit to the level is just down from here. I climb a load of stairs and emerge in the unholy zone.

The unholy zone looks strangely pleasant – all green and leafy but I expect it seem so nice when I meet the locals.

The levels today have been a bit more run of the mill for an FPS, still fun but less interesting than some of the earlier ones. Cybermage doesn’t look to be quite the competitor for System Shock that I thought it might be early on but 3/4 of the way through I’d still rate it as the best 2.5D FPS I’ve played. Dark Forces or Duke Nukem 3D wouldn’t be that far behind but this is more varied and has elements that simply didn’t exist in those games.

The next place I find is the Genno kennels. I was warned by the police chief not to go near these but the switch for the door needs a new fuse and I can safely assume its going to be down here somewhere.

I find the worlds dumbest soldier down here who sees me and tries to open the door so he can get at me but manages instead to release all the Genno’s. The gennos have no range attack so aren’t too tough but they can take a few hits. I find my fuse nearby and this gets me to the area with the jumpjets

I was kind of expecting the jumpjets to let me fly around the level at will but instead they just hover me off the ground. I can move up and down a little but not much. The jumpjet training course is a load of ledges of varying heights and I have to make a route between them. I can’t jump while I’m hovering so I sometimes need to swap back to cross a gap.

I find a secret area which is very well guarded by turrets and get a new blaster gun at the end of it.

Theres another secret area off the jump course also with a stack of icons. Two of these raise my stats by 25 points each so this is well worth finding.

Just up from here is the high security area with all the locked up policemen. I work my way gradually up the building looking for an access card so I can let them out.

The first guy I let out is the husband of Lana (who works at Bliss). He wants me to go to a company called Sar-Corp and either find a device called the Damma-cron or blow the place up if I can’t find it. Necrom needs this device for some reason but I’ve no idea what it is myself.

I work my way through letting out all the cops. The last one gives me an access code to open the way out. I explore the roof of the building first and run into this giant who fires rockets at me. I wouldn’t want to fight too many of these guys. I get his rocket launcher after the fight which should come in handy.

From here I make my way back to the exit and enter the city again.

The city is much the same as ever. There are some new troops around but most of the areas I’ve cleared out are still safe. I picked up a bit of money in the last level and head for the gambling hall to try to raise it a bit. I have to do a bit of judicious loading and saving but I get lucky and my first win gets me odds of 24:1. Incidentally, this process has been made deliberately tedious by putting in a 1 minute delay before you can use the machine after the game is restored. I stick with it for 10 minutes while I answer some emails and end up a millionaire again. This means I can max out all my ammo, regen packs, etc and should make life a lot easier.

Back at Bliss, Lana is glad to have her husband rescued and sends me off to see Pawn again at Nex X who wants payment for his car which I’ve borrowed.

He says I can keep the car or whats left of it and sends me to another rendevous in the city plaza where I can gain the access card to enter SarCorp.

I find the guy I’m supposed to be meeting. He says something bad is going on at Sarcorp – there is some new sort of exotic called Slithers that are simply not human. He gives me the card and I head on in.

As ever the level has new textures, this time its supposed to look like executive offices.

Its also got new creatures to fight. These little purple guys (who look exactly like Mung) throw hover grenades and also have a cloak which they sometimes use. They don’t take many hits but those hover grenades really hurt and can wipe out armor in no time.

The early part of this level is based on a giant round central area surrounded by offices. I have to run between these offices collecting logs left by Katt and I can then play them back in his old lab. I find the first message and his lab right at the start.

The area is full of secrets including a nice set of 60 strength armour. There are little secret buttons on the walls all over the place which I have to find to get these areas + the Katts logs.

I take the 8 logs back and listen to them all. There is some serious exposition at this point and playing the 8 logs back to back must take 10 minutes. I’ll sum it all up very briefly.

Katt is a scientist for Sarcorp who took over his current job when its previous occupant died. Sarcorp had discovered that alien life did exist and had even made contact with it. Katt’s predecessor wanted to tell the world about this but was murdered so Sarcorp could reap any benefits for themselves. This race of aliens is called the Sri-Feng. In return for their help, he set them up with a base on Earth – anyone who stumbled on them just assumed they were some sort of new exotic. They were, however, prepared to offer their knowledge to anyone.

The Sri-Feng have a natural ability to see the darklight and use its powers which we lack. They were prepared to tell anyone who asked about this ability. At some point Katt got suspicious about who was running Sarcorp and discovered the body of its director in his office in some sort of vat. It appeared he had been doing some sort of experiment to attempt to harness darklight himself. This body disappeared and was later reborn as Necrom – a dead being brought back to life by the power of the crystal on his forehead. He has no soul and Katt regards him as a weapon created by the Sri-Feng who are making a stealthy attempt to take over Earth using him as a tool to turn us against ourselves.

In an attempt to do something about this cat discovered that a second crystal like the on which gave Necrom his powers had been made by the Sri-Feng. He stole this and wanted to use it on a subject to create an opponent who could beat Necrom. In return for saving his life, I became this subject.

I’ve given the briefest of summaries here and probably missed half the story out – I’ve never known so much exposition crammed into one place like this but at least I have an idea whats going on now.

There are several lifts going off from this central area so I start exploring these bits now. I catch a glimpse of a hooded figure in a darkened room but can’t get to it from here.

There is a lift in the middle of the central hub but getting to it is not easy. It involves pressing a series of buttons as ever but pressing one might block off the route to another so I have to keep returning until I open up the path. The correct path is clearly marked by a load of arrows.

I get to the central lift. and the whole thing slides down.

In this new area there is a strange floor surface which I later discover is a dampener for my cyber powers which leaves me using guns. I’m assuming I can go back to the city and restock on all my ammo so I’ve been using my guns most of the time anyway.

This gets me into the area with the cowled figure who turns out to be a Sri-Feng. They have been controling Sar-Corp for many years now and see me as getting in the way of their plans. I machine gun this guy and he dies eventually. The Damma-cron is in the middle of the room. I’m unsure as to what this does exactly. It looks like a helmet and I can use it but it seems to suck my psi-powers to me so the don’t go anywhere and I take damage.

I get to the end of the level from here. I pass a self destruct switch – I figure I’ll clear out the next area and come back to throw it at the end but I end up going up a lift with no way back and have to leave without blowing up Sarcorp.

After a few meetings at the cities bars I discover that I’m supposed to go to the DMZ (Dead Mans Zone) next and get out of the city. I’ve been set up a rendevous with an escort – I just have to fly over to meet them.

Before that I want to restock on everything. I find a new shop well hidden in the plaza section. I can buy a full set of 90 stength armour here which must be about as good as it gets in this game since there isn’t room for 3 digits. I can also buy armour seal and a repair for my car. Its quite slow buying each item, I can only buy one every few seconds – I’d be taking hundreds of armour seals with me otherwise but I settle for 60 or so.

My escort is waiting. The moment we get through the door they turn on me + another couple of cars join in from the other side. I manage to fight them off but my car isn’t looking good. I end up gaving to kill another 2 on foot and climb down a lift to exit the level.

This gets me to the DMZ which I’ll be exploring later tonight.

It’s taken me a long time just to do a level and a half but I’ve had a couple of return visits to the city I guess which added some time. I’m still very much enjoying it but I will say that the storyline did feel a bit forced into the game at times especially with all those logs. I’m not the sort of gamer that minds having to sit back and listen to some exposition actually, but its not what you expect in the middle of a FPS. To be fair this exposition appeared to be entirely optional and if I’d wanted I could just have skipped it but that would be kind of missing the point.

Things are starting to make more sense now and the plot is coming together. I’d prefer to make some of my own decisions about what to do next, I’m being forced to go from one area to another. The reasons why I have to go to each area are not really clear. Right now I know that someone wanted me to escape the city but I don’t know where I’m going – I just know that I’m not supposed to fight Necrom yet, as my abilities are not as developed as his.

I thought that I’d get far enough last night to finish up this game tonight but thats clearly not going to happen. There may only be 10 levels in the game but they are so large it can take a couple of hours to do one. Right now I’m only halfway through but its getting a bit easier as my abilities improve. My maximum hp and mana are now 5 times what they were at the start. I’ll attempt to do another 2 levels tonight and maybe get to the end by Friday.