Cybermage – Origin's Official Guide

This was published in 1995 and is now available from the downloads page. Cybermage has to be one of Origin’s less well-known titles but this is extremely unfair as it is up there with any other FPS games of its era offering many things they didn’t. For instance, I’m currently playing Lucasart’s Outlaws which is a decent game in the same genre but far simpler, less visually impressive, without any in-game plot outside of cutscenes and it came out a full 2 years later.

Outlaws got a re-release in 2007 but Cybermage appears to be relatively forgotten. I’d have been curious to hear a little more about it but this guide isn’t the place to look. It is in full colour but it has far fewer pages to compensate for this. This means no interviews and there is also a distinct lack of original content.

What we do get is a full guide to all the items, weapons and people in the game complete with little writeups. There are detailed maps of each level, and finally a walkthrough section. The walkthrough section has miniature copies of the maps on each page with copious notes below guiding you through step by step. It also contains transcripts of all the dialog from the game so reading through this will pretty much give you the plot in its entirety.

There isn’t much in here for anyone who has already finished the game, although on the bright side that did mean I could quickly skim through it and tick another off the list. Out of curiosity, I’ve done a quick count and I made it 25 books left including this one, which means I’m getting through them quicker than I expected. It might be time to dig another game out when I’ve finished with Outlaws.