Video Game / CyberMage

It's hard to get more 90's than this.

CyberMage: Darklight Awakening is a Cyberpunk first-person shooter released in 1995 by Electronic Arts, with Origin Systems as its developer, and David W. Bradley (of Wizardry fame) as its programmer, designer and writer. Somewhat obscure even for its time, it was often thought of as a Doom clone, although it has some gameplay features that sets it apart from other Doom clones of the time, and would even be seen in First-Person Shooters in years to come. These include, but are not limited to, a Hub Level, pilot-able vehicles, and friendly NPC's that provide the player with necessary information and plot Macguffins to advance the game, and Action RPG-esque elements such as being able to upgrade your character's abilities.

The premise of the game is as follows - 20 Minutes into the Future, mega-corporations have steadily grown in power since the dawn of the 21st century, ushering in an era of rapid technological advancements that sees power shift from the hands of national governments to that of the corporations - ushering in a Techno Dystopia marked by corporate greed. And in the midst of all this, the player character is an unnamed everyman just struggling to live day to day. In an unexpected moment of heroism, he would find himself Taking the Bullet for a bioengineered "Exotic" by the name of Montredexter Katt.

As fate would have it, turns out that Katt holds a position of authority and prestige within one of the leading mega-corporations, known as S.A.R. Corp. Grateful for the player's Heroic Sacrifice, Katt would make a getaway with the player's broken and almost-lifeless body, bringing him to a secret research facility where he would be subjected to an experimental procedure involving cybernetic reconstruction and the implantation of an alien artifact - a gem known as the Darklight Crystal - turning him into a Cyborg with mystical powers.

But just before the process could be completed, the research facility would come under attack by a military unit led by corporate warlord NeCrom, who had undergone a similar transformation prior to the events of the game, and is none too pleased to learn of the existence of a similar entity as himself. And this was when the player character, now reborn as the eponymous Cybermage would awaken deep within the research facility, where he would need to master his newfound powers over the Darklight and confront NeCrom.

This game contains examples of the following tropes

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Towards the end of the first act the player character will need to navigate his way through a set of these. Part of the tunnels that make up the 7th act are also comprised of this.
• All There in the Manual: The collector's edition box set of the game also comes with a comic book that contains a timeline of in-universe events that provides exposition on the setting and also a prologue showing the player character's Heroic Sacrifice that would lead to his Emergency Transformation into the titular hero.
• Alien Blood: Most of the non-human (i.e. Hellspiders, Slugs, etc.) or bio-engineered humanoid enemies (i.e. Mung, Gang X, etc.) have some variety of this.
• Arm Cannon: Mongo, one of the tougher enemies the player can encounter in the slums of the 2nd act, possesses one which he uses to unleash bolts of plasma from a distance.
• Back from the Dead: Both NeCrom and the titular hero, by means of We Can Rebuild Him, which caused them to Come Back Strong - and in the former's case, he also Came Back Wrong.
• Beast Man: Overlaps with Artificial Human in this case. In-universe, they're termed as "Exotics", a product of corporate bio-engineering that combines human and animal DNA to create a Half-Human Hybrid.
• Blackout Basement: Two notable instances in the game would be the Genno kennels in Act 4 and the tunnels in Act 7. In both cases, the poor lighting and twisting and turning hallways are a perfect setup for the CyberMage to get ambushed by nasty critters who move fast and hit hard.
• Boring, but Practical: The submachine gun; overlapping with Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better. Despite having an array of futuristic energy weapons at one's disposal, the humble SMG is one of the most useful guns in the game due to it being a hitscan weapon, and makes up for its low damage per shot with a high rate of fire.
• Cyberpunk: A Techno Dystopia ruled by mega-corporations, set 20 Minutes into the Future? Fits the genre conventions to a T.
• Cyberpunk for Flavor: The setting has nearly all the aesthetic trappings of Cyberpunk; Mega-corporations running everything, a high-tech Neon City rife with crime and urban decay, etc. But in terms of narrative themes, it's closer in fact to a straight-up superhero story.
• Disc-One Nuke: The Darklight Power known as Electroscism can be acquired by the player as early as towards the end of Act 1. For the record, it fires three arcs of golden lightning that wrap around a target to deal damage over time while stun-locking them. Two Ghoulies near the end of the sewer segment of Act 1 possess this ability, and the CyberMage can acquire it by allowing himself to be hit with it. But be warned, it's as deadly to the player as it is to enemies, so attempting to acquire it this early, when the CyberMage has neither a large health pool nor sturdy armour, can be a high-risk maneuver. But it pays off.
• Easter Egg: In one of the news reports that the player can listen to when near a Plex News station, it mentions how brewing tensions have been compromising a potential partnership between S.A.R. Corp and TriOptimum, implying that CyberMage: Darklight Awakening takes place in the same universe as System Shock; released a year prior also by Origin Systems.
• Emergency Transformation: How the player character went from The Everyman to the eponymous CyberMage.
• Evil Counterpart: NeCrom is this to the player character. Though the twist is that NeCrom underwent the transformation procedure first, making the player character his Good Counterpart.
• Exty Years from Publication: The events of the Cybermage: Darklight Awakening take place in the year 2044, or just a year shy of 50 years from the year 1995 in which it was released.
• Fluffy the Terrible: One of the nastiest non-boss enemies the CyberMage can encounter is called a Genno, (pronounced "Jen-no") which doesn't sound particularly threatening or scary, but they are more than capable of taking down a player who hasn't invested themselves in getting some sturdy armor and leveling up their CyberMage's HP in a matter of seconds.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In order to prevent the player from accidentally killing plot-important NPC's and making the game Unwinnable as a consequence, most of these NPC's possess Nigh-Invulnerability. No matter what attacks the player throws their way, the NPC gives off a bluish shimmer as they No-Sell the player's weapons. In-universe, the manual explains it as these characters possess a personal Deflector Shield generator manufactured by S.A.R. Corp known as "Divine Protection", said to stop all attacks dead in their tracks, be they melee weapons, energy blasts, explosions, etc.
  • Standing in a doorframe when the door is closing will cause damage to whoever is caught between the door and its frame. This is explained that in the dystopian setting, doors are "armed and armored for extra security".
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: In the comic book that comes with the collector's edition, the lore of the setting mentions that by the 2020's, the corporations no longer vie for supremacy in robotics, AI and other mechanic/electronic technologies, instead looking to break new grounds in bio-engineering.
• Genre-Busting: Gameplay-wise, it's a First-Person Shooter that has some elements of an Action RPG - such as being able to "level up" your character's health and mana pool by collecting the life energy of deceased enemies, and having a currency system that allows the player to spend money to purchase weapons and ammunition.
  • In-universe, it's a Cyberpunk that also edges into Science Fantasy due to the existence of Functional Magic.
• Giant Spiders: The CyberMage will start encountering them in the tunnels in Act 7, and in the gardens outside Firemother's temple in Act 8. May also qualify as Demonic Spiders, as they can move very fast, posssess devastating attacks, and have large pools of health, which usually spells big trouble for a poorly-prepared CyberMage.
• Hitscan: Three of the seven guns the player can acquire have this capability; namely the laser pistol, submachine gun and blast rifle.
• Hub Level: The city of the 3rd act serves as one, which can be revisited upon the completion of the 4th and 5th acts.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Novice, Normal and Nasty.
• King Mook: Some of the mooks have beefed-up variants that look exactly like their regular counterparts, but have significantly more health, move faster and hit harder. They're initially encountered as minibosses in early acts, before becoming regular encounters nearing the end game.
• One Nation Under Copyright: In the comic book that comes with the box set, the timeline of the setting states that the first MegaCorp to embody this trope was Thanos Inc. when it declared itself a sovereign nation in the year 2005 and proceeded to claim all land within a 200-mile radius of its corporate headquarters as its territory, and dispatches nuclear-powered tanks and aircraft to patrol its borders, creating the first of the corporate states. Rather than challenge this move, other corporations quickly followed suit - marking the beginning of an era that saw the power base of old national governments erode and corporate states emerging to fill the void.
• Point of No Return: Once the player character enters the 6th act, he can no longer revisit the Hub Level that is the city.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Sri'feng are a race of reptilian aliens responsible for introducing humanity to the concept of the Darklight, and are formidable enemies when fought, possessing a large pool of health and capable of casting a wide array of hard-hitting Darklight spells, and were initially introduced as the primary antagonists. Ultimately subverted when it turned out they were Good All Along and have been trying to stop NeCrom, and only fought the CyberMage because he threatened to derail their plans.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The game's four melee weapons (Powerblade, Shock Mace, Razor Axe and Darklight Foil) are reduced to Awesome, but Impractical due to the game's at best wonky hit detection mechanics for melee attacks. Which unsurprisingly only applies to the player. What this translates to in gameplay is that a CyberMage can spend several seconds swinging a melee weapon at an enemy that's literally right in his face, without registering a single hit, and all the while having his health whittled down. And with more powerful enemies such as the Gennos or Hellspiders, this can easily prove fatal. Considering the CyberMage has a self-replenishing mana pool for his Darklight Powers, a more prudent tactic for a player who's low on ammo is to run and wait for their mana to regenerate before blasting the enemies away with Darklight Powers.
• Soul Eating: What passes for an "experience points" system in the game that gives it Action RPG elements. Whenever the CyberMage kills an organic foe, their Life Energy will get released in the form of a spectre-like cloud of energy known as "Mara". The CyberMage's Darklight crystal can absorb said energy to empower his mind and body, increasing his health or mana pool.
• Videogame Cruelty Punishment: Information or MacGuffin-providing NPC's possess Nigh-Invulnerability as highlighted in the previous entry for Gameplay and Story Integration. But this doesn't stop them from initiating combat with the CyberMage if a trigger-happy player decides to take a shot or few at them For the Evulz. Naturally, picking a fight with a character who can No-Sell everything the player can throw at them means Failure Is the Only Option. Mercifully for the player who aggros NPC's by accident, all they need to do is to retreat from battle - once the player moves outside of the NPC's perception range their aggro will reset, returning them to their default, neutral state.
  • Even for friendly NPC's who do not possess the above-mentioned Nigh-Invulnerability, the game still has its means of punishing a trigger-happy player. On death, these characters drop Mara that is gold instead of blue, and picking that up will weaken the CyberMage, either damaging his health or draining him of his mana.