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Psychonauts (PS2)

• Developer:
• Publisher: Majesco
• Genre:
• Official Website: http://www.psychonauts.com
• Score: 5 of 5: Purchase

What would you get if the designer of some of the greatest point and click adventures of all time in Tim Schafer decided to make a 3D platformer? Psychonauts is pretty much your answer. Psychonauts is a humorous, delightful, and stirring tale about a young boy's dreams of grandeur and his attempts at fulfilling them. This is not an unusual story concept, but one that I don't think we see often enough in videogames. Psychonauts delivers a rather quaint and visually strange view of the world where special agents with Psychic powers fight against evil doers, and it just so happens this agency, known as the Psychonauts oddly enough, recruit from a training camp in the middle of nowhere. The game begins with all the students being given an introduction speech by Coach Oleander, head of the Psychonauts training camp, and a runaway named Rasputin crashing the party somewhat. Though it is Rasputin's dearest wish to become a Psychonaut, the fact that he didn't go through the proper channels or do the right paperwork of course means that technically he couldn't stay to learn, so he is given a bunk for the night whilst the heads of the camp try to contact his parents.

Of course, it wouldn't be much of a game if that's all there was to it. Through a bit of luck and the presence of some obvious Psychic talent, Raz, as he prefers to be called, manages to talk his way into taking the basic "braining" course, with the agreement that should he pass, he could then study for as long as he is at the camp. And so, Raz's journey begins. And his journey quickly becomes an urgent one when mysterious persons seem to be stealing the brains of all his fellow students! The game has a very surprising twist half way through, and the plot, though pretty standard stuff, is fun to see unfold as almost every new segment of the game introduces a wonderful new character or location.

The basis of Psychonauts' structure is quite simple and set up by the very first 3D platformer, Super Mario 64, with the basic idea of there being a hub world and then worlds that are interconnected through portals. Psychonauts does employ the rather excellent idea of making these other worlds the minds of some of the game's characters. This means of course that the game escapes form the clichés of most platformers that have your standard ice world, industrial world, etc. No, the themes for the levels in Psychonauts are based on the mental condition of the individual minds that Raz enters. There are some truly weird, wonderful and just completely whacked out places to visit in Psychonauts. Also, the controls for the PS2 version are close to perfect for a complex platformer. Powers can be assigned to the shoulder buttons via a D-pad activated menu. The face buttons do all the standard stuff such as jumping and interacting with the environment and standard psychic attacks. The powers are quite varied and learned at specific points throughout the adventure. Included among them are the always fun telekinesis and pyrokinesis abilities. Both can be used to fight, but both also have practical uses that can remove obstacles from Raz's path.

Technically the game is solid, and a good exhibition item for artistic presentation. The last thing you should expect from Psychonauts visually is any realism. It has a very cartoony look reminiscent in fact of a lot of recent American animations. Heck, a Psychonauts animation would be at home, and quite frankly be very welcome on Nickolodeon. However, don't let that suggest that it's a very "kiddy" game. That would a misconception. Not only is there some quite adult humour mixed in there, but a few innuendos and just some weird stuff that is definitely a bit above the level of the average 10 year old. It is a whole lot more mature than Spyro and the likes and when I say mature, I mean it in its true sense.

The voice acting in the game is also a revelation, easily some of the best and certainly some of the funniest I have ever seen in any videogame. Every character seems to have a perfect voice, and if Psychonauts were a movie, the voice actors involved here would have done a superb job. I can't say a whole lot more about the soundtrack other than it's pretty low key and not even all that noticeable. The sound effects however are energetic and convincing.

There isn't a whole lot more to say about Psychonauts. About the only thing wrong with it is that as unique, original and fun the game is artistically, ultimately it is a very standard platformer. There is a lot of collecting, an awful lot. The majority of the levels center around collecting things, and that's the kind of actions gamers have been performing in platformers for eons. In addition to that, there isn't much else to unlock in the game save a secret ending for attaining Psi rank of 100, basically collecting everything there is in the game. Whether or not that is really worth the effort is up to the individual player. The game is worth playing and beating beyond a shadow of a doubt, and is a little too long to be beaten in a rental. It's very possible that the game's charm could carry it through multiple playthroughs, but to be honest it's gameplay won't. I would have to say though that on the basis of how much I enjoyed the game, I'd be doing everyone here a disservice if I didn't recommend they buy this and embrace the weirdness!

Jun 11, 2006 | 0 comments
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