This is one of those games a lot of people look back on fondly. If you need any real proof of that, you just need to look at the crowdfunding campaign for the development of a sequel. However it was not a game on my radar at the time. Rather, this is one of those games that wound up in my backlog via my time subscribed to the Humble Bundle and was forced to wait in my backlog till the dice decided it was time to play. And when it came up, I shrugged and said "why not?" Well, the game certainly proved to be a good choice, but maybe not the best one. Come on in and see.
Story: Welcome to Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp! Here young psyhicly gifted kids learn how to control and focus their power to do amazing things. Things like levitating, lifting things with your mind, or burning them (up to you, really). It's even run by three of the most famous members of the Psychonauts, a psychic spy organization that protects the world in secret. Many come here dreaming of growing up to become on of their elite members.
But there is a catch... Razputin (Raz for short) was not enrolled. Rather, he ran away from home (the circus) and while the kids who are supposed to be there were at orientation, he sort of broke in. And while the camp counselors could tell he was a special young man with exceptional talent, they still had to call his parents. They will be here in a few days.
But a few days is enough time for trouble to find you if it wants to, and there is definitely trouble brewing here. Someone is stealing the kid's brains one by one! And the only one to catch on quickly is Raz! As such, it's up to him to figure out who, why, and to stop the insidious plan unfolding. This basic setup will frame the entire game, revealing just about all the major twists before you get halfway through it. But really the writing here is more about the journey then the goal. On your way, you will see many more smaller stories told through the minds of your counselors and other other quirky (and often straight up insane) characters. To give details here would be to do a disservice to this game. All I will say is enjoy The Milk Man.
8/10
Graphics: If you came here for any semblance of realism, you are playing the wrong the game. Rather, the game is a lot more abstract and slightly warped looking. In fact the best way I can put the characters is to compare them to the stop-motion movies of Tim Burton. They look nice and are incredibly varied, but all of them are slightly off in strange but whimsical kinda way and still manage to fit an overall vibe somewhere in that middle range of fantastic and creepy. If this sounds general, it's because it's one of those styles of work that really is off-base enough to be really tough to describe since so few really pull it off right. (And hint, the devs here did.)
Nor does the world disappoint in these regard either. You will find everything draws off this style amazingly well. And yet it will probably be one of the most insanely varied looking games you will ever play at the same time without. You are looking at a game where not only the campground, but a local insane asylum and even the minds of characters you encounter are all locations you will explore and every single one of them carry their own vibe to an absolute perfection. The devs took full advantage of the game's concept to go absolutely every direction it would let them, and the whole game will be an absolute feast for the eyes for it.
8/10
Sound: Much like the graphics, the audio you are about to enjoy has also aged exceptionally well. In fact here might be the star of the show! The weakest part of this is the sound effects, as they are pretty standard fair for what one might expect to hear in a platform adventure game about using psychic powers and entering people's minds. However, the music is probably the next low-hanging fruit. That is not to say it is bad,. In fact I would argue while playing, it is easily some of the best-fitting I have heard in a long time.
In essence, this music fits in with the same tones as the artwork. Always bouncy with an air of fun that just permeates, it never fails to enhance the scene. It is also varied enough to carry that fun into a relaxing environment when just exploring the world and connecting the levels to the tension (and different kinds to go with the different themes) you will face off as you battle through the levels of the game. The only real downside to this that it trades off memorability for this variety. You will not really remember any of the music when you turn the game off.
The same can not be said of the voice work, however, as this is going to stay with you for all the right reasons. Amazing writing and great acting just absolutely setup the tone and quirky humor through your entire game, and if you have a pulse, this is something you will simply enjoy from start to finish.
9/10
Gameplay: Sadly this point is a bit more bi-polar then the rest of what the game brings to the table. On the plus side, much like the acting and writing, this game is full of clever ideas that will delight you from start to almost the finish, But for better or worse, a lot of those ideas are never explained or shown to you. Rather, you will find yourself having to stumble across the solutions and hoping you are right about them when you try.
And for the most part this is far from a bad situation. Most of the time you will be left to your own devices within the world to explore using your abilities to get to new and interesting corners and finding more stuff that will grant you more power to use as you progress in your adventure. For those who like to collect all the things, you will find this very rewarding, but we will get into that later. Where this becomes a lot less enjoyable is boss battles.
To be blunt all the bosses in this game are gimmick based, but when you are still gaining your abilities (the first half of the game) several are meant to be lessons to show you how your powers work, but they seem designed from the perspective of a point & click instead of an action game. The game expects you to teach you how it works by making you stumble on it. The issue here is that it makes no effort of any sort to teach you what you did wrong in a situation where failure does nothing but restart the encounter and annoy the player with a lack of any kind of lesson or progress. So until you stumble on exactly what the developer expected you to do, you are stuck. And when you do the encounter goes from next to impossible to so easy you don't really feel rewarded, but just kind stupid. Thankfully once you have gained all the powers the levels themselves will offer you, the game gets a lot better, allowing the second half to be absolutely amazing for the most part.
But the game will offer you more then puzzles in the levels you visit or bosses. As noted before, a large part of this game is also collecting objects which you will use to make yourself more powerful. Anything from arrow heads laying about camp (and elsewhere) to figments in the minds you enter to psi-cards and psi-challenge markers and more will be strewn all around you. These items will be used to mainly either increase your wallet for the campus store and build up "psychic ranks" or effectively your level. Every so many levels, you will be granted an upgrade in the form of a new power or expanding the effectiveness of the ones you have. It warrants the effort as well as the will to explore.
But sadly the game also has an end note that is very sour to many of it's audience. The absolute last level is straight up horrible. The camera at this moment becomes your enemy as you are forced to do the only escort mission in the entire game, and this one is special. You will have to follow a child trying to rescue a bunny while protecting him from monsters, but game takes the extra step of making you follow rather then stay with them for extra annoyance. Each time you get the kid and the bunny together, the kid thanks you and flies off to the next platform to repeat the process, but does so via cut-scene, so now you have to catch up while he's already taking damage on the next level. Fail and you start it all over again. This also goes for the next part, a rail-grinding segment which gives you precious little time to react and even has blind spots you just have to know to not fall off. Suffice it to say these maps did not get the same level of love and care the rest of the game did.
And also just as sadly, the final bosses (for there are a few of them) also lack the same thought and creativity that marked the rest of the game.
7/10
Bugs: Overall this game ran exceptionally well. However it did not run perfectly and in fact I found exactly two bugs.
- Crash at Startup: For reasons I do not understand, the game crashed the very first time I started it up before I could even setup the game the way I wanted it to run and start playing. However it worked perfectly from that point on.
- The Boss threw me out: This also only happened once, but one boss managed to throw me out of his arena without losing a life. I don't mean off the map, I mean out the entrance. Going back in completely restarted the battle, but it was strange.
Overall: Psychonauts is an absolute gem of a game. It's brilliant, creative as hell, and will make you smile just about every time you start it up. But at the same time, it is riddled with moments that are confusing and need to be better communicated to the player. It is clear the team at this point came from a background of games where trial and error was not only entertaining, but encouraged by entertaining the player with what happened cause they chose wrong (aka point & click games). And as such, they didn't always get how to teach mechanics in an action-based platformer. Add to this a last level that simply lives nowhere near the quality of the rest of the game and you just can't ignore that this gem is flawed.
Score:
7/10
System Requirements:
- Intel Pentium III running at 1.0 Ghz or equivalent AMD Athalon
- 256 MB RAM
- NVIDIA Geforce 3 or ATI Radeon 8500 (64 MB VRAM on iether)
- Windows 98 SE/2000/XP
- 3.75 GB hard drive space
- Ryzen 3 2200G running at 3.5 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 10
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
No comments:
Post a Comment