Psychonauts

"A must have, even if the sales figures disagree..."

Overview:

Psychonauts is set at a summer camp for psychic children training to become Psychonauts. Our young hero (Raz) sneaks into the said camp to fulfil his ambition to join the Psychonaut ranks and the story unfolds from there...

Psychonauts is essentially a platform game in the "Zelda" mold (though this is an over-simplification). The game itself essentially revolves around a hub (the summer camp) and the individual levels (of which there are ten) are set in the minds of people.

Graphics:

The character models themselves are generally well drawn and animated, though the odd one is somewhat lacking in detail (a couple of the final level bosses spring to mind). This is only a minor detraction though, as the rest of the world is brimming with imagination and humour. The levels themselves have truly weird and wonderful designs.

Sound:

The sound effects are adequate, but the music fits wonderfully with the visual look of the game (the Black Velvetopia and Waterloo World levels are particular highlights). The voice acting ranges from quite good to first rate and the actors are well cast so that there are no characters that sound out of place.

Gameplay:

Lots of fun. Controls are intuitive; everything is simply laid out and they are generally responsive. A varied mix of platforming, acrobatics and the diverse psychic powers (not forgetting the beautifully realised world) makes for a very entertaining, immersive game.

Other:

The only cons are that the game itself is somewhat short; it can probably be completed in about ten hours, but one can spend much longer finding everything that there is to find (It personally took me twenty five to achieve that goal). Some of the levels can feel a bit buggy (more so later on in the game) and the occasional fatal error can occur, but the game does employ an autosave feature so that normally not too much is lost.

The interactions between the various characters are often entertaining and sometimes hilarious, even down to minute details. For example it's great fun trying to harm most of the characters just to see what threats or insults they come out with.

Conclusion:

Psychonauts is an excellent game that deserves the highest praise for it's creativity. The general wackiness and silliness along with the generally young cast should make the game appealing to children while there is plenty of humour for older gamers to enjoy also.

Do everybody a favour and buy this game. You'll be happy, the developers will be happy and the world will be a better place ;)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/29/06