Psychonauts

"A great game that rises high above its flaws"

I really loved this game. I'm a fan of a lot of platformers, like Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank, but for some reason I had really put off playing this one. Maybe it was the weirdness of the box art, or the strange concept of the game, but it just didn't sound like that great a game. Then I found out it was from the creator of the Monkey Island games, which are some of my favorite games of all time, and I found out that the main character is voiced by the actor who does the voice of Invader Zim, and I decided that it was worth picking up at the used game store. I was VERY pleasantly surprised with one of the best games I've played in a long time. The game was apparently rushed to completion, and it shows in some areas, but Psychonauts really rises above its many flaws.

STORY: 10/10
You play as Raz, a 10 yr old boy who sneaks into a sort of Psychic summer camp run by the Psychonauts, an elite corps of psychic secret agents. Over time, Raz unveils a plot by a mysterious mad doctor to steal the brains of psychic children, and he alone can stop it. Over the course of the game, you will meet a huge cast of brilliantly conceived and hilarious characters. In order to progress through the game, you must enter the minds of a lot of these characters, fight their personal demons and solve their mental problems. Each of the "levels" in the game is someone's mind.

GRAPHICS: Hard to define
I couldn't give this one a rating, because it's hard to decide whether I'm judging it on technical graphical power or the art design. On a tech level, the game isn't very good. The graphics are a little fuzzy, the polygons a little jaggy and poorly put together. They're not HORRIBLE, but they're not great either. However, the art design would get a 10/10 from me. The art in this game is kind of a bastard hybrid of Invader Zim and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Everything is very surreal and strange, whether you're in the real world or in someone's mind.

Another MAJOR kudo for this game is the level design, which is absolutely brilliant. I've never seen anything like it. The levels are all incredibly creative, some straightforward, some surreal. In one level, everything is warped and twisted, and conspiracy theories abound. In another level, everything is ordered and organized, unfolding out of a giant cube. In still another, you are a giant godzilla-sized version of yourself, stomping through a city, trashing buildings and stomping on tiny people. Still another is a giant black velvet painting. There are so many levels in this game, and they're all radically different.

So again, while technically weak in the graphics department, it WAY more than makes up for it in creativity and artwork.

SOUND: 7/10
Eh, the general music isn't bad but it's nothing to get excited over. You'll never want the soundtrack to this game. So hence it's not a 10.

However, the voice acting in this is brilliant. All of the characters are well-acted, and everyone has a different, distinct personality. Raz himself is absolutely awesome, as I said before voiced by the same actor that does the voice for Invader Zim. Razputin is very sarcastic and funny, with a twinge of ego that makes you just love him. This game has easily some of the greatest character acting and dialogue in a game that I've ever seen.

GAMEPLAY: 6/10
This is where it gets really hit or miss. The gameplay is where a lot of the "rushed" feeling is in the design of the game. There's a lot of little glitches that are not game-stopping, but do get annoying a lot. A lot of standard platformer moves are here, and they work for the most part, but some of the collision detection fails, like when you're jumping for a pole or rope, or trying to jump in a certain direction. The camera can also be a pain in the neck, not always moving how or where you want it to. Some of the psychic powers can also be infuriating to use quickly, such as telekinesis, as aiming your throw is very difficult unless you have the time to do it slowly. Again, as much as I'm complaining here, none of these really prevent you from playing the game. They're little piddly annoyances, most of which won't kill you, just frustrate you a little.

The plus side is the wide range of psychic powers. TK, pyrokinesis, levitation (which is really more of just a superjump and a slow float down, not actually flying), confusion bombs, etc. You have about nine different powers, all of which are used very often throughout the entire game. Nothing annoys me more than a game that gives you a power that is only useful in the level you gain it in. In Psychonauts, you will use ALL of your powers throughout every level of the game. Now I've heard some complaints that you can only use three at a time, and this is sort of true. You key up three of them to R1, R2, and L2 (L1 is used to either float or target). However it's not like you can ONLY use these three in a level. At any time, you can pull up your menu and rekey a new power to a button and use it. It's not that hard, really.

I think the only other thing that annoyed me was the start button. I instinctively hit the start button for everything, like trying to escape your powers or inventory menus. This is not the case. It's always the circle button to close out of a menu. No matter what screen you're in, start will always bring up your pause menu. That really was my own fault, not the game's, but I think they could have made it a little more intuitive.

REPLAYABILITY: 7/10
There is an almost obscene amount of things to collect in this game, and for those really dedicated, it'll take forever to get 100%. Personally, it was too much. I got all of the psi-cards and psychic challenges, most of the mental cobwebs and vaults, etc. But damned if I was going to collect EVERY SINGLE FIGMENT throughout all of the levels. There are literally thousands throughout the game. But hey, I got to a Psi-Rank of 89 by the time I beat the game, out of a possible 100, so I think I did pretty well for myself.

I think the main reason you'll want to replay this game is because its so fun to play, and to see all of the cutscenes again. Yes, the main plot cutscenes are all viewable from the pause menu once you've seen them, but there are a lot of side cutscenes and things that happen that are incredibly funny, and those you have to replay the game in order to see. I think I laughed hardest at the scene in the very beginning when Dogan is concerned that the squirrels are speaking to him in his mind, telling him to kill people, to make their heads explode with his mind. Dogan was my favorite side character, and I laughed out loud anytime he was onscreen.

OVERALL: 9/10
As with a lot of my reviews, my individual area scores do not reflect the overall score of the game, I don't add them up to get my total. My total score of the game is just based on how much I enjoyed playing it, and I thoroughly enjoyed Psychonauts. Despite its technical flaws, the game is a blast to play, and is absolutely brilliant in its concept and execution. If you know anything about psychology, then watching the serious psychological issues built into this game's levels is true genius. The characters are vivid and memorable, and the humor is dark and sarcastic, just the way I like it. I highly recommend this game to anyone, and suggest you run out and buy it today.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/06