Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

"You can do it if you put your mind to it..."

I first rented Psi-Ops for a few nights only because there was nothing else there. I had never heard anything about it and quite frankly I thought it was just a rip-off of Second Sight, and it sort of is... but funner.

You play your usual hero stereo-type... bulky, fearless and unusually resourceful. Nick, being the hero of this game, is one of Psi Ops elite... well psychics I suppose. You land yourself in captivity and you have to break out and, as per usual, get revenge. Although it seems to be your every day kill-people-and-run-away style slow, boring game; it isn't. The story never lets you down once, from each cut scene to all the surprises around every corner.

As for graphics... I'm pretty impressed. For the most part the graphics in Psi Ops are very detailed and well thought out, delivering a 100% smooth performance all the way through. The major thing that lets the graphics down are the explosion/destruction effects: they are simply pathetic at most. You smash a crate and it looks like someone was kicking over a house of cards and the fire looks like a piece of orange fabric being blown in the wind. But putting those aside, I can't complain; the characters and their expressions are very expansive and realistic. Definitely a strong point.

The sounds... what can I say? Most of the sounds are pretty standard to this type of action game. The voice acting is pretty good through most of the game and the gun-fire is almost realistic. Nothing special here, and nothing really lets Psi Ops down.

Finally... gameplay! This is the sole reason why Psi Ops obtained a 9 from me. Lifting people.... smashing their heads off of walls then tossing them into some of their comrades... what more can you ask for? You can do it if you put your mind to it... but not in this case. You'll be so caught up in seeing how high you can drop someone... or how much blood you can smear over the walls... or just throwing poles at your foes, knocking them down large holes, that you'll completely forget that there's an objective to the game! The enemies are pretty responsive and they are smarter than your average AI... most of the time anyway. There is a great stealthy approach to Psi Ops... containing many stealth kills and different ways to sneak... using boxes for cover... but I prefer the full blown action. Going into a room full of guards... machine gun in one hand, lots of explosions in the other. Once you obtain most of your powers (which is quite quickly I might add) you nearly have a sense of invincibility. Someone shoots at you, you pick them up and throw them away... then you pop their heads off... and you get to see that nice blood-spray animation. Thanks Midway.

You can make this a very long game, or a very short game. For me, I had about 3 weekends' worth of playing Psi Ops... just playing it over and over again finding new ways to torture enemies... who knew it could be so fun?

Well this is where we part. I hope this review was informative and helpful to you all. My final words are: get this game. Even rent it, you have to play it at least once.

There should definitely be more games like this... and I'll be waiting till that day.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/03/04