Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

"At last a good Midway game!"

Countless Mortal Kombat rip-off spin-offs, Gauntlet : Dark Legacy, Legion : The Legend of Excalibur... Since its success with the original Mortal Kombat franchise, Midway just sat on it and made crappy games like those listed above, and many, too many others. However, the Mortal Kombat series was reborn from its ashes with the more-than-acceptable Deadly Alliance. Some months later, Midway teamed up with Surreal Software to release The Suffering, an outstanding action/horror game. Now it's time for another great game from Midway, one that confirms the talent of the company's crew. PSI-Ops : The Mindgate Conspriacy is an amazing piece of software indeed.

First, you need to get the backstory before we go into the heart of the game. A few decades ago, the governments from several countries tried to train people with psychic powers as soldiers to help in upcoming wars. Telekinesis, pyrokinesis and mind control have been used in several armed conflicts, but now the PSI elite is used less because of abuses from some PSI soldiers. William Kreiger, the former leader of the Mindgate project in the US now leads a terrorist organization only know as the "Movement".

You are Lieutenant Nick Scryer, a particularly gifted PSI operative who hasn't joined the Movement. The US Army knows that the Movement will attack an outpost soon. They wipe your memory to make sure you don't even know you have psychic powers while they prepare a plan for you to be captured by the Movement and taken to their HQ to be transformed into a Meat Puppet, or, in other words, a brainwashed soldier to serve the Movement. But they know that you won't let yourself be assimilated this way, and make sure that your memory comes back once you're in.

After having stolen a guard's gun (and killing him), you're sent to solitary confinement awaiting your processing. A girl named Sara Blake comes to your cell, gives you a gun and tells you to meet her elsewhere. Once you do, she'll inject something to you and you'll have a flashback of your telekinesis training. Now the game gets real fun, because you can use TK on nearly everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) that isn't bolted or glued, including human beings.

As you learn new powers, the game becomes more and more fun, and you have new options to kill your enemies. For example, you can set a crate on fire with pyrokinesis and throw it at your enemy with telekinesis, throw the guard on the wall with telekinesis, get behind him while he tries to get up and mind drain him until his head explodes, control his mind and force him to kill himself, or simply shooting him (but this last one is a lot more boring). There are powers in all : Telekinesis, Remote Viewing, Mind Drain, Mind Control, Pyrokinesis and Aura View. Aura View and Remote Viewing are a bit boring, but the others kick ***...

The controls are very good, the graphics are some of the best out there, the voice acting and music are very good, and the game is long enough, but more importantly, it is Extremely Fun!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/05