Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

"Great fun, one of a kind, but just short of greatness"

Since time immemorial games developers have imagined that in the heart of every gamer is a desire to be a tough-talking grunt with a ready supply of hardware, a dead-eye aim and an unrelenting hoard of evil-doers to take down single-handedly. They may well be right, but that doesn't stop such a meatheaded contrivance from becoming stale eventually. For Psi-ops, a game that aesthetically adheres to this model, the developers have added neat new twist- psychic powers.

The story unfolds in typical genre locations (military bases, labs, prisons etc…) but using this gimmick makes it feel fresh and full of possibility. Instead of running into a room, guns blazing, grenades rolling around and those explosive barrels that litter any self-respecting evil empire, the player is presented with much more to try out. How about telepathically grabbing a soldier and casting him into the ranks of his comrades, before picking them up one at a time and dashing them against walls, over buildings or into the aforementioned barrels? How about climbing a crate, then floating it through a room, gunning down the baddies as you go? How about taking control of an enemy soldier's mind and taking friendly fire to heights unseen since Gulf War 2? The list goes on.

It also possesses a high standard of polish, particularly the lip-synching and character animation, and the central conceit remains satisfying and engaging throughout. Your powers serve the puzzle and exploration elements of the game, as well as the gung-ho combat, and exploration is actively encouraged.

It's not perfect, however. With such all-encompassing powers, it is inevitable that certain background objects will be overlooked, smaller items that by rights you should be able to manipulate, are static fixtures. These are sacrifices that have been made to make the control mechanism user-friendly and approachable, though, and it's hard to hold the designers to account for it, because it does handle very well. Also, despite rather appealing characters and some decent scripting, it's hard to shake the feeling that there is no real plot here- predictable genre cliches arrive and depart without taking the trouble to leave any trace on your memory and when the final credits roll you will most likely find yourself just going “…huh?”. Again, this doesn't threaten to spoil the playing experience since once you recognise the plot for the tripe it is, you can happily ignore it.

Of greater concern are the latter levels in the game, where in a desperate bid to ‘up the stakes' the designers saw fit to do away with much of what made the opening acts such a joy to play- namely the freedom to approach problems in your own way. As the game wears on and the plot becomes more convoluted the player is railroaded into obtuse corridors of specific activities and badly misjudged enemy design. It comes as a crushing disappointment after the trailblazing efforts the game undoubtedly has made to add spice to a genre that has long been stagnating. It would have been nice to see Midway go that extra mile and complete this package with as much verve as it started with, but it is an effort that shouldn't go unrewarded, because there are still the bones of a truly great game here.

There is also an arsenal of extras to unlock, most welcome of which is a set-piece selector option you can exploit to revisit this games many highlights.

It comes highly recommended then, but it would be nice to see some of these oversights straightened out in the (inevitable) sequel.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/05