Psychonauts

"People should really pay more attention to this one..."

Ah Psychonauts… how mysterious you are. I first hear of you, and I'm not completely impressed. I see your super deformed characters in screen shots and I am just not interested. “Oh boy, another platformer” I sarcastically tell myself and brush you off. How could I have ever been so wrong about you my beautiful, witty, incredibly entertaining piece of software? Psychonauts is definitely a victim of mislead first impressions, and I know that I'm not the only one out there who has judged this game unfairly.

Gameplay: 9/10
- Let's get down to the nitty gritty here. Psychonauts is a blast to play. After a unique, but somewhat unimpressive opening cinema, the player is plunged into an amazingly bright and colorful world, and the first thread of an unraveling prejudice begins to yarn into existence. “Well, this looks amazing, but what's it like to play?” I ask myself and I decide to run around a bit, testing the waters so to speak. To my delight, the controls are very responsive. I have absolutely no complaints about running, jumping, double jumping, climbing, or just plain examining objects. Well, this is a pleasant surprise. All around the area are things to see, listen to and collect. I overhear a set of kids arguing about the name of their band, so I stop to listen for awhile and even throw in a bit of my own advice. I'm impressed by the caliber of the voice acting and the variety and uniqueness of the conversations these children are having. I run over to another part of the opening area and am greeted by a cutscene where a hilariously acted Russian themed boy informs me of his hunt for a bald, psychic bear that he wishes to join in battle. Once again I'm greeted with a gold nugget of devilishly clever humor and presentation.
Time begins to melt away without my noticing. I continue running in circles, exploring every square inch of the still-playing opening area. I don't rest until I find every single psi-card, arrowhead, and psi-marker that I can find. Suddenly, I feel incredibly tired and I realize that I've been searching this one area, having a blast the whole time, for the better part of two hours. Now, this may not be a shared experience as it's completely feasible to just run directly to the first level and begin your journey into the collective unconscious, but for those that love to wring every last drop dry from the rag, I can guarantee that your cloth will stay wet for a long time indeed. The thread of prejudice begins to unravel more and more.
So, here we are, thrust into an incredibly large world with fantastic visuals and tight controls, but the real question starts to burn to the forefront. Can this magic last throughout the entirety of the game? The answer to that question? You bet so. You see, the whole premise of Psychonauts basically revolves around the idea that you are a psychic adventurer with the ability to dive into the psyches of certain individuals in an attempt to either fix any long standing mental strife or sometimes, just to explore and learn. This creates an interesting amount of freedom. You see, just as you start to get sick of what's offered on your plate, you're moved onto the next course which is almost always fiendishly original and just different enough in one way or another that you're instantly enthralled. Just a few examples of the creativity involved in the different stages of the game include being thrust around a wartime training ground, a giant board game where your actions determine the outcome, growing to monstrous proportions and terrorizing a city of tiny lungfish, to acting as stage director for some seriously twisted theatrical productions.
Overall, the game just screams polish and is never overly difficult. There are a few challenging moments later on including an almost-but-not-quite frustrating last level, but it's never enough to make you want to put down the controller.
Another intriguing factor and perhaps the intended pull for Psychonauts however, lies in the abilities of leading boy, Raz. As a psychic, you're available to a host of psychic abilities, of which three can be assigned to selected button presets at any given time. At the start of the game, Raz is only able to use a three-combo psychic punch and a psychic powered double jump, however, over time Raz is able to learn abilities such as pyrokinesis (the ability to light things on fire), levitation (the ability to jump super high and float softly to the ground), and confuse (a grenade like ability that causes giant burly enemies to dance like ballerinas with similar effects on other enemies). These abilities are unlocked or upgraded to more powerful forms throughout the game by increasing your psychic ranking. This is a set number from 1-100 that rises depending on the number of items you collect or trade in to certain hotspots. For collectors, you're all rewarded with better abilities for your hard collecting work, whereas if you just want to skip the collecting and move the story along, you're more than able to complete the game with minimal upgrading required.
However, this leads to a few slight problems. One minor gripe involved the number of psychic powers you can use at any given time. Three just usually isn't enough, and I found myself constantly having to stop completely what I was doing to once again rearrange my current play set to another one, just to have to switch back again 10 seconds later. Second, while I enjoyed collecting psi-cards and psi-markers and even collecting emotional baggage, I felt as if the inclusion of figments, or rather, hard to see glowing, blinking, see-through images that number in the hundreds in every level that need collecting, were just tacked on to artificially inflate level play length. Also, later on, I had a bit of difficulty setting jumps up correctly which ended to unnecessary cliff falling and combat felt a bit loose on many of the boss characters. Overall, these are minor gripes though as the game itself is just too charming in too many other ways to really complain much.

Story: 10/10
- As mentioned before, you play as psychic brain-child Raz who has run away from home to join a governmental summer camp for the psychically gifted in an attempt to join the elite ranks of the Psychonauts, a group of psychic crime fighters. This later evolves into a greater conspiracy, but overall, the amount and variety of cutscenes and conversations that are available really help flesh out each and every character and makes you care about every one of them by the games end. Amazingly fresh and original, Psychonauts was like a breath of fresh air to a very stale genre. Oh, Did I mention that this game will make you laugh your ass off? Well, it will. The humor is incredibly intelligent and you'll want to keep playing the game just so you can see what'll pop out of the characters mouths next.

Graphics: 10/10
- What can I say? The game is stunning. While originally I mentioned that I was unimpressed by the character designs, I found that when put into motion, the screen just screams “Look at me!” Animation is incredibly fluid and the Saturday morning character designs delight again and again. The level designs too are incredibly original and look equally stunning. From the summer camp with it's psychic bears roaming the countryside, to the various twisted mental states, everything is absolutely alive and often breathtaking. Grassy fields are filled with various assorted wildlife running from one place to the next, birds flit around in the air, characters move with a life-like air that delights every time you see it. All I can say is, bravo developers. Bravo.

Audio: 10/10
- Perfect. I wish all games took this much time to put this much detail into their audio. The voice acting? Perfect. One hundred percent spot on. Background music? Fits the feel of every area you enter completely. Sound effects? Well, need I say more? I really think that Psychonauts is the first game I've ever played where every single audio aspect shines with glossy sheen that's only been rivaled by the most crystal clear mountainside lake.

Replay Value: 8/10
- I give the game an 8 here simply because there's so many things to collect, that it'll keep you coming back again and again to try and find every single last figment or psi-card just because the game is just so fun to play. However, once you've collected every last item and beaten every level twice, you'll probably not find yourself coming back unless you're just dying to see some of the one time only cutscenes again for revisited laughs.

Buy or Rent?
- Support creativity and originality and buy! Psychonauts has not been getting the attention it deserves despite the fact that it may be one of the best platform games made this year, if not in the last three years. Everyone who's played the game cries for a sequel, but Tim Schafer has made it clear that he does not like making sequels to his games. If this indeed does turn out to be the case, then you need to get your butt in gear and go buy Psychonauts now while you still have the chance to play one of this year's most original and fun games to date.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/23/05