Psychonauts

"A fun little action / platformer that is worth checking out."

Psychonauts was one of those games I heard nothing but great things about. No clue what exactly was so great and after playing the demo it fell to the bottom of my want list but still remained on it. Found it for cheap one day and just had to have it. Got around to playing it a few days ago and I must say that it's a very unique experience...

Raz has been raised in the circus with his family. Not as a freak or anything but it's just what they do. Raz has psychic abilities but his father doesn't want him to use them. Raz runs away and enters the Psychonaut training camp. It will take his father 2 days to arrive so now Raz needs to become a Psychonaut in two days and it's a near impossible goal... I won't go into the plot anymore but there is more plot to it and some decent little twists and turns. The thing that makes the story work so well is the character development and the humor is rather witty. It makes the game come to life.

Graphic wise Psychonauts is a little bit disappointing. Its looks fine and all but it isn't mind blow. Levels are fairly large, no slow time, average detailed locations ect. Character models are nice, if not a bit flat but to be honest some the characters just looks really odd. A quirk of the game and it adds a little something to it. No level looks a like and they have great designs. The painting level is really nice on the eyes.

Sound wise the game doesn't do much of anything. The voice acting is actually top notch. No problems there at all, no one got on my nerves ect. Sound effects are decent. Bouncing sounds and other little things. Not impressive but they all worked. Music is... well it's forgettable as I don't remember anything but the title screen music. That's alright though; it never annoyed me so that's a plus.

I found the control in the game to be a bit much at times. It's overly complex to a degree and it really isn't a problem until you're trying to use items and switching powers and all of that. Jumping is easy enough, I found double jumping a bit awkward at first but it grew on me. Everything else is fine but let me dwell a bit into the problems with switching items. You need to use the D-pad to open up your item/power menu. The each item is a specific place on the analog stick. Its fine really but kind of tedious during levels like the Milkman one.

Psychonauts' gameplay is a perfect mixture of action and platforming. It's seems more like a platformer than anything else but you need to use your different powers to get around the levels. While we're talking about levels let's just start there. Each level has a theme. Be it underwater, Godzilla like, Spy, Art, and whatever. Each is different and fun and they can all be entering whenever you want. What I found interesting and cool was that each level (for the most part) represented a characters personality. The levels are full of jumps, double jumps, movable objects, things to burn and whatever. I really enjoyed every level except Waterloo that level was just a pain for me and took forever...

The other focus of the game is the powers. As you level up in the beginning you get a new power every ten levels. You also get new powers from the adults at camp after meeting certain conditions. This keeps things interesting and I never had a problem of not having a power when I needed it. Now each power is different. Fire, telepathy, bounce, and a number of others. They are used on bosses and to solve puzzles.

Now, within each place of the game there is a ton of stuff to collect. These raise your level; give you more health and a number of other things. You collect cards. Get 9 and then buy a little green thing at the shop and you gain a level. There are markers also that level you up. Also there is a scavenger hunt and you trade in those things for levels. Also, in each area are hologram type things, touch them all and for every 100 you gain a level. I gave up after the first few levels and was still around level 50 by the end of the game.

Recent platformers have lacked boss fights for some reason. At first I thought Psychonauts was going that way until I fought a number of bosses one after another and then they were nice and steady. Each boss was interesting and all had different ways of being hurt, using the powers and items in the area. Was actually fun and I tend to not like them. They all have life bars but most die in 3 hits. You also have a life bar, when it runs out you lose a life. You collect things to gain more life and lives.

Sadly, the game truly lacks replay value. After a certain point in the game you can no longer collect stuff from the camp itself but still go to the labs and minds. This kills all replay value and the game offers nothing after beating the game which kind of takes away from the game. It took me about 7 hours to beat the game which is fairly average for me. It should take others longer.

Is Psychonauts a must own game? Actually, I think it is. The humor and game play alone bring this game to life and delivers where most games have been failing lately. It's the perfect rental title but it's also rather cheap these days and I can really see myself going back and replaying it all again. It's really does lack true replay value though and that hinders the game a little for me. I also found the final 2 areas in the game to bring out the worst in me. I had protection stages and I hate time limits so the game just had to add those in right at the end of the game...

Story - 9/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 8/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 10/10
Replay Value - 3/10

Final Score - 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/13/06