Psychonauts: A+

Well hi! Happy new year! Yes I haven't blogged for a long while, but there's a good reason: I've been playing Psychonauts. I just finished it today so it's finally time to tell people what I thought. It's one hell of a game!

With the exception of some of my best-games-of-all-time list mainstays like Warcraft III and the Myst series (and possibly some other games which I've forgotten about), Psychonauts is the best game ever! It's funny, beautiful, intelligent, and great fun to play with. (Who'd have thought I was talking about a game?)

And I'm sad to say I'm probably one of the few Australians who's actually played it, owing to it never having been available in the country. (I had to order it from the UK). But enough about that - see the previous blogpost for that whinge.

Designed by Tim Schafer, the mind behind LucasArts adventures Grim Fandango and the classic Day of the Tentacle, Psychonauts is an adventure game disguised as a platformer. So you'll get to take Raz (i made that page :)) double-jumping, gliding, and punching through 13 crazy levels, but at the same time be solving puzzles and unraveling a brilliant story.

The game is based on the interesting question: what does it look like inside someone's mind? The idea is that the designers have taken some of their characters, and expanded their personalities to form an entire world you can explore. It's taking all the metaphorical stuff we call "the mind" and making it into literal stuff. So mental "sensors", nightmares, emotional baggage, figments of the imagination, and mental cobwebs are all represented in the mental worlds as real things for Raz to fight or collect.

More importantly is how the minds are represented. If a character has repressed his memories, then his mind will appear as a simple cube, with the memories able to pop out of the sides at any time. If a character has a light and dark side to their personality, then her mind will have a switch which can change all of the characters in it from happy to angry. If a character is obsessed with a woman, then his mind will be centered around her image. It is always interesting and often funny to see how each character is represented in their mental world.

There are 10 mental levels, and each is a completely new experience. Although you'll still be jumping around like a platformer in each, the layout and art, and also, the overall gameplay of each world is completely new. Only a handful of levels follow the classic "get through the level to the end, killing the bad guys on the way" structure. The others are much more creative. For instance, one woman is a theatre actress - her world is a stage, and you have to figure out which sets and scripts to use. Another guy thinks he's Napolean, and his world is a war game where you have to win the game by moving the pieces around the board. In another world, you are pitted in a race against your fellow psi-cadets. Every world feels totally unique.

This game is funny! There have only been a few games in history which are thoroughly funny - most of them have been LucasArts adventures, and Tim Schafer has had a hand in most of those. It may not be as constantly hilarious as the Monkey Island series, or Zork Grand Inquisitor, but Psychonauts regularly offers laugh-out-loud (that's "lol") moments. The humour ranges from the sheer craziness of some of the worlds, to some clever events, to a ton of "snappy one-liners".
(Go here and hit "Presenting the winner" to find out how funny it is).

It also has really good music, by Peter McConnell, who has found the perfect background to all of the mental worlds, as well as some nice "summer camp" ambience. The art has a brilliant cartoony style, but it's all in full 3D. And the art of the worlds is bizarre and wonderful - like Tim's previous games, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango (and I believe he worked with the same artist), everything's crooked and twisted.

The GameSpot review makes two complaints which I disagree with: firstly, that it's "too short, and too easy" (now where have I heard that before). Maybe I suck - but the game felt like the perfect length to me, and the perfect difficulty. Secondly, that on PC, the keyboard and mouse controls felt awkward. I disagree - the game was fine to control. (Even though I am a stickler for the PC).

That said, have a look at Alex Navarro's video review - he says some good things and provides some good insight into the game. You can find that here.

Update: here's a humorous pdf from the team which makes some good points as to why you should go to the ends of the earth to find this game! (The competition is expired, so no we can't win free stuff, but the rest of the points are still valid!)

If you're an adventure or platform fan, you'd do yourself a great service to track down this brilliant game! The saddest part is that so few people actually got their hands on it.

(In training, Raz throws a trash can at a bad guy.)
Raz: "Looks like the trash took him out, heh heh."
Ford: "Next lesson, we'll work on your snappy one-liners."

Raz: "How do I kill that armless guy with the swords in his mouth?"
Ford: "Ah youth. I remember the first time I asked that very question."

I can listen to any phone conversation that I want, but do not because of my sense of professional responsibility.
- Government agent posing as telephone repairer

You were born with a special gift. But the people around you treat it like a curse. Your mother is afraid of you, and your father looks at you with shame in his eyes. Come to Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, and you can show them all! Back home, your powers make you a loner, an outcast, a circus freak. But in this dojo, in this Psychic dojo, they make you a hero.
- Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp pamphlet