Psychonauts: It’ll blow your mind!
A little over a year ago, Mr. Zackman harassed me for two days straight to play Psychonauts. I didn’t, but I told him I’d probably get around to it eventually. And now I have.
I can see why he was so crazy about it. Besides being a competent platformer, this game had without a doubt the most imaginitive levels in any game I’ve ever played. That’s quite a tall order, but the narrative allows for it.
You play as a young boy named Raz who breaks into a summer camp for teaching psychic powers like pyrokinesis, levitation, and telekinesis. One of these is getting inside other peoples’ heads. Here, you’ll find war zones, giant board games, dance parties with floating flower petals, and more.
The game shines with its sense of humor, with many moments that are downright hilarious. One of my favorites was where Raz was treated as a giant godzilla-like monster in a miniature city with terrified civilians. As I walked towards buildings, I’d hear cries like “he’s heading towards the puppy orphanage! He’s destroyed the puppy orphanage! Oh wait…that wasn’t the puppy orphanage. NOW he’s destroying the puppy orphanage!”
I also have to say that the voice acting may very well be the best I’ve seen in a game. Even repetitive lines don’t feel so repetitive because of the quality with which they’re said.
Unfortunately, this review isn’t completely glowing. There are a few stages in which the difficulty just about ruins it for me. Like any platformer, the game suffers from occassional camera problems, but the majority of my gripe is with the last two sections’ extreme requirements of skill. I had the same gripe with Zack & Wiki, but this one was worse. I have a confession to make. This one actually defeated me. After two nights of trying the last section of the game, I finally gave up and watched someone else beat it on Youtube. Consider yourself warned, but I won’t look down on you if you do the same.
June 2nd, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Yeah, the last level was a huge mistake. But the game has other problems–the tutorial levels are mind-numbingly boring (ie long) compared to the early parts of platformers like Mario or Ratchet/Clank.
I thought the platforming is a bit janky overall. It’s like 90% there, which is not a big enough per cent for something released in the mid 2000s. But that may be because I’ve never played on a machine powerful enough to run the game smoothly.
It wasn’t until recently that I realised that you don’t actually help most of the insane people. Half of the time, you tip them over the edge. I think I heard that when you all pointed it out on the podcast.
Anyway, you got a picture of Raz levitating a cow? That picture exactly captures why the bad platforming doesn’t stop the game from being the Best Platformer Ever. Or maybe the Best Adventure Game Ever.