Psychonauts is Tim Schafer's finest work.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like exploring the mind of a lungfish? Me neither, but now you can with Psychonauts. Long in development, Psychonauts follows Raz as he breaks into a summer camp for psychic soldiers, or psychonauts. It doesn’t take long for things to get out of control and an evil force has kidnapped all of the brains from the campers. It is your job to get things back to normal at the camp, and you do so by exploring a series of brains, each unique and each having a crazy style. For instance, when you go inside your tough-guy coach’s brain, it has a war theme. When you progress through the game you can’t wait until you get to see what the next brain is like since each is so wildly different from the previous one.
Of course you won’t have to travel through the world of Psychonauts without some awesome psychic powers. This game features many of them, and they range from telekinesis to confusion grenades. You can assign three of the powers to your shoulder buttons, and you can switch between them quite easily. These powers are used often to solve puzzles and get to new areas in a brain. Aside from the psychic powers you have your standard punch and double jump abilities, each using a cool mental effect.
Each level has many collectibles scattered through it, so you will have plenty to do. There is emotional baggage (looks like an actual bag) that you have to find tags for, mental cobwebs, and figments of imagination (also using a cool 2D graphic) to keep you occupied.
Psychonauts controls like a platformer should, and I noticed hardly any problems with the control scheme. The camera isn’t a problem, either. Placing the psychic powers in the shoulder buttons works perfectly, allowing you to use them easily. Overall, there were no big problems with controls.
One of the strong points in Psychonauts is the voice acting. It is near-perfect, and each line of dialogue is hilarious. One of my favorite lines from the game was from the counselor telling you that you were “as fast as greasy lightning!” There are a wide variety of characters in Psychonauts giving the voice actors plenty to work with. With an original soundtrack, he music in Psychonauts is also well done.
The graphics in Psychonauts are also very well done. The cut scenes are pre-rendered and pretty. In game, the graphics are colorful and beautiful, creating a unique environment for the game. Although the Xbox version looks a bit nicer, you won't find any major problems in the PlayStation 2 port.
I completed Psychonauts in about 14 hours, but that includes more than three hours of mindless arrowhead (the game’s currency) hunting when I could have just bought the deep arrowhead finder and completed the task in 15 minutes. The average person could easily complete Psychonauts at a normal pace in about 11 hours. It isn’t very long, but it is fun while it lasts. The game runs for about only $30 right now (if you can find it), so it still is a great value.
Psychonauts is a easy game. You will have no problems beating most of the boss battles in your first time and I went the entire game with getting only one “game over” due to a somewhat challenging platforming challenge. Its difficulty doesn’t get in the way of the game, however. It is still surprisingly fun despite its lack of challenge.
Psychonauts is an excellent game that should not be missed. The game is perhaps one of the funniest games released this console generation. Psychonauts is also unique title, being one of the most innovative titles in years. Unfortunately, this game was avoided by many, so it may be hard to find the game, but if you can find it, Psychonauts will be one of the best games you will play in years. Don’t miss out on this incredible game.
