Psychonauts is the twisted brainchild of Tim Schafer, a name that will undoubtedly be familiar to that segment of the population who grew up on LucasArts adventure games. And the legacy certainly lives on with this game. Consider the premise: you're Razputin, a ten-year old circus performer who runs away to a summer camp for psychic youngsters. You run around, honing your skills and jumping into people's heads, battling physical manifestations of their neuroses, while simultaneously working to thwart a mad dentist's evil plot and save the world. If that doesn't sound like the most awesome game in existence to you, then there simply is no hope for you.
Razputin: The only kid ever to run away from the circus
Now let me preface the second part of this review by saying that I'm playing the PS2 version of this game as opposed to the X-Box or PC version. That being said, let's get the bad things out of the way first. My biggest gripe with it is that, at least in the PS2 port, the loading screens are irritatingly long. It quite literally takes 2 or 3 minutes to load and you get the loading screen every time you go to a new area. Fortunately, this one is console specific so if you have either of the other two versions, you probably won't have to deal with this. What you will have to deal with is my second bugaboo: the difficulty spike. This is exacerbated by the fact that it's so damn sudden. The vast majority of this game is not too terribly difficult for those who are used to platformers but the final level is tortuously, fiendishly hard. I don't want to spoil anything but suffice it to say, I almost didn't finish the game because the last level is so frustrating.
All right. Now that we've gotten the negative taken care of, let's proceed to what's good about this game. Visually, it's like no other game I've ever seen. The characters are distinct, both visually and personality-wise and the level design... it's practically worth the price of the game all by itself. Remember how I said you get to jump into peoples' heads? Well the design of each of the mental levels reflect the personality of the person whose head you're tromping around in. Whether it's a black velvet painter with rage issues or the conspiracy-obsessed security, each level is like its own little world. There's even a level where you get to be a giant and terrorize a city of lungfish Godzilla-style.
But its the little things that really make Psychonauts a game that holds up to repeat plays. While you're playing the main game, your fellow campers are living out a veritable soap opera all around camp and you can play this game a dozen times and not catch all the little bits of dialogue and character interaction. This is one of the few games where it feels like you're in a real, living, breathing world and not just some artificial game space. It's a game that rewards multiple play-throughs because there's always some new shiny thing to find. Also, between Psi-cards, Challenge Markers, figments of imagination and various other sundries, there are an awful lot of collectibles in this game. For some people, that would be counted as a minus but frankly, I love 'em and you really don't need to collect everything to enjoy the game (although there's a nice little bonus if you manage it). All in all, this game is the perfect example of why I consider Tim Schafer a true creative genius.
Admittedly, it's one of those "quirky" games, so if the thought of some originality in your gaming scares you, you'd better avoid this one. As for the rest of you, give it a chance; you won't be disappointed.
-Monchhichi
Related Links:
Psycho-pedia: Psychonauts Wiki
Double Fine (who made this most excellent game)
Buy the Game (and give Tim Schafer your money)
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