Mr Durand Pierre
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Psychonauts
Psychonauts is the new contender for my favorite game for the PS2. And this is why…
First of all I should say that I'm a big fan of Tim Schafer. I loved all three of his LucasArts games and Grim Fandango is one of my favorite games of all-time. That being said, I had some reservations about him making the genre switch to a platformer. His other games were all great for their dialogue, characters, stories, and inventive worlds, and I had no doubt that that would remain in tact, but platformers require action and good controls, where as his other games relied more on logic puzzles. Now I love platformers (the Sly series and POP are some of my favorite games of this generation), but they seemed so far removed from the slow methodical Tim Schafer games of the past, that it looked as though he may have been selling out to a more marketable genre. The good news is he nails this genre perfectly well.
Though the highlight of the game remains Schafers writing. His dialogue is unparalleled in the world of gaming. Psychonauts is easily the funniest game I’ve played since his last game, Grim Fandango, which came out 6 years ago. Nearly every line of Psychonauts is funny, and the voice-acting is near perfect too. One thing that really sets Schafer games apart from other game designers is just how much detail he puts in his games. There is a ton of comedy in the game that can very easily go unnoticed. Using different psychic powers on different people or objects can often result in hilarious results that most people will never uncover. I took my time with the game (clocking it at about 18 hours), and I was reading on some forums about quite a few lines that I missed. One really funny thing about the game is that early one you can go up to fellow students and intrude their conversations, but when you leave (or before you start talking to them) they’ll literally go on for several minutes reciting even more hilarious dialogue before they ever start repeating themselves. It’s also worth noting that a lot of the hilarity comes in during the gameplay segments so it’s not like you’re playing a game, then watching a funny movie, then playing a game again. A good example of this is in a level that takes place inside an overgrown mutant Lungfish’s head where you’re viewed as a Godzilla-like creature destroying their peaceful city. As you destroy buildings and stomp citizens they’ll yell out dozens of hateful phrases at you like “Goggalor hates children!” or “We’ve fought monsters like you before Goggalor, only much, much smaller.”
But not only is the game funny, it’s just plain fun to play too. The game could best be described as a mixture of Grim Fandango and Jak and Daxter: The Precurser Legacy. It has all the style and hilarity of the former, with the platforming/collecting of the latter. And oh boy is there a lot of collecting. None of it is necessary, but it’s all there to give you something to strive for, and I personally find collecting really fun. There isn’t a whole lot of combat, but what there is works. And the actual platforming works like a charm too. Though it is worth mentioning that the platforming is a bit light, and so are the puzzles. If you look purely at either of those aspects of the game Psychonauts comes up a little short, as there isn’t quite enough challenge in either aspect, but when combined together the game is a well-paced blast. I personally could have gone for some slightly harder puzzles, but that would have alienated those looking for a platformer and bogged down the pacing a bit. As is it’s light and breezy and never dull.
I should note that I played the PS2 version of the game and there were a few slight technical issues. The worst offender would be the load times, measuring in at about 20-30 seconds each, which isn’t all that bad, but can be a real pain in the ass when you have to transcend two or three load times to get to where you want to go, and then an equal amount getting back. But there are also plenty of very long breaks without any loading, so it only stings every once in awhile. I also noticed some minor glitches. One time the game froze and I had to reload, and another time the voice-acting and music stopped, so I turned off my PS2 and turned it back on and things worked fine. Given that you can save at any moment keeping all you’ve collected, these glitches were only very minor setbacks. And finally, the framerate can occasionally take a hit, but nothing as bad as Shadow of the Colossus. I’ve heard that the Xbox version looks a decent amount better, but unless I’d see them right up next to each other I’d say the PS2 build looks fine. None of these technical issues hurt the game that much at all though. I hear the Xbox version takes care of some of these issues, so if you have both systems go with the Xbox version, but if you only have a PS2 (like me) the game holds its own more than fine.
It’s tough to fault Psychonauts as it combines two things I love: Tim Schafer’s writing, and Jak’s platforming. But if I had to suggest ways to improve it I could think of a few. The most notable is that there are a couple points in the game where you can’t go back. One is early on when the story forces night to fall on the camp, so any encounters you missed during the day will stay missed. And there’s another point near the end of the game where you can no longer go back. And the game doesn’t have a whole heck of a lot of replayability (unless you really want to collect everything) , but I’d recommend putting it away for at least 6 months, then going back and starting a new game. By then you’ll probably forget a lot of the best jokes and discover quite a few new ones as well. My only other qualm with the game is that the boss fights, while fun, could have been a little better. I was really hoping they’d require you to use more and more psychic powers on them as time went on and be multi-layered, but most of them take only one or two psychic powers to kill and follow fairly easy patterns. They’re perfectly adequate and keep things exciting, but they won’t exactly rock your world like some of the more inventive boss fights of Sly 3.
But aside from some very minor technical qualms (on the PS2 build at least) and lack of replayability , there isn’t much wrong with Psychonauts. It’s fun, creative, hilarious, amazingly polished (in terms of what you can do), and unlike anything else out there. It’s a real toss up between this and Shadow of the Colossus for my favorite PS2 game. I suppose the only way to find out is to wait a year and see which withstands the test of time best. But right now, I’d have to say I’m leaning towards Psychonauts.
Pros:
-Hilarious writing
-Imaginative levels and visuals
-plays well
-lots to find
Cons:
-mild technical issues
-you can’t go back to the camp at the end.
Overall 9.5 (out of 10)
CAG note: If you’re looking for this cheap, the best deal I know is to print out those nifty $10 off any $29.99 or over Best Buy game coupon, then PM it at Circuit City where it’s only $29.99, bringing it down to an affordable $19.99. That’s what I did, and what you should all do too.
Psychonauts is the new contender for my favorite game for the PS2. And this is why…
First of all I should say that I'm a big fan of Tim Schafer. I loved all three of his LucasArts games and Grim Fandango is one of my favorite games of all-time. That being said, I had some reservations about him making the genre switch to a platformer. His other games were all great for their dialogue, characters, stories, and inventive worlds, and I had no doubt that that would remain in tact, but platformers require action and good controls, where as his other games relied more on logic puzzles. Now I love platformers (the Sly series and POP are some of my favorite games of this generation), but they seemed so far removed from the slow methodical Tim Schafer games of the past, that it looked as though he may have been selling out to a more marketable genre. The good news is he nails this genre perfectly well.
Though the highlight of the game remains Schafers writing. His dialogue is unparalleled in the world of gaming. Psychonauts is easily the funniest game I’ve played since his last game, Grim Fandango, which came out 6 years ago. Nearly every line of Psychonauts is funny, and the voice-acting is near perfect too. One thing that really sets Schafer games apart from other game designers is just how much detail he puts in his games. There is a ton of comedy in the game that can very easily go unnoticed. Using different psychic powers on different people or objects can often result in hilarious results that most people will never uncover. I took my time with the game (clocking it at about 18 hours), and I was reading on some forums about quite a few lines that I missed. One really funny thing about the game is that early one you can go up to fellow students and intrude their conversations, but when you leave (or before you start talking to them) they’ll literally go on for several minutes reciting even more hilarious dialogue before they ever start repeating themselves. It’s also worth noting that a lot of the hilarity comes in during the gameplay segments so it’s not like you’re playing a game, then watching a funny movie, then playing a game again. A good example of this is in a level that takes place inside an overgrown mutant Lungfish’s head where you’re viewed as a Godzilla-like creature destroying their peaceful city. As you destroy buildings and stomp citizens they’ll yell out dozens of hateful phrases at you like “Goggalor hates children!” or “We’ve fought monsters like you before Goggalor, only much, much smaller.”
But not only is the game funny, it’s just plain fun to play too. The game could best be described as a mixture of Grim Fandango and Jak and Daxter: The Precurser Legacy. It has all the style and hilarity of the former, with the platforming/collecting of the latter. And oh boy is there a lot of collecting. None of it is necessary, but it’s all there to give you something to strive for, and I personally find collecting really fun. There isn’t a whole lot of combat, but what there is works. And the actual platforming works like a charm too. Though it is worth mentioning that the platforming is a bit light, and so are the puzzles. If you look purely at either of those aspects of the game Psychonauts comes up a little short, as there isn’t quite enough challenge in either aspect, but when combined together the game is a well-paced blast. I personally could have gone for some slightly harder puzzles, but that would have alienated those looking for a platformer and bogged down the pacing a bit. As is it’s light and breezy and never dull.
I should note that I played the PS2 version of the game and there were a few slight technical issues. The worst offender would be the load times, measuring in at about 20-30 seconds each, which isn’t all that bad, but can be a real pain in the ass when you have to transcend two or three load times to get to where you want to go, and then an equal amount getting back. But there are also plenty of very long breaks without any loading, so it only stings every once in awhile. I also noticed some minor glitches. One time the game froze and I had to reload, and another time the voice-acting and music stopped, so I turned off my PS2 and turned it back on and things worked fine. Given that you can save at any moment keeping all you’ve collected, these glitches were only very minor setbacks. And finally, the framerate can occasionally take a hit, but nothing as bad as Shadow of the Colossus. I’ve heard that the Xbox version looks a decent amount better, but unless I’d see them right up next to each other I’d say the PS2 build looks fine. None of these technical issues hurt the game that much at all though. I hear the Xbox version takes care of some of these issues, so if you have both systems go with the Xbox version, but if you only have a PS2 (like me) the game holds its own more than fine.
It’s tough to fault Psychonauts as it combines two things I love: Tim Schafer’s writing, and Jak’s platforming. But if I had to suggest ways to improve it I could think of a few. The most notable is that there are a couple points in the game where you can’t go back. One is early on when the story forces night to fall on the camp, so any encounters you missed during the day will stay missed. And there’s another point near the end of the game where you can no longer go back. And the game doesn’t have a whole heck of a lot of replayability (unless you really want to collect everything) , but I’d recommend putting it away for at least 6 months, then going back and starting a new game. By then you’ll probably forget a lot of the best jokes and discover quite a few new ones as well. My only other qualm with the game is that the boss fights, while fun, could have been a little better. I was really hoping they’d require you to use more and more psychic powers on them as time went on and be multi-layered, but most of them take only one or two psychic powers to kill and follow fairly easy patterns. They’re perfectly adequate and keep things exciting, but they won’t exactly rock your world like some of the more inventive boss fights of Sly 3.
But aside from some very minor technical qualms (on the PS2 build at least) and lack of replayability , there isn’t much wrong with Psychonauts. It’s fun, creative, hilarious, amazingly polished (in terms of what you can do), and unlike anything else out there. It’s a real toss up between this and Shadow of the Colossus for my favorite PS2 game. I suppose the only way to find out is to wait a year and see which withstands the test of time best. But right now, I’d have to say I’m leaning towards Psychonauts.
Pros:
-Hilarious writing
-Imaginative levels and visuals
-plays well
-lots to find
Cons:
-mild technical issues
-you can’t go back to the camp at the end.
Overall 9.5 (out of 10)
CAG note: If you’re looking for this cheap, the best deal I know is to print out those nifty $10 off any $29.99 or over Best Buy game coupon, then PM it at Circuit City where it’s only $29.99, bringing it down to an affordable $19.99. That’s what I did, and what you should all do too.
