PS2 Game Review - Psychonauts

PsychoNauts

A PS2 Game Review
By Le Chupacabra

Excluding the typical dreams of endless plummets off cliffs or you trying to fight off bad guys only to find that you can’t use your super powers at all, the human psyche can be a pretty weird (understatement of the century!) and scary place at times. A visualization of everything that makes a person who she/he is - their joys, sorrows, fears, ambitions - could end up as something that would make Freud crap his pants. Or maybe not. Who knows? However, one thing is certain - a journey into a person’s mind could become an adventure like no other.

And that’s where Psychonauts comes in.

Born from the ingenious mind of Tim Schafer, Psychonauts is a game that puts you into the boots, or rather, the goggles of a young boy named Rasputin (‘Raz’ to his friends). Raz’s dream is to become a ‘psychonaut’ - a psychic warrior of sorts. The role of a psychonaut is to infiltrate the mind of other people and take care of whatever business is required. While that doesn’t sound too exciting, the possibilities are stupendous.

Here’s a game where you begin by entering the mind of your military-oriented teacher, Coach Oleander, to do some basic training. On the way you’ll encounter emotional baggage which are, brilliantly, actual pieces of luggage! Later you’ll delve into your own mind to literally battle your inner demons. You’ll encounter figments of imagination, mental cobwebs, censors that try to boot you from other people’s minds and basically every psychiatry-related cliché in the book - all realised oh-so-creatively in visual form. That’s where the true beauty of this game lies: imaginative level design. Coach Oleander’s mind is a battlefield full of exploding shells, flying zeppelins and old film slides of his greatest achievements. Sasha Nien’s is a Spartan cube wherein all emotion and secrets are kept under tight lock - only by accident do you find out what sorrows he hides. There are the minds of your fellow students - each one is as unique as they come. Both like and unlike the real world, nothing is what it seems in these crazy locations. You’ll wonder whether what you’re seeing is true, or whether there are deeper secrets behind all the nooks and crannies. Each mind is a maze (pun intended) and presents a whole new set of challenges and more importantly, a perpetual feeling of wonder and amazement. If you think you’ve seen insanity, think again. While you enter relatively few minds compared to the huge cast of diverse, loveable characters you interact with - each one also provides a fantastic vehicle for characterization. It’s the mixture of what you see, hear and unearth during these psychic treks that flesh out the personalities in this game.

This naturally leads to one of best parts of the game: humour. The humour ranges from literal, in-your-face clichés (the mind-levels themselves!) to characters spewing innuendo left and right to classic slapstick. All this wonderful comedy is beautifully integrated into the whole experience thanks to some fantastic writing by Tim Schafer. Whether it’s the typical jock/bully Bobby or the adorable Dogen, each has some great dialogue that make them feel more believable than most game characters. You know what a broad spectrum of personalities the typical classroom contains, right? Psychonauts appreciates this (most of the characters are based on Tim Schafer’s schooldays) and you’ll end up finding more than just a few recognizable personas. That’s yet another aspect of Psychonauts that makes it so enjoyable - you can actually relate to and empathize with the people portrayed.

Since the game is all about psychic powers and all, Raz can actually hear the thoughts of the people around him - more opportunity for hilarity and especially so when these precocious kids are thinking ‘inappropriate’ thoughts.

Given the way the game is designed, Psychonauts works best as a platformer - and that’s pretty much how it plays. Raz has to overcome obstacles by a combination of jumping, double jumping, sliding, grabbing onto ledges… you get the point. He’s able to attack by creating a giant psychic hand that karate chops anyone foolish enough to impede his progress. You can even perform the classic jump-smash where you jump up and direct a heavy smash attack below you. All these traditional platformer maneuvers are augmented by various psychic attacks such as Pyrokinesis, telepathy and the such. There’s also a handy Lock-Strafe function ala Ratchet & Clank that makes combat much more enjoyable. As far as gameplay is concerned, Psychonauts is pretty solid stuff although the jumping lacks a grace period - you know, the part in other games where, if you miss a jump, your character can still grab the edge. Some jumps can be tricky and the camera can be somewhat unwieldy; this can cause frustration at times. Besides that, Psychonauts has the fundamentals down pat so it’s all good.

Artistically, Psychonauts is a work of genius. The characters are designed in a very Tim Burton-esque manner with deformed bodies, over-large heads and a certain air of eccentricity. Despite the fact that they look kind of weird, they still exude a lot of personality. But what will really blow you away is the level design of all the minds you enter. Innovative, amazing and truly insane - each one is a visual masterpiece that you’ll enjoy seeing over and over again. That’s the artistic portion though; Psychonauts won’t win any awards for technical graphics. The game suffers from a slightly rocky frame-rate, the loading is quite slow and the draw-distance (how far you can see in a game) is poor. The general graphics are pretty low-quality overall. The artistry makes up for this pretty well most of the time, but occasionally only just.

The sound department is an equal balance of good and bad. The voice acting is extremely enjoyable and recalls the perfectly camp yet loveable voices that characterize classic Hanna-Barbera toons. On the flip side, the music is commonplace to the point of being forgettable.

Psychonauts is a work of creativity and freshness with diverse level design, brilliant humour and truly wonderful characters. Despite some rather glaring flaws, it’s one of those gaming concepts that don’t come around very often so pick this up before it disappears.