I often wrestle with with the idea of worthiness when writing a review of something. Not being a professional critic with the time and drive to rank dozens if not hundreds of products I feel as if I should expend my efforts in alerting others to albums, books, or movies they might not have heard of otherwise. This becomes problematic when discussing videogames. For the most part, the most well thought out, polished, and noteworthy games are simultaneously the most well known. With the exception of certain genres, it takes a tremendous amount of money to develop and market a game, unlike a CD or even a movie. Lacking sufficient funds a band might just record in a cheaper studio or a director might choose to eliminate costly special effects. When a video game developer lacks funds it tends to detract from the experience of playing the game. Great games tend to be exceptionally well advertised.
That’s a whole lot of horseshit just to say: When I like a game it’s pretty safe to say that almost everyone else who plays games at least knows an awful lot about it. It’s very difficult to have indie cred when it comes to gaming.
That’s what makes Psychonauts so exciting: It’s a thoroughly polished and rip-roaringly fun game that was tragically underpurchased. The perfect game for me to evangelize about. It’s got cred!
Okay, so maybe Psychonauts isn’t all that terribly obscure. It’s certainly no Madden nor Grand Theft Auto in terms of visibility and sales, though it has garnered its fair share of positive reviews. Unlike most titles, Psychonauts is distinguished by conspicuous use of the creative director’s name. That’d be Tim Schafer, who is previously known for creating the PC adventure title Grim Fandango (which I sadly have not been able to play due to platform issues). This is evident by the sheer style of the game. It’s clear upon playing that Psychonauts was created by someone with creative vision rather than a checklist of shit that seems to work in other games.
Which is not to say that Pscychonauts is totally out there. The gameplay itself is fairly standard platformer stuff: run, jump, double-jump, shoot bad guys, collect shiny things. The platforming elements are represented well and are solidly put together. The imaginative bits are what surrounds the running and the jumping, all too often set aside for last and tacked on haphazardly.
Here’s the gist of the game: At a summer camp for psychics a demented madman unleashes a plot to conquer the world by stealing brains. The only way to defeat him is to sort of astrally project into various minds and conquer their inner demons. Each of the games levels are representations of inner thoughts and personalities. Each level is refreshing and new, oftentimes with its own peculiar artistic style.
Style is the key. We don’t particularly play games for new experiences. There are few key genres and we gamers know what to expect. Occasionally we like to be taken by surprise, but generally we like to know the rules. What distinguishes one game from another is largely style.
The central gameplay gimmick of “jumping” into another character’s head and playing a level based around his or her life feels familiar, though I cannot remember a particular game that has used it at the moment. If it has been done before, I don’t think it has ever been done this well before. Without drastically altering the gameplay, each different level feels fresh and has its own peculiar rules. Levels range from your standard creepy forest to a tabletop wargame complete with hexagonal field to a neon-and-black-velvet painting to a giant kaiju battle to a particularly loopy (quite literally) imagining of 1950s suburbia.
The production values on Psychonauts also stand out. Playing it is much like playing through a Saturday morning cartoon. Voiceover talent is almost universally excellent. Invader Zim Richard Horvitz nails the lead character Raz. I couldn’t imagine anyone being more perfect for the role.
Psychonauts is available for the Xbox, PS2, and PC. So long as you’ve bought a gaming system since 2000 you should be equipped to play it. You really should too.
