Psychonauts

The best way to describe my experience with Psychonauts was that it was an opinion rollercoaster. I had heard great things about this game and came in with high expectations, but once I started playing, I careened from bored to enjoying myself to just wanting it to be over and back again.

The story begins at a summer camp for people with psychic abilities. Your character, Rasputin, has managed to sneak into said summer camp with the hope of becoming a Psychonaut. They kindly allow you to stay and participate but only until your dad comes to pick you up. Shit goes downhill before that happens though, and before it's over, you're trying to stop a brain in a tank from taking over the world. It's all very dire.

There are two main arenas of gameplay. With one, you're in the summer camp and surrounding area, running around, talking to fellow campers, finding collectables and whatnot. The second takes place in the minds of various people you come across. You gain access to their mind by slapping a tiny door to their forehead and in you go.

In a person's mind, you'll find figments of their imagination which are harmless, mental cobwebs that you can clear, vaults which hold their innermost secrets, and emotional baggage, which appears as actual baggage, that you can get rid of by finding its baggage tag and reuniting bag with tag. There are also plenty of beasties that will attack you, trying to expel you from the mind.

These different minds are where the bulk of the game is played, and my opinion of the game swung wildly from mind to mind. The first couple are the minds of your teachers. You're just beginning to learn how to move around, that you have powers and what they do, etc.

It didn't take long, perhaps the second mind, to realize that there were things about the controls of this game that I despise. The controls are very clunky and are dependent on the camera angle, which has a tendency to change whenever and however it sees fit. When you're out in the real world of the camp, the camera is controlled via the mouse, when fighting bosses or in various other on-rails segments, the camera does whatever the hell it wants, generally remaining fixed on the bad guy. In these moments, the camera cannot be controlled by you. This wouldn't be so bad if the controls weren't totally dependent on what direction the camera is facing. This causes problems when the camera moves while I'm in mid-jump, when I need to make a precise jump onto a small target, or when I'm on the edge of something perilous. The camera moving often caused the forward direction I'm going in one second to change to lateral movement the next, which becomes slightly problematic when that lateral movement runs me off the edge of a cliff.

This happened a lot...

The camera thinking it knew better than me also gave me trouble when trying to figure out where to go next. I needed to look around, but sometimes the camera angle would be restricted to a few degrees left or right. Most infuriating.

After this second mind, I entered into the "I thought this game was supposed to be good" mode. I was surprisingly kind of bored already. Then it was time to enter another teacher's mind. Teacher Milla's mind is one big dance party. Here we learn how to use the levitate power. There are lots of crazy flashing colors, spinning things, faster run speed, and dynamic camera movements. I don't know what it was about this level, but I think it actively made me ill while playing it. I don't often get motion sickness while gaming. (It happened once during Portal.) But this one screwed up my guts twice. So from bored to sick to my stomach, it wasn't exactly going well, but I pushed on.

The first segment that I enjoyed took place in the mind of a lungfish. In this mind, you are Goggalor, a huge city-crushing giant traipsing about the lungfish city of Lungfishopolis. It took the game in a direction that I didn't expect, it was fun, and was the first bit of writing in the game that I laughed at.

The next area, The Milkman Conspiracy, was also quite good. The level design here is fairly excellent, all twisting, turning, and topsy turvy. Plus, the promise of funny was also delivered here. This area is populated by hidden surveillance equipment and trench coat clad secret agents pretending to be road workers, landscapers, plumbers, etc. by holding an item signifying that role. To get through each marked off area that they're guarding, you have to blend in with that group by holding that signifying item. For example, a member of the road crew would hold a stop sign. There were many good bits of dialogue here, as they matter of fact state what they are supposed to be to maintain their cover. A few examples, if I may...ahem...

"The dead people are underground. And I have brought flowers because...I am sad."
~ Grieving Widow Secret Agent

"Although over time, my husband will desire me less, sexually, he will always enjoy my pies."
"Rhubarb is a controversial pie variety."
~ Pie-making Wife Secret Agent

"Yes, we all work on the road crew. Our backs are killing us."
"Look at that woman's breasts. They're large."
~ Road Crew Secret Agent

While The Milkman Conspiracy section was quite enjoyable, the next one, Gloria's Theater...not so much. It took place in a theater, obviously, and you had to change the set and listen to them perform parts of the play over and over to progress. It was just too wordy. I'll allow wordy if some of those words are funny, but these were just words...and there were a shit ton of them.

The following section pulled it back from "Ugh" and got back into interesting concept land. In Waterloo World, you're fighting the inner crazy of Fred Bonaparte. This inner crazy takes the form of Napoleon Bonaparte, who he is playing in a board game. You hop into the board game and have to round up game pieces to fight for Fred. There were some tedious bits here; there was some obnoxious platforming; there were some bizarre limitations/possible bugs when holding inventory items that I discovered, but overall this one goes into the positive camp.

Black Velvetopia was up next, and I give it points purely on style. It was visually interesting. Using telekinesis during the Boss fight was clunky and pissed me off, but whatever...I give you a pass. Moving on.

Blah blah blah, real world asylum stuff happens, and then we get to the final level...The Meat Circus. I had read that this was horrible online, and they were kind of right. This was where the "I just want it to be over" feels entered into it. There were like 14 different stages to this final level, and once I conquered one that pissed me off, another would show up to take its place. The combination of time-sensitive platforming, plus the camera doing whatever the hell it wants, a stark ramp up in difficulty, and the sheer length of these segments made me want to punch a baby.

There is also a point where you have to fight The Butcher, this hulking behemoth of a man with meat cleavers that I couldn't figure out how the hell to take down. I ended up having to look it up. When his cleaver gets stuck in the ground, I was supposed to run up his arm and punch him in the face. I tried and tried. I could not run up his arm to save my life. I maybe got one hit in on him every 15 tries. I was doing so poorly that every two seconds, Agent Cruller kept repeating that I should run up his arm and sock him in the face. "I KNOOOOOOWWW!!!" If I know what I'm supposed to do, and I still can't do it after numerous tries, that's a bullshit mechanic. Something about that model is wonky or there's a path I'm supposed to take or a place I have to jump over that's just not obvious. That shit's on you, Psychonauts. That shit's on you. I eventually found out, due to a Youtube video, that running up his arm is a suckers game. Bouncing up there via levitation ball is way less bullshit.

I kind of was hoping that was the end but no...now I must show my acrobatic prowess as my dad tries his damnedest to murder me. Water is rising, time is ticking, flaming clubs are being thrown at my face. Ahh...family. The camera was once again my nemesis here. There were points that I'd be walking across a tightrope and jump to avoid a projectile, only to have the camera view change mid-jump and cause me to fall into the abyss. Thanks camera. You sure do know better than me... It also made my life extra difficult when jumping from partially on fire floating fence to other partially on fire floating fence. The place I needed to land was very specific, and for one, I couldn't turn the camera to get a better view of where I was supposed to jump. The perspective made it look like there was no place to jump that wasn't on fire, and two, when I did jump, the camera would rotate and my jump toward the lattice would turn into a jump in the complete opposite direction, sending me to my watery death.

After getting through that gauntlet and two more boss fights, the credits assured me that this hell was over.

Just kidding...just kidding... Overall, I'm more positive than negative about Psychonauts. It had its problems, sure. It pissed me off, sure. But there were some interesting concepts, and I commend them for trying something new. It was refreshing in that regard. Plus, it made me laugh so kudos as well for that. However, don't get too cocky. I'm still giving you a C+ for your shitty ass controls and camera. Those were bad, and you should feel bad... C+