Duality

For those of you who don’t know who Tim Schafer is, then you’ve been missing out on some of the greatest games of all time. His most recent of those being Psychonauts. So, does it live up to the legendary Tim Schafer reputation? You damn right it does.

Learn From the Past
Tim Schafer is considered to be a god in the Adventure gaming world. More specifically, PC Adventure games. Back when times were simpler and games were point and click, Tim Schafer found a job at LucasArts (then known as LucasGames) and began working on games built around the SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) engine. One of the first games he worked on was The Secret of Monkey Island. He was primarily a writer and it was because of his hard work Monkey Island became on of the funniest games available. Afterwords it was quickly followed up Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck’s Revenge. Again, the game was unrivaled in it’s hilarity and ingenuity. The most amazing thing about them was how perfectly they got the secret of comedy, timing. Timing in video games was, and still is, a hard thing to get, but Schafer and his teams seemed to hit on the head every time. Other titles that you might have heard of are Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and one of my favorite games of all time, Grim Fandango.

Look Towards the Future
After Grim Fandango, Schafer took many of his Fandango teammates and formed there own company, Double Fine. This was back in July of 2000 and they’ve been working on Psychonauts ever since so you can only imagine how perfectly polished this game is. And it is! Throughout the entire game I never ran into a single bug! They’re that good. Anyway, unlike all of Schafer’s previous games, Psychonauts is not a point and click adventure game. It is a fully 3D action adventure game and unlike most games these days that strive for ‘realism’, Psychonauts has its own brand of almost cartoony graphics that fit perfectly into its world.

A story for the Ages
The story of Psychonauts centers around a young boy named Rasputin (but everyone calls him Raz) who’s sole dream is to become a secret government agent of the mind, aka a Psychonaut! To accomplish this goal, he runs away from the circus to join a summer camp for the psychically gifted. While there, he discovers a horrible plot to steal all the children’s brains and implant them in psychic death tanks to take over the world! Of course, it’s up to Raz to set things right, earn all his merit badges, and try to become a Psychonaut before his dad comes and picks him up. To do this, Raz will psychically enter people’s minds to try to unravel all the clues and help set things right.

A style of your own
To me, the most impressive thing about Psychonauts was its design. The main focus of the game is entering people’s minds. Inside you find a whole new world filled with figments of imagination, emotional baggage, and memory vaults. But the truly amazing thing about it is that each person’s mind is completely different from everyone else’s. They are completely unique. For example, at one point you enter the head of an old actress and enter the world of a theatre—complete with actors, sets, and even it’s own critic. At another point you go inside the head of a conspiracy theory nut. Inside is one of the most absurd and genius level designs I have ever seen. The world may look like 1950’s suburbia (complete with mailboxes, fire hydrants, and plastic pink flamingos, all of which can turn into cameras and take your picture. They’re always watching!) but that’s only until you look up and realize that what should be a straight road curves and twists in every direction imaginable. Imagine a roller coaster loop-de-loop and you’ll begin to see what I’m trying to describe. As you walk, the world around you moves and what was upside down and right above you is now rightside up and just as it should be. I could go on and talk about the levels where you’re a giant (Godzilla-size) and destroying a city inhabited by lungfish, or the level where you play a board game version of “Waterloo” against Napoleon. There are non-stop dance party levels, and even one that is literally a six-sided cube and you can travel from face to face. There is no simple way to describe the design and style of Psychonauts other than ‘extremely unique.’

And the Fun Starts Here
Remember when I said Tim Schafer was amazing at using comedy in his games? Well Psychonauts is no different than any other. The writing is so superb I can barely describe it. The timing of every line is perfect and cutscenes will have you rolling on the floor. And in regards to the cutscenes, they are placed apart just far enough to make you feel like you can’t wait to see the next one. They’re so good that you can end up playing the game only so that you can get to see the next cutscene. But Raz isn’t the only funny character. Your friends are just as good. Along your adventures you meet everyone from a Russian child who wants to fight bears, to a giant, deep-voiced, mutated lungfish named Linda. And who could forget the smooth-talking, “Issac Hayes”-voiced turtle, Sam Pokelope.

Gotta Catch ‘em All!
For me and those of you who like collection games (Pokémon, I’m looking at you) then Psychonauts is perfect. Every world has Emotional Baggage, Emotional Vaults, and most numerously Figments of Imagination. The latter of which can sometimes rise above 300 in a single world. Now, while collecting them all is not a necessity, it is needed if you want to reach level 100 and acquire all the Psychic powers (like telekinesis, levitation, and pyrokinesis just to name a few). If you do manage to reach level 100, you’re awarded with a scandalous cutscene involving Linda and Sam. ;)

In the end…
To sum it all up, Psychonauts is one of those completely original and purely fun games (lighting squirrels on fire never gets old) that come around all too rarely these days. It has no bugs (none that I found at least) and such a slick presentation, you can tell that a lot of people put a lot of work into making this game what it is. If you own an XBOX, you owe it to them, to the gaming community, and—most importantly—to yourself to try this game. I guarantee you’ll be hooked by minute one and laughing till it hurts.

5 out of 5 and my highest recommendation.