Your initial goal is to become a Psychonaut in the two or three days you have before your parents come to retrieve you, but you'll quickly find yourself caught up in intrigue, as kidnappings begin to occur, the other students start having their brains stolen, and the adults in the camp quickly begin to vanish. What you do with those hours is what matters, and Psychonauts has been constantly entertaining and eye-opening so far it’s a game that goes out on a limb, if not in terms of the play mechanics (it’s a 3D platformer when you peel away everything else), but certainly in terms of the content and style.In Psychonauts, you're going to take on the role of Razputin, a circus performer cum psychic savant, who, in an inversion on the typical direction of things, has run away from the circus to join a super-secret summer camp for mentally gifted youngsters. I think I only have a couple of minds after this one to do, now it’s not a particularly long game, but that’s not what matters, especially to me since I have no time for 40+ hour epics anymore. Every mind in Psychonauts is very individual, and does a great job of keeping things interesting whilst being very consistent (with the mind at hand) at the same time.
But the nature of entering completely abstract spaces moulded around some disturbed minds means they can really let their imagination run riot. Very impressive - the psychic nature of this game means they can play with art styles that any other game would have trouble justifying due to the problem of maintaining consistency and suspension-of-disbelief.
The next most interesting mind, which I’m in at the moment, is that of a Spanish artist obsessed with bullfighting - the art direction on this level is astounding, it’s style is lots of deep black and highly saturated highlight colours, all very stylistic. All the while they try to wring out of you who the Milkman is, a legendary figure that Boyd is obsessed with, and whose ‘true purpose’ (and location) is being kept secret. People peep out of windows, hidden cameras pop out of everywhere (as Boyd says - ‘they are watching, everywhere’), and ‘agents’ make a hilarious attempt to blend in as everyday citizens. Just standing next to him listening to him ranting about who is the puppet-master of whom is funny in itself, but his mind is completely bonkers.Ī suburban town, hideously twisted around in shape (looking up you can see a house ‘upside down’ from your perspective because the road twists all the way over, very confusing), which once again ties in perfectly with the with the convoluted intertwining plot threads that are no doubt saturating Boyd’s mind. I won’t give anything significant away, but you enter the mind of ‘Boyd’, avid conspiracy theorist, oftentimes guard, and general fruit cake. I’ve cleared a couple more ‘minds’, and although they all have their own unique style, the Milkman Conspiracy is definitely one of the more memorable.
I’ve been exhausted after this weekend of DIY (because I’m such a pampered desk-jockey most of the time), so when I haven’t been fixing the odd bug in Ogre, I’ve been unwinding with Psychonauts.
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