Psychonauts!

[Jintor]

Another entry on the 'Games you should play but nobody buys so it will be discontinued soon'.

I've only played the demo, but the rockingness off the demo is not to be understated. Plus it got 80% - 100% scores in pretty much everywhere it's been reviewed.

Need info? OK.

Psychonauts is a platform game developed by Double Fine Productions and released on April 19, 2005 for the Microsoft Xbox, the Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. It was the first game from Double Fine Productions, a company founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer, well known for his previous work on graphical adventure games at LucasArts.

In Psychonauts, the player controls Raz (short for Razputin), a mysterious new arrival at a cadet training camp for Psychonauts — elite special agents who use their psychic powers to combat psycho-terrorism and retrieve information from inside people's minds. After arriving, Raz discovers that someone is abducting cadets from the camp with the purpose of stealing their brains. He must discover who is behind this sinister plot and stand against this evil.

Game rocks.

 

[destrukt]

yup, so fun.

 

[venturon]

I really want to play it however it is not out here in Australia, and I don't remember any release dates being dropped so I doubt I'll see it anytime soon. I got quite a shock when it was not available at Christmas, because I was planning to get it for my bro. Shame.

 

[JellyWorld]

Pity no one bought it.... A huge blow for innovative games, now publishers will look at this and say "SEE, ORIGINAL IPS DON'T WORK" and they'll go out and produce more sequels.

 

[Sloth]

We can always hope...

The plot doesn't look too good, or does Wiki just highlight the worse bits?

 

[Sulkdodds]

Is it out in the UK yet?

 

[Jintor]

It's not out in Australia? PCPP reviewed it... but they often release previews. I'd swear I've seen it in EB but I might not have. Otherwise... well, there's always <snip! -Ed>

It's not the plot, anyways. Or it is the plot. Wiki gives the emotionless side of things, but by god, the demo alone is enough to suck me in.

Ok, I'll give the lowdown of what I understand so far.

You're a boy named Raz(putin), a kid who ran away from his parents and the circus to Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, a camp for psychic kids. You've got to travel into people's minds as part of your training (The tutorial level is called Basic Braining, and the Coach sucks you and your classmates into his mind as part of an obstacle course). Each mind has its own design and ambience; people's personalities range from the sane to the insane to the mutated lungfish weird. I'm not sure at what point the whole 'camp monsters are eating our BRAINS!' element is introduced but the writing, humour, style, voice-acting, and general 'vibe' rock.

The story is apparently very good, the characters unique and highly entertaining (for example: First 3 minutes of gameplay, a coach who speaks exclusively in war metaphors, a child who has wild psychic powers and must thus wear a tin-foil hat, a pair of mind-bending secret agents and Razputin himself, who is... weird), wildly awesome writing... so on, so forth. The demo is a very good account of the game, you should go find it somewhere.

I'll get you guys some links... here you go.

Gamespot Review 8.4/10
Gameshark Review A+
Metagamers Review 9.1/10
1UP.com Review 8.7

There are others, go look them up yourself! ...yeesh, I feel I'm advertising for this game. Which is awesome. In every aspect of the word.

 

[Shakermaker]

Downloading the demo now. I never got around to trying it. It's coming out in Europe in february or march I believe.

 

[Gray Fox]

If you haven't played, you have no idea how fun it is. The demo alone is better then most games, but the whole game is just beyond an orgasmic experience.
In any cse you can support the game by buying funny merchandise from the official site, you can even buy the signed version for only 40,-. I mean in Holland a pc game costs standard 50,-. Plus there are tons of other stuff.
http://www.doublefine.com/
This is a very good fansite, whit goodies and tools.
http://www.razputin.net/
http://www.razputin.net/?page=multimedia/downloads

 

[StardogChampion]

It's decent, but no better than other good platformers out there.

 

[Shakermaker]

Downloading the demo now. I never got around to trying it. It's coming out in Europe in february or march I believe.

hehehe, that was cool. Too bad the demo is just the tutorial. It's not 'just a tutorial' tho. A lot of work went into this. Good clean fun!

 

[jimbo118]

eurogamer gave it goty in their 05 awards even though its not out here yet :/ although judging from the comments they gave it goty coz it was funny and had a good story if i remember, was exactly is so good about it?

 

[Shakermaker]

eurogamer gave it goty in their 05 awards even though its not out here yet :/ although judging from the comments they gave it goty coz it was funny and had a good story if i remember, was exactly is so good about it?

It has humour, it has detail, it has good voice acting, the graphics are funny. I might even get this.

 

[Gray Fox]

The the characters are wierd and original. And develop troughout the game. I spend like 4 hours just walking around the camp before i went to the second mission, cause there was just so much detail so much dept and so many little secrets.

As far as the characters go, well for example after each mission I went to like a sign with messages that the kids left and you can really see tyhem develope, like one was so afraid of beeing bullied by kids he wanted to quit, then later he found a russian guy became friends and bullied them. You see the message of a girl who is obviously trying to make a guy jealouse, who she is in love. And these things develope troughout the game and give meaning to a lot of things. It also makes them intersting troughout the game, I actually suspected some of them of beeing bad guys. They also do their own thing which is incredible intersting to see troughout the game.
The game itself is full of goodies and original and funny secrets you can collect troughout the levels. You can salso use your powers outside of the missions in the camp, to explore it more and to get to new places. To mess with the other kids, to fry birds so you can eat them and get your health back.

The level design is IMO by far the best ever, ever. It is incredible original, combines beautifull art with nice and sharp graphics and an incredible atmosphere. The levels are incredible diverse with each one beeing incredible unique. The game itself is pretty short, but incredible rich. And it's shortness comes mainly because the makers did not do anything to lengthen it artificially, so there are no cheap tricks here, no grind. Nothing like the Library level in Halo. The core gamplay in itself is not original. But the characters, and the levels are. But that is not really a problem, Zelda: majora's mask was also in its core the same as the other zelda's, yet the maks thing added a layer of originality.

The best thing I can say, is that it is a brilliant mix of incredible rich characters, levels, atmosphere, gamplay and sound. Where the level of detail in ensuring a moothly poliched product where nothing that is added is by any means subpar is only matched by blizzard. The ****ing squirlles in the game have more personality then human characters in most games.

 

[Ennui]

It looks good. This thread's convinced me to buy it.

Shiiit, if Valve just added it to steam it'd be a lot easier

 

[Qhartb]

Good idea there. I love Psychonauts and it would fit right in with the other 3rd party games on Steam.

 

[Majestic XII]

Only about 12 000 copies of the PC version has been sold (this figure is a couple of months old though) and guess what? I got a signed copy!

http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload7/psychonauts.jpg

(The big mark on his name is just the flash, he didnt break his pen writing it...)

It says "To my successor, Henrik Alfredsson" so Tim Schafer... im coming to San Fransansico to claim your studio soon.

Also, its a awesome game!

 

[Snowden]

If it got added to steam, I'd definately play it again.

 

[boglito]

Tried teh demo. Might have gotten it over steam. Not gonna get it.

.bog.

 

[Jintor]

If ye don't like the sounds of it, can you tell me why?

 

[bam23]

Twas indeed a very good game.

 

[venturon]

It's not out in Australia? PCPP reviewed it... but they often release previews. I'd swear I've seen it in EB but I might not have. Otherwise... well, there's always <snip! -Ed>

This is why I was so shocked when I found out that it hadn't been released. PCPP had been plugging the game really hard in the lead-up to Christmas, and they even gave it a 10/10 (first game ever).

 

[Hazar]

I played it a bit but it was too "arcady" style for my likes

 

[Sparta]

Its truly an awesome game. and it would totally do it justice if they could get it on Steam. That way even more people know about it and are able to try it. Man i totally wish i had bought that game instead of renting it. Think i might do so now.

 

[Jintor]

I wonder how you ask valve to distribute products over steam?

 

[oldagerocker]

PCGUK have been pushing this game too, but i cant find it in the shops anywhere or online. I'd have to order it from the net and i just cant be arsed with customs fee's and the delivery charge being as much as the game itself.

Steam would be a great distribution system for it.

 

[Direwolf]

Got it for Xbox, and love it.
Rented it and had to buy it, which I probably should just do for all of Tim Schafer's games.

 

[Jintor]

MMmmm... I just noticed the 'TBA' thing in the release bar on the review in PCPP. Damn.

 

[Jintor]

Got it for Xbox! Finished within the week! Pissed that only a couple of people have played it on these forums!

Seriously, this game is amazing. The amount of effort that was put into this game is freakishly large, the writing is brilliant, and - crucially - the story is one of the most brilliant I have ever heard, read or experienced.

 

[Raziaar]

I have this game for xbox, cause I heard it was good, but I never touched it. THink I should give it a try? <waits for the resounding YES!>

 

[Jintor]

*RESOUNDING YES!*

Seriously, I spent a MONTH running around Sydney trying desperately to track down this game, and now you come out and say 'Oh, look, it's been sitting on my shelf this whole time and I haven't touched this brilliant masterpiece of a game! Should I play it? SHOULD I?'

And it is in my opinion one of the best (if not the best) I have ever played. Ever. In all time.

 

[Raziaar]

Jokingly, you sound like someone who works for these people :-P

But the startup I just watched, it was funny.

"And then you make their heads explode?"

I laughed out loud.



Also, wanna know whats so convienient about this game? The character's name differs from my own, but the short usage it starts with "Raz" is just like mine Except mine is pronounced differently. So I don't have to change a thing. heh.


EDIT; Haha. That little green guy who wears the special cap. I love him. he's my favorite character right at the beginning.

 

[Majestic XII]

Kid: Chaaaaarge!
[Runs onto the obstacle course, only to explode seconds later]
Raz: What kind of obstacle course is this? That kid just got killed!
Oleander: He isn't dead, his astral projection just got kicked out of my mind. And I'll kick your *ass*tral projection out of my mind too if you don't get moving!

Awesome

Edit: Oh, my signature too Best level in the whole game.

 

[Raziaar]

At the very beginning in the camp, Why the hell can't I find this 12th psi card? I've looked freaking everywhere!

EDIT: i'm looking at a walkthrough to find it. I don't see hte point of spending 30 minutes to find one card, so its not like its bad.


Why does my screen constantly show the Right trigger, black and white button? They don't do anything if I press em.

 

[Jintor]

They're shortcut keys. For your Psycic powers. Which you don't have yet.

Why are you looking anal-retentively for all the Psi cards? I just picked them up as I went along.

 

[venturon]

Got it for Xbox! Finished within the week! Pissed that only a couple of people have played it on these forums!

Seriously, this game is amazing. The amount of effort that was put into this game is freakishly large, the writing is brilliant, and - crucially - the story is one of the most brilliant I have ever heard, read or experienced.

Bastard! Is it out for PC yet? I don't have an Xbox.

 

[Majestic XII]

Bastard! Is it out for PC yet? I don't have an Xbox.

Yep, its out. The game just got released in Europe but i dont know if the compy version got released along the other platforms (but i guess so). I imported my signed copy of the game (From their own store)

 

[Raziaar]

They're shortcut keys. For your Psycic powers. Which you don't have yet.

Why are you looking anal-retentively for all the Psi cards? I just picked them up as I went along.

I was just exploring dude. Nothing anal-retentive about it. I wanted to find them all before I took the coach's test.

By the way, this game is awesome. I've been sitting here talking to these two playing on drums, and their conversations, I haven't heard a repetition yet. Games that cram that much conversation dialogue for when you come back again and again and talk to them, is instantly awesome.

 

[Gray Fox]

I was just exploring dude. Nothing anal-retentive about it. I wanted to find them all before I took the coach's test.

By the way, this game is awesome. I've been sitting here talking to these two playing on drums, and their conversations, I haven't heard a repetition yet. Games that cram that much conversation dialogue for when you come back again and again and talk to them, is instantly awesome.

Just keep playing the way you are now, I did it teh same way and it is by far the best way to play. cause this game is very very deep, I mean I explored the camp for like 4 hours before I went on my first sasha 9 mission, and I never got bored.

Just push yourself, If you maybe see a way to get somewhere even if you think it will be exploiting the game by doing it, don't hesitate, they have thought about it, and have put some very cool shit for you. In any case wait till you hear the conversations between one boy and the fish, now thats funny.
Oh yeah and read that sign with post its. on the entrance of the camp, after or before every mission, you will understand more about the relationships between the people, and the story. And it's simply very funny.

 

[Raziaar]

Just keep playing the way you are now, I did it teh same way and it is by far the best way to play. cause this game is very very deep, I mean I explored the camp for like 4 hours before I went on my first sasha 9 mission, and I never got bored.

Just push yourself, If you maybe see a way to get somewhere even if you think it will be exploiting the game by doing it, don't hesitate, they have thought about it, and have put some very cool shit for you. In any case wait till you hear the conversations between one boy and the fish, now thats funny.
Oh yeah and read that sign with post its. on the entrance of the camp, after or before every mission, you will understand more about the relationships between the people, and the story. And it's simply very funny.

Yeah definitely. I've been exploring the whole campground area for a while before doing any other missions. Until I think I explored everything. Tickled everybody, etc.

I even thought I exploited some part near the beginning. Spoiler below.

Spoiler

That part on the docks, where the kid is talking to the fish, I ran and jumped over the water. I kept not making it to the docks out in the water, and the thing kept pulling me down. I found out how to cancel the thing when I swim back to shore, and this time I kept pressing it in anticipation of when the thing got me, and it warped me back in the same spot, so I could hop 2 more times. All it took was 1 to get on the docks. I think I was supposed to have a canoe or something to get there.

"Very Nice, now set me down easy and go and pick up something that won't blow up your head if you make it mad" haha. Hilarious.



EDIT 2: Okay i'm about to ****ing kill somebody. How the **** do I get up that mother****ing thorny tower? I've been trying for a full hour, no ****ing lie. I keep sliding off after using my levitating ball over to those things.