TEH. BEST. GAMES. EVAR.
By Andr'e Swartley

Psychonauts
Developer: Double Fine Productions
Publisher: Majesco
Platform: PC, PS2, Xbox, XBLA
Rating: T for Teen

Oddball game designer and Rubik's Cube master Tim Schafer began his career working for George Lucas at Lucasfilm Games. He worked his way up the ladder quickly, playing important roles in the development of groundbreaking adventure games like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. His hilarious scripts and programming skills soon landed him at the head of the teams that designed adventure classics Full Throttle and Grim Fandango.

Schafer eventually left Lucasfilm to found Double Fine Productions, which delivered its latest game, Br"utal Legend on "Rock-tober" 13 of this year. Br"utal Legend is another genre bending adventure, this time paying tribute to Heavy Metal music and starring comedian Jack Black. But what, you may ask, were Schafer and his mad scientists doing during the eleven years separating Fandango and Br"utal Legend?

They were making Psychonauts. Originally meant to be published exclusively for Microsoft's first home console, the Xbox, Psychonauts told the story of Razputin, a gifted boy attending a summer camp for psychic children. The game drops you and Raz into the Whispering Rock camp after a highly entertaining cinematic that introduces the counselors and several campers. You immediately have the choice to explore the grounds and begin collecting pink arrowheads, the game's currency, or visit Coach Oleander, a mustachioed counselor who bellows like a drill sergeant. Choose the latter path and Oleander sucks you into his mind to navigate a boot-camp-like obstacle course that helps you come to grips with the game's main mechanics, a combination of jumping, climbing, swinging, and rail-grinding.

As soon as Oleander lets you go, you meet the game's love interest, Lili, along with other campers who play the roles of bully, wallflower, and weird kid, just to name a few. Anyone who attended summer camp as a child will recognize and become instantly fond of these children, stereotypes or not. But the new relationships don't last long. Someone is stealing the brains of Raz's counselors and friends-this doesn't really harm them, but they do spend a lot more time drooling and staring at nothing-and it's up to Raz to save everyone.

Psychonauts is a platformer at heart, meaning that all the jumping and swinging you did early in the game will continue carry you through to the end. However, as Raz progresses through the minds of more and more characters that serve as levels in the game, he also learns new psychic skills. My personal favorite is a glowing ball that Raz can balance on while running, bounce off of to jump very high, and hang from like a balloon to slow a long fall. And that's just one of the powers! There is some combat in the game, but it's gimmicky and vague, basically requiring you to use specific powers to defeat different enemies without much option to vary your tactics.

Like any good game, Psychonauts becomes more difficult as you progress, requiring more precision in movement and fighting. This culminates in a nightmarish circus level, which is one of the most horrendously difficult, frustrating, and downright cheap final levels in any 3D platformer. You must navigate crumbling walkways, flaming nets, and rising water, all of which kill you instantly if they touch you. Still, even these wouldn't be so bad except that the camera closes in tight to Raz for most of the level so you can't see what the heck you're doing or which dangers are speeding toward you.

But the sour taste at the end can't overpower the rest of the game, which is clever, funny, colorful, and immensely creative. If you're wondering which of the four versions to get, the original Xbox version is supposedly the best, which would make sense because the game was designed for Xbox. I picked up the (rather buggy) PC version online, brand new and legal for only $1.00. No matter where you play it, Psychonauts is to be commended for its vibrant creativity and brazen lack of conformity. If you have any sense of humor at all pick up this game.

Final Grade: B+