Tim Schafer is a slightly eccentric guy. Okay, that might be a little bit of an understatement, let's try that again. Tim Schafer is the kind of guy who tells his interviewer at LucasArts that he pirated their game, then goes on to write up a fake text adventure to use as his cover letter, and still manages to get the job. After being lead designer on a few projects for LucasArts, he left with a few of his fellow employees to start Double Fine Productions. Given Schafer's unconventional history, it is unsurprising that his games all swell with creativity.
Psychonauts is Schafer's first effort without oversight. The premise sounds familiar at first, something about a boy running away, summer camps, and circuses, but Schafer flips the old story on its head, as Psychonauts' protagonist, Raz, escapes from the circus to attend summer camp. But this isn't where the oddity ends, and this is no ordinary summer camp. Raz's latent psychic abilities drove him to find Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, a place where the councilors are all members of a psychic superhero team, the Psychonauts. Raz wants nothing more then to discard his old life and join them, but his plans go awry when tragedy strikes: Most of the campers and Raz's friends have their brains stolen. Thus begins Raz's quest to save his friends while simultaneously proving his worth to the Psychonauts.
The gameplay in Psychonauts is that of a fairly straight forward 3d platformer, but what makes it so compelling is in the context and the story presentation. All of the levels take place within the confines of various individuals' minds, creating some interesting scenarios, some of the most notable of which include a Godzilla-esk Rampage level where you terrorize a city of talking fish; a Phantom of the Opera story in which you save a former singer from crippling depression; and the most spectacular of all, the Milkman Conspiracy, which includes 2nd person platforming, puzzles, and some of the best written lines in gaming history.
Making the jump to action adventure from old-school adventure poses a large number of difficulties in level design and pacing, two areas that Psychonauts excels in. Each mindscape takes just long enough for you to fully explore the hypothetical situations posed by the story context and is able to have you moving on to the next section before it wears its welcome. The difficulty curve, with a few exceptions, tends to stay on the easier side, but given the looseness on the controls, forgiving design can be thanked when a level starts to take too long.
The biggest complaints against Psychonauts always take the form of anthologies of nitpicks, and while most of them are warranted, they fail to ruin the game's undeniable charm and wit. It may have been overlooked in its time, but the memories of Psychonauts have aged extremely well. While the gameplay is lackluster and the core ideas of the story are nothing new, Schafer's creativity and knack for interesting and exciting design transforms this otherwise average PS2 era platformer into a classic that is commonly cited as proof that games can be an artform. Even if you didn't get a chance to play Psychonauts when it first released, it is well worth a look, and if you did get that chance, it is an acid trip down memory lane well worth the time.
-THIEF
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