I have got to admit: I'm way too eager to try out just about every sub-mediocre open world action game that comes out. I've played Mafia 3, I've played Watch Dogs Legion, I've played Forspoken, I've played almost every single awful Saints Row game that came out after 2. In my defense, I didn't actually buy most of them. So, suffice to say, when MindsEye came out and was cracked on release day, I couldn't help myself
So, MindsEye is a third person open world (...ish. We'll get to that later) action game made by a studio named "Build a Rocket Boy", founded, mostly, by former Rockstar employees. Most notably Leslie Benzies who served as chief producer on the 3D GTA series all the way up to V. If there is one single person one might want to describe as the mastermind behind Rockstar, Benzies would arguably be second to the Houser Brothers. So, perfect conditions for a new studio where those talented developers can pursue their vision free from the bureaucratic red tape and creative restriction of a large, bloated mega corporation like Take Two, right?
Yeah, if you've been paying any attention to the gaming press lately, you know that didn't pan out. MindsEye is a trainwreck. It's already become a bit of a punching bag in public discourse and I'm not treating this as my personal excuse to join in on it but if you're looking for someone to play devils advocate for the game, I'm not the guy.
MindsEye's history is complicated and I'm not sure if my summary of it is entirely accurate but here's the quick rundown as I understand it: So, Benzies and the other Rockstar alumni left the studio to do their own thing about 8 years ago. Their original plan was to make a sort of open ended platform named Everywhere for which players could make their own games, something along the lines of Sony's Dreams or Roblox. MindsEye started off as the intended pilot project for that platform, a showcase of sorts of what developers could do with it. A high budget open world action game. At some point, for reasons I'm not aware of, Build a Rocket Boy had to give up on Everywhere and made MindsEye their main project, basically exorcising every single mention of Everywhere from its marketing. Marketing that seemed... rather embarrassed of itself. I think despite its prestigious staff, a lot of people weren't even aware that this was being made until a couple weeks before its release. There was little in terms of previews or gameplay presentations, a couple of cinematic trailers and some vague rhetoric around it being the GTA 6 Killer. Now, I have no clue how you kill a game that isn't even out yet. But I guess calling it "The GTA 6 Abortionist" would have been in bad taste.
MindsEye came out about a week ago on June 10th. Build a Rocket Boy didn't send out any pre release review copies to magazines and critics, which should give you a pretty good idea of how little confidence they had in it. And to add insult to injury, the game leaked the weekend before release in a state that could generously be described as half baked. Bugged as hell and running poorly on practically all platforms it was on. The Day 1 patch alleviated some of these issues, but all technical problems aside... well, Cyberpunk, it isn't. Even at its theoretical best, MindsEye could only really be described as a below average entry to its genre.
So, the game puts you in the shoes of Jacob Diaz. Jacob is a military veteran with one chip in his head and another one on his shoulder about not remembering how it got there. As a matter of fact, he's struggling with memory loss and war flashbacks in general. So, with the help of his friend and former war buddy Seb, he gets a job at robotics company Silva Corp, headquartered in the desert metropolis Redrock. Sort of an alternate version of Vegas where the tourism industry dried up, no pun intended, and big tech moved in. Silva Corp used to employ the scientist who created his brain chip, you see, who, wouldn't you know it, has gone mysteriously missing. Thus begins something that starts as a not particularly original tech thriller and ends, pardon the spoiler, with stupid Assassin's Creed alien bullshit.
If I had to describe MindEye in one word, that's not too rude, it would be "anachronistic". Put succinctly, it's a game that would have been considered forgettably decent if it had come out in 2010. Somewhere along the same lines as Wheelman or Saboteur. Remember those? Yeah. Exactly. Something that would have been generally reviewed along the lines of "Well, it's no GTA 4, but if you're looking for something to waste 10 hours on until Sleeping Dogs comes out, you could do worse.". The gameplay, put plainly, is very utilitarian. It's sort of the bare minimum of a third person open world actioner. You drive cars. You shoot guns. Sometimes you pilot a drone, I guess. That's about it and neither feels very sophisticated. The combat in general just plays like something from a mid budget late 00's title. It's a generic whack a mole cover shooter where the guns have very little sense of impact to them, the enemy AI barely extends beyond shooting and taking cover and there's one single death animation on enemies that's basically just them falling over and ragdolling. Also, there's no melee combat at all. Not even a token melee takedown when you get close to an enemy.
The driving's similarly barebones, there are very few cars you can actually use (car jacking is not really a thing, you're provided a car) and it... gets the job done. Which it should because you do a lot of driving in this game. Like, even by urban open world standards. Driving to mission objectives really takes a while. And arguably feels even longer because unlike in similar games, there's no radio. All you get is exposition from other characters. As I implied earlier on, this kind of is and isn't an open world game. I suppose it's somewhere along the lines of the first two Mafia games or LA Noir. You're never really between missions and left to explore on your own, nor is there anything to find. The world map really only serves to contextualize the campaign in terms of space and scale.
I've said it before, I have a high tolerance for rudimentary action gameplay but I think I've already insinuated that story and presentation don't make up for it. I mean, the presentation is competent. The score is decent, the voice acting is good, even if its in service of stock action movie characters (the stoic tough guy ex soldier, the cool black best friend, the no nonsense female boss, the eccentric and kind of neurotic tech entrepreneur...), the cutscene cinematography looks right out of a GTA game and the graphics and lighting are generally nice. The story starts off as a generic 20 minutes into the future tech potboiler, with the mysterious implant and a feud between the Silva Corp CEO and the local mayor and a mercenary group attacking the company. But it sure as hell doesn't explore any of its near future concepts in a way that's going anywhere interesting and as suggested earlier, it ends on a note of complete nonsense. Aesthetically and narratively the whole thing feels distinctly like... okay, bear with me here. It feels like a forgettable high budget Netflix exclusive action movie that would star, like, an actor from Marvel trying to prove he can make it as a leading man outside of Marvel and be directed by some journeyman director you never heard of? You know what I mean, right? Something like Red Notice or The Gray Man or Extraction.
For what it's worth, there still is a mode to distribute and play player created content. I didn't try it out because I don't care but it technically exists. Just like a free roam mode you unlock after finishing the game exists but it's not like there's any content there to engage with. The most noteworthy thing about it is the character model used as the PC for free roam. Who looks like this.
I mean, I love the guy, but why?
MindsEye isn't one of the worst games I've ever played but it's one of the least games I've ever played. I struggle to think of any other recent releases so utterly devoid of anything that could be described as a unique selling point. Forspoken had fun combat and movement and a cute protagonist. Mafia 3 had a killer period soundtrack and pretty good gunplay, plus a technically alright plot. Saints Row (2020) had an actual open world with side activities. It feels like a small, inexperienced studio's first clumsy attempt at a high budget open world game but this was made by some of the pioneers of the genre with Triple A money so, honestly, what the hell are we even doing here?
There's probably a pretty compelling story about how this game came to be and why it came out the way it did. And maybe some day someone will do the investigative work necessary to piece it together and write it down. But from my perspective, it's just a lazy and uninspired product made by a studio with enough experience and enough of a budget to have absolutely no excuse for it. This isn't bad in the way something made by people that bit off more than they could chew is, this is bad in the way something made by people who quickly had to throw something together to show off to their shareholders is. It's a borderline comedic waste of money and man power that amounts to nothing. I wouldn't recommend this if it were free, which, considering the lack of DRM, it technically is. It's interesting to talk about because you can endlessly speculate why it ever turned out like that but it sure isn't interesting to actually play.
So, MindsEye is a third person open world (...ish. We'll get to that later) action game made by a studio named "Build a Rocket Boy", founded, mostly, by former Rockstar employees. Most notably Leslie Benzies who served as chief producer on the 3D GTA series all the way up to V. If there is one single person one might want to describe as the mastermind behind Rockstar, Benzies would arguably be second to the Houser Brothers. So, perfect conditions for a new studio where those talented developers can pursue their vision free from the bureaucratic red tape and creative restriction of a large, bloated mega corporation like Take Two, right?
Yeah, if you've been paying any attention to the gaming press lately, you know that didn't pan out. MindsEye is a trainwreck. It's already become a bit of a punching bag in public discourse and I'm not treating this as my personal excuse to join in on it but if you're looking for someone to play devils advocate for the game, I'm not the guy.
MindsEye's history is complicated and I'm not sure if my summary of it is entirely accurate but here's the quick rundown as I understand it: So, Benzies and the other Rockstar alumni left the studio to do their own thing about 8 years ago. Their original plan was to make a sort of open ended platform named Everywhere for which players could make their own games, something along the lines of Sony's Dreams or Roblox. MindsEye started off as the intended pilot project for that platform, a showcase of sorts of what developers could do with it. A high budget open world action game. At some point, for reasons I'm not aware of, Build a Rocket Boy had to give up on Everywhere and made MindsEye their main project, basically exorcising every single mention of Everywhere from its marketing. Marketing that seemed... rather embarrassed of itself. I think despite its prestigious staff, a lot of people weren't even aware that this was being made until a couple weeks before its release. There was little in terms of previews or gameplay presentations, a couple of cinematic trailers and some vague rhetoric around it being the GTA 6 Killer. Now, I have no clue how you kill a game that isn't even out yet. But I guess calling it "The GTA 6 Abortionist" would have been in bad taste.
MindsEye came out about a week ago on June 10th. Build a Rocket Boy didn't send out any pre release review copies to magazines and critics, which should give you a pretty good idea of how little confidence they had in it. And to add insult to injury, the game leaked the weekend before release in a state that could generously be described as half baked. Bugged as hell and running poorly on practically all platforms it was on. The Day 1 patch alleviated some of these issues, but all technical problems aside... well, Cyberpunk, it isn't. Even at its theoretical best, MindsEye could only really be described as a below average entry to its genre.
So, the game puts you in the shoes of Jacob Diaz. Jacob is a military veteran with one chip in his head and another one on his shoulder about not remembering how it got there. As a matter of fact, he's struggling with memory loss and war flashbacks in general. So, with the help of his friend and former war buddy Seb, he gets a job at robotics company Silva Corp, headquartered in the desert metropolis Redrock. Sort of an alternate version of Vegas where the tourism industry dried up, no pun intended, and big tech moved in. Silva Corp used to employ the scientist who created his brain chip, you see, who, wouldn't you know it, has gone mysteriously missing. Thus begins something that starts as a not particularly original tech thriller and ends, pardon the spoiler, with stupid Assassin's Creed alien bullshit.
If I had to describe MindEye in one word, that's not too rude, it would be "anachronistic". Put succinctly, it's a game that would have been considered forgettably decent if it had come out in 2010. Somewhere along the same lines as Wheelman or Saboteur. Remember those? Yeah. Exactly. Something that would have been generally reviewed along the lines of "Well, it's no GTA 4, but if you're looking for something to waste 10 hours on until Sleeping Dogs comes out, you could do worse.". The gameplay, put plainly, is very utilitarian. It's sort of the bare minimum of a third person open world actioner. You drive cars. You shoot guns. Sometimes you pilot a drone, I guess. That's about it and neither feels very sophisticated. The combat in general just plays like something from a mid budget late 00's title. It's a generic whack a mole cover shooter where the guns have very little sense of impact to them, the enemy AI barely extends beyond shooting and taking cover and there's one single death animation on enemies that's basically just them falling over and ragdolling. Also, there's no melee combat at all. Not even a token melee takedown when you get close to an enemy.
The driving's similarly barebones, there are very few cars you can actually use (car jacking is not really a thing, you're provided a car) and it... gets the job done. Which it should because you do a lot of driving in this game. Like, even by urban open world standards. Driving to mission objectives really takes a while. And arguably feels even longer because unlike in similar games, there's no radio. All you get is exposition from other characters. As I implied earlier on, this kind of is and isn't an open world game. I suppose it's somewhere along the lines of the first two Mafia games or LA Noir. You're never really between missions and left to explore on your own, nor is there anything to find. The world map really only serves to contextualize the campaign in terms of space and scale.
I've said it before, I have a high tolerance for rudimentary action gameplay but I think I've already insinuated that story and presentation don't make up for it. I mean, the presentation is competent. The score is decent, the voice acting is good, even if its in service of stock action movie characters (the stoic tough guy ex soldier, the cool black best friend, the no nonsense female boss, the eccentric and kind of neurotic tech entrepreneur...), the cutscene cinematography looks right out of a GTA game and the graphics and lighting are generally nice. The story starts off as a generic 20 minutes into the future tech potboiler, with the mysterious implant and a feud between the Silva Corp CEO and the local mayor and a mercenary group attacking the company. But it sure as hell doesn't explore any of its near future concepts in a way that's going anywhere interesting and as suggested earlier, it ends on a note of complete nonsense. Aesthetically and narratively the whole thing feels distinctly like... okay, bear with me here. It feels like a forgettable high budget Netflix exclusive action movie that would star, like, an actor from Marvel trying to prove he can make it as a leading man outside of Marvel and be directed by some journeyman director you never heard of? You know what I mean, right? Something like Red Notice or The Gray Man or Extraction.
For what it's worth, there still is a mode to distribute and play player created content. I didn't try it out because I don't care but it technically exists. Just like a free roam mode you unlock after finishing the game exists but it's not like there's any content there to engage with. The most noteworthy thing about it is the character model used as the PC for free roam. Who looks like this.
I mean, I love the guy, but why?
MindsEye isn't one of the worst games I've ever played but it's one of the least games I've ever played. I struggle to think of any other recent releases so utterly devoid of anything that could be described as a unique selling point. Forspoken had fun combat and movement and a cute protagonist. Mafia 3 had a killer period soundtrack and pretty good gunplay, plus a technically alright plot. Saints Row (2020) had an actual open world with side activities. It feels like a small, inexperienced studio's first clumsy attempt at a high budget open world game but this was made by some of the pioneers of the genre with Triple A money so, honestly, what the hell are we even doing here?
There's probably a pretty compelling story about how this game came to be and why it came out the way it did. And maybe some day someone will do the investigative work necessary to piece it together and write it down. But from my perspective, it's just a lazy and uninspired product made by a studio with enough experience and enough of a budget to have absolutely no excuse for it. This isn't bad in the way something made by people that bit off more than they could chew is, this is bad in the way something made by people who quickly had to throw something together to show off to their shareholders is. It's a borderline comedic waste of money and man power that amounts to nothing. I wouldn't recommend this if it were free, which, considering the lack of DRM, it technically is. It's interesting to talk about because you can endlessly speculate why it ever turned out like that but it sure isn't interesting to actually play.
Last edited:
