Its a very long read. If your a fan of the game, prepare for a trip down memory lane.
Its august and i just cannot wait until rocktober (It makes sense if you are following the game) When I can shred in Tim schafers new masterpeice, Brutal Legend. So I thought ide do a review of his more recent (and only since forming double fine) Psychonauts!
where have I seee you before?
So where to start. Let's start with the story. Psychonauts has a great story. Raz, is the protaganist in this journey through the human psyche. Raz, comes from a family, which was cursed by psychics, causing his father to loath them and forbid Raz to use his psychic abilities. So Raz escapes to a summer camp where he and other psychics can develop their skills. Everything goes fine until the shit hits the fan and the camp is taken by a crazed dentist who harvests brains by holding up in an abandend insane asylum and using a giant hulking lungfish to harvest brains to use in his army of psychic death tanks.
no really
Another aspect I really like was the charecters. The charecters.... are the best I've ever seen. Each and every one is worthy of rememberence from Dr. loboto, the crazy brain stealing dentist, to the den mother, the leader of a crazy group of girl scouts/ assasins. What saddens me, is that, after a couple of tutorial missions, the mapers are taken and you never see them again, unless you go through the asylum collecting each and every one of their brains. But it is worth it to seem their faces again. Helping Raz on his journy Is Ford cruller. He is.... not right. Back in the day, he was the greatist psychonaut to ever live. But in a great psychic duel, his mind was shaterd. Whispering rock (the summer camp) took him in as a janitor. While cleaning, he found a large Cave full of psytanium, which is a power source for aspiring psy cadets. When he is in the cave, he is at peace with his thoughts. However when he enters another part of the camp, he falls into one of his other personalities. For example, if you enter the mess hall, he is cooking burgers on a grill and will sell you different items.
Coolest. Outfiit. Ever.
Raz has the ability to explore peoples minds. This leads to Raz going on adventures in other peoples heads and seeing what makes them tick. For examlpe, When Raz tries to focus his power, he takes a trip to the mind of Sasha Nein, a cam counsoler. He beleives the mind should not be able to roam free so he conceals his thoughts in a large, rubix cube like stucture, where pressing certain butens, opens up a section of his mind, revealing more about why he belevies thoughts should be kept to yourself. On the other side of the of things, from compact, to batshit crazy insane, their is Boyd. Boyds nuts. The security haurd at the asylum is bonkers for conspericy theorys and evil plots by the government to destroy him. That being said, his mind is verry remenicent of his personality. When you enter his mind, you start in his house. Its what you would normaly expect to see from an insane person. Writing on the wall, newspapers all on the floor. Y'now. The norm. But Its awfuly cramped. Why not take a step outside? Because the friggen mailboxes follow you and you cant step off the sidewalk without falling off of the face of theearth mind. Everything is crazy and is one of gamings most memoriable moments.
if you mapquest this, your computor exploads.
Before I wrap this up, I want to talk about my favorite aspect of the game, its charm. The game is STUFFED with it. To signal ford, you put up bacon near your head and he pops out and trys to eat it. How can you top that? Every stage has its own charm, theme, and is awesome. So awesome, ime going to talk bout everey one. ( I wont do sashas again but I will do boyds again because I love it that much. But i wont do the last one, of course. After some thinking, I wont do rAz'z mind either because its verry difficult to describe.)
Basic braining: The tutorial. The game is centered around war. Coach Oleander beleives he is the greatist general to ever live. However, with a little digging, you find out, he isnt all that great. The whole expperience is centerd around the thrill of battle. You begin by runing around a submarine like structure, to jumping out of planes, to dodging mg fire, and ends by getting a medal (scout badge).
Milas dance party: The tutorial on levetation. Mila is a counselor obssesed with partying. So her mind is just a huge rave. Its full of Boom boxes, disco balls, and strobe lights. What I like about it is, it always sticks to the theme. Also, its where we get a chance to see Some of raz'z backstory by showing the player, if Raz goes anywhere near water, The water will form a hand and try to drag Raz down and drown him.
Lungfishopolis: Here is where ime sure, some drug use was involved in the making of this game. Either that or Tim Schafer is the most creative person in the world period. You terrorize a city of talking fish (if that sounds familiar, Yahtzee said the same thing!) As a godzilla like camper whol destroys the city and joins a rebelion. Whats great about it is, Everey couple of minuets, The game cuts to a news report that pokes fun at news stations like fox news. I really cant describe this anymore so here is a youtube video.
The milkman conspiricy: Boyds mind again. Ime going to do a quick sequence of events, and move on. If it sounds odd, your right. You find the gmen (undercover spies who where trenchcoats and ask lots of questions). you find out that milk is basicly like drugs to the cops. You do a bunch of random stuff boyd tells you to that makes no sense but end up revealing boyd was not completely bonkers. Also it turns out boyd is actually a hitman disguised as a milkman who throws molotov cocktails and is the creator of perhaps one of the greatist lines in gaming, "I am the Milkman. My milk is delicious". His popularity is so great, one of our fellow escapians named his account after him!
Gloria's Theater: I really dont want to talk about this alot because its actually, not a verry good level. Its average. Basicly, a mean critique is hecling an actor in a play and they refuse to come out of her dressing room. Each times she comes out to try again, the phantom of the theater swoops down and kills an actor. The stage is funny if nothing else. You solve puzzles by doing different scenes at different times. Its verry hard and some dont work the way you would hope but its bearable.
WATERLOO!: The whole stage is set up like a board game. You help Fred, a patient with an inferiority complex confined to a streightjacket. Fred is the decendent of napolian boenapart and he his disorder gives him a schytzophrenic personality, alternating between fred and napolian. Inside Freds head, he is fighting with napolian in an epic struggle... in a bored game. The twist though is that freds peices are sentiant and are mad they keep dying and have gone on strike. So you need to win the peices trust, and help fred fight his demons.
The black velvetopia: The last level I will talk about is probubly the most unique. Black velvitopia is the mind of Edger Teglee. Edger is obsesed with bullfights. He paints in his chambers but they are all bullfights. In his mind, heis creating a stack of cards to reach a damsel in distress. But the cards cannot stay up without the queens. So he asks Raz for help. Its all verry sad and poetic but as you progress through the level, things become more and more different. The level revolves around a long street. You cant stay on the street for more than a few seconds, as it is occupied by a large bull. But their is one part. Where you can see the huge twist to this whole world. Its so mind blowing, I just cant spoil it here. But hopefully in this review, i convinced you to buy the game anyway.
So there you have it escapist. This took me a long ass time so I hoped you read and enjoyed all of it. Please post your comments and let me hear all psychonauts fans shout their favorite quote!.......
The human mind......
Its august and i just cannot wait until rocktober (It makes sense if you are following the game) When I can shred in Tim schafers new masterpeice, Brutal Legend. So I thought ide do a review of his more recent (and only since forming double fine) Psychonauts!
where have I seee you before?
So where to start. Let's start with the story. Psychonauts has a great story. Raz, is the protaganist in this journey through the human psyche. Raz, comes from a family, which was cursed by psychics, causing his father to loath them and forbid Raz to use his psychic abilities. So Raz escapes to a summer camp where he and other psychics can develop their skills. Everything goes fine until the shit hits the fan and the camp is taken by a crazed dentist who harvests brains by holding up in an abandend insane asylum and using a giant hulking lungfish to harvest brains to use in his army of psychic death tanks.
no really
Another aspect I really like was the charecters. The charecters.... are the best I've ever seen. Each and every one is worthy of rememberence from Dr. loboto, the crazy brain stealing dentist, to the den mother, the leader of a crazy group of girl scouts/ assasins. What saddens me, is that, after a couple of tutorial missions, the mapers are taken and you never see them again, unless you go through the asylum collecting each and every one of their brains. But it is worth it to seem their faces again. Helping Raz on his journy Is Ford cruller. He is.... not right. Back in the day, he was the greatist psychonaut to ever live. But in a great psychic duel, his mind was shaterd. Whispering rock (the summer camp) took him in as a janitor. While cleaning, he found a large Cave full of psytanium, which is a power source for aspiring psy cadets. When he is in the cave, he is at peace with his thoughts. However when he enters another part of the camp, he falls into one of his other personalities. For example, if you enter the mess hall, he is cooking burgers on a grill and will sell you different items.
Coolest. Outfiit. Ever.
Raz has the ability to explore peoples minds. This leads to Raz going on adventures in other peoples heads and seeing what makes them tick. For examlpe, When Raz tries to focus his power, he takes a trip to the mind of Sasha Nein, a cam counsoler. He beleives the mind should not be able to roam free so he conceals his thoughts in a large, rubix cube like stucture, where pressing certain butens, opens up a section of his mind, revealing more about why he belevies thoughts should be kept to yourself. On the other side of the of things, from compact, to batshit crazy insane, their is Boyd. Boyds nuts. The security haurd at the asylum is bonkers for conspericy theorys and evil plots by the government to destroy him. That being said, his mind is verry remenicent of his personality. When you enter his mind, you start in his house. Its what you would normaly expect to see from an insane person. Writing on the wall, newspapers all on the floor. Y'now. The norm. But Its awfuly cramped. Why not take a step outside? Because the friggen mailboxes follow you and you cant step off the sidewalk without falling off of the face of the
if you mapquest this, your computor exploads.
Before I wrap this up, I want to talk about my favorite aspect of the game, its charm. The game is STUFFED with it. To signal ford, you put up bacon near your head and he pops out and trys to eat it. How can you top that? Every stage has its own charm, theme, and is awesome. So awesome, ime going to talk bout everey one. ( I wont do sashas again but I will do boyds again because I love it that much. But i wont do the last one, of course. After some thinking, I wont do rAz'z mind either because its verry difficult to describe.)
Basic braining: The tutorial. The game is centered around war. Coach Oleander beleives he is the greatist general to ever live. However, with a little digging, you find out, he isnt all that great. The whole expperience is centerd around the thrill of battle. You begin by runing around a submarine like structure, to jumping out of planes, to dodging mg fire, and ends by getting a medal (scout badge).
Milas dance party: The tutorial on levetation. Mila is a counselor obssesed with partying. So her mind is just a huge rave. Its full of Boom boxes, disco balls, and strobe lights. What I like about it is, it always sticks to the theme. Also, its where we get a chance to see Some of raz'z backstory by showing the player, if Raz goes anywhere near water, The water will form a hand and try to drag Raz down and drown him.
Lungfishopolis: Here is where ime sure, some drug use was involved in the making of this game. Either that or Tim Schafer is the most creative person in the world period. You terrorize a city of talking fish (if that sounds familiar, Yahtzee said the same thing!) As a godzilla like camper whol destroys the city and joins a rebelion. Whats great about it is, Everey couple of minuets, The game cuts to a news report that pokes fun at news stations like fox news. I really cant describe this anymore so here is a youtube video.
The milkman conspiricy: Boyds mind again. Ime going to do a quick sequence of events, and move on. If it sounds odd, your right. You find the gmen (undercover spies who where trenchcoats and ask lots of questions). you find out that milk is basicly like drugs to the cops. You do a bunch of random stuff boyd tells you to that makes no sense but end up revealing boyd was not completely bonkers. Also it turns out boyd is actually a hitman disguised as a milkman who throws molotov cocktails and is the creator of perhaps one of the greatist lines in gaming, "I am the Milkman. My milk is delicious". His popularity is so great, one of our fellow escapians named his account after him!
Gloria's Theater: I really dont want to talk about this alot because its actually, not a verry good level. Its average. Basicly, a mean critique is hecling an actor in a play and they refuse to come out of her dressing room. Each times she comes out to try again, the phantom of the theater swoops down and kills an actor. The stage is funny if nothing else. You solve puzzles by doing different scenes at different times. Its verry hard and some dont work the way you would hope but its bearable.
WATERLOO!: The whole stage is set up like a board game. You help Fred, a patient with an inferiority complex confined to a streightjacket. Fred is the decendent of napolian boenapart and he his disorder gives him a schytzophrenic personality, alternating between fred and napolian. Inside Freds head, he is fighting with napolian in an epic struggle... in a bored game. The twist though is that freds peices are sentiant and are mad they keep dying and have gone on strike. So you need to win the peices trust, and help fred fight his demons.
The black velvetopia: The last level I will talk about is probubly the most unique. Black velvitopia is the mind of Edger Teglee. Edger is obsesed with bullfights. He paints in his chambers but they are all bullfights. In his mind, heis creating a stack of cards to reach a damsel in distress. But the cards cannot stay up without the queens. So he asks Raz for help. Its all verry sad and poetic but as you progress through the level, things become more and more different. The level revolves around a long street. You cant stay on the street for more than a few seconds, as it is occupied by a large bull. But their is one part. Where you can see the huge twist to this whole world. Its so mind blowing, I just cant spoil it here. But hopefully in this review, i convinced you to buy the game anyway.
So there you have it escapist. This took me a long ass time so I hoped you read and enjoyed all of it. Please post your comments and let me hear all psychonauts fans shout their favorite quote!.......
The human mind......
