Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Underappreciated"

Psychonauts seems very silly. A game no serious gamer should consider. There's a reason reviewers would not stop praising this game. Psychonauts brings a breath of fresh air in an otherwise sequel driven gaming model.

You play as Raz, a kid that ironically ran away from the circus to join a summer camp in order to be a psychonaut, which are a group of psychopowered elite whose job is to restore balance to the psychological world and eliminate any threat to that world.

As Raz, you begin in the kid's area and you progress around the camp. Each section of the camp has a counselor that will train you in the ways of the psychonaut. You do this by entering their mind and learning specific skills like levitation. This is a platformer which means you'll run, jump, punch, shoot, and float around some of the most diverse and innovative environments in any video game to date. You'll run around in a game set, spanish velvet painting, conspiracy theory suburbia, a psychedelic dance party, and a city with fish as its citizens and you playing the role of a giant monster akin to godzilla.

Most of the gameplay will have you running around, fighting, and exploring the various levels along the way. In order to progress and level up Raz, you need to collect cards and objects that look like eyeballs. Collect enough and you will gain more powers. In order to get the full experience and collect all the items, you'll spend a good amount of time finding and collecting arrowheads, which is the game's currency. You can spend these arrowheads on a number of items including a vacuum cleaner looking item that sucks up cobwebs which you can turn into cards.

A very large part of the game is the humor. The cutscenes are absolutely hilarious and the writing is brilliant. The visual style is quirky and the attention to detail is astonishingly funny. All these things come together to make one of the funniest games ever.

The only flaws this game has is that after a certain point, the game will no longer let you explore the game. One would assume you can go back and keep exploring the levels in order to collect all the items and level up all the way but it cuts you off and that's a shame. If you like the game, the gameplay shouldn't prove to be repetitive but it can be to some people.

Full of humor, nuance, innovation, and great gameplay. This game comes together in such a way that its shocking that more people haven't play this.

If you prove to be a cheap person and own a relatively good PC, sign up for a free GameTap account and you can play the game for free.