Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

The cliche of a boy that runs away to joint the circus gets completely turned on its head for young Rasputin, because running away from his family circus is the only opportunity for Raz to be a part of the alumni of the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. For Raz life long dream it to become a Psychonaut ever since he discovered his Psychic abilities.

And as Psychonauts shows from the very beginning, the player comes to realize that what is about start is not your average platforming game.

The first few hours of this game will introduce you to the pintoresque cast of characters that populate the camp grounds, from the every-walk-of-weird-life campers to the downright bizarre camp monitors.

As you begin to explore this training camp for young psychic promises you are soon introduced to the main objective of every Psychonaut: to explore and unravel the mysteries of the human mind. And each mind that you get to explore is an excercise of imagination, dark humor and Tim Burton inspired bliss.

And each new mind you enter will present you with play mechanics and enviroments unlike the previous one, each with a personality of its own, with a story to tell and a secret to discover.

Psychonauts represents something that goes beyond the standard,. The mind boggling amount of assets that the creators added into the game has made of it nearly impossible to encounter a level that looks remotely similar to the next and each level's play mechanics introduce an unique twist to the formula than other games in the genre offer. On top of that add some of the best voice acting, hilarious writing, and zany character designs you'll ever encounter in a game and you got the melting pot that Psychonauts is.

Gameplay wise, you'll find a wide array of Psychic powers that you will acquire and power up as you progress through the story. These powers, will help you to fight and fool the myriad enemies and reach areas that previously remained unnaccesible.

The platforming is not perfect but the level design more than make up for it, even if there are a couple of places where the camera doesn't seem to cooperate to offer the best view of the action. And the load times can be a bit long, but these shorcomings are so minor in the grand scheme of what Psychonauts is that these should not deter the player from experiencing this game. Explaining or describing any of these level would be such a spoiler to the gamer that I will not do such disservice.

Psychonauts is an essential experience that every gamer should try out, regardless of their stance on platforming games. The Milkman Conspiracy is worth the price of entry all by itself and an a prime example as to why originality, humor, and a bit of bizarreness should be what pushes game creation to a new level an not the technology it is running on. Truly it is mind over matter.