Once upon a time this platform game came out that no one cared about. Mark Donald was the editor of PC Gamer at the time, and it was given to me because it came from that guy who used to do adventure games, and I’m the adventure game guy. It was down on the magazine’s flatplan for a page. Psychonauts or something. Not knowing anything about it, and with absolutely no PR foretelling us about it, I installed it with confused expectations. Within a couple of hours I called Donald and said, “This needs more than a page.” By the next day I had bargained it up to four pages. Which was all the space they had left. Psychonauts was something special. And is now available for $10 on Good Old Games.
The story continues. I spoke to colleagues on other mags and websites and said they really should be reviewing it, and a few got hold of copies, and of course loved it. Big positive press, but the game came out in the US only, unable to find a UK publisher. Some months later THQ announced they were going to release it, and we got excited again. In fact, Mark Donald commissioned me to review it for a second time (something I’m not sure has happened before or since in the mag), giving it another two pages. There was an advertising campaign. I remember seeing posters in shops with quotes from my review on them. It was happening! The game that deserved more attention that year than any other was getting a proper release.
And then, out of nowhere, THQ announced they were delaying the release by three months. All the magazine ads, posters, etc had a date for November. The review in PCG came out in time for that date, completely pointlessly. And when they eventually slipped it out it was without any notice or promotion at all, and it whimpered and died on the shelves, any potential audience already disappointed twice and now completely confused.
It was brutal, for a game that should have been a phenomenal success. In case you never played it, it’s a game set in a summer camp for psy-powered children. Raz, the main character, sneaks his way in despite his father’s opposition. The camp plays as a hub, packed with a cast of wonderfully written and acted kids, as well as an adult staff of camp counsellors. Raz enters the brains of those in the camp, each containing a unique thematic world to explore, collect figments, deal with emotional baggage (crying suitcases), and unlock buried memories. It was and still is outstanding. It never repeated an idea. A level in a lungfish’s head was a Godzilla-riffing metropolis to stomp on. A depressed love-ruined artist had Italian streets and buildings regularly stampeded by a bull. A man who thought he was Napoleon had a multi-scale board game for a brain.
Of course it has some problems. Technical problems for some with the infamous Meat Circus, and certainly there have been better engineered platformers – the edge detection was dreadful, main character Raz frequently falling to his death when he should have grabbed a ledge. But it also had the problem of simply not being like anything before it. It didn’t conform to the rules of platform games as the Crash Bandicoot crowds might have been expecting. It was… it was really bloody smart. It is. It is really bloody smart.
It certainly has gained enough reputation in hindsight. It’s not a forgotten classic, by any stretch of the mind. It was the reason everyone sat up and took notice when the first rumblings of Brutal Legend appeared. But it still hasn’t been played by nearly enough people. Which you should bloody well put right, now it’s an almost insultingly cheap ten bucks, DRM free. Or if you want it on Steam it’s already they same price there (£6).
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Was just recently playing though Psychonauts again actually, just beat Black Veletopia and have moved on into Waterlooland. Easily some of my favourite levels, if only for the gorgeous look of Black Veletopia. Albeit I'm doing a completionist run, so there's a measly three figments I still need to find in Edgar's head ./.
Of course, when I take a moment to think, almost every level is one of my favourite levels…but the minds of the Asylum dwellers win out for me (although I do like the part when you find a firey cage of nightmares, just something really quite disturbing in an other bright and cheerful place).
I even liked the Meat Circus, although escort missions are rubbish. I hate babysitting in games so much that I couldn't stand Black & White, I would have been so happy if I was just a Godly Hand and didn't need some stupid animal thing to represent, however I still enjoyed "la cirque du viande" despite li'l Oly.
And I finished it first time too.
Whilst using keyboard + mouse.
Well, in my case, I bought the full game, but didn't get tremendously far in it (I definitely didn't do more than one "inside-people's-brain" level), because of the platforming.
(This isn't because I dislike platformers, or because I'm bad at them. It's one of the genres I'm okay at, actually, and I enjoyed, for example Super Mario Galaxy… it's because Psychonauts' implementation of 3d platforming is just very annoying to me.)
I haven’t played Mario Galaxy, but I realize it is universally adored as one of the best 3D platformers ever.
But other than that, could you tell me what other 3D platformers you think are lots better than Psychonauts and what they do better?
(P.S. If you say Rocket – Robot on Wheels I will LUV YOU IN ALL CAPS. That’s the only 3D platformer I love more than Psychonauts.)
I downloaded the demo of this a year or two back. Loved it, never got round to buying it though. I’m not a big platforming /3rd person action/adventure fan. Also, when I do get these games and enjoy them it’s the only time I seem to become that obsessive gamer that MUST GET 100%. I only got Beyond Good & Evil last year, loved it, and it ate my spare time like it was made of still-warm-and-gooey-in-the-middle brownies (the choclate based desert, not young Girl Guides). I’ve been scared to get this because I know it will take over my life…
I think it’s a bit of a shame that the game encounters quite a few pitfalls regarding bugs, and the areas of lacking gameplay, since the rest of the game is just so damn incredible. In fact, if the game wasn’t as good for the sake of improved gameplay, I’d probable be disappointed.
Hum, I think that what turned me off the game was that it *didn’t* really seem all that smart. It seemed like it tried to be smart. It seemed to be smart the way a 3-year old might, by coming up with lots of “wouldn’t it be cool if”’s, that didn’t really do much *new*. It just seemed like window-dressing and new graphics on top of the same old stuff. Which would have been fine, of course, if the game hadn’t tried so hard to come across as the goddamn War and Peace of games. I just didn’t see any depth in the story/setting, whatsoever.
That fits very much with my impression of Brütal Legend… Lots of fun ideas, that never really become more than a new, colorful skin, over the old gameplay mechanics. Guitars instead of weapons and staves, but they still just deal damage or heal allies. A bit of RTS thrown in because “wouldn’t it be cool if”… I’m sorry, but I don’t think Tim Schafer is a very good game designer. When mixed with others (as happened in Day of the Tentacle), his random ideas can produce something magical, but when left to himself, no thanks, I just don’t see what’s so awesome…
Then again, in the game’s defense, I never did finish it. Something else (maybe BG&E?) popped up and distracted me. And it was a few years ago. Perhaps I just wasn’t in the right platforming mood when I tried playing it. Perhaps I just had too many other unfinished games calling out for my attention. Maybe I was just wrong.
I might have to get it on GoG. It’s so universally acclaimed, it’s probably worth giving it another chance.
Oh no. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh no. Not this time. I’ve bought Psychonauts TWICE – on disk and on Steam – in an effort to make it work on my PC, and it still doesn’t. I don’t know why it hasn’t but dammit, I’m not buying it again just in case it works…am I?
What a great game Psychonauts is… I have it on CD but good to know its on GOG, if I feel like playing it again its easier to buy it there than find the old cd.