Psychonauts

[JRMacumber]

Picked this up today after trading in some old games (Spring cleaning, doncha love it), and was able to put in about an hour and a half on it. So far, I love it. The characters are quirky, the designs are very Tim Burtonish, the dialogue is very funny, the voice acting is tops, the music is wonderful (reminds me of Voodoo Vince in that regard, another game with a great soundtrack), and the gameplay itself is nice and tight. I've heard the game is short, but I don't mind that if the quality is high, and so far this one has me enthralled.

[Uli]

i played the demo and liked it very much, too. it's very close toVoodo Vince, which is still the best Jump&Run on the Xbox. think i will defintely pick this up as soon as the price drops - which shouldn't take so long.

JR, regarding your concern, i've read somewhere in a review there is a lot of stuff in the way of sidequests, extra missions and levels in the game.

would be nice if you could update your impressions, most of all on difficulty/progress and controls.

[anephric]

Stop pimping Voodoo Vince! It suxX0rs! Whiplash was better, ffs.

I'm desperate to get the Xbox version of this, as it's umplayable (imo) on PC with m+kb.

Am sooooo looking forward to this.

[JRMacumber]

Voodoo Vince was a fantastic game, and it had more style and personality than a dozen Whiplashes. One of the most underrated Xbox games yet made. But this isn't a Voooo Vince thread, so I don't think we need to go further on that.

[Kotatsu Neko]

I got the full Xbox version of this today from VideoGamesPlus.

Well, it's brilliant.

The game just oozes Tim Schafer, his design genius is interwoven in every aspect of the game. The character design is inspired, the dialogue extremely witty and superby voice acted, and the scenario itself is highly original and fresh.

It's difficult to seperate the game itself from Schafer magic, but if you do you will find a very polished and highly playable platform game. It's not the best ever, it's not Mario 64 level, but it's still very well done.

A few observations on a technical level:

Good points - 4x Full Screen Anti-Aliasing so no jaggies at all. Very stable frame rate. Looks gorgeous for an Xbox game. Superb analogue control on the S pad.

Bad points - No widescreen (unfortunate as the PC port does support widescreen). Only 30fps. Sound is rather empty sounding in cut scenes (although fine when in game).

I'm loving Psychnauts so far. The Xbox is having a great run at the moment, and I'm fast running out of hard disk space. Over the last month I've installed Chaos Theory, SVC Chaos, Star Wars Lego, Jade Empire, and now Psychonauts! What a way to finish up.

[karlidog]

Is anyone able to test whether it's region-free? If so: mine!

[JamesS]

It's not region free, no. Won't boot on my PAL Xbox if I turn the chip off.

[Prine]

Alright, im buying it. Everyone seems to be loving it

[Bleeders]

Gonna wait till the June PAL release for this, looks good though.

[Akujiki]

I got this today and played for 45 mins, solved the tutorial level. The characters are very likable, and like someone said, quite Tim Burton-ish. I have quite a good first impression overall, although the amount of different things to collect already annoys me. Plus, the first time you collect a new valuable, you get an introduction - which does make sense but also interrupts and you just go "what's this again??". Or maybe that's just me.

The humor so far is ok, already better than quite a few titles I know, but I'm expecting more from the big name Tim Schafer. Well then again, it was only 45mins. One thing though. I stopped because the game lost me after the first mission. I'm supposed to find my next trainer, but on my way I re-encountered this strange old guy (who disappears on Raz for the second time) who lets you collect yet more stuff - optionally, it seems, but I don't like running around searching for the next stop in the game flow.

(That's what annoyed me about Wind Waker and Minish Cap, too. To me, what "counts" in Zelda games are the dungeons, and most of the stuff between them are only "necessary evil" to me, when I'm not intentionally doing the extras. Might be just me, again, but just had to mention it... )

[martTM]

I like it lots - it's been ages since a game made me laugh lots. Just got through level... er, 11 (not 100% sure, but there are 13 levels and I've only got two left to open, if the doors in the cortex area are anything to go by). It's bloody hard getting everything - I've done everything on every level so far, except the Figments, and even then I'm only missing a maximum of five on each stage. The fact that they are a) 2D, so standing side on from them makes them invisible, b) fading in and out all the time, meaning if you run past at the wrong time, it'll be invisible and you won't see it and c) neon coloured, just like many of the backgrounds, meaning if you don't look really hard, they'll be virtually invisible (AGAIN) is a pain in the damn arse.

But I love it all the same.

[Akujiki]

Collecting **** is putting me off, but other than that, it's a lovely game. I must have played for about 5 or 6 hours now, and it just keeps getting better. The "levels", dialogues, little details and other small jokes are just fun. The Psipowers aren't exactly revolutionary, but nice nevertheless and well executed. Only the Xbox (not s-)pad is giving me some problems sometimes.

The game has just so much style. The secondary characters' models might be a bit weaker (I could do better), but Raz is just great to watch.

[JRMacumber]

Right now I'm in the velvet painting level, and once again I'm wowed into silence. Amazing game...

[JamesS]

I got to that level last night as well. Absolutely brilliant design. It's a far cry from your standard grass, lava, sand and ice worlds.

[JRMacumber]

Absolutely. What did you think of the actress' level? I loved all the little play variants, ad how it all tied together to show why this woman was so ****ed in the head. There is an intellectual depth here that few games seem to strive for.