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Fun Game, but so many bugs!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: April 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love the concept--but it's too free form, and there are so many bugs (concentrated mainly at the end of the game, suggesting that they rushed to get it out the door). I had to use an online faq/walkthrough to actually navigate the game, because often times I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. And by the time I hit the last stage, i had constant freezes at important moments. I haven't been able to get it to work for long enough that i can finish it and I'm fed up. I'm gonna sell it and buy a good game that works.

Huge Dissapointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: October 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I got this game because Tim Schafer worked on two of my favorite games of all time Grim Fandango and Full Throttle. However, It didn't take long for me to get incredibly bored of this game which reminds me of some souped up version of super mario brothers. It lacks creativity and imagination and is nothing like the lucasarts adventure games I fell in love with as a kid. If you're an early lucas arts fan, save you money and don't buy this game!

psychonuts

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: April 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a fun game to play but the one thing that REALLY got on my nerves was the 35 second load time. Every time you head towards a different part of camp you "load" and that takes forever. No other games I have played wasted time with constant loading. You can't have everything.

May not be the best version...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I was very hyped for Psychonauts. It was the latest work that came from Tim Schafer, the man who brought us Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. Little did I know that once I'd popped it in and started playing it I was going to be disappointed. I've read and heard the praises for this game's visuals but these compliments were surely to the XBox version. In this PS2 version the character models and environments lacked detail and looked dated. PS2's Psychonauts is riddled with loading screens. The constant pausing felt like riding a roller coaster only to stop every few feet. There was also a notable lag here and there. Overall the experience was missing flow and polish. It was easy to realize that this game was designed for the XBox.

Aside from all the negatives there are positives. For one the heart and core of the game survive. The game is funny. And to find something like "funny" is a often a rarity in a video game.

So the bottom line is that if you're thinking of getting this game and have a PS2 and an XBox, get the XBox version. Heck, if you have a 360, get the XBox version because Psychonauts is now on the 360 backwards compatibility list. If you don't have either XBoxes, play God of War or better yet buy a 360.

Can great creativity make up for gameplay flaws?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 26
Date: August 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is a contrast of gameplay and creativity. In terms of innovation and originality, this goes beyond any platform/adventure game out there. First rate. The gameplay, itself, lacks a good deal of the substance and polish that a game of this type deserves.

First off, I must say that this game has a well earned reputation for uniqueness and creativity. The level designs are really, really unique and at times amazing. There are two levels that I just loved. One required a lot amazing fast paced gliding, jumping and floating in a fun expansive environment. Another one required you to move around a game board and then shrink and travel around the game board and convince people to join an army so you can get another board piece. Those levels were flat out amazing and were nice breathes of fresh air. Almost all the levels have a central theme, and many of the levels tend to stretch the boundaries of physics and gravity. Some levels feel more like a Escher painting than a video game level.

The characters are pretty fun, the story line is a nice little compliment, and the extremely colorful levels (which represent the people's minds as you travel inside them - thus the title) are definitive stand outs in this game. I wish most games would supply this attention to detail when it comes to visuals.

The main character is a kid name Raz, and he travels throughout a summer camp and enters people's minds using various powers, ranging from the psychotically fun Levitation ball, to the almost useless fire starting power. He cycles through people' minds in order to become a true Psychonaut. Quite brilliant at some points.

Their are a lot of problems though. The voice acting is very repetitive and many times grating. I often had my television remote next to me so I can mute it quickly. Almost headache inducing. The load times are terrible. Maybe the second worst loading times I've ever scene (Mafia for PS2 still is the worst). One particular mission was almost an 90s point and click adventure game, where you walk around and try one thing, then walk around and try another thing and continue until you find the right item. It may be fun for some people, but it breaks up the action. Also, since it is so creative, it tries to do things and sometimes fail miserably. There is one part where you follow a badly shaped bubble around the ocean and if you hit the edge, you drown. Not fun or interesting at all.

The main problem, and it's a huge problem, is the fact the game plays like a second rate, cookie cutter platformer. A game where the mechanics and level design are flawed enough where you feel that your main enemy is bad game design and construction rather than jumps or real enemies. Grabbing something or landing on something on a jump almost feels random. Double jumping is a joke that only works one out of every three times. Camera movements often force you to make blind or awkward jumps, but more often than not, it will move unwillingly, causing you to fall as it moves in the middle of a jump. An annoying, practical amateur mistake that destroys all possibility of enjoyment in the last third of the game.

All in all, it's a great attempt at an original game, but the rudimentary and buggy gameplay just places it in the realm of an average game.

Pros:
A couple of great levels
Original, unique, varied backgrounds
Fun concept
Levitation ball is really fun
Usually very little repetition of certain parts of levels

Cons:
Load times are horrendous
Voice acting is grating and annoying
Adventure elements are boring
Horrible camera
Terrible jumping mechanics
Terrible grabbing mechanics

Difficulty Level: Medium

Frustration Level: Medium

Time to Complete: 15 hours.

Not that impressed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: July 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The characters are interesting and the story line is unique. The graphics are very good but every time you go into another area it's has to load.
The areas are small and you need to move between them often so it feels like the game is constantly loading. Because of this I'm giving it a 3 stars.
It's a fun game but not as good as I had expected it to be. I'd recommend renting it first. It's not worth 50 dollars and I don't think that it really has any a replay value, at least not for me.

Good, but could have been way better...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: January 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I loved the premise, implementation, humor and inventiveness in the game. In fact, I'd realy love to give this game 5 stars, but I can't.
My major issue with this game is the buggy game mechanics - some of the platforming, especially towards the end (chasing the acrobat) are way buggy. I'm talking controller-tossing frustration. After enjoying the game thoroughly, these bugs left me with a very bad taste in my mouth, and I really wish some more attention had been paid to game mechanincs in order to make them a little more forgiving and less annoying. In particular:
1. Dismounting off ropes/ladders was buggy and I often fell down rather than stepping off the object.
2. Jumping onto tightropes was incredibly hard. this was particularly annoying in some levels.
3. Jumping in general was not as accurate or as predictable as one would expect
4. The camera angle was frequently annoying. It often got in the way in the middle of a jump (yes, one of those incredibly hard, die-if-you-miss-it jumps) and made me die innumerable times. Other times, it rotated while I was in motion, causing me to fall down or die (since the controller direction is dependent on the camera angle, as it should be).

If not for these flaws, I'd have loved the game. As is, it was a great idea with a sub-par implementation. But it's still worth playing. Just make sure you toss your controller on something soft when you keep dying while chasing the acrobat!!!

i was hoping for more

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 11
Date: October 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

PSYCHONAUTS is a mixed bag. The story is fun and imaginative, and they made a serious attempt to freshen up the traditional platforming activities (finding, collecting, etc.). The dialog is also pretty funny. My problem with the game, however, is with the art direction and character design. Both were clumsy and disappointing.

Usually I'm all about gameplay, and the gameplay in Psychonauts is satisfactory. After that comes things like design and graphics. Great design doesn't cost more to model or animate... it just demands talent on the front end. You need a great designer with a sharp pencil, and there, I think, is where Psychonauts really drops the ball. Given the creative environment, I wish they spent as much time putting together a worthy cast. These players are, well, just plain ugly.

If the characters even approached, say, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, this game would be far stronger. Far more engaging. As it stands now, I don't like Raz, the main character. And I can't stand looking at many of his playmates. Who wants to sit and look at ugly design hours on end?

Great platformer!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In a world where even games that claim to be "platformers" (like the sequels to the Jak and Ratchet franchises) are really just gun-toting action games, Psychonauts is a welcome return to the classic platforming formula. There are plenty of items to collect (with great rewards for doing so), lots of environmental puzzles, and, thankfully, little focus of combat and weaponry.

The main game has 10 levels, each taking place inside someone's mind. Each one is very creative, sometimes confusingly so. Although figuring out what all the mental world stuff means is sometimes hard, I found nine out of ten of them to be pretty satisfying. Also, all of them have plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, from jokes about main character Raz's goggles to tiny, screaming charicature of Napoleon who struts around on stilts.

However, it's the parts outside of the main storyline that really sold me. There are tons of things to do when you don't feel like advancing the plot. You can crack memory vaults to get the characters' backstories, dust "mental cobwebs" to exchange for rank upgrades, and sort "emotional baggage" to unlock concept art--and that's just in the mental world. In the physical realm, you can explore a fully-featured summer camp, collecting PSI cards, having funny conversations with fellow children, and discovering an assortment of humorous scavenger-hunt items.

Although I wish the game would have given me more opportunities to use my psychic abilities, they were still very fun. Levitation was the most useful, but I couldn't get enough of telekinesis. And things just got more interesting when I leveled up, making my powers even stronger and cooler. These powers, as well as all the normal moves such as jumping, fighting, and swinging on things, are relatively easy and intuitive to use, thanks to a simple control scheme. Also, it's almost impossible to get stuck, thanks to a well-crafted in-game hint system.

Overall, I would highly reccomend this game to gamers who enjoyed real, true platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and the first Jak game. Although I'm forced to bring it down to 4 stars for a sometimes-confusing plot and the PS2's noticeable technical disadvantage to the Xbox, it is all in all a fun, enjoyable ride.

The Most Fun You've Ever Had in a Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

There's not much to say about this game, except it is hilarious. The cartooney feel and design is great, and really adds to the mood of the game. The main character, Raz, is a lot like other boys his age, and makes the game feel real. The characetrs are great, you can really get attached to them. I found myself with an odd liking for Fred Bonapart at the end of the Waterloo World level. The story is great, and takes you through lots of twists and turns, and you find out more about Raz every level it seems. The twistedness of some of the mental worlds is great, and makes you want to keep playing for days on end. The only bad part about this game is the frusterating platforming, and just as it seems you have mastered a certain move, the game adds some element to it that makes it hard again. I'm almost through with the game, but I got stuck at one part on one of the last levels, where there are jumps I just can't pull off, especially on a time limit. Overall, a great game, and no game collection should be with out Psychonauts.

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