Back in 2016, I talked about Psychonauts.
It originally came out in 2005 (A LIFETIME AGO) and is probably the last truly great platformer from that era. The basic idea was that you were Razputin (“Raz” to his buddies) and you snuck into a summer camp for gifted psychics. You were quickly found out by the counselors and your parents were going to pick you up in one week.
Which meant that the clock was ticking and you had to figure out your own emotional baggage at the same time as solving the mystery of who was stealing the brains of the gifted psychics around you. The summer camp itself was fun to run around in but the game didn’t start to shine until you jumped into the brains of your counselors. The austere German counselor, the shell-shocked veteran, and the hippie-dippy counselor were all fun brains to run around in but the best level in the game was called “The Milkman Conspiracy” and it involved running around the mind of a conspiracy theorist and figuring out what the Milkman was up to.
The game suffers a little bit from the whole “collect *ALL OF THE THINGS*” thing that platformers had going on around in the early oughts but, quite honestly, it’s the best game of its generation and if you’ve never played it, you’ve missed out. Seriously, it’s been about two decades since I’ve beaten this brilliant game and I still remember The Milkman Conspiracy with delight.
Anyway, you can pick it up on Steam for 3 bucks. If you’ve never played it (or haven’t played it in almost 20 years), you should pick it up. It’ll be the best purchase you make this week.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is the Psychnauts splash screen. Screenshot taken by the author.)
I finished Psychonauts 2 not that long ago. It was a lot of fun. It has probably been 20 years since the last one, but I think it improves on the formula, compared to my memories of the first. I remember hating the final levels of the first game, as well as the required dowsing for some vital currency. The sequel does not get as punishing at the end, though it did take several tries to beat the final boss, and I actually debated giving it up, since I didn’t have a save where I could go back and improve my character or buy consumables. There was no dowsing for currency, either.
I am not a completionist, so there are some side quests I ignored and plenty of collectibles that I didn’t gather.Report
I was planning on beating Psychonauts and New Vegas and then playing Psychonauts 2.
But I have been sucked into a black hole… but I will get into that on Saturday.Report