Going out of my mind...
The real crux of the game and where you’ll spend the vast majority of your time though is in other people’s minds. After all, you are a Psychonaut, so it makes sense that you’d project yourself into others mind and take a gander, eh?
Now this is where Psychonauts really takes off because up until you enter a mind, Psychonauts is pretty much an average platformer with some great dialogue. However, once you enter a mind, all the rules go out the window, and though it’s still a platformer, it’s now one of the most creative games we’ve seen for a long time.
You see, just like everyone is physically different, everyone one is mentally different too and Psychonauts makes the most of this by having each mind, which is pretty much each level, be something totally different from what has gone before. Now whilst the basic platform mechanic is still in place allowing you to get around and progress, the theme of each mind lends itself to making use of a particular talent you’ve just picked up, or a combination of skills… and of course it makes for highly original level design when you can muck about with the rules…
Now alongside all the leapy jumpy platforming is a bit of puzzle work, often centred on getting you to use your particular powers. As you play and progress you can increase Raz’s skills and abilities, giving you several options on how to complete tasks. Sadly though, the puzzles are not particularly difficult, being very much along the lines of fetching an object or destroying an obstacle. These types of puzzles tend to pop up shortly after acquiring a new skill, so it’s fairly obvious what you have to do. Later on the puzzles become a bit tougher needing a combination of talents, so although they’re hardly taxing at least they don’t become tedious.
