Memorable Games: Psychonauts

Psychonauts is a action platformer that was originally planned for release exclusively on the Xbox but was later ported to the Playstation 2, Windows, and made compatible with the Xbox 360. It was designed by Tim Schafer and worked on by several other people from Grim Fandango team. In additional to being one of my personal favourite games of all time and easily the best game on the original Xbox, it is also widely critically acclaimed with Tim Schafer going as far as to call it “the greatest game of all time ever”, a sentiment shared by others.

Surprisingly for an action platformer, Psychonauts has a great storytelling that plays a prominent part in the game and includes great humour similar to the Monkey Island series and interesting dialogue on par with Grim Fandango. In addition to the normal platforming and action, Psychonauts also features a collectible based levelling system and the ability to buy useful items paid for by other collectibles. The levels and items for the most part give you new abilities and improve your existing abilities; These abilities include among others: telekinesis, levitation, invisibility, pyrokinesis, Psi Shield, and Psi Blast.

Rax saving/terrorizing a city in
parody of giant monster films.

In the game the player controls Razputin “Raz” Aquato at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp; Where he has gone to try and become a Psychonaut. In the game Raz explores the physical camp, learning from the camp counsellors, finding collectibles, and getting missions; But most of the game is played inside of NPC's minds. While he advances through the story he encounters many interesting characters that are either blocking his path or are needed it do something for Raz to progress and in general have some kind of emotional problem that Raz has to help them with. To help them Raz enters their minds, which are portrayed as a kind of fantastic and improbable world built on the eccentricities and personalty of the owner. The challenge in these fantastic imaginary worlds and the physical world are a combination of moderately challenging platforming, unique boss fights, and a few naturalistic puzzles.

During the development of Psychonauts many major changes to the original idea have occurred. Originally Tim Schafer had an idea for a drug induced psychedelic experience occurring in Full Throttle, which was rejected for not being family friendly enough. Latter, while developing this idea into a game, Raz was going to be a crazy and unbalanced ostrich suffering from multiple personalities; This was later changed, because they wanted a character that the player could relate to and wish to be like.

In summery this is a great game, that should easily make it into everyone’s “Best Games of All Time” list. What really puts it over the top is its amazingly humorous dialogue and great story. And while the game could benefit from having a difficulty setting as it is moderately easy for experienced players, it does not make it any less enjoyable.

Rating:
5/5
Developer:
Double Fine Productions
Publisher:
THQ, Majesco Entertainment
Release Date:
April 19, 2005
System Requirements:

• OS: Windows 98 SE or Newer
• CPU: 1 GHz
• RAM: 256 MB
• Video Card: 64 MB
• DirectX: 9.0
• Hard Drive: 3.75 GB

Current Price:
$9.99 USD (Steam)
Official Game Web Site:
http://www.psychonauts.com/

Memorable Games: Dungeon Keeper

Evil is Good

Dungeon Keeper is a series of innovative RTS PC games released over a decade ago. The series includes Dungeon Keeper, its expansion The Deeper Dungeons, and Dungeon Keeper 2. In addition to these released games, the series also includes the cancelled game Dungeon Keeper 3 and the currently pending MMORPG Dungeon Keeper Online.

The premise is that you are a evil dungeon overlord: You attract, care for, and train a horde of evil minions; You mine gold and create fortifications and traps;  And you wage war on and destroy the heroes and sometimes other dungeon keepers. Unlike most RTSes Dungeon Keeper focuses more on minion management and fortress creation then direct control over the battles or resource harvesting.

The game features many diverse and interesting creatures. From the kinky Dark Mistress through the industrious Bile Demon and studious Warlock to the likely core of your army Skeletons. Unlike all the other creatures Skeletons are not attracted to your dungeon, they are created from your fallen enemies. In addition to the few mentioned here their are loads more interesting and useful creatures used in the games.

Dungeon Keeper and Dark Mistress

Memorable Games

This blog post is dedicated to memorable games. I think we all have a few games we just cannot forget. Strangely enough, for me these are not even the best games I have ever played, they were very good but something made them particularly memorable. I think this memorable quality is best explained away by a combination of both quality and innovation.

This post was inspired by Ben304's recently post on Messiah (my all time most memorable game). In which he stated is was also a very memorable game for him. Also in my list of memorable games are Robot City and Dark Side of the Moon, both classical adventure titles I played sometime before attending high school.

Messiah:
I do not think I could do a better job then Ben304 in explaining Messiah, so I will not try and will just leave you a link to his article.





Robot City:
Robot City is a classical adventure game published for Windows 95 in 1995. It is based on a Isaac Asimov series of the same name. What makes it unique is the conversation puzzles. Many of the obstacles in the game are robotic in nature, for example you need a robot to do something or a robot in blocking your path. You must use the three laws of robotics to convince them to do what you want.




Dark Side of the Moon:
Dark Side of the Moon is very complex classical adventure game. It is a science fiction murder mystery, in which you play Jake Wright, who is out to figure out what happened to his uncle. I particularly like all the neat gadgets you use in game and for the interface.

The game environment is huge with many rooms and corridors to explore. The plot has lots of twists and turns, keeping it interesting. and the puzzles are challenging.