Joe Price on 4/29/2009 8:31 PM · Permalink · Report

So first off let me say how great this game was. I agree with most of everyone else on the forum in saying that:

The game seems cute be begin with. Mildly entertaining but it starts to get really brilliant at the midpoint (about the time of the lungfish). Destroying that city was so much fun. The milkman level was amazing! So smart, so funny, even a little subversive. They really nailed going inside the brain of a paranoid schizophrenic. I laughed out loud at some of the things the agents said (http://boards.ign.com/psychonauts/b6158/153588603/p1/). I loved the Napoleon level as well. Very well designed how you shrink and shrink and shrink to accomplish various tasks on a Stratego-style game board. The Bull level might have been frustrating at times (getting hit by the bull A LOT) but boy was it gorgeous. It's rare that games are that artful. It still looks great for being an older game.

Gave up on the meat circus. I agree that it's a blemish on an otherwise wonderful game. Protection quests are the bane of gaming (as well vertical jumping puzzles in a 3D game). Don't you just LOVE falling and having to jump all the way back up to the top again to fall at the same place because the camera hid your character? Horrible horrible horrible. Makes you wanna throw your TV out the window.

I also gave up on trying to find all of the 2D fragments in the game. There are just too many and the world is too vast. I don't have enough patience for that kind of thing. Did find almost all of the cards and all of the brains though. The scavenger hunt was a piece of cake. The descriptions for each item are awesome. I love how much thought went into all of the little details.

I love the characters - especially Ford Cruller who always made me laugh. You summon him with bacon. I love when Raz asks for a baggie or something to put it in. So funny.