Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

The Good
If you start playing this game without any knowledge on what the topic and theme of this game is, you’ll be terribly disappointed: Psi-Ops starts off as a very generic 3rd-person stealth/shooter. Seriously, every single cliché in book seems to have been applied to the first five minutes of gameplay. You, a military-looking young combatant, find yourself in a prison cell of some sort. A mysterious, tough-talking female soldier is helping you escape. Wow, this is getting old.

The first ten minutes of gameplay serious make you want to eject the disc and see if you accidentally inserted Metal Gear Solid or one of its offsprings. However, if you can get yourself to play just a bit longer, you’ll be in for a surprise: You’ll be slowly introduced to all the psychic abilities your character once had and slowly regains. And this is where the fun begins.

As it turns out, the protagonist Nick has quite a few useful skills up his sleeve, such as telekinesis, pyrokinesis, aura vision, and much more. And seriously – these skills are indeed as useful as they sound. Telekinesis in particular is extremely useful. Can’t reach a health pack? Use telekinesis to have it fly right in your hands. Can’t reach that enemy? Just "TK" that rock above him and squish him with it. Or, if you’re in a playful mood, TK him and splat him against that rock. Repeatedly. Until he’s just a bloody lump of grease. When you start playing the game, you feel that the licensed physics engine Havoc isn’t there for any particular purpose. After experimenting with TK a bit, you will see its purpose.

The psychic abilities could have been just gimmicks to lighten up the game, due to great game design however, they remain the core of the gameplay. It is possible to complete the entire game by relying almost solely on your psi-skills. What’s better is that they offer you a wide variety of options. So there’s five enemies in the next room and they’re just too strong? You could just mind-control one of them and have him shoot all of his buddies before jumping into a mine. Or you could use telekinesis on this huge wrecking ball in the center of the room to make it swing randomly and play billiard with the enemies. Or you could TK to take one of them and violently throw him into the others. Or maybe pyrokinesis to light them all on fire? Maybe you prefer your remote vision to examine them up close, wait for the moment when they’re not looking and walk past them? Of course, you could always stick to good ole violence and just shoot them all to pieces with your assault rifle.

In the end, it’s all about getting rid of your enemies, and trust me, you will get rid of them in wonderfully violent ways. Make no mistake, this game is very M-rated. Riddling enemies with holes is probably one of the more humane ways of disposing of them. Some sections offer you more sophisticated ways, like turning on the ventilation system that will suck a poor schmuck right into oversized fan blades that will shred him to pocket-sized pieces. The reactor core is a great place to throw enemies into for a little electrocution barbecue. Wow, is that a room that slowly fills with poisonous gas? And it has full-sized glass windows? And a door that can’t be opened from the inside?? Let’s not forget about some old-school fun, like using TK to "trip" an enemy who happens to be on a very high observation platform so you can watch him fall to his splattery death.

The psychic abilities come with nice special effects and convincing sound effects. The graphics aren't the best ever – in fact, many locations look generic like those other millions of stealth games, but they work.

What amazes me is that the game, despite having had a rather troublesome development history, has quite a few details and extras that show the love the developers put into the game. Barrett, who is shown in several flashbacks that stretch over several years, is shown with a different hairstyle in each segment: Bald, afro, jheri curls, you name it. Something many people wouldn’t even notice, and it really added a great touch.

The physics engine works remarkably well. I played the game a lot, and it only failed once or twice one me when I ran into a crate and all of a sudden found myself crushed to death for no reason at all. In all other cases, it worked exceptionally well, with objects and enemies (or parts thereof) flying through the air with grace.

The Bad
One thing stood out as being overwhelmingly bad: The music. It’s reasonable when things are quiet, but as soon as enemies start attacking and it switches to “hectic” mode, it's ridiculous – this game really deserves better than some pathetic B-movie muzak.

While we're in the audio department, the voice-overs also deserve a mention as being pretty lame. This is probably partly because of poor acting and the trashy storyline of the game. I tried to follow the plot, but I simply gave up at some point. Must have been – minor spoiler here – when it is revealed that the Nazis were pursuing the science of psychic abilities, or some infantile nonsense like that. I won't even mention the retarded graveyard scene. Not that the story really matters in this game, but it still put me off a bit.

Along with the plain story come the plain puzzles. It’s a very linear and simple affair: Go from A to B. Most doors are magically locked, so you can only go to B. Get a key (or destroy something) at B. Now go to C, and whoa, now some doors are unlocked while others are locked now. This design helps keeping the gameplay uncomplicated: You don’t spend much time wandering around and guessing what to do, but once again, it just appears too primitive at times. Then again, there are some great puzzles that require you to utilize your psychic abilities.

Although I liked the game design in general, some things were not thought out well. The environment is moderately interactive, but sometimes you simply don’t know. In the first segment, there are some doors that shock you (and take health off you) if you touch them – without any warning. The X button serves as both the jump and the action button, and you’ll need to use it on wall switches and other things. However, there is no indicator that there is something usable near you, so pretty often you walk from object to object, hoping that it is usable, only to end up hopping around. And the targeting system… sucks.

And then there are the MP3, the most formidable regular enemies you will encounter. I hated them. Not because they are big, bad, and tough – no, because you cannot use your psychic abilities on them. That kind of defeated the purpose of this great game idea where you could defeat your enemies using your psi-gimmicks. Now you're stuck with falling back to ye olde gunfight (or throwing rocks at them).

The Bottom Line
Overall, I have to say that this is one great game. The psychic abilities add something that is barely ever seen in any other game. Even now, I can't think of many other games that feature similar gameplay mechanics.

I also loved this uncompromisingly violent tone of the game. There’s nothing like TK'ing a crate blindly across a room that hits a guard… who is thrown into a pit… that was filled with mines… and a severed arm flies in your general direction. And none of this is scripted, which is the best part. Which also means that you'll have more, equally funny moments the next time you try it.

It's a pity that Midway messed up the marketing for this game and it went by unnoticed. I strongly recommend checking it out. You can now get this game for $10 to $15. So what are you waiting for?