Psychonauts

I'm sorry for the brief delay. I've become enraptured with the new video card I just installed. It is the first time I've played video games on my computer since the beginning of summer, and what fun it was!

Via the wonders of the Steam delivery service, I downloaded eight game demos to sample and play to wet my appetite for serious gaming again. I downloaded those games that people always told me were good, but that I never had time to check out. They will probably make for a series of posts.

One of the best of them, was the action/adventure/platformer Psychonauts. It is a game by legendary designer Tim Schafer whose credits include several huge hits from the golden era of adventure gaming: Grim Fandango, the Full Throttle series, and the Adventure Island series. Now I am a fan of old school adventure games because they combine two of my favorite aspects of entertainment: extremely humorous and well-written plotlines and puzzle-solving. Psychonauts isn't quite along those lines, but it is a gem in its own right. It is a 3d platformer with an incredibly creative plotline and a beautiful environment. In the game you play the role of a talented psychonaut, Raz (short for Rasputin), who is charged with diving into other people's minds and helping them sort out their mental problems. Along the way you become a more powerful psychonaut and gain access to new abilities which help you complete each level, collecting all of the various doodads and achievements along the way.

This is a gorgeous and mostly overlooked game from the past few years which I am contemplating going back to play more than just the demo. I would need a good gamepad, but the cost on Steam was only $20 to download and play without the CD.

Of course, none of this could happen without Harding being kind enough to start allowing Steam through their firewall last year. Before that, I don't know what I would've done.