
The Game
Released in 2005, Psychonauts is a 3D platformer with secondary collection elements for the Xbox, PC and (in a less playable but still existent port) PS2. While the game has picked up a fair amount of prestige over the years, back in ye olde days of the internet you had likely heard of this game through one of two avenues: either you saw it on the PS2/Xbox rack at a video rental store and thought it looked neat, or you were clued into its existence due to it being the subject of one of the earliest episodes of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's Zero Punctuation review series. (It's also one of the extremely rare unambiguously positive ZP reviews in existence) I rented the PS2 version from a Family Video in 2008, if you were curious. Psychonauts puts us in the role of Razputin, or Raz, a bright eyed young Psychic hoping to become a camper at the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp as his first step towards becoming a psychic operative, a Psychonaut. Naturally, the game features a number of psychic abilities that pair well with Raz's natural acrobatic abilities to create a fun and unique adventure platformer. Where the game really shines is its highly offbeat levels, featuring us delving into the minds of camp counselors, giant fish and a cadre of loons that have intricate and elaborate mindscapes highly molded by their perception of the world around them. Psychonauts also features an impressive level of detail, with both its hub and individual levels changing in small ways as you'd advance through the game. For those who love unimportant secondary details you can only find by exploring every nook and cranny every time something changes in a game, Psychonauts is for you. In addition to the standard fare of returning to old levels or further exploring the hub with newly obtained powers, the campers of Whispering Rock Summer Camp have their own little plot threads and beats that progress along with you as you journey through the game. It can be very fun to just run around the camp after finishing a level just to see what everyone is up to. Or just attempt to light everyone on fire when you get pyrokinesis just to see how they react to it. Likewise, there's a host of environmental details to observe if you like learning about the history of the world you're playing in. Due to a combination of all these things, Psychonauts firmly cemented itself as a cult classic when it was new and was highly praised by nearly all who played it when it was first released. With the advent of digital store fronts and a solid Steam version of the game, good word of mouth has allowed the game to reach a much wider audience and now it's built up a reputation as one of the greats for the platformer genre as a whole. If you haven't seen the game before, then I'm hoping to share it with you and show why I think it's pretty great. If you have, then I hope you'll like to go back through your own Memory Vault of this game along with me!
The Let's Play
This will be a 100% playthrough of the game, collecting all Psi Cards, Challenge Markers, Emotional Baggage, Memory Vaults, Mental Cobwebs, the infamous Figments and anything else required to get the coveted Rank 101. Additionally we'll be taking a look at some of the ongoing storylines and dramas of the residents of Whispering Rock as we progress through the game. For first clears of levels, I'll be going through them in what I feel is the most optimal way to keep the playthrough from dragging too much. Figments are by far the most disliked aspect of 100%'ing this game, and they can really slow down level progression if you try to collect them all as you make your way through the levels. As such, we'll just be grabbing the ones that are in the direct path the first go around, as well as ones I feel are notably difficult to get. It won't be until we get a specific power at the mid point of the game that I'll be returning to scoop up the ones I missed, and once I do commit to grabbing them all I'll be using sped up footage at the end of the videos for my collection drives. Without wasting anymore time,
The Videos
Part 1, Summer Camp Daze
Part 2, Braining Day
Part 3, The Search For Sasha
Part 4, Tax Dollars At Work
Part 5, Victory For Good Taste
Part 6, Dead of Brain
Part 7, Can We Get Much Higher?
Part 8, Brain Buster
Part 9, Hydrophobia
Part 10, Think Big
Part 11, The Milkman Conspiracy
Part 12, Rising Star
Part 13, The Phantom Pain
Part 14, War Games
Part 15, House of Cards
Part 16, Load of Bull
Part 17, Turtle Tower
Part 18 (Finale), Daddy Issues
Full LP Playlist
Enjoy platformers? Then you may also like my LP's of Donkey Kong Country or SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom.