Psychonauts

While Psychonauts is not without its flaws, it is an intense and enjoyable plat-former experience any fan of the genre should experience.

I didn't believe the hype, and played this game out of curiousity, and loved the variety and creativity of the characters and stages.

well this is by far one of my most favored games.. I feel the need to say that you have not lived till you owned this game.. that and you can't go wrong if it was done by Double Fine Productions

If you can excuse the occasional/rare game breaking bug, then there is nothing to hate in this game. Every character is fleshed out and well written. The dialogue and scenarios are funny and the mechanics are rock solid. however, yes there will be a few occasions where the game freezes, but there was only one instance where it happened during gameplay, every other time it happened during or after cutscenes. Crashing aside, the game really is a master piece.

First the positives: This game is very unique. The characters and the design of the levels all stand out. My real complain is the convoluted way in which you gain the things you need to progress, the usefulness of those things and the collectables. There are a ton of collectables that let you earn a rank, but you have to collect dozens of them to make a change, and even if you gain something (like an upgrade for a Psychic Power), you don't know if it's going to be of any use, because a lot of the time (only later in the game) you don't use most of your Psychic Powers or it's upgrades that much. This makes the collectables less valuable and more useless to be there, especially if you note that at rank 30 you can have everything to beat the game, so there is no more need to collect them. The arrowheads, the games currency, are pretty useless too. There are only a few items you can buy with them. The Cobweb duster is the only item you need to progress in the story, which costs 800 arrowheads. If there is only really 1 item you need, why do you have to buy it? Here comes the convoluted gameplay into play. But that's not it. To gain those 800 arrowheads, you have to buy the Dowsing rod and farm the 800 heads around the camp. This costs 10-15 extra minutes walking around the camp. This all could be much better by making an event that gives you the cobweb duster when you earn a certain rank. This is just an example, but there are more things that are more convoluted than they have to be. One other is the collection of 9 Psi Cards and Psi Cores to gain a rank, while the whole things are also spreaded around the camp, like why are the cores and cards seperated then? All in all, this is a not a bad game. It has unique ideas, but it tends to bend the level design, characters and story above the gameplay and platforming. If you're more into those first things, definitely check this game out, but if you're more into platforming action, then I would play something else.