Psi-ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - PS2
Bored with cookie cutter games that consist of mainly small additions or changes to existing formulas? Psi-ops presents some totally new game control concepts put together in a 3rd person shooter style. While it lacks in polish, the actual fun of how you interact with the environments, enemies and puzzles make the a very worthwhile purchase.
The game is pretty standard fare on the outset...3rd person with a camera that has to be manually adjusted with the right analog stick. Targeting for your reticle has some well done computer assistance. The game uses a metroid-syle slow learning of all your abilities which in this case is done via flashbacks. Most every time you feel like you are exhausting all you can do with a power, you reach a point in the game where you learn another ability...in many cases this is especially cool because you can combine powers (set an enemy on fire using pyro and then throw him into a exploding barrel). Unlike a lot of games where I feel like I've done everything I can do withing the first 30 minutes, I really wanted to keep playing a see what was coming next.
All is not perfectly rosey however. The most noticible problem is the over-the-top story complete with hero who doesn't trust anyone and terrible voice acting. Compounding this problem is some pretty lackluster character design and overall inconsistent art direction. I would love to play this game with the artisitic polish of Metal Gear Solid...Other minor issues are some collision mesh not matching with the art, and some pretty bad 8-bit-like sounds (the sound it makes when you punch a cement wall is laughable...bush-league pysche out shit!). Also the last power you get and the puzzles surrounding it are not as fun as the rest.
Overall, I really liked this game. Around half-way thru I found myself wishing I had the chance to work on the game which is always a sign of a good game to me. It had a perfect difficulty and game length for me (around 10 hours) and never seemed like a chore except for the last boss which I had to cheat and use gamefaqs to figure out how to beat him.
B+
Notes: At last mention I heard this game had only sold 30,000 units and the team is not working on a sequel. Bummer!
Where are the gates of steel updates? I need more game reviews that start with rhetorical questions! Thank you for your time.
ReplyDelete