An amazing and ORIGINAL game!
This is one of the most, if not the most, underrated games of 2005. It sold very poorly due to the fact that it was a new company (Double Fine Productions) and because it was a TOTALLY original game - I'm still trying to find something that wasn't totally different from any other game made to date.
Psychonauts starts you out as Razputin (Raz), a psychonaut-wannabe (think of psychonauts as marines in our army) who is going to a camp to train his psychic abilities. His past is hazy, and as you progress through you'll be learning more about his past while helping other people sort out their own problems in their minds. This game takes place in two places: Real world and the Brain world. In the real world you gather arrowheads (money), talk to other camp-goers, buy things at the store, and explore. In the Brain world you'll be killing censors and other monsters while trying to sort out different people's "emotional baggage" and collecting other things in the brain to help you advance in rank (there are 100 ranks in all.. if you collect EVERYTHING, which is extremely hard).
This game is also a funny game: randomly throughout levels or while talking to other people you'll definately find things that will make you crack up laughing, even at random points... I wont say any more than this, but if you've been looking for a game that can make you laugh, this may be it. (Although the humor can be a bit stupid at some points...)
This is kind of a Platformer game, so you'll be running around collecting things, getting to the end, and fighting a boss in each level. The game's fighting is very unique... First, you can attack with your "mind fist" (Not the actual word but I call it that ;) ) which is just a mental projection of your fist.. and that's pretty dangerous. The next attacks you can have all all mind powers (think spells or force powers) that use up mental energy. These can be from as well-know to us gamers as levitation or telekinises, or some other ones such as one that shoots out a beam of mental energy, and another that erupts an enemy in flames. I don't know all of them due to the fact that I haven't beaten the game yet... but I am far enough in to tell you that all the psychic powers are useful and just plain fun to use!
The graphics are very good, sometimes too good. I've had no problems running F.E.A.R., yet sometimes this game will start to slow-down on me yet, and I'm not sure why. However, this only happens when you're collecting tons of things and hasn't happened while fighting, so it's more of a small annoyance than anything else.
The value of this game depends on you, if you love this game so much you'll want to replay it over and over, but there isn't new content or anything different (unless you plan on trying to collect every item) that will really want you to replay the game. However, since this is a great game the first time through, you wont be disappointed.
---- Summary -----
Gameplay - An amazing blend of platformer and action, and a wholly original game that adds great gameplay and a good (and funny!) storyline for all gamers.
Graphics - Good, but not revolutionary graphics, that helps build the game very well. Graphics don't have to be revolutionary to be great, and this game showed this well.
Value - It probably wont get you to replay it many times, but the first time through is a great enough experience for this game to be worth every penny, espcially since the game is cheaper now that it's been out for more than 6 months.
Overall - Buy this game. It's an original game which we don't see many of any more (Final Fantasy 1-12, Ranbow Six 1-4, Call of Duty 1-2...etc), and we should buy this game just to show game companys that we do like to see original games once in a while! This game has great humor and action throughout the game, blended in together with a great storyline - this game is must own for anyone who wants a good and original game.