Psychic-Fi

I finally have had the privelage of completeing Tim Shafer's "Psychonauts" and I don't even know where to begin with the praise. It is apparent that so much thought and care was put into every aspect of creating this game. It is hard to say anything new at this point; years after the release of the game and the subsuquent backlash over the less then stellar sales, which lead to some of the most profound discussions regarding the success of actual inovation in an financially reliant industry. All I would like to say is that the their such a complete vision that runs throughout the entirety of the game. Every character you meet is interesting and memorable and when allowed access to their minds, there is dramatic and psychological depth that far surpasses the seemingly silly outer artistic layer. "Psychonauts" has everything a great videogame experience is made out of.

On the handheld front, I began "Moon". "Moon" is a FPS on the Nintendo DS which was created as an original IP by Renegade Kid and Mastiff. Renegade Kid is a pretty new studio, responsible for last years "meh" DS FPS, "Dementium: The Ward". Mastiff has had several hands in producing a bunch of Japanese beat-em-ups, some alright and some not so alright. Either way, the meat and potatoes of "Moon" is a Doom-esque romp through a glowing sci-fi futuristic lab facility. The gameplay is there, I will admit that, its fun, not too complicated and has some adventure qualities to it that enhance the experience by drawing you in. The problem with a game like "Moon" is that it just doesn't live up to the sophistication that science fiction has already shown itself capable of displaying. Another crew-cutted personality-less space marine dude sent into a mysterious facility filled with pugnacious robot enemies with some human enhancing product being created. The big break so far is that this "super serum" is produced using the aid of human organs (*shudder*).

I know, right.

Its nice to look at and its fun to play, but it isn't going to stay with you after you finish. I got "Elebits: The Adventure of Kai and Zero" waiting in the ranks after I complete "Moon", so at least I got that to look forward too.


Oh yea, and about that so called "big article" I was going to write. I'm putting it off for a while, I don't want to spoil anything so I won't reveal any content or subject, but its going to be really interesting. I will let you (aka nobody) know about the progres in the future.