Psychonauts

[lobotomy42]

I didn't find the Meat Circus particularly hard - I just found the platforming controls throughout most of the game were sufficiently terrible as to making any sort of movement / jumping / aiming levels a pain. (I had a slow PC back then - maybe it was better on the Xbox?)

I don't know, Psychonauts was really funny, but the design seemed all over the place. I could never tell if I was supposed to be exploring like an open platformer, collecting tokens like the worst Mario 64 levels, or trying to solve puzzles like an adventure / rpg. Combined with my experience of wonky controls, it seemed like a flawed effort at best. Certainly impressive for Double Fine's first outing, but still missing a certain something.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I don't know, Psychonauts was really funny, but the design seemed all over the place. I could never tell if I was supposed to be exploring like an open platformer, collecting tokens like the worst Mario 64 levels, or trying to solve puzzles like an adventure / rpg. Combined with my experience of wonky controls, it seemed like a flawed effort at best. Certainly impressive for Double Fine's first outing, but still missing a certain something.

Does a game need to be one thing for it to be a good game? Like, assuming you're correct about Psychonaut's design being all over the place, is that necessarily a criticism of it? I can't really think of any reason to dislike a game that gives you exploration platforming, puzzle solving, token collection, and so on unless you dislike any of those things individually, in which case you would probably be upset that Psychonauts is the game it is rather than a different game that you would prefer. Just by virtue of having a lot of different gameplay elements, though, I don't think Psychonauts or any other game is worse.

[Roderick]

When I first played Psychonauts, on the PC (with keyboard controls, and yes, I finished Meat Circus without too much difficulty), I thought there was a might too many collectibles in the game. Not just the amount, but the diversity: figments, arrow heads, cobwebs, memory vaults, specialty items. BUT, HOWEVER, upon replaying it I was super enamoured with them. I absolutely loved that every level was jam-packed with STUFF to pick up and had a blast finding everything.

Nowadays I have embraced my love for collect-a-thon gaming. (I can't wait for New Super Mario Bros 2 in which you have to collect one meeellion golden coins.)

[lobotomy42]

Does a game need to be one thing for it to be a good game? Like, assuming you're correct about Psychonaut's design being all over the place, is that necessarily a criticism of it? I can't really think of any reason to dislike a game that gives you exploration platforming, puzzle solving, token collection, and so on unless you dislike any of those things individually, in which case you would probably be upset that Psychonauts is the game it is rather than a different game that you would prefer. Just by virtue of having a lot of different gameplay elements, though, I don't think Psychonauts or any other game is worse.

Sure, blending elements can be great. But those elements have to gel or mesh in some way, right? If I mix softball and frisbee together in softfris, then it's up to me to balance those elements into a cohesive new whole. I didn't feel like Psychonauts did that. Then again, I haven't played it in five or six years, so I may be misremembering.

[dibs]

I picked this up again because of this thread. I'm absolutely loving the writing and the humour etc, but i'm feeling really let down by a few issues with some non obvious interactions, enemies and general platforming/controls. I also just spent 15 mins grinding arrowheads in order to spend a ridiculous amount of time on the Milkman mission before discovering that a) you could go into houses and you could attack cars. After that i spent 20 minutes dealing with what seemed like terrible collision detection on the boss. There is tiger enemies that are situated beside zone entrances, so by the time the screen fades in you are half way to being on fire. I know its an older game so maybe i am just too used to hand holding now, but these things are frustrating me. And why is there so many different paths to building the one XP resource in the game?

The game is utterly saved by the amazing writing, but if it were any other game i would have dropped it a long time ago. Spefically on the milkman, the secret agent lines were so so good.

Also, i'm completely mesmerized by the neon collectables in peoples' heads.

[Merus]

I think a lot of the problems people had with Meat Circus were concentrated on one specific obstacle, namely the segmented mesh cylinder when Raz is being hunted by the spectre of his dad. Raz isn't capable of jumping in the way the game thinks he should be able to (he cannot jump around a cylinder), which makes that section significantly harder than it's probably intended to be. That's on top of the big top, which are puzzles on top of an escort sequence, and a rail grinding segment where half the time your momentum carries you off into the ether, and it's perfectly understandable that people would think the whole thing was bullshit.

[RoutineMachine]

I think a lot of the problems people had with Meat Circus were concentrated on one specific obstacle, namely the segmented mesh cylinder when Raz is being hunted by the spectre of his dad. Raz isn't capable of jumping in the way the game thinks he should be able to (he cannot jump around a cylinder), which makes that section significantly harder than it's probably intended to be. That's on top of the big top, which are puzzles on top of an escort sequence, and a rail grinding segment where half the time your momentum carries you off into the ether, and it's perfectly understandable that people would think the whole thing was bullshit.

The cylinder was the only part of the level that I thought was bullshit. The rest was a refreshing challenge. Is there a trick to the cylinder?

[ThunderPeel2001]

I believe Tim S. posted some tips once about how to get up the cylinder... I think invisibility means you don't get his by Raz's dad's knives or something.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I believe Tim S. posted some tips once about how to get up the cylinder... I think invisibility means you don't get his by Raz's dad's knives or something.

Yeah, I posted those tips on the first page (post #13).

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yep! (Not sure how I missed that.) This is indeed some excellent tips for the Meat Circus by Mr Shafes.

http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/7975-psychonauts/#entry201430

[Merus]

No, no, that's the bit under the cylinder. There's three bits to that room: a bunch of tightropes one on top of each other, then some tightropes which the memory of Raz's dad stands at the end of and throws knives down, and then a flaming mesh cylinder you have to climb around the outside of and jump from section to section. Invisibility helps you with the first two.

As far as I'm aware, there's not really a trick to the cylinder. You can use various exploits to do things like get on the inside of the cylinder or get on top of it and get past that way, but they're unreliable and of limited utility as they make getting off the cylinder much harder.

[RoutineMachine]

As far as I'm aware, there's not really a trick to the cylinder. You can use various exploits to do things like get on the inside of the cylinder or get on top of it and get past that way, but they're unreliable and of limited utility as they make getting off the cylinder much harder.

That's my memory. It felt like the only way to get past the cylinder was to glitch past it.

[SiN]

I too did not find Meat Circus to be challenging, but I feel that was likely down to luck and/or unwittingly having the right psy powers, as opposed to having any sort of skills.

[castorp]

You know, I have friends who can come back from a great vacation and then when they tell about it they just bitch and moan for half an hour about the traffic jam on the way to that place or the particularly unfriendly waitress in the restaurant and then they sum up all the other things that were fantastic - like everything else - in three sentences. It kills me.

Just saying.

[dibs]

You know, I have friends who can come back from a great vacation and then when they tell about it they just bitch and moan for half an hour about the traffic jam on the way to that place or the particularly unfriendly waitress in the restaurant and then they sum up all the other things that were fantastic - like everything else - in three sentences. It kills me.

Just saying.

More like the hotel leaving a giant steaming turd between you and your magnificently comfy bed, every single day. its something that should have been picked up (on) and dealt with. The issues are actively messing with me progressing to the awesome bits rather than being incidental troubles. Dealing with cylinder for the last 30 mins:/

[ThunderPeel2001]

Well just to add to the "it wasn't THAT bad" pile: I've completed Psychonauts three times (always with a controller) and I've never found it particularly difficult. I don't consider myself a particularly good games player, so I really do think it's probably a strategy/tactics thing.

[melmer]

I bought digitally as a 'xbox original' on my 360 years ago and stop playing when i got frustrated on the Napoleon board game level, i remember just getting hit by a never ending stream of cannonballs or something

Kinda sucks cause i'd really like to replay it and finish it today but it just throws up a error message when i try and download it again from my download history. I wonder if this'll ever get sorted out

[Roderick]

You mean when the artillery appears? I fail to recall what exactly is the correct way of dealing with them, but I know it's more like a puzzle than an action moment: there's a power that easily dispatches them. Just gotta figure out which one.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think you throw them into water or something?

[Tanukitsune]

If you mean the monsters that shoot cannonballs at you in that level, then yes, ThunderPeel is right, you have to TK them into the water.

[Roderick]

Monsters? They're grognards!

[Noyb]

You can also punch them to get them to retreat into their shell, and then use pyrokinesis to light their fuse.

[Roderick]

New Psychonauts news! Tim just posted THIS on Twitter, much to the brainexplodeyness of everyone due to the lack of context, explanation and further pictures.

 

 

Psychonauts is getting action figures! Like The Cave did!

[Tanukitsune]

Series 2? Was there a series one? I think there was ONE Raz figure before, but that doesn't count as a series.

[Thrik]

I think they mean series two of DFAF. Hence, Cave Story was series one.

Edit: http://shop.doublefine.com/collections/game-the-cave/products/the-cave-toys