In order to restore this mind to its normal function, Raz needs to find and unite its five sense modalities: touch, smell, taste, sight, and hearing. While the brain in a jar is an obvious allusion to the infamous brain-in-a-vat thought experiment in philosophy, the idea that sensory input is necessary for the development of thought could be a reference to so-called externalism about the mind. In Psychonauts lore, after a long time of sensory deprivation, a mind falls into a kind of content-deprived state – entering the mind reveals a dark void populated by the barest outlines of memories, thoughts, and concepts. Luckily, a senior psychonaut keeps a collection of brains in jars. Roughly halfway through the campaign he needs to find a replacement brain for a colleague. The key concept in Psychonauts 2, as in Psychonauts, is that Raz can enter the mind of other characters, to heal them or to learn vital information. There is even a bit of philosophy mixed in, for anyone who really must insist that games have to grapple with serious ideas. On the face of it, it might lack the mad imagination and creativity of some of the other locations in the game, but it’s a nearly perfect combination of gameplay, art, story, voice acting, and score. Yet for my money the best level of Psychonauts 2 is PSI-King’s Sensorium. Compton’s Cookoff requires Raz to cook sentient ingredients in a timed challenge and then fight overfed food critics as they vomit his dishes back at him in a gladiatorial arena. Cassie’s Collection has 2D hopping and climbing across letters on the pages of a book and hilarious pastiches of beloved literary characters. Bob’s Bottles features a burp mechanic that temporarily clears an area of water to allow Raz to platform across. There are plenty of excellent candidates to choose from. It’s like a Pixar film in motion, and you are not supposed to talk about Toy Story in the same breath as Citizen Kane, right?īut Psychonauts 2 has some of the best level design I’ve encountered in years, which deserves to be remembered next to Effect and Cause or The Clockwork Mansion. It’s a cartoon-styled platformer about a psychic 10-year-old boy, Raz Aquato, trying to find a new home in the psychic equivalent of high school while unraveling a global conspiracy, supported by an endearing cast of characters, dad jokes, and jazz. In other words, these are the examples one is supposed to pick – they are the Citizen Kane of “refined” game opinion, if you will.Īt first glance, Psychonauts 2 doesn’t fit the bill. Dishonored 2, for example, is part of the venerated immersive sim design philosophy, while Rez Infinite pursues its lead designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s long-held ambition to achieve synesthesia through gaming. There is sometimes a bit of snobbery in the selection. #Psychonauts concept art crackThe last couple of console generations have brought us instant classics of level design: Titanfall 2’s Effect and Cause, Dishonored 2’s The Clockwork Mansion and A Crack in the Slab, Rez Infinite’s Area X, and others. This article contains some light spoilers for Psychonauts 2 and PSI-King’s Sensorium.
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