| Psychonauts |
Website Links For Psychonauts |
Information AboutPsychonauts |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PSYCHONAUTS | |
| 2005 video games | |
| adventure games | |
| platform games | |
| playstation 2 games | |
| steam products | |
| xbox games | |
| windows games | |
''Psychonauts'' is a Platform Game developed by Double Fine Productions , published by Majesco , and released on April 19 , 2005 , for the Microsoft Xbox , the Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows . It was the first game from Double Fine Productions , a company founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer , well known for his previous work on graphical Adventure Game s (such as '' Grim Fandango )'' at LucasArts . SYNOPSIS In ''Psychonauts'', the player controls Raz (short for Razputin), a mysterious new arrival at a training camp for Psychonauts — elite special agents who use their psychic powers to combat psycho-terrorism and retrieve information from inside people's minds. After honing his own mental abilities, Raz discovers that the camps's own coach Oleander is abducting cadets from the camp with the purpose of stealing their brains. Raz must stop him from creating Psychic brain Tanks. Setting The story is set in Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp (a remote government training facility under the guise of a Summer Camp ), where students are trained to become Psychonauts. The area was hit centuries ago by a meteor made of psitanium (an element that can grant psychic powers or strengthen existing powers), creating a huge crater. When settlers began inhabiting the region, the psychoactive properties of the meteor slowly drove them insane. An asylum was built to house the afflicted, but within fifteen years the asylum had more residents than the town did. The government relocated the remaining inhabitants and flooded the crater to prevent further settlement, creating what is now Lake Oblongata . The asylum still stands but has fallen into disrepair. The government took advantage of the psitanium deposit to set up a camp for training Psychonauts. The local wildlife has been profoundly affected by the psitanium as well. Bear s are able to attack from afar using Telekinetic claws, and Cougar s are endowed with Pyrokinesis . Also, the rats in the upper levels of the old asylum are kamikaze creatures, running at anyone that comes close and exploding in a cloud of Confusion. One pet turtle displays human-like intelligence due to his human-sized brain. Storyline During Coach Morceau Oleander's initiation speech to the incoming Psychonaut earns him grudging admiration from the Camp Staff , but regulations require that Raz leave the camp as soon as his family can arrive to claim him. Raz is allowed to stay with the other campers until then but is barred from training and classes. The next Morning , however, Oleander allows Raz to take part in Basic Braining, a Boot Camp -like introductory course which takes place in a mental landscape based on Coach Oleander's experiences in the military. Back in reality, Agent Nein expresses interest in Raz's mental talents, and discreetly encourages Raz to find his hidden laboratory, where he wishes to conduct experiments to explore Raz's abilities. The Brain Tumbler, a large hair dryer-like machine, allows Raz to explore his own mind. Inside he finds a shadowy creature that spits diving helmets, and is pulled out by Sasha before he can be hurt by it. Sasha decides to teach Raz how to use PSI Blast so he can defend himself. To do this he enter's Sasha's mind, a well controlled and contained cube. However, with a few switches thrown, the sides unfold to reveal an overload of censors, creations of the mind charged with the job of censoring manias or foreign entities. They are used for target practice. After Raz fights off the censors, as well as a giant "Mega-Censor", he enters his mind again. There, he sees a vision of his fellow camper Dogen, confined in a twisted thorny tower, being examined by a demented doctor who claims the boy is insane. And even though he claims he is a dentist, he gladly offers to yank the "bad tooth" that is Dogen's brain. Raz rushes to rescue him, but soon encounters another obstacle, and must learn levitation to get past it. In the real world Raz encounters Dogen, whose brain is mysteriously missing. No one believes him when he tries to tell them, however, claiming that Dogen is 'just like that'. Raz enters Milla's mind and learns Levitation . Raz goes back into his mind and reaches the inside of the tower, but not before Dogen's brain is stolen, is thrown down the garbage chute, and he sees that the next patient on the list is none other than fellow camper and only person that believes him about his visions, Lili Zanotto. Diving after Dogen's brain, he learns that Coach Oleander is trying to make psychic death Tanks to take over the world using the psychic children's brains as a power source. That night, a lungfish under Oleander's control kidnaps Lili, and Raz uses a Bathysphere to enter the water and fight it. Afterwards he enters the Lungfish's mind, and frees it from Oleander's control. The grateful Lungfish takes Raz to the insane asylum, where Lili is being held. In the asylum there are also the brains of Raz's fellow campers, all of whom have been kidnapped by the Lungfish. Once on the island, Raz must enter several minds in order to reach Loboto at the top of the asylum. The first is Boyd, the paranoid security guard. In his mind, Raz accidentally unlocks Boyd's arsonist alter-ego, The Milkman. The next is Gloria, a once-famous actress driven insane after her mother's suicide. After that he must enter the mind of Fred Bonaparte, the descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte , whose mind has been taken over by a genetic memory of his ancestor. Last is Edgar, an artist who has been obsessed with bullfights and consumed with rage ever since his high school girlfriend left him. Raz ventures further into the asylum, and eventually finds Lili, as well as Sasha and Milla, who were also kidnapped by Oleander. An epic fight soon occurs between Oleander, and his former comrades, Sasha, Milla, and Ford Cruller, former head of the psychonauts and mentor to Raz. During the fight, Boyd burns the asylum down, and Oleander's brain is removed and enters his death tank. Raz fights the tank, but his brain is removed after the fight. He manages to get it into the tank, where it merges with Oleander's. Razputin's upbringing in the circus joins with Oleander's nightmarish visions of his own father, a butcher, to form a "Meat Circus" where slabs of flesh are arranged in a big top populated by horrible, mutilated creatures. In this environment, Oleander has reverted to his childlike persona of "little Oly", whom Raz must protect as he wanders obliviously in pursuit of his pet rabbit. Eventually, Raz is confronted by enormous, vicious versions of his own father as well as Oleander's butcher father and must navigate a hellish obstacle course of circus-themed gymnastics equipment to avoid ever-rising water levels while defending himself from attacks from the duo. Raz manages to defeat the monstrous butcher, who falls into a huge meat grinder. Unexpectedly, Razputin's real father appears; he explains that he is also a psychic and that Raz has misinterpreted his concern as dislike. He blasts the evil version of himself, knocking it into the same meat grinder. As Raz and his father prepare to untangle the two mental worlds, the sinister visions of the fathers reappear as a grotesquely joined version. Raz's father channels all of his mental energy into Raz, giving him the power to defeat this creature. The next day, Raz is thanked for rescuing everyone, and for helping Oleander confront his demons. In recognition of his skills, Raz is allowed to become a Psychonaut. As he is leaving camp, news arrives that the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, Truman Zanotto, has been kidnapped. Raz and his fellow psychonauts, along with Lili, fly off to rescue him. Characters Main article: List Of Characters In Psychonauts ''Psychonauts'' features a large cast of characters, led by the game's protagonist, Razputin . These include camp Coach Oleander, Psychonaut agents Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello, Raz's mentor and idol Ford Cruller, Raz's love interest Lili Zanotto, and Bobby Zilch, the camp bully. GAMEPLAY ''Psychonauts'' combines traditional Console platformer elements with the kind of strong storytelling, humor and dialogue found in adventure games. The game features ten levels, each of which let the player enter a different person's mind. Each of these levels therefore has its own unique visual design and set of challenges, related to the demons, nightmares and secret memories of the mind that Raz is exploring. Three other levels are set within the real world, making a total of thirteen levels, interspersed with several Boss fights which represent the main cause of a person's mental problems. As the player progresses through the game, Raz acquires new psychic powers, including Telekinesis , Levitation , Invisibility , Pyrokinesis , Clairvoyance , PSI Shield , PSI Blast and Confusion . These are directly involved in the puzzle-solving aspects of the game, which allow the player to tailor the solutions to his or her own playing strengths. Another interesting aspect of the game is that when different powers are used on different campers (who are invulnerable) the campers have different reaction (I.E when using Clairvoyance on Oleander, you will see everything else normally, but Raz will look like a large brain, while Ford sees him in a Psychonaut's uniform) PSI Powers
The later rank-earned upgrades include gradual regeneration of mental health and unlimited energy for all powers. DEVELOPMENT HISTORY Tim Schafer's team was partly made up of several people he worked with on '' Grim Fandango '' at LucasArts. Amongst the art design crew was background artist Peter Chan and cartoonist Scott Campbell. Voice Actor Richard Steven Horvitz , best known for his portrayal of Zim in the cult favorite Animated Series '' Invader Zim '', provides the voice of Raz, the game's protagonist. |
|
|