Psychonauts 2
When Management said they’re implementing a mindfulness policy, Matthew Castle didn’t realise it meant entering his very psyche!
SPECS
Minimum OS: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 64-bit CPU: Intel Core i3-3225, AMD Phenom II X6 Mem: 8GB HDD: 30GB GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, AMD Radeon RX560, 2GB Vram
Recommended OS: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 64-bit CPU: Intel Core i7 7700K, AMD Ryzen 5 1600 GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, AMD Radeon RX 580, 6GB Vram
You can tell a lot about a game’s soul by what it deems a ‘perk’. Fallout 3, for example, thinks being better at murdering women is one. In Modern Warfare it’s dropping a grenade after death like a smug ghost. In Psychonauts 2, Double Fine will sell you a ‘beastmastery’ pin badge modifier that allows Raz’s psychic fist—usually used for thumping and tossing—to stroke woodland animals. You spend money to hurt fewer things. Honestly? It’s a tonic.
Fifteen years have passed since the release of the original Psychonauts; time enough to forget how silly the game can be, and the startling places it can take us. Of course, for the game’s inhabitants it’s been but three days: wannabe Psychonaut Raz left Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp on a rescue mission – seen in the VR spin-off Rhombus of Ruin – and we rejoin him in its aftermath.
And what a start: a Mission: Impossible-style con to fool a villain inside his own mind, only for a dental fixation to infect the plan. With its heroes’ power to enter and influence the psyche, we always thought Psychonauts did the Inception thing long before Inception, and this ESPionage only hammers the similarity home.