One of the reasons I started streaming, doing my ‘Games I’ve Wanted To Play’ series and even writing reviews for this site, is because I wanted to delve into the vast history of gaming, discover new favourites for myself, share some of my favourites with others and uncover a few hidden gems here and there. Every now and then we might play through a title I fondly remember in an attempt to maybe inspire others to check it out, but there is an awareness that it might not go to plan.
What was once fondly remembered might not hold up as well on a revisit, it’s flaws might be more apparant when seeing it through a newer perspective, and some of those flaws might be difficult to overcome.
That’s not to say the subject of todays review is bad, but I think it’s good to be mindful that things might go awry.
Being Mindful
Psi Ops came out in 2004, a year which boasted the likes of Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Ninja Gaiden, GTA: San Andreas and Half Life 2 to name but a few. We would also see new franchises launched with the first iterations of Fable, Monster Hunter, Killzone and Rockstars Red Dead franchise with Red Dead Revolver. Psi Ops could itself have been the start of a franchise, indeed it’s ending certainly set up future titles, but it was not to be, and it’s always been seen as a bit of a hidden gem by those who played it.
The game puts you in the shoes (or should I say mind?) of Nick Scryer, a gruff military man who is awakened in a prison cell with little to no memory of who he is and how he got there. As the game goes on, you find out more, turns out Nick had his memory wiped intentionally in order to help him infiltrate ‘The Movement’, a terrorist organization made up of former Psi-Operatives, who all defected to try to gain control of an artefact that’ll promise them unlimited power.
As Nick progresses and remembers more of who he is and how he got there, he unlocks more psychic powers to help him along his way. First up is Telekinesis, which is also really the main power you’ll be using throughout the game. With this, Nick can pick up items from within the games levels and move them about/chuck them at enemies or he can pick up enemies and chuck them about too. Chuck them into walls, ceilings, over enemies or because I’m quite rubbish, the player character!
This game game out around the time ragdoll physics were really starting to become more prominent in games. Gone were the days of enemies just dying and collapsing in the same pose or disintegrating all the time. Gone were the days where you’d just pass through them as if they weren’t there, ragdoll physics were changing things up providing more realistic, and often hilarious ways for objects and bodies to interact in the game world.
With the introduction of the psychic powers, in particular telekinesis, Psi Ops took this interaction to another level. You could pick up crates and statues scattered around in the level and bounce them off of your enemies. You could bounce your enemies off of your enemies, in one level there is a gigantic hanging bell which you can use to send your enemies flying. It was revolutionary and hilarious, keep in mind as well, that this game released before Half Life 2 and it’s incredible gravity gun.
Remarkably, going back to it now on the PS2, it doesn’t feel too bad or awkward to play. There are perhaps some issues when it comes knowing how to throw items, but it’s functional and satisfying. It turns each combat encounter into a bit of a playground.
What about the other powers though? Well I’d say telekinesis is certainly the star of the show but the other powers aren’t half bad either. Remote Viewing allows Nick to leave his own body and have a bit of a wander around the game world, perfect for scouting up ahead and seeing what’s to come. Mind control allows you to take over an enemy on screen for as long as your psychic meter allows it, or until they’re killed, very handy for thinning the herds of enemies.
Mind Drain, allows you to sneak up behind enemies and drain their psychic energy, refilling yours and killing them, or you can drain dead enemies for a smaller top up of energy. Pyrokinesis, is the ability to throw flames across the ground at your victims and aura view is the ability to see things beyond our comprehension, including one of the poorer aspects of the game, but more on that later.
Playing Mind Tricks
Nick can also fire guns, but that’s significantly less interesting and not really how the games meant to be played. Nick is supposed to make use of his powers, he’s supposed to scout ahead, sneak where he can using techniques like Mind Control and Remote Viewing to get an advantage. It could be taking control of a sniper to take out a few enemies quickly before sending them hurtling to their death or it could be using a technician to unlock a door for you to save you time.
There is a heavy emphasis on not being out in open combat, Nick doesn’t have much health and can only restore health via health kits scattered around the levels. Enemies can hit hard and if you’re not careful, you can be shredded within seconds. For the most part the game can be tough but fair, aside from the poorer aspect I hinted at earlier, but again, more on that later.
At the end of each level, Nick will have to face off against one of the members of ‘The Movement’, each one specializing in a particular power. Your first boss specilizes in mind control, the next boss telekinesis, another boss has pyrokinesis, you get the idea. The encounters are generally quite fun, it’s quite amusing to be throwing small boxes at one particular enemy whilst they’re throwing an entire train carriage at you.
If the game had just been made up of these sorts of things, levels full of human enemies of varying toughness and a cheeky boss fight at the end, then I’d have came away from it very happy but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
The Aura Explorer
Aura View…
I’ve mentioned above how the game isn’t necessarily all out action, it is combat heavy but it requires you to maybe be a bit smarter about encounters and make full use of your powers. It never tips fully into being a stealth game, but it has elements where it’s probably best to be unseen for as long as possible.
The last couple of levels kinda throw that out, and want you to be stealthy for the most part, whilst also being locked into the Aura View, and accomplishing other tasks whilst doing do, and it is with these levels where my enthusiasm dipped.
You see, with Aura View you can see cracks in walls for secret areas, and foot prints showing paths people take… and you can also see these floating creatures cutting about the levels who are invisible to the naked eye, until you get close to them. In which case they manifest, spawn a few more and pretty much shred you, meaning the best course of action is to avoid them at all costs.
Whilst also trying to do other things, like in one example, transporting items via telekinesis to pedastals in the same room as these creatures, a task which isn’t very much fun because you can either use telekinesis, or be in aura view meaning you lose track of where these beasties are, and it becomes a bit of guesswork.
Psi Ops isn’t the first game to do something like this, and it definately wasn’t the last. There is a bit of a trope in games where you get so used to a playstyle and enemy type and in the last level or for one particular level something is thrown in which completely and utterly throws the player off. Sometimes it can work, sometimes it doesn’t, but for me, it didn’t work and was just more frustrating than anything else.
When you couple this with the games awkward checkpoint system it can get a bit worse. Psi Ops has a save system which saves to a checkpoint, rather then where the player is at that moment in time, and a check point records your status at the time you cross it. In one particular mission I got locked into a bit of a loop, as I had reached the checkpoint with very little health and there were a vast number of enemies to get through, making things very difficult. If you die, you go back to the checkpoint, but your health isn’t restored like it might be in more modern titles.
Checkpoints are also not always evenly spaced, as was the case on one of the later levels, where I had to transport two items to two pedastals in a room, avoiding aura beasts along the way, then solve a puzzle in a room whilst avoiding two aura beasts, only for a cutscene to play and some soldiers to charge in. I was swiftly killed after accidentally triggering an aura beast, but there was not a checkpoint after the cutscene, in stead I was positioned all the way before before placing the items on the pedastals,losing some 20-30 mins of progress.
Something On My Mind
I had been wanting to revisis Psi Ops for a long time because I had fond memories of playing it but never completing it back in the day, it was one I always bigged up as a “Oh my god! Do you remember this game, was a gem it was!” type of thing, and I still think it’s a bit of a gem despite the uneven final part.
For me, it’s remarkable seeing what it did with it’s array of powers, the absolute satisfaction of using telekinesis will never go away, and it’s incredible seeing it all happen on a PS2.
It seems a shame we never got a sequel or franchise out of it. I’m not entirely sure as to why, maybe it didn’t sell well enough to justify the costs of developing it further, maybe despite the teasing of a part 2, no one really had the ideas or pushed for it. Midway, the developers, would go bankrupt in 2010, in the six years after releasing Psi-Ops to their closure they would release a mixed bag of titles, ranging from new releases in the Mortal Kombat franchise, to licensed tie-ins with Cartoon Network shows and even a game based on TNA Wrestling.
With it’s closure, I suppose any future for Psi Ops as a franchise died. In a way, Psi Ops was a bit of the time with it’s plot and characters and style. Nick was hardly Mr Charisma, and one thing I always remember were the adverts for it plastered across the gaming sites of the time playing the nu-metal track “With My Mind” by the band “Cold” (Who, after a quick google search, seem to still be around and releasing music, so good on them!)
Would I recommend Psi Ops? Despite the negativity about the final sections and also the characters not really having a lot of depth, it’s still a fun time. It looks fine and plays well, it’s maybe not quite how I remembered it in my minds eye, but it’s still worth checking out for anyone wanting to try a little gem from the PS2s vast library.