G-pinions

Sometimes a game comes out with a completely original idea and executes the concept perfectly. Take Viewtiful Joe, for instance, which makes amazing use of Joe’s super powers and creates a game world that squeezes the maximum amount of fun out of the concept. Then there are games with pretty lousy ideas, like having two riders in a kart for Double Dash, but the rest of the game is so well made you can’t help but have fun with the title.

Then there are the games that have an amazing concept and forget about every other aspect of the game. Psi Ops – The Mindgate Conspiracy unfortunately falls into that category. POtMC is pretty fun simply because the concept is just so cool. While you carry a gun with you at all times, most of the time you will be using the power of your mind to make those weaker than you die. With relative ease, you can pick up a nearby opponent and whip them around the room, into walls and off of ledges, without even batting an eye. If you’re lucky enough to catch an opponent off guard you can make their head explode – a great party trick. And if you’re feeling particularly nasty you can take control of a guard and make him do the dirty work for you. And, to wipe his memory, you can make him commit suicide when he’s done being a traitor to whatever cause he’s fighting for.

All of these elements are really fun and are thankfully easy to pull off. But, Midway made every other aspect of this game as generic as they possibly could. The story is the same as XIII – you wake up with your mind erased and kill hundreds of people in an attempt to figure out who you are – and the game even borrows more from XIII with extremely boring level design. Every level is set up the same: Large room connects to hallway connects to large room connects to another hallway.

I need another paragraph here just to talk about the story. I know there are some people out there who like a story, for whatever reason. This game just has way too much story for its own good. There are some stretches in the game where you are shown a cut scene, then go back to playing for 17 seconds, only to have another cut scene immediately start up again, interrupting your gameplay experience. The story is absolutely horrendous, and the frequent stoppage of actually playing the game totally sucked me out of the experience. Why can’t games just go back to the Contra school of telling stories: if you don’t have anything interesting to tell just say aliens attacked Earth. Don’t interrupt the gameplay with more story. To make matters worse, you don’t even have any psychic abilities in the beginning of the game because you’re memory is erased and you have to slowly remember how to do these things. That just makes the game less fun guys.

And the control, as perfect as it is for PsiOptic abilities, is completely useless in a fire fight. You hold your gun like a frozen salmon, and your enemies, who so readily die when being slammed into a wall, can absorb a clip of ammo before taking a graceful bow. And don’t think you won’t be forced to go the old fashion gun route that often. There are many instances where you will need to use your muscle instead of your mind, and any time you inhabit an enemy’s body you will be using their gun to kill their friends.

The worst offense, though, is the fact that this game is 3rd person. Why do companies keep making 3rd person shooters? They never control as well as their first person brethren, and there is no advantage at all to this out of body perspective. I guarantee the issues I have with horrible gun control could be alleviated, if only slightly, if they just let me just have a first person perspective. Bah, I say. Stupid developers can’t even get the most basic concepts right.

To top it all off, the game also has one of the worst co-op modes of all time. Sure, props to Midway for including a co-op mode at all, but this is just ridiculous. Borrowing a page from Smash TV, player one controls the movement of your character while player two controls the shooting and mind control stuff. Seems decent on paper, but in practice it’s an aggravating affair with much yelling and blame being dealt out. A concept that was fun during the day - my brother was in charge of shooting in Smash TV and would periodically go on strike, leaving me the joy of running around a room with no means to protect myself - is now just annoying. Why not go the Perfect Dark route and include a completely independent partner?

Despite all of the problems, the game is still fun. After you learn all your psychic abilities (you get a new move or two per level), the horrible AI and level design really bring this game into the mud. Certainly worth a rental, but no more than that.