Recent reviews by Mr_Blank

A fantastic, 9/10 experience totally worth your time.

As someone who didn’t play the first psychonauts until 2018, And as someone who didn’t consider it that good, I didn’t expect a sequel this thought provoking, interesting, emotional and beautiful. The first game came out nearly 18 years ago, and wasn’t received well at the time. The first one, after revisit, is surprisingly good, although the controls are definitely dated despite the audio, soundtrack and visuals all being great, especially considering when this game came out.

So how does a game that’s only “good” warrant a sequel that is pure gold???

Psychonauts 2 improves on every single part of the original on a massive scale, with the sounds being more powerful, the soundtrack being amazing, the visuals being out of this world, and the story being a lot more grounded and personal to the main character.

Raz is much more interesting in this instalment, mainly because instead of being a ragtag ten year old goofball trying to save the world and not really developing a lot, every experience Raz goes through in the sequel changes him and forces him to grow as a better psychic and a better person.

Comparing my favorite level to this game to my favourite level to the original PERFECTLY proves this. In the brain of Boyd cooper, my favorite from psychonauts 1, the entire point of the level is letting out a deranged alter ego do that boyd stops doing his job. Basically, Raz uses his power to shatter someone’s mind and morals, and basically makes a renegade serial killer.

In my favorite level in psychonauts 2, you enter the brain of a supposedly deceased character and use their memories to put them back togeather. While bringing the dead back to life is questionable, bringing back this specific character is INTERGRAL for fixing others, and furthering the plot.

What I’m trying to say is that while both games are kiddish fun that happen to handle serious tones like mental disability depression and alter egos, psychonauts 2 handles it in a much more mature way, and uses the psychic powers in a positive way to FIX peoples brains instead of shattering them.

Getting into spoiler territory now, Raz does this for Compton, a man suffering with self doubt and loneliness, Cassie, a woman with multiple alter egos who has been unraveled, Bob, a man full of grief and hate of himself who distanced himself from his only friends, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, Raz’s great grandmother who was consumed by power and hatred and destroyed an entire civilization. Raz goes into these brains and helps every one of these character fix their own problems, making him few more mature and more grown up than he ever was in the original. So the story and narrative is fantastic, so what about everything else?

The music and sounds ARE AMAZING. Every single track is adapted to the correct environment, making the game feel more alive and much more interesting visually and toneallly. For example, the brain of a character filled with the idea of risk and money has turned into a massive casino, with a theme that perfectly sells the chaos and risk of gambling and bargaining. In the brain of that deceased brain I mentioned, each area is split by sense, having each sense even represented by a different friend of the person the brain belonged to. The theme literally changes to fit whatever instrument that specific character played, sheathed it be fords guitar or bobs drums, and every theme in this brain feels straight out of a psychedelic pink Floyd album, which goes perfectly with the colourful and vibrant feel of this specific brain. The last thing I should mention before I move on is that every sound effect from razs powers or a different psychics power PERFECTLY sell the that powers theme. The mental connection ability, allowing you to zip around on these stray thoughts in a brain has a quick and powerful sound effect selling how fast your moving. The clairvoyance ability allowing you to see through the minds of others has a sound effect that sounds like a portal opening as of your entire perspective of reality has changed, because it has!

Last major things I need to talk about are the controls and the visuals, starting with the former.

Raz controls EFFORTLESSLY, with each of his skills being amazing in combat (apart from clairvoyance), his jumps feeling powerful and satisfying, and his dodges being quick and efficient. Words can not give Justice fo how amazing Raz controls.

Finally, the cutscenes and the overall visuals. Each brain and area you visit is GOREGOUS, and for a linear campaign they gave you a lot to do. Psyconauts has four hub worlds to explore and THIRTEEN different unique brains to explore, all with different and unique styles and aesthetics. The cutscenes are ridiculous, characters are expressive and voiced to perfection, and the animation is so powerful snd fluid you’d think it came out of a feature film made by dreamworld or pixar.

Overall, psyconauts is a visually and narratively genus if and with fantastic controls, music, audio and characters. An easy 9/10 that Microsoft should totally recognize so Schaffer and his team can do more depth at this calliber.

Grounded is surprisingly amazing, considering this is Obsidian Entertainment’s first open world survival game, and considering this game started development during Microsoft’s movement for the series x and s. Considering they had their focus on other titles that were more promising, like halo infinite and psychonauts 2, you wouldn’t expect games that didn’t have focus to come out good, or even better than other Microsoft originals.

Grounded was an early access open world, and playing it now I can say it has improved MASSIVELY.

Grounded is a very fresh and interesting take on survival, being so close to civilization, but being the size of a flea and not being able to get back home. The way the backyard is rendered and set up really sells the feeling of you being so small, with areas like the sandbox being an entire dessert, or the hedge being a dark and dangerous nest crawling with spiders. It’s the same feeling games like subnautica give you, where you’re so minuscule compared to everything else in an environment you should not be in.

I did not expect the combat to be interesting considering these are the same people behind outer worlds (found it super contrived and boring there, but I digress). However, the combat is very interesting and fun, a mixture of amazing 80s and 90s themed intend and psychedelic music mixing greatly with the riviting combat of blocking and qttacking with your violence of choice. The weapons in this game are very creative, ranging from just a normal stone spear, to a poison dagger made from the fang of a spider, or a spear made with the stinger of a bee.

The enemy variety is so refreshing, with over 40 different hostile enemies to fight, and six different bosses. I love how al the bugs for the most part actually act like their real life counterparts, with soldier ants protecting the nests and smaller ants, and worker ants collecting materials like cut grass. For the most part creatures like mosquitoes and spiders sleep during the day, which makes sense since they’re nocturnal. These simple mechanical choices for the insects makes the world feel more real AND alive, allowing for a much more fun and interesting adventure.

Speaking of interesting, the story is also interesting, learning about how the kids got shrunk and why they’re in a random backyard. The adventure across the map allows for some intriguing discoveries that further the plot and reveal more about the science behind the shrinking. This al leads to a climactic final level and an AMAZING conclusion to the story.

Overall, grounded is a creative, fun and interesting game, which never fails to amaze me. While it’s not the strongest story wise or visual wise, it’s still an amazing experience.

8/10, a definite recommendation.