Using your mental mettle

By William Barker

Nick Scryer has an immense mental ability, and he cooks a mean vindaloo curry to boot

The idea of humans being able to use the power of thought alone to manipulate the physical world is, in my mind, somewhat absurd.

But in the realm of videogames, the idea is not only intriguing, but also immeasurably entertaining.

There you are, in a Czech army base hiding behind an unused cargo container, pinned down by an enemy sniper in a guard tower.

Most third person perspective action games would see you run out guns blazing, or perhaps return fire with some sniperage of your own or a well-placed rocket.

Psi-Ops, however, allows - nay, demands - for a number of different possible avenues to be explored. Upon my first try, I attempted to use telekinesis to throw a box at the sniper's head, potentially knocking him out.

But alas - I was mortally wounded by the piercing kiss of hot lead as I tried to get a line-of-sight. Next up, I tried hoisting up the soldier himself, with the goal of hurling him from his vile perch screaming and kicking.

Again, the piercing kiss...

My next effort was to prove successful however, and I remember smiling wickedly at my plan's malevolent simplicity. I used the possess skill to simply take control of the soldier and instructed the guard to jump from the high tower to his death.

A day in the life of a militarily trained conspiracy-busting psionic is pretty damned exhilarating, it has to be said, and Psi-Ops makes for one of the coolest third-person action games to come along in quite a few years.

Psi-Ops offers up a veritable smorgasbord of eye candy

First we had Second Sight, a game developed by Free Radical that told a story of a man with a corrupted memory and seemingly latent psionic powers trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.

In Psi-Ops, there also happens to be a man with a corrupted memory and seemingly latent psionic powers trying to figure out just what the hell is going on.

But this time around you have a different name - Nick Scryer. Good old Nick-no-dick, as I like to call him, is an elite operative for the Mindgate program, essentially a covert group comprised of those with powerful psychic abilities.

Mindgate's leader, a fellow who goes by the name of The General, decides that working for the Government is no way to get to heaven - no arguments here.

Therefore, he decides to take Mindgate's best and brightest and forms a terrorist group called The Movement that threatens to unleash psychic doom upon the world.

As Nick Scryer, it's your job to find out what The General is planning, and if it involves lederhosen, to eradicate him.

After this incredibly attractive intro sequence fades to black, getting Nick to do your bidding is fairly easy - anyone who's played a decent first or third person shooter will pick it up quickly.

Running around, hauling yourself up onto ledges and sneaking past guards is all part and parcel of the Psi-Ops gameplay, and the moves that Nick has up his sleeve enable him to explore a vast array of locations.

He can jump, run, crouch (which increases sniper accuracy and stealth), shoot and of course use his oversized brain to do some really crazy stuff. The way the game plays, or the gameplay if you like, is solid from start to finish, maintaining good pacing by balancing just the right amount of gunplay, item retrieval, exploration and story telling to keep things exciting.

Nick's constipation hampered his ass-kicking

The level design is really good too, and there will be few times when you see the same sections repeated to the Nth degree, like in some Halo levels for example.

You'll fight it out in cramped close quarters and outside in huge open areas too, and your psi-powers and various weapons will be used in different ways in these situations.

The controls are really intuitive and after a few levels of play most gamers will be waltzing around the place, brimming with psi-enhanced confidence. The right trigger shoots your guns, the left trigger activates telekinesis and the d-pad controls other psi-powers.

There's also a target lock-on button which is always nice, and you can also pummel your foes with your hands and feet if you're feeling cocky. When all things are considered, I must say that the control scheme it tip top, and makes repeat sessions something to look forward to.

Speaking of the psi powers (and akin to Second Sight), they are revealed in tutorials disguised as flashbacks, and are pretty lame it has to be said. They're dull and boring and most gamers who've been around for more than a day and half will want to skip them.

Anyway, your first psi power is telekinesis, and it gifts you with the ability to manipulate the physical world at a distance. You can, for example, pick up a box and stack it neatly against a wall enabling you to climb up said wall and retrieve a health pack.

Alternatively you could also use it to pick up and then hurl a flammable gas tank at a group of enemy soldiers, incinerating all upon impact. There's a lot you can do with this most basic of powers, including psi-surf, which is where you stand on a box or other object and lift it, enabling you to fly through the air with guns blazing.

Here's the full list of psi powers:

While the weapons play second fiddle to the psi-powers, they're still quite cool and very useful. For instance you can pick up a baddie with telekinesis and while he's hanging in the air, flailing wildy, simply pop a cap in his ass. Bam! Lights out lame-wad.

Just like any self-respecting shooter, firing an automatic weapon continuously will result in poor accuracy - it's all about the burst fire. Accompanying the weapons are some very nice sound samples too, giving them a bit more impact and making them a lot of fun to play with. There's machine guns, assault rifles, a silenced pistol for stealth work, sniper rifles, flame throwers - the list goes on.

When you combine these meaty weapons and devious psi-powers with an impressive physics engine, courtesy of Havok (also used in Half-Life 2 and Max Payne 2), the end result is a game that can be played again and again, and despite its linear plot, the way you approach any given situation is up to you.

Pyrokinesis burns everything

If you like tossing your foes around like ragdolls, smashing them through crates or hurling them into electric fences, feel free.

Or if you prefer old-school gunplay, lock, load and shoot your way through. Whichever path you choose, it's always engaging and always fun.

The graphics help in respect to making this game fun, and together with the Havok dynamics engine, which provides for gravity, momentum and all that other important stuff that governs our universe, the whole shebang looks amazing.

Though I can't vouch for the PS2 version, Psi-Ops on the Xbox is a visual success, making use of high resolution texture maps and bump mapping to give the game world a very defined, intricate appearance.

While very good in pretty much every respect, Psi-Ops isn't a flawless game. The map is useless and loading times are average, and you can sometimes get stuck in a situation by not possessing the correct guard or by running out of psi power.

While it still incorporates traditional third person shooter hallmarks, Psi-Ops add enough variety to keep you glued to the screen, and the boss fights are pretty damned cool too. There are not too many puzzles - which a good thing in my book - and as the story heats up, so do the levels, weapons and psi-powers. It all culminates in a very rich and high quality game, the likes of which hasn't been seen for a wee while.

Take this premise of a mind-controlling conspiracy that unfolds tellingly in high quality cut scenes, add plenty of gunplay, a solid physics engine supplied by Havok plus some cool mental powers and you have yourself one of the most enjoyable actioners to hit the consoles in the quite some time.

The idea of these psionic actioners is incredibly simple, so much so it's a wonder nobody's thought of it before. Both Psi-Ops and Second Sight are great games, and they're the first of their kind - so one can conclude that the best is yet to come. Highly Recommended.

Game: Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
System: Xbox
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Midway
Distributor: Red Ant Enterprises

Rating: 85%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy is on the shelves now.