Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

The mind can be the most powerful weapon around and if you just happen to get on Nick Scryer’s bad side then don’t expect his wrath to come from a mere pistol but rather the power of his dangerous mind.  At a moment’s notice you can find yourself floating across the room and being dropped from enormous heights or perhaps you’d lose all control of your own mind and decide to attack your friends in a suicidal rage.  In Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, you’ll come to discover that Nick’s mind powers aren’t just parlor tricks but unique weapons--and boy are they fun to unleash.

When we first see Nick, he’s going through a painful mind wipe that removes any memory he might have had of his past life and facial reconstruction.  Sent to a battle against the Movement, a massive terrorist group that is lead by a band of villains with psychic abilities, Nick is captured and imprisoned in the Movement’s stronghold.  Suddenly a woman named Sara injects our captured hero with a serum that helps him remember bits and pieces of his past life . . . like the fact that he was once trained by the Mindgate department and that he too possessed psychic abilities such as telekinesis and pyrokinesis.  Now Nick is out to escape the Movement’s stronghold and confront the leaders of the Movement.

Nick begins the game with nothing more than a pistol and an ammo clip.  The shooting action isn’t anything we haven’t seen before either but it is still handled smoothly enough to make it fun.  Nick could lean against a wall for cover, crouch and has a pretty dangerous melee attack that consists of punches and kicks.  You’ll get an assortment of guns such as machine guns, shotguns, pistols and even a rocket launcher.  Sill, not everything is about shooting.  Nicks’ memories begin to surface slowly and he begins to regain the memory of his Mindgate department training, which serve as tutorials for each of his six individual psychic abilities: Telekinesis, Mind Control, Pyrokinesis, Remote Viewing, Mind Drain Aura View.

Half the fun of Psi-Ops is discovering the many uses for a few of Nick’s abilities.  The first ability Nick recalls--Telekinesis--allows him to pick up practically any object that isn’t bolted down and send it crashing into an enemy.  You can also “lift” your foe and send him crashing against a wall or into a bunch of his buddies (can you say human bowling?).  If that wasn’t enough, you can also levitate things toward you like extra ammo or climb on top of an object, levitate it, and ride it like Magneto does in X2: X-Men United.  Pyrokinesis allows you to burn anything that happens to get in your path while Remote Viewing allows you to literally go out of your physical self to see what’s behind a door.  The most unique ability is Mind Control, which has you taking direct control of your enemy and has your foe shoot his fellow co-workers or have him jump off a ledge. 

Using Nick’s mind powers drains his PSI power meter but thanks to Mind Drain he can deplete the PSI energy of dead enemies or live ones to replenish the meter.  This pretty much gives Nick enough options to use throughout the game and they come especially handy when going up against the few bosses you encounter like Wei Lu or Edgar Barrett who use their own psychic powers against Nick.  Aside from the bosses you’ll be up against plenty of soldiers and a story plot that has its own surprising twists.

Psi-Ops is also a short game, which will greatly disappoint those gamers who will, no doubt, get caught up in the game’s addictive action.  The game does throw you in some pretty sticky predicaments since you don’t often face two or three enemies at a time but four or five at a time.  This mean Nick will have to use cover and conceal tactics if he wants to survive the constant onslaught.  Still, this isn’t so bad.  The game also tosses in some stealth elements but they are just suggested as an option and not a requirement like the Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid games.  One major complaint, though.  The game suggests a kind of co-op mode but it has one player controlling the main character and the other player controlling Nick’s powers.  This really doesn’t work well at all so Midway was better off not including it in the game or they could have added Sara as a playable character a friend could control.

As for the game’s visuals, the Xbox has seen better in terms of environmental detail but compared to the PS2 version the graphics are crisp and clear.  Nick isn’t the most prettiest of faces to look at but watching him interact with the environment or kicking an enemy in the guts is pretty neat.  Still, it’s his abilities that make up the visual beauty and it won’t fail to bring a smile to your face as you watch Nick force an enemy to do his best Peter Pan impression.  The “rag doll” effect works wonderfully here and your enemies drape over objects so much better than Hitman: Contracts that it’s almost a twisted joy watching them take a nasty tumble.

As for the game’s sound, it could have used more audible detail such as a longer crackling flame after you set a crate (or a guard) on fire.  You can’t even hear the footsteps of a running enemy along a corridor so you really don’t know when an enemy is approaching when you’re hiding behind something.  Still, the game’s score is pretty good, as is the voice acting that doesn’t get cheesy despite the visually stereotypical characters.

Who would have thought that psychic abilities were so much fun to let loose on terrorists?  Fans of the action genre will love the blood and bullets approach but will stay for the ultra cool powers that push the action to extreme new heights.  The game could have used a good multiplayer mode or another reason to keep playing it but what’s here isn’t bad at all. Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy is the most fun you’ll have with psychic powers so pick this one up if you’ve always wanted to toss enemies around with the flick of your wrist. 

Gameplay: 9.0
Psi-Ops neatly blends stealth, shooting and the use of special powers and handles them all perfectly.  As an action game with plenty of gunfights, you’ll have enough moves to duck and cover and stick to walls.  As a stealth game, you can sneak around well enough that you can catch a guard, well, off-guard and dispatch him.  Yet it’s the powers that steal the show and how it’s used make this an addictive game.  The level design is decent enough and there are boss fights to add variety to it.  All in all, this game runs pretty smoothly.

Graphics: 8.0
Graphically speaking, the Xbox version gets the smoother textures and more details when it comes to the characters.  While the majority of the environments look really plain, they do give you the sense that the Movement’s base is as seedy as the men and women who run it.  The biggest visual highlights is watching Nick use his powers and the glow that surrounds him while he’s using powers like telekinesis.  The animated cut scenes are also excellent, especially the cinematic opening scene.

Sound: 8.0
The game could have really used more sound effects for each power.  Using Telekinesis, for example, produces a sound effect that sounds a lot like the effect of using Mind Control.  The game also mentions that soldiers can pick up the sound of you stepping on a puddle or metallic surface but when they walk on said puddle they make no sound.  Still, the game’s soundtrack is decent and the voice acting is done well.

Difficulty: Medium
The Movements soldiers, also affectionately known as meat puppets, aren’t complete idiots and do take cover when you’re firing back at them and do formulate attacks of their own.  You’ll often find them cleverly throwing grenades at you before deciding on charging towards you and they’ll often make use of their numbers.  This makes the game challenging even in the game’s normal setting so expect plenty of punishment from the soldiers.  The boss fights are of the memorize-their-attack-pattern type so they put up a fight but after a try or two you can pretty much figure out how to defeat them.

Concept: 8.2
Psi-Ops could have been your average action shoot-’em-up but the PSI powers give the game their fresh twists that will have gamers really abuse the enemy anyway they’d like.  There’s nothing cooler than taking control of a meat puppet and having him blow holes into his own friends or shoot a flammable gas tank and blow it up in his face.  The game allows you to use Nick’s powers anyway you’d like so you can be as creative as you want in disposing of your enemies.  The lack of an actual multiplayer mode for a game that suggests co-op play is very disappointing, though.

Overall: 8.6
Okay, so it might not be the most innovative game this year but the perfect blend of shooting and the use of nifty mind powers make Psi-Ops an action-packed treat for fans of the action genre.  We’re talking levitating enemies and sending them flying across the room or setting things (and people) aflame--how is that not fun?  If you’re in the mood for an action game that’s just downright addictively fun then look no further.