falling back into the old addiction

[egypturnash]

ultraken mentioned getting Psychonauts for his PC this past weekend and having a lot of fun playing it. He got it via Steam for twenty bucks. Rik has Steam and a machine capable of it, and I haven't played anything like this in about a year. I happen to have picked up a USB controller for MAME purposes the day before Ken talked about the game, too.

So I got it. A day later, after it downloaded, I stayed up late playing it, and then spent all today playing it. Literally. I didn't even get up off my ass to go out to the store to get a new bottle of Diet Coke until Rik came home and wanted his machine back. I got out of bed and booted it up, I got up to pee a few times. That's it for today. Good thing I don't have any paying deadlines, though this is getting me no closer to doing Bucket O Blood in time for a Halloween release. (1/4 boarded, ship designs being pondered. Hints of gags evolving from chance things filling in these mostly full-page boards.)

I think I'm about halfway through it; I got stuck for a while on the very creepy world inside the paranoid conspiracy nut's head. It started to get to me before I finally got through it. It's a really well-done game - and it's clearly made by cartoonists. Moreso than pretty much any 3D platformer I can remember playing, it's a world that's clearly designed. Everything is weird and off-kilter and stylized. But pretty.

Some self-destructive part of me has been wanting to get a used PS2 for, well, a fix of pretty much just this kind of game. With the price of the controller I got, I'm only out forty bucks and a few days, instead of however much a used PS2 costs now plus a game and a TV and a much greater chance of impulsing on another week of my life down the drain every few months... instead I'm getting my fix this way.

Story-based platform bouncy games still just eat my fucking head in a way that I'm really not comfortable with.

I wonder if this is what drives some people into making games: the knowledge that they can so easily lose themselves in one, and wanting to short-circuit that by losing themselves in their own world instead of someone else's?

Comments

[grrrowly.livejournal.com]

Psychonauts is an amazing game. ♥

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

It's certainly well-loved. Watching Rik play it this evening, I saw him triggering conversations I completely missed, in my different path through the first few levels. it does a nice job of parodying 'bright kid completely failing to fit in' experiences; damn near every corner is polished. "Huh," I thought, climbing the tower in Lungfishopolis. "That's the first time I've actually noticed pixels in a texture."

It's just that the combination of well-done narrative and reflex loops keys into my brain in a really obsessive way, that I'm less and less comfortable with as the years go on. I still like the experience when I'm having it, but I just get stuck in it.

This is why I will never, ever, ever join a MMORPG. The procession of new goals is never-ending, and I'd get stuck on the addiction treadmill.

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Sort of. But it even drives me to keep playing a game after I decide that I don't like it.

I thankfully managed not to get too addicted to World of Warcraft on that 14-day trial disc I had. For a while I kept grinding out of what I can only describe as a deep feeling of necessity, but I ended up ditching the game for good long before the trial period ended. I hate that game.

[grrrowly.livejournal.com]

Ditto on the MMORPG thing. I also have somewhat of an obsessive personality, though not as bad as when I was a kid.

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

God damnit, you too? I really need to get that game! I even have a PS2, so no need for a damn PC. Hmmmm...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I think it was originally XBox-only. Or else it came out after I ditched my consoles. Otherwise I probably would've gotten it - I was certainly aware of it at E3 and such.

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I recall seeing a copy for PS2 in an EB Games a while back, because I looked and I considered buying it. But now you've put doubt in my mind that I'm not crazy. Ach.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Double Fine's site lists it as being XB/PS2/PC, so you're not crazy. I'm not sure if it was X-only at first, or if it just came out after I sold all my games and consoles.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

I figured you would like it. :)

I think I liked the Milkman Conspiracy level best so far. The agents look creepy, but I found that their comical actions and deadpan delivery of absurd lines makes them somewhat endearing. They don't "attack" in the usual sense, as they're puzzle elements instead of enemies in the traditional sense.

I also liked the Waterloo World, though I got stuck for a while. I ended up having my system crash and discovered that I hadn't saved for a long time. Fortunately, my second run went much more smoothly once I figured out how to deal with the cannon guys.

I only had to use GameFaqs a couple of times when I got stuck. I played the rest completely on my own.

I found out the hard way that I should have gone back and finished up everything before committing to the "point of no return" section. I'll find all the collectable items after I reload a slightly older save game and take a spin through the Brain Tumbler to revisit the other levels.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

It's been twenty bucks well spent. It's a high-quality fix of big-budget narrative video game crack that'll keep me from jonesing for most of a year!

Yeah, the Milkman level was great, though its final boss was a bitch. I dunno, I stopped seeing the agents as comedic a few times, and it really... um... started to feel like being in a paranoid person's mind. I think it was meeting the girlscouts and having them call me creepy didn't help. I think I've met the person who has Waterloo inside 'em...

I had Nick look at the FAQ to get me into the post office. Partially because the alarm didn't fire when I idly poked at the keyboard the first time. That's it, so far.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that bit was tricky. I used Marksman to inflict damage, picked up the godseye and used Clairvoyance to see from her perspective, and Shield to block the godseyes she throws. Clairvoyance can be a lot of fun otherwise, particularly the amusing images the agents see when you're holding one of the appropriate items. I saw the agents themselves as simply obstacles, as they're only a threat when you aren't holding the right item. Talking to them can be rather amusing when you're "one of them".

Fred Bonaparte is the guy with Waterloo World. I like his character design and acting.

By the way, if you find all the "safes" and open them, some of the characters have fairly tragic stories.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I did that boss fight the way they seem to want you to do it: throwing her cookie-bombs back at her. Which had the problem of being really, really prone to missing.

Now that I got Clairvoyance, I've been checking what every single character sees me as. It's always something silly, often related to people's backstories. Which are, indeed, pretty twisted - this is really a very adult game. Which might be part of why it got so little promotion: platformers are typically sold as HAPPY FUN BUTT-BOUNCE SUNSHINE TIME, which this really is not - those cartoony View-Master reels of memories touch on a lot of kinds of loss and pain.

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is, it goes far beyond SHINE GET !!

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

Err, the second half of my comment seems to have been omitted. Oops. What I meant was this:

So what you're saying is, it goes far beyond "SHINE GET !!" to something like "SHINE GET … but at what cost?"

On second thought, that's not nearly as amusing as it was in my head.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

Psychonauts rules!

[waterotter.livejournal.com]

Good thing I don't have any paying deadlines, though this is getting me no closer to doing Bucket O Blood in time for a Halloween release.

If you take notes for creative ideas to steal while you're playing the game, it counts as productivity.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you have the cause and effect reversed, and some people are particularly drawn into these games out of a deep-seated desire to make one.
I think that's how it is with me.

[eyod.livejournal.com]

le sigh, it won't run on my computer and I can't find an Xbox copy any where. I need my psychonauts fix!

USB MAME controller?

[doctorpinkerton.livejournal.com]

Cool! Which one did you get?

Re: USB MAME controller?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

It's just a twenty-dollar Dual Shock ripoff from Logitech. pretty generic.