Stuck

First off, I have now determined that I cannot keep this updated during the busiest time of the year. It's been awhile since I've updated, mostly because of ARG-mania, then grading mania (more like depression).

But I've had the week off, and now that I've kicked the Oblivion monkey off my back, I dug into the backlog and booted up this gem:


I've given this away as a prize in class, and I've heard nothing but great things about it, so I suppose it was time. The conventional wisdom says that Psychonauts didn't sell because it looked too weird and no one knew what the hell it was. So let's clear that up:

It's a platformer.

If you like jumping puzzles, this is the game for you. Sure it's got quirky art direction and a story, but when you're done watching both the prerendered and in-engine cutscenes (what's up with that? Could the engine not handle some of the things they wanted it to do?) I've now been playing it for about two weeks, and I'm almost done (I think). A few things to talk about here.

Stop with the invulnerable bosses. Every boss in the game has some sort of trick, and your standard attacks generally don't work. Or maybe they work, but only when the red doohickey is showing on the boss's chest. The most egregious example was shortly after I learned telekinesis (picking stuff up and throwing it) I had to fight a giant fish. The fish kept opening its mouth, sucking everything in (including me) and then spitting it all out again to hit me with flying debris. So I figure I should probably use my newly-learned TK to throw stuff at him. No dice. Okay, maybe I have to get it right into his mouth (the soft upper-palate or something). Nope.

Off to the FAQ. [SPOILER] I'm supposed to break the boxes that are flying around with my old punching abilitie. The boxes are, coincidentally, full of tacks, and when he sucks the tacks in, they damage him. This leads me to my next gripe--

If I need a FAQ to complete your game, then maybe we're both doing something wrong. I feel like consulting the FAQ is cheating (a bit), but life is too short, guys. I don't want to have to die 35 times in order to figure out that I have to punch the box on the ground instead of the fish that's threatening me. I'm a relatively smart guy, and I can figure things out with a hint or two, but there were just too many times in this game where I was at a loss as to what I was supposed to do next.

Stop with the "This is The End- OH! No it's not! There's one more boss!" I figured out who the bad guy was, I defeated the mad scientist, I blew up the evil lair. Hell, the game even autosaved and told me this was The Point of No Return. So I should be at the last boss fight, right? No. There's a boss fight, alright, then there's an escort mission, then another boss fight, then jumping puzzles!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and then I suppose there's going to be another boss fight, or maybe something else. I don't know, I'm stuck at the jumping puzzles. I thought I was going to finish this darn thing on Monday, and here it is Friday and I'm still not done. I think I'm about done, but each challenge is just so darn difficult that it takes me ages to get by it.

For instance, before I started writing this I was stuck here:


Yes, I'm standing on a steak and I have to jump to that netting over there that coincidentally is on fire. Below me the water is rising, so I have limited time to do everything.

According to the FAQ:

This is, perhaps, the most difficult section of the entire Meat Circus. To make things easier on yourself, once you are on the first fence, try to jump to the inside of the second fence and then stay on the inside of the fences. You'll need to use double-jumps and a bit of floating to get between each fence. Be sure to constantly rotate your camera to allow yourself the most direct view of each jump.

And the other FAQ:

Get as high as you can before you DOUBLE-JUMP and glide to the second screen, then shimmy left some more and do similar jump to reach the third screen [this is a hard jump].

Ya gotta love the stoic calm of the FAQ-writer.

Yikes! I spent all of Wednesday night trying these first two jumps. I couldn't do it. Yesterday afternoon, I nailed it. I got to the top of this series of impossible jumps. I screamed in triumph!! Then I looked for where to go next-- I jumped to a meat platform, and the waters rose and killed me in an instant.

So I did it again.

Tried to make it to a different meat platform. Died again. I've now done this most difficult part of the entire game over and over and I can't survive mostly because I have no idea where to go next!!

ARRRRRRGH.

I haven't even fired it up today.

This is why people don't buy games like Psychonauts. There is no recourse. I can't turn down the difficulty. I don't even think there are cheats. I just have to do it.

I'll do it. Eventually.