GALAXY BRAIN
You can tell a lot about a game’s soul by what it deems a ‘perk’. In Psychonauts 2, Double Fine will sell you a ‘beastmastery’ pin badge modifier that allows Raz’s psychic fist—usually used for thumping and tossing—to stroke woodland animals. You spend money to hurt fewer things. Another pin makes him groove when left unattended; dance like no is watching, when no one is playing. Honestly? It’s a tonic.
As headlines go ‘Tim Schafer game favors silliness over sadism’ is hardly a shocker. But it’s been 15 years since the original; time enough to forget how silly can be, and the startling places those jokes can take us. Of course, for the game’s inhabitants, it’s been but three days: wannabe Psychonaut Raz left Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp on a rescue mission—seen in VR adventure, —and we rejoin him in its aftermath. A video fills all that in, but first-hand experience is recommended given the
