Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
- May 21, 2004 12:11 PM PST
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In Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, the brain is much, much mightier than the bullet (rubber spoon, rubber spoon, rubber spoon?).
When we first took a look at Psi-Ops, it was unclear how Midway was going to combine the traditional aspects of weapons-based combat games like Metal Gear Solid with the Jedi-like ?psionic? (mind) powers of lead character Nick Scryer. However, after playing demos of the nearly identical Xbox and PS2 versions (the Xbox demo boasted superior graphics), the answer is clear: They blend beautifully.You play as Scryer, an American Psi-operative soldier fighting a battle against hordes of brainwashed terrorist troops bent on world domination. While your arsenal of traditional firearms is plenty fierce in its own right (including handguns, sniper rifles, flamethrowers, assault rifles, and grenades to name a few), your feats of mental magic are by far your greatest weapons.
Your cool collection of psionic powers includes telekinesis, mind control, remote viewing (similar to an out-of-body experience), mind drain, and pyrokinesis -- the latter of which is capable of transforming a bunch of bad guys into smoldering piles of blackened flesh in a mere matter of seconds. These enemies, however, aren?t about to be barbequed willingly, so they fight accordingly and move with urgency and intelligence -- thanks to some clever A.I. programming.
The ability to combine your psychic powers gave the demo a pleasantly nonlinear feel by allowing you to dispose of enemies and interact with your environment in a variety of ways. With burning flesh, exploding heads, and floating corpses, what?s not to like about Psi-Ops?
