OK, so a few days ago I reinstalled Psychonauts, and for the part few 
days I've been playing it.

It turns out that back in 2011, they added some Steam integration to it. 
Doesn't appear to have changed anything else, just that. Then again, 
unlike some *other* games I might mention, Psychonauts has never been a 
game in need of stability improvements or other bug-fixes. (It would be 
nice to be able to *steer* though...)

I looked it up on Wikipedia, and appearently this game is not nearly as 
old as I thought it was. They actually released it in 2005. (Frightening 
thing: 2005 is actually a long time ago now.) The graphics aren't 
exactly top-notch, and the controls are just horrible. The difficulty 
curve gets almost vertical about half-way through, and 100% completion 
is near impossible. And yet, I really love this game. Why is that?

Some games don't have a story. (E.g., Tetris. There is no story. You 
just slot the blocks together.) But many games do have a bit of a story. 
Usually, though, it seems like pretty much an after-thought.

Take, for example, Quake II. The only "story" is that aliens invade 
Earth, so the US Marines go to invade the alien home-world. Somehow you 
are the only guy who made it. Your mission? Kill everything that moves, 
and maybe press a few buttons and find some keys and stuff. That's about 
it, really. Oh, sure, between levels that little green-screen thingy 
comes up to tell you where you just exited and what your next objective 
is... But it's a strictly linear map. You can basically ignore that 
entire video, and it doesn't make much difference.

Let's try another: HalfLife. The "story" is that a terrible accident 
occurs, causing Earth to be invaded by aliens. Your job is simply to get 
out alive somehow. Oh there is a *bit* more of a story this time; the 
military has come to silence anyone who escapes. And then a bunch of 
black-ops guys try to silence the military. And something about a 
satellite and a nuclear warhead... But, again, you don't really have to 
care if you don't want to. The story is optional.

Both of these are of course first-person shooters. But take something 
like the excellent Abe's Oddessy. That's a 2D platformer (with some 
delicious 3Dish visuals). Again, the "story" is that you're a persecuted 
worker trying to escape from an oppressive life of slavery and liberate 
your fellow workers. There is a little bit more to it than that, but 
basically you spend most of the game climbing ladders and pressing 
buttons and stuff. Again, it's nearly linear, so you don't really need 
to care /why/ you're doing all this stuff; that's optional.

Not only is this stuff optional, but it /feels/ optional. It's like the 
level designers decided what levels they were going to design, and then 
tried to come up with a story to justify why you have to do this. And 
the dialogue is delivered in a way that makes it sound like it's only 
there to justify the next challenge.

"Yes, Dr Freeman. Somebody must go into the reactor and restart the 
pumps. Naturally, you've have to battle past that giant creature out 
there which is impervious to everything except the fanblades of the 
reactor core. Of course, there's a dozen of us all standing around here 
not doing anything, but we're *scientists*, we're far too chicken to 
actually lift a finger to do anything about our plight. But you? You 
have the hazard suit... Help us, you're our only hope!"

It's not to say that these are bad games, but rather that story is not 
their primary focus. And to some extent, nobody seriously /expects/ a 
mere computer game to have a real story to it.

Psychonauts is different. It delivers the story as if it means it. But 
it doesn't do that thing some games do where it feels like the game just 
wants to be a movie and you're getting in the way of the 
perfectly-written script. It feels organic and lively. The characters 
have actual personalities beyond "epic hero" and "cartoon villain". It's 
surprisingly deep. And most of all... it makes you realise just how pale 
everything else is by comparison.

Don't get me wrong; there are plenty of actual movies that have far more 
depth to them than this little computer game. But it still does better 
than I thought I'd see in a game.

Also... I love Black Velvetopia. It is a very beautiful place. And it's 
also the level with the best psychology, in my opinion. After you 
complete the level, you feel like you actually got to the bottom of the 
guy's problems, and solved them. By contrast, Boyd still seems as mad as 
ever when you're done. I am in awe of the level designers who managed to 
model those bent and twisted streets though.

Interesting fact: I just completed the game, with 4 instances of POV-Ray 
running in the background, and I didn't notice any performance loss. I 
guess this game is just really light on the CPU!

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