14 DAY TRIAL // 
Midway's sleeper title Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy really took me by surprise. There have been a handful of games to toy with the idea of psychic abilities over the years, with varying degrees of success, but I haven't seen it so well implemented in any game until now. It does have its issues and there's plenty of room for improvement, however the developers of the Jedi Knight series have much to learn from Psi Ops' psychic parade.
Story Nick Scryer is an American Psi-Agent sent to infiltrate a terrorist organization known as "The Movement", led by a power hungry ex-general evidently bent on taking over the world. The general has surrounded himself with a colorful bunch of powerful psychics that seem cut straight up from B-grade comic books, so in order to avoid detection, Nick has his memories and powers temporarily wiped before the mission. After being captured and imprisoned by "The Movement", he is freed by Sarah, a double agent and the seemingly necessary female character who periodically aids our fearless main hero in his villain hunting. Well, it's your everyday Hollywood action story filled to the brim with clich?s and wooden acting, but the gameplay more than makes up for it, and that's what matters.
Gameplay Psi Ops plays like your average third-person action shooter at the beginning, with a fairly slim selection of generic weapons and a rudimentary stealth element thrown in for variety. For this portion of the game it seems there really isn't much to it, but once you start learning to use your psychic powers again, everything changes.
The amnesia of the main character seems more like an excuse for not starting the game with the full psychic arsenal, but it works. Nick gradually acquires new powers over the course of the game as he remembers how to use them, and gaining one will trigger a flashback of the training session with that power from when he was a new Psi-Agent just starting out. These flashbacks serve as tutorials in the use of each power, and the idea of interweaving them with the gameplay in this fashion is a very nice creative touch.
The first psi power that you acquire relatively soon into the game is Telekinesis, which allows you to move objects with your mind and is easily the most versatile of the lot. Telekinesis comes into play in simple puzzle solving, like stacking crates to reach higher areas, or even turning one into a hovering platform as you stand on it, and also proves useful for grabbing out of reach items like ammo packs or weapons; however the most fun use for it is as a weapon. All objects that litter the environments (most of them for no other reason than because you can make use of them) can be used as projectiles against your enemies or as a shield, but the fun part is you can also pick up the enemy soldiers themselves, and the number of ways in which you can dispose of them is staggering. Not only can you fling them into other enemies or exploding barrels, brutally slam them into walls or drop them from great heights, but you can even keep them suspended in mid-air while you fill them full of lead, and the ease with which you can accomplish these actions is just as impressive.
Telekinesis is definitely the star of the show; however, the rest of the powers are also very useful. Remote Viewing gives you the ability to jump out of your body and scout ahead undetected, from a first-person perspective. You can pass through doors in this state, only through doors and not even through all of them, but hey, it's a console action game. Mind Control is fantastic in that it allows you to take over the bodies of enemies and control them completely (only one at a time). You can have them unlock doors, shoot other enemies or force them to commit suicide in any number of ways, even make them blow their brains off with their own weapons. Pyrokinesis allows you to shoot fire from your fingertips, which is especially useful in later levels when you come across enemies that are not affected by telekinesis or mind control, Aura View lets you see hidden objects and passageways that you can't see normally, useful in solving various puzzles along the way, and the last of them, Mind Drain, turns you into a psychic vampire, meaning you can draw PSI energy from the brains of others until their heads explode -- if you manage to sneak up on them that is. All powers are great on their own, but the game really gets fun when you start combining them, and it gets to a point where you just want to experiment with enemies, to see how much abuse they can take.
The enemies you face are kind of stupid, but the challenge comes from the game's tossing lots of them at you at once. They don't always attack from logical areas, as they often mysteriously appear at preset dead-ends, even right behind you when you're near such a spawn-point, which is none that surprising given the nature of the game. The boss fights against the general's Psi agents, each specialized in one of the powers, are all memorable, especially the one against Edgar Barrett, the Master of Telekinesis, who can move huge objects with his mind while you're limited to mid-sized objects. There are some collision and camera issues, though it appears no console game would be complete without them.
You can re-play the boss battles as many times as you wish, which is a nice feature, and there also are a lot of things to unlock, ranging from modes of play to outfits and skins for the main character. I personally couldn't care less about such banalities, but if you do, you're in for a treat.
Video and audio Graphically, the game is above average. The levels are quite bland and unimaginative, and the character models don't look anything special, however they are well animated and react in a very natural fashion when shot or when thrown around like rag dolls, thanks to the excellent implementation of the Havok 2 physics engine. Particularly noteworthy are the effects of the Psi powers, from the blue crackle of telekinesis, to the distorted vision when using remote viewing or aura view.
There's nothing notable about Psi-Ops the in the sound department. The voice work is monotonous and forgettable, and so are the sound effects, while the original music from the band Cold left me, well, cold. But with all the Psi filled fun, who's going to notice the sound anyway?
Multiplayer Psi-Ops can only be played cooperatively, however the second player does not get to control a separate character as you'd expect. Instead, one player controls Nick's movement and melee attacks, while the other controls Nick's weapons and Psi powers, and boy, does it suck. When you think someone actually imagined this would be fun?
Conclusion Psi-Ops is a surprisingly good game and a breath of fresh air in the crowded action genre. If the idea of psychic powers tickles your fancy, this one's a keeper.
