Psychonauts gets Steam achievements, is still great

Psychonauts

A surprise Steam update for the wonderful Psychonauts has arrived, adding Steam achievements and cloud saves. The update also tweaks the criminally annoying Meat Circus section that had players tiptoeing along tightropes a hundred feet off the ground, having to start again with every fall. It was the worst part of an otherwise fantastic game. It will also be ported over to Macs, if you're into that sort of thing.

Psychonauts was the last title from Tim Schafer's Double Fine studio before they stopped making games for the PC. That makes us sad. But as last memories are rarely as funny and bizarre as Psychonauts' mental worlds.

You play as Raz, a boy with a talent for telekinesis who enrols in the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp to develop his psychic powers. Then the camp is attacked, and someone starts stealing everyone's brains. You have to dive into different minds to discover the culprit, exploring wildly different mental landscapes that reflect the personality of the character you're invading. One level takes place in a twisted version of suburbia, in the mind of a paranoid man who thinks everyone's out to get him. In another, you're a giant stomping monster, terrorizing a city full of terrified fish. It's hilarious, inventive, and just £5.99 / $9.99 on Steam .

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.