Psychonauts Demo

Psychonauts Qu'est-ce Que C'est? It's a new demo for Psychonauts, that's what. This sample of Double Fine Productions' imminent third-person action game is a 457 MB download that offers the game's intro movie, some basic training and a taste of gameplay. The demo premiered on GameSpot DLX (registration required), and is mirrored on 3D Gamers, Boomtown (registration required), Computer Games Romania, FileFront, Filerush, FileShack (registration required), Gameguru Mania, Gamer's Hell, Happy Puppy (registration required), and Worthplaying.
View : : :
18 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
Newer [  1  ] Older
18.
 
Bad Graphics
Apr 12, 2005, 14:12
18.
Bad Graphics Apr 12, 2005, 14:12
Apr 12, 2005, 14:12
 
Tried it this afternoon, and got bad graphic glitches - anyone else too? Was on WinXP SP2, with pretty recent Detonators (7x.xx I think) for my Geforce 4 Ti4200, 512 RAM...

The upper half of the screen just flickered badly, no matter what I checked in the options menu (but then, I could only really see the lower half of the menu).

Intro movie ran fine though, just started flickering with the real game starting.

17.
 
Re: Interesting
Apr 12, 2005, 11:13
17.
Re: Interesting Apr 12, 2005, 11:13
Apr 12, 2005, 11:13
 
Wanting a new Grim Fandango

Oh if only...
Gather 'round children and i'll tell you a tale,
Of chipper the ripper the chipmunk from hell
16.
 
No subject
Apr 12, 2005, 01:17
16.
No subject Apr 12, 2005, 01:17
Apr 12, 2005, 01:17
 
Absolutely amazing. It brings back fond memories of Beyond Good and Evil.

Definitely going to check out the full game.

15.
 
Re: Interesting
Apr 11, 2005, 22:14
15.
Re: Interesting Apr 11, 2005, 22:14
Apr 11, 2005, 22:14
 
I was annoyed that the camera would actually fight me at times

Yeah, me too. It's got some sort of return-to-centre thing going on, which is really the sort of hand-holding feature that deserves a toggle. I don't always mind RTC in third person games, but this one's a bit over-zealous..

Aside from that, I thought it was great, but I can see myself being annoyed by the camera over time as well..

-----
I actually get paid for this..
-----
I'm not even angry. I'm being so sincere right now, even though you broke my heart and killed me.
14.
 
Interesting
Apr 11, 2005, 21:06
14.
Interesting Apr 11, 2005, 21:06
Apr 11, 2005, 21:06
 
I would have to imagine this plays better on a console, but it is a decent attempt at PC controls.

Overall, I thought it was ok, but I question the overall gameplay and there were a few nitpicks. Looking at the eigh remaining badges, is the game mostly entering minds or is there more to the "world" setting. It seems really heavy into collecting. I hit rank seven in his mind when I just gave up collecting figments; I was bored and figured I would pick up more in the outer world (little did I know that was the end of the demo) and collecting "money" did not seem as important since it respawns.

Graphically, it is good. Obviously, the designs are really creative, but I am surprised they went with such a muted color palette. I thought certain parts in the (brain) level just lacked lighting outright; once I did my light-up jump move, everthing lit up just fine and looked good. More contrast, please! Not a lot of whizzbang features, but it all ran well at 1280x1024 and the view distance/priority works fine.

Otherwise, I am just curious as to how much exploration there is in the "world" or if you are just running from head to head. I was surprised by the length of this demo; I thought that I would be able to get past the groundskeeper, get my mental web tool, and so forth.

My biggest gripe really is with the controls and camera. For a third-person game, I have played other games that did it much better; this system did not feel as free nor as smooth. Do not get me wrong, the controls are not "bad," but they could be improved. Excluding that roughness, I was annoyed that the camera would actually fight me at times and there was one point (sliding down the cave toward the refrigerator) where the (nearly) pre-set camera angle was terrible for looking at or spotting the side passage leading out. Likewise, because of how the camera was placed and the lack of contrast, certain jumps were a little harder than they should have been.

Overall, I did enjoy it, but I cannot see myself playing it for extended periods; the camera slowness/clunkiness of the game game would wear me down a bit. I see that, thankfully, the PC version will only MSRP for $30 and I think I will pick it up next week. After all, I finished Chaos Theory and I figure I am at least halfway through Swat 4. I'll trade both of those in and I should have nearly the $30 I need.

I do suggest it for all platformer fans, but I would only hold it as a good platformer with great aesthetic design in place of being the new Mario.
Mmmmmeh
Wanting a new Grim Fandango :(,
Ray

-----
Posting again! FOR THE WIN!
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
I love you, mom.
Everything is awesome!!!
http://www.kindafunny.com/
I love you, mom.
Avatar 2647
13.
 
Re: wow, great demo
Apr 11, 2005, 20:34
13.
Re: wow, great demo Apr 11, 2005, 20:34
Apr 11, 2005, 20:34
 
Out of the 3 demos I've downloaded today this was the only good one, and very good at that. I'd never heard of the game before this, and now it's made the must-buy list.

For anyone who's wondering if it's worth the 457 MB download, it is.....if for no other reason than the intro movie.

Edit: And now the Project: Snowblind demo. Today just made my mind up about whether or not to renew my Fileplanet subscription.
_________________________
Gameplay before graphics.
This comment was edited on Apr 11, 20:40.
12.
 
Psychonauts Qu'est-ce Que C'est?
Apr 11, 2005, 19:49
12.
Psychonauts Qu'est-ce Que C'est? Apr 11, 2005, 19:49
Apr 11, 2005, 19:49
 
run run run runrun runaway.... oh. oh... oh...

11.
 
Tips for extracting demos
Apr 11, 2005, 19:46
11.
Tips for extracting demos Apr 11, 2005, 19:46
Apr 11, 2005, 19:46
 
obviously trying to write to a temporary directory on C: to get the installer started.
Here's a useful thing to remember. Many demos packaged as .exe file are actually self-extracting archives. If you have the relevant archive software installed you can often manually extract the files to any place you like. I highly recommend having 7-zip(.org) installed as it handles 7z, zip, bz2, rar, and many other formats, and it generally produces the best compression ratios and so is a prime candidate for making self-extracting archives with.

With 7-zip I just right-click on the .exe file, and select the relevant "extract to..." option, and it will either do it, or give me an error if it's not a self-extracting archive.

Of course, some installers end up creating about three copies of the data along the way, so another trick I've utilised at times of low disc space is to watch the windows\temp directory, and take a copy of the installation files that are copied there, then copy those to a drive with more space, cancel the installation, and run it again from the copied files on the bigger drive.

10.
 
wow, great demo
Apr 11, 2005, 19:07
10.
wow, great demo Apr 11, 2005, 19:07
Apr 11, 2005, 19:07
 
Incredibly original and weird at the same time but above all it's fun, fun, fun.

This demo is really worth downloading: excellent gameplay, surprisingly long and I didn't experience any bugs.

I'm ordering this game now...

9.
 
Re: wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 18:57
9.
Re: wheee Apr 11, 2005, 18:57
Apr 11, 2005, 18:57
 
yea, i've got it all tweaked up.

I've got my windows temp on a different drive, its something else thats happening.

8.
 
Re: wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 17:54
8.
Re: wheee Apr 11, 2005, 17:54
Apr 11, 2005, 17:54
 
obviously trying to write to a temporary directory on C: to get the installer started.

Change your Windows Temp directory to to located on one of the other hard drives. And turn of System Backup/Restore, that will save a ton of hard drive space.

----------------------------------------------------
Zero Tolerance Games Counter-Strike: Source server.
http://www.ztgames.com
7.
 
Cool
Apr 11, 2005, 17:42
7.
Cool Apr 11, 2005, 17:42
Apr 11, 2005, 17:42
 
I will have to download this and that Restricted Area demo and see how they play.

For this one, I hope it has high amounts of humor and gameplay while being playable with a mouse/keyboard.
Shouldn't that be IGN's 3D Gamers?
Not going to have much to play very soon,
Ray

-----
Posting again! FOR THE WIN!
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
I love you, mom.
Everything is awesome!!!
http://www.kindafunny.com/
I love you, mom.
Avatar 2647
6.
 
Re: wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 17:40
Tom
6.
Re: wheee Apr 11, 2005, 17:40
Apr 11, 2005, 17:40
Tom
 
If you have a small system partition, you should consider periodically making an image of it. Then you can just restore the image if things go bad and you don't feel like reinstalling. Of course, you're always free to reinstall if you ever feel like you need that fresh Windows feeling.

5.
 
Re: wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 17:27
Quboid
 
5.
Re: wheee Apr 11, 2005, 17:27
Apr 11, 2005, 17:27
 Quboid
 
He didn't say that's his only hard drive. I have a similar system, with an 8GB partition with pretty much just Windows on it and then other partitions for programs, games, music etc. It means if my Windows install gets corrupt, I can just reformat the parition and reinstall without losing much.

Quboid
Avatar 10439
4.
 
Re: wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 17:25
nin
4.
Re: wheee Apr 11, 2005, 17:25
Apr 11, 2005, 17:25
nin
 
ummm... what? download is 457mb and you only have 250. how does that work? and how the hell do you only have a 3gb hd? you got windows 3.1 on there too?


It's called "OS on one drive/partition, installs on another".

Use the partition, Luke.



May 3rd, 2005 - "We are preparing to destroy you." http://www.nin.com
3.
 
Re: wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 17:23
3.
Re: wheee Apr 11, 2005, 17:23
Apr 11, 2005, 17:23
 
thank you for coding this demo correctly.

I've had pc troubles and have a 3gig drive for C: right now, I haven't been able to install any of the game demos lately because I only have 250megs free on C: drive. When clicking on these huge game demo .exe's lately I get errors about not enough space, obviously trying to write to a temporary directory on C: to get the installer started.

Well this demo is the first thats worked for me in a while and I hope I enjoy the game.

thanks

ummm... what? download is 457mb and you only have 250. how does that work? and how the hell do you only have a 3gb hd? you got windows 3.1 on there too?

2.
 
Re: wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 16:45
2.
Re: wheee Apr 11, 2005, 16:45
Apr 11, 2005, 16:45
 
thank you for coding this demo correctly.

I've had pc troubles and have a 3gig drive for C: right now, I haven't been able to install any of the game demos lately because I only have 250megs free on C: drive. When clicking on these huge game demo .exe's lately I get errors about not enough space, obviously trying to write to a temporary directory on C: to get the installer started.

Well this demo is the first thats worked for me in a while and I hope I enjoy the game.

thanks

1.
 
wheee
Apr 11, 2005, 16:37
Enahs
 
1.
wheee Apr 11, 2005, 16:37
Apr 11, 2005, 16:37
 Enahs
 
Downloading now! Been looking forward to trying this game, though will not get a chance to play it for a while though

Hope it is good and unique as good as it has been made out to be!


.sigs are for losers…
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
- W. C. Fields
Avatar 15513
18 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
Newer [  1  ] Older