Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy – Review

Nick Scryer, a special ops agent, who at the start of the game has his mind wiped, and is then sent to infiltrate a group called ‘The Movement’. But Nick and his group are captured and imprisoned. So you start with only a pistol, and no powers. But not for long, because near the start of the game you will meet Sarah, a double agent, who injects you with something that will make you ‘remember’ your psionic powers, and that’s where the fun starts.

The first skill you recall is Telekinesis (or TK). What TK allows you to do is lift and move objects and people around using your mind. At first you’ll think ‘great i can move stuff about…wow!!’, but after a while you realize that TKing is one of the best things you can do in the game.

Running low on ammo?? Just pick up the guards and slam them against the wall, or throw them of a bridge (ok it won’t get you any ammo, but it’s fun). You could also pick up a gas canister and throw that at them, or hover it over there heads and shoot it, and KABOOM…no more guard.

Also using TK, you can stand on an object such as a crate, and TK it across gaps that you could not cross any other way, just as long as your psi meter does not run out half way across!!

Other psi powers are, remote viewing. This means that you can ‘out of body’ from Nick, so that you can walk through doors, and see guards and learn there movements without being seen.

Mind Drain does what it says on the tin, you suck the mind energy from your poor victim, and this refills your psi meter. And when you’ve drained all their energy, their head pops!! Nice.

So if you were getting a bit low on psi energy, you could TK a guard towards you, when he lands he’ll be a bit dazed, and then you drain his brain, easy. Pyrokinesis lets you fight fire with fire, literally. And mind control, lets you erm control minds. This is also a really great power, and fun too.

Take control of one guard and unlock the door that’s barring your way, and then shoot the other guards in the area, and then either kill yourself by jumping off a bridge into acid below, or walk along to Nick and wait to have your brain exploded. Hey you can even keep control of the guard and beat yourself (Nick) up.

It’s being able to use these powers in different ways that is really pretty cool. For example, in a room of guards you could TK a gas canister into the middle and blow it up, or TK some crates and then pyro them, or take control of one of the guards and use him to kill the others….choices choices.

Graphically the game is good, with some nice moody lighting and great fire effects. And the Havok engine does a good job on the guards bodies, so when you start throwing them about, they bend and crumple nicely.

Sound is pretty good, with a lot of dialogue that’s well delivered, and decent mood setting music. Lifespan of the game is a bit of a problem though.. it’s a bit short really. But hopefully Psi Ops 2 will be longer (if there is a second one, and I truly hope that there is).

Female aspect of the game is not really great. You play as Nick in the game, your stereotypical male gaming lead [again!]. Although there are allegedly cheats so that you can unlock other ‘skins’, that include female characters. But I think you can only use these in the extra content part, which is levels you’ve already unlocked. So you can’t actually start off as a girl, you have to unlock the levels, and then go to the extra content part, and go through them again!!

Overall though a really good title. I’m looking forward to a Psi-Ops 2!

Review by Roy