I really did plan to get to sleep at a reasonable time last night, but I felt really close to the end of Psychonauts and decided to see if I could finish it.

And I did – granted, I was up until nearly 2AM, but it was worth it. The developers and artists really did pull off something extraordinary with the game worlds; every mind was different and bizarre in a truly appealing way.

I give it a solid recommendation.

That said:

Dear designers,

When you have put something in to your game and think to yourself “Wow, this is really hard. We should give the player infinite lives so they can try it over and over again until they get it right.”

…Take it back out. If you need to give the player THAT many chances, something is wrong with the design.

AND: If you do decide to put an “infinite loop until you get it right” segment in your game, DON’T have an NPC taunting the player with the same three or four phrases, over and over and over again.

FURTHERMORE: Don’t put the whole damn thing on a timer, where you can fail even if you get the platforming bits down right.

Meat Circus acrobatics bit, I’m looking at YOU.

After about try 20, I turned off the speakers and all was well again. After about try 50, I made it through, and from there it was only another 10 minutes or so until the end of the game.