Incredibly well-crafted, insanely well-written, superbly scored, constantly entertaining and all held together with a colurful graphical style that belies its true narrative depth.
They don't make 'em like they used to - but this is certainly the exception that proves the rule.
Aside from Mario Odyssey, there's not a lot of "3D Action Platformers" in the market and this game helped me understand why...

Back in the days of PS1/N64 every other game was a 3D adventure, each with its own reason to send you across 5 seasonal worlds collecting MacGuffins to progress. This was in itself a natural evolution of the ubiquitous 2D platformer during the previous 16 bit generation.

There wasn't a whole lot else in the way of originality, paradigms were set and the market was filled with what was already proven to be successful (see superhero movies since 2002) because of course it was.
Making (and publishing) games was expensive, so why take the risk on a new genre when a small tweak, new mechanic or just reusing an established character would guarantee a solid ROI (see Sonic, Crash Bandicoot. Spyro etc..)

The landscape has long-since shifted and nowadays with big publishers there's only really room for a new WWII-based FPS, or this years' open world box-ticking exercise - meanwhile Indie studios are going for pixel loveliness or pushing boundaries in storytelling.

With the technological improvements in the years since, 3D action adventures have become super-gritty Tomb Raiders or Uncharteds with super-realistic stormy weather, bloody combat and a boner for dramatic cinematics.

So we find ourselves in a games market almost devoid of new 3D platform/action/adventure games, that are actually just fucking FUN (and suitable for under 18s).

Pyschonauts 2 absolutely obliterates this void on every level.

The core concept is very much inception (which in turn may have been inspired by the original Psychonauts), which is a phenomenal excuse to get crazy on the level design.
And level design in a game like this is basically the gunplay in an FPS or the ball physics in Rocket League – it is the very core of the experience.

Psychonauts 2 levels are not merely worth playing this game for – they are Oscar-quality set pieces that are quite simply some of the best places I have ever been taken to in games:
A fantastic neon-octopus casino where you must cure someone's gambling addiction, by going into a sideways gambling hospital and earning 3 Quadrillion $ by disguising yourself as a card suit in a horse race to beat the stacked odds, or by rigging the game itself to enable a rich couple win the biological lottery – i.e. a baby
A psychedelic Woodstock festival, where drive a VW van around a colourful wonderland building a superband of senses, topped off with an amazing performance that pulls the rug on you right at the crescendo.
A set of desert islands maintained by an alcoholic gardening loner where you jump between empty whisky bottles to uncover the story of his mother’s similar decline and isolation following the death of her husband (you are brought here by his gigantic sentient spiky vine who also wants to stop him drinking, obviously).
A fucking masterchef cooking gameshow where ingredients beg to be thrown into the boiling water, put in a blender or - in the case of a piglet – chopped into slices by own their knife-wielding uncle.

So yeah, this game has enough surrealism and depth in one of its stages to drown a Naughty Dog Dali biopic with a twisting story that hits harder than any Mass Effect quest line or Oblivion twist.

The only thing this game lacks is the one thing that Mario (and your traditional 3D platformers) offers in spades – freedom.
Whilst you do get a “hub world” that grows exponentially after the first 10hrs, each stage itself is fairly linear and I was frequently pushing against invisible walls to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
Not that this is a problem, as what is here is essentially a perfect distillation of everything I could ever wish for in a game like this. Or like, anything, really.

You hold a controller and get taken on a journey of discovery, both internal and external.

I think this game was a real challenge to get built, especially after the commercial failure of its predecessor.
And that is why they don’t make them like they used to, as making something of this level of quality is just not going to happen without considerable resources, it’s too much of an artistic risk for a major publisher to get past their shareholders and no way can a small studio afford to spend the time to build something this perfectly polished.

So please, do yourself a favour and dive in – or just watch someone else do it, such are the ways of the media consumption these days - this is really rather rare and equally really rather special.

Aesthetically beautiful meditation on living spaces, stuff and where it goes.

As liberating and thought-provoking an exercise as unpacking is IRL, but without the hassle of having to pack it in the first place...

Stuff is fascinating as, to quote Fight Club, "the things you own, end up owning you"
But this game counterpoints that with:
Things you own today (and where you put them) can define who you are now.
And
Some of the things you end up owning (or keep for 20 years...) are pretty special to you.

So, yeah, we're not all merely byproducts of a lifestyle obsession - stuff is great and you can enjoy expressing yourself in what stuff you place proudly on your shelves - especially if its retro games consoles.

Shadowrun: Cyberpunks with Orcs
What an awesome premise!
I had the RPG handbook, had run some sessions with friends and even read a Shadowrun novel before finding this game cheap in Blockbusters one day.

So yeah, not an unbiased review.

The game opened slowly, with a totally obtuse puzzle involving opening a broken fence for a talking dog (who was actually your spirit animal) and I think I bounced off it a couple of times before I actually solved that and then marched through the rest of the game.

That was all in the course of a few sick days off school, stuck at home, still waiting for the N64 to launch.

Silverchair's "Freakshow" had just released so the song "Cemetery" is forever interminably linked with mental imagines of this game.

Basically, it is a relatively typical isometric RPG, but on a SNES - so totally alien to me at the time - and the UI was well designed enough that the controller never felt like a hindrance.

The game is text heavy story-wise with lots of cool looking people to talk the rad 2053 lingo to - probably if you didn't know the source material you would need a dictionary to work out what the drek these netrunners were up to (in 1993 at least) but aside from the initial dog/fence nonsense I don't recall being stuck anywhere or on any particularly heinous sections.

Because of the genius of the setting, you get to fight Syndicates, Cyberpunk Gangs and fucking Vampires, which is not something you can say bout most games...

The action mostly consisted of you moving the pointer over an enemy and pressing B to shoot them, but the numbers went up as you got better guns and more powerful friends.

Things change when you go into the Matrix though - this was the hacking minigame that, despite looking super simplistic, was a/pretty deep version of minesweeper vibe and b/ opened up various new things as you grew more awesome (or bought more powerful IC software stuff).

Overall though, the whole style is that of an uncompromisingly beautiful cybernoir, that still holds up today (annoying pixel-sized puzzles and all) in the 16 bit sphere of my memory.

Your mileage may vary however, especially if you prefer your RPGs to feature luscious green rolling hills and a beautiful princess to rescue.

Absolutely ridiculous storyline, thinly veiled excuse for just letting you blow stuff up.

Sounds simple, right?

But actually, this is a proper puzzle game. With some great unlocks for those who were truly committed to the cause.

Each vehicle had its own technique to master, for instance: press R and the dump truck would just start drifting and you would have to guide that heavy back end to hit that sweet margin line between the buildings to get them both down in one go. Using flying robot to buttslam the same quarter margins on a skyscraper felt good, but was nowhere as fun to me as using the household classics like trucks or bulldozers (which had to get air to be really effective).

Anyway, finish the storyline and the game really starts.

The newly unlocked time trial mode enables you to freely explore the map without the need to babysit some runaway nuke - most maps have secrets that can be found and in 1997 it was sure nice to roam free around a realistic 3D world (albeit with a fixed camera angle) without the threat of impending nuclear winter hanging over your head.

Time trials give a tonne of replayability as you strive for the gold medal - especially in the point-to-point races - you might find the A-Team van hidden in a multi-story car park, and then discover it gives zero fucks about road surfaces and then smash some lap times with it.

But wait, you get all the gold medals and... what? .... you go into muthafuckin space?

Why?

To jump your favourite dump truck pal 500 metres in the thin air above Mars and smash shiny balls of course!

Getting gold was easy, getting platinum medals on some levels was nigh on impossible - requiring absolutely perfect launch control and racing lines.

Aside from SNES Mariokart or California Games, these were probably the first real gaming challenges I really applied myself to.

I think I ended up with all except 2 of the platinum medals, so proud and yet so frustrated.

Come for the wanton destruction and promise of a nuclear disaster, stay for the promise of perfection.

Welcome to gaming kid.

This shit right here is why I am not looking forward to my retirement in 2050.

Wonderfully framed treatise on cybernetics, the future of policing and the essence of a soul - taking placed in a poverty-ridden leaky apartment block featuring enforced isolation and a healthy dose of digital insanity.

All backed up with a solid gravelly vocal performance from the original cyberpunk outcast.

Game about riding alone downhill on mountains.

Pretty Ronseal there.

I agree with most of the reviews posted here - this is a lovely meditative game with a beautiful graphical style and incredibly sparse audio design that really nails the vibe.

However, I found myself falling into the Skate trap of throwing myself down unreasonable routes to see if I could - which gets pretty old pretty quickly.

Gorgeous textured (hand-crafted) graphical style
Solid game physics
Funny central concept

Shows it's crowdfunded origins with a couple of unnecessary memey levels ripping off CS and MGS.

The core gameplay doesn't feature enough depth to engage on its own terms, so this becomes a collection of diverse set pieces masquerading as puzzles - but some are certainly entertaining enough to recommend giving this an hour of your life.

I grew up playing the likes of Skidmarks, Overdrive and other awesome top-down racers on the Amiga.

If you showed me this game in 1995 I would have wet my pants, but even today the deep physics and minimalist graphics are a treat.

With so much love poured into the game it is hard not to love it back.

Until you overdo it, fly off the road and hit a tree.

No Forza rewind to cushion your delicate ego; this is the real deal: respect the road, feel and fear the speed kind of game.

Great stuff.

PTFO
This would normally mean Gens Gens Gens, but actually if you wanna run rings around a killer whilst furiously dropping some Tetleys until they rage quit then you won't find me complaining.

One of the few multiplayer games where actually people work together - they will get you off hooks, heal you and even open doors for you. How polite.

Shame there's always one cunter that's got a knife and wants to stab you with it tho, otherwise this could be rebranded "manners by moonlight"

Really funny in places, really really funny in others.

May disappear up it's own arse at the end, but then by that point in the story there wasn't anywhere left to go...

A wonderful game, well worthy of the lineage.

Those of you looking for a version of Mario Golf with blood spatter and decapitations will be sorely disappointed - perhaps that's the reason for the salty reviews.

Its Burnout's crashbreaking combos, substituting the car for a golf ball and traffic for pyramids of champagne glasses in swanky interiors.

Honestly it's great as the small title it is meant to be, especially in couch co-op mode - just not varied enough to warrant a higher score.