2005

Psychonauts

Description

At a summer camp for up-and-coming psychics, a young boy with an unusually high level of psychic ability inexplicably shows up. The boy, named Raz, is allowed to stay at the camp until his father comes to pick him up, but his arrival coincides with very strange circumstances. Soon, evidence that someone is psychically tampering with the campers’ minds reveals itself, and Raz is the only one who can stop it. Raz must project himself into the psyches of several different people in order to figure out what is going on and who is behind the recent occurrences.

Psychonauts is a 3D platform game with a rather unorthodox style. The characters’ inner worlds are the game’s levels. Each world reflects the personality of the person whose psyche it represents, often resulting in unique, surreal creations, and influencing the gameplay style. For example, the psyche of a giant lungfish is presented as a large city populated by fish people, in which Raz himself becomes a giant monster who can destroy entire buildings; the psyche of a mental patient is a huge board game, where Raz has to command armies in order to defeat Napoleon, etc. …

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Total Overdose – A Gunslinger’s Tale in Mexico

Description

This Grand Theft Auto-inspired game of violence and vengeance begins deep in Maya jungle, where a man named Ernesto Cruz was lost in 1989. The official explanation for his disappearance was fatal overdose, but this is not enough for Ernesto’s twin sons, Ram and Tommy. They embark on a quest for truth, though the Mexican wilderness and underworld urban environments inhabited by gangs, drug lords, and dangerous women.

Players can explore the large areas on foot, or commandeer any vehicle they choose. Total Overdose features a fighting game-styled combo system, and smart, skilled shooting unlocks new equipment and abilities. A “Rewind” system allows players to repeat a sequence to nail a perfect combo, or even to turn back the clock and avoid a fatal mistake. …

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Driver 3

Description

FBI undercover agent John Tanner and his partner Tobias Jones are sent to Miami to liaison with the city’s police, on orders to investigate the “South Beach” cartel – a smuggling gang headed by Calita Martinez, an efficient and cold criminal, and her associates Lomaz and Bad Hand. The agents focus on the investigation surrounds the cartel’s recent acquisition of stolen cars, leading to suspicions they are working for someone else to fulfill a major order. To determine where the deal for the cars will take place, Tanner poses as a wheelman and infiltrates the cartel by recovering a car they lost to a rival gang. After impressing Calita and earning her trust with a series of tasks, Tanner finds himself assigned to retaliate against crime lord “The Gator”, after he betrays Calita on a deal and makes subsequent attempts in revenge, eventually being ordered to assassinate him.

South Beach relocate to Nice, France, after Gator’s presumed demise, to secure the remaining cars for their order. Tanner makes contact with Interpol agents Henri Vauban and Didier Dubois, who insist on arresting the cartel while in possession of the stolen cars. Tanner refuses to agree to this, leading to Vauban ordering Dubois to conduct surveillance on the cartel. Meanwhile, Tanner focuses on acquiring the cars Calita needs while fending off attacks by a rival syndicate, resulting in a confrontation that leads Tanner to protecting Calita and eliminating the gang’s leader. Upon discovering that Dubois was captured by the cartel during his own investigation, Tanner angrily berates Vauban for going behind his back, and finds himself forced to rescue him before he is executed. Needing to learn where the deal for the stolen cars is being held, Tanner and Dubois break into a boathouse being used by the cartel, and find that the sale is to happen in Istanbul, Turkey. …

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Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)

Description

January 2009. On a cold, snowy night in New York City, an ordinary citizen named Lucas Kane, under the control of an unknown force, unwillingly murders a complete stranger in a diner. Once he comes to senses, Lucas realizes he must escape while leaving as little evidence as possible behind. Barely managing to accomplish that, Lucas contacts his brother and tries to understand what has caused him to commit the crime, recalling the events of his own past in the process. Meanwhile, two police detectives investigating the murder, Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles, are determined to find the perpetrator, at the same time trying to deal with the personal problems of their lives.

Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit in Europe) is a psychological thriller in which the player is able to control different characters on both sides of a murder – the killer and those who are trying to find him. The game’s core gameplay style is adventure. The three protagonists explore various locations, talk to other characters, and interact with the environment in order to advance. However, the game is heavy on various action-oriented sequences, from tasks that must be completed within a limited amount of time to quick time events, which require the player to press the correct button during a scene. …

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Cold Fear

Description

The game begins with a Navy SEAL team deploying on a Russian whaler, the Eastern Spirit, in the Bering Strait. As the team explore the deck, they are attacked and killed by unseen beings that literally rips them apart. Seeing his team is gone, CIA Special Agent Jason Bennett, who is supervising the mission from another location, orders any other government vessel in the vicinity to investigate. His call is picked up by the US Coast Guard ship, the USCGC Ravenswood, which heads to the Eastern Spirit. The crew of the Ravenswood split into teams, but within moments of boarding, only one remains; Tom Hansen, a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, currently serving in the United States Coast Guard, who hears his shipmates being killed over the radio. He sets out to explore the ship and determine what is happening.

As soon as he enters the interior of the Spirit, however, he is attacked by two frightened Russians, who he is forced to kill. As he continues to explore, he encounters a multitude of panicking Russians, all of whom attack him. He also finds several horrifically mutilated bodies, including that of the Ravenswood’s captain, Lt. Lansing. Hansen soon learns of a creature known as an “exocel”, which was accidentally discovered by the crew of a Russian oil rig, the Star of Sakhalin, owned by Colonel Dmitriy Yusupov, a member of the Russian mafia, and staffed by Major Yuri Anischenko and his team of mercenaries. Yusupov came to realize the exocels were parasitic organisms, which used other living organisms as hosts, and as such, he brought Dr. Viktor Kamsky to the Sakhalin to begin experimenting with infecting various species with exocel serum. These experiments led to the discovery that exocels could re-animate recently deceased humans, and the creation of an antidote to counter infection. Hansen heads to the radio room to request help, but instead he is answered by Bennett, who tells him that Yusupov is on board and must be captured for questioning. Bennett tells Hansen that if he finds Yusupov, the CIA will get him off the ship. …

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rFactor (2005)

Description

rFactor is a computer racing simulator designed with the ability to run any type of four-wheeled vehicle from street cars to open wheel cars of any era. rFactor aimed to be the most accurate race simulator of its time. Released in November 2005, rFactor did not have much competition in this market, but it featured many technical advances in tire modeling, complex aerodynamics and a 15 degrees of freedom physics engine.

rFactor was developed by Image Space Incorporated (ISI), which has been developing simulators since the early 1990s for both commercial and military purposes. The isiMotor2 on which the game is based is a direct successor to the engine used in previous titles developed by ISI, most notably F1 Challenge ’99–’02, released through EA Sports. The isiMotor2 engine was also used in many other simulation games.

rFactor has a detailed interface during offline race sessions or online games, allowing players to control the mechanical setup of their cars, chat to other players and enter the racing arena in their vehicle. The player’s car can be driven from multiple viewpoints, but the two most popular are termed the cockpit view (from the driver’s eye) and swingman view (above and behind the vehicle). …

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Need for Speed – Most Wanted Black Edition (2005)

Description

In the game, players take part in illegal street races across Most Wanted’s setting, utilizing a variety of licensed real-world cars (available at the time of the game’s development and release) that can be upgraded and customized with new parts, while contending with the involvement of the police in their efforts to impede the player. Racing events feature a mixture of competitive racing across circuit or point-to-point races, and checkpoint, sprint and drag races. The game features three modes of play – Career, Quick Race, and Challenge Series – with a fourth mode allowing for multiplayer being available to players on certain console editions. While many of the racing events feature those used in previous entries in the games, particularly the Underground set of games, some events – Drifting, Street X, Underground Racing League tournaments and Outrun – are absent from Most Wanted, and replaced with two new ones. The first event is “Tollbooth”, a checkpoint-styled solo race, in which players must hit a set of checkpoints, each one within a set amount of time; reaching a checkpoint quickly adds the time left over to the timer for the next checkpoint. The second event is “Speedtrap”, in which players compete in a competitive checkpoint race, and must hit each checkpoint at their fastest speed; upon crossing the finishing line, each checkpoint’s total speed is added together to determine the winner. …

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