Hey, long time no post.
Psychonauts was available for ?1 on Steam a few days ago. Luckily, that was just the amount I had left in my account. Took me 17 hrs to finish the beast, and I have to say, I haven't been that impressed with a game since my first playthroughs of HL.
While it's nothing too revolutionary gameplay-wise (although it's fairly fluid and clean for the most part), the story/writing and art were absolutely mind-boggingly awesome. The variety of places you see and the attention for detail in each of them created an insanely vivid, colourful and just plain beautiful experience. Black Velvetopia and the Milkman Neighborhood have got to be some of the awesomest places ever designed for a game.
Another thing to note is how nicely the environments/mood of the game progress from playful, fun & colourful to absolutely insane mindfuck. Not something you see pulled off that well very often.
The writing, jokes and references were absolutely bang-on as well, keeping a wide smile on my face for the most part. (Except for the teeth-grindingly-tedious obstacle courses during the last stages.)
My only problem was it got rather repetitive/tedious during the later, more harder stages, but even then the sheer beauty of it kept me going and wanting more.
Overall, well done, Double Fine. Quite simply, that's how you do it. I almost feel guilty about paying only ?1 for a masterpiece. Absolutely worth its current price (?5.99) if you're looking for a true experience.
To mark the occasion (and the beauty of it all), new avatar!
I haven't been able to download it yet because it's 3+GB and I don't have enough bandwidth XD