How Second Sight Explores Insanity 

Damn was not expecting a vid on this game, Free Radical truly was a good developer that like many got screwed over by AAA gaming industry bs. The animations and cutscenes are timeless and are unrivaled to this day.

Ah, an old friend traded me this game for my Rachet and Clank Going Commando. Feels like a lifetime ago, and was definitely a good trade in my opinion.

I loved this game. I picked it up for almost nothing in a bargain bin shortly after beating LoK: Defiance and it was perfect timing. While my friend harped on about how he thought Psi Ops was better because it wasn't as clunky, the story of Second Sight was actually engaging.

no sequel. just a conclusive masterpiece

The protagonist reminds me of Daniel Lamb from Manhunt 2 but this story is more compelling. Seriously thank you for showing more of these stories, it is a tragedy I have never heard of this game until now.

I saw the thumbnail and thought "Hey, that looks like Second Sight", then I read the words. Clicked quickly. Awesome video! A great underappreciated game! Excellent early example of psionic powers done well.

Incredible retelling of the incredible story of Second Sight. One of my favorite games of all time. I appreciate you taking the time to go into the games interesting twists and turns. It was truly one of a kind when it came out and still holds strong to games of today.

Glad to see someone covering this cult classic game. It's definitely one of those obscure gems of a game that I was glad I was able to experience.

for a game from 2004 the character's faces are very expressive

To borrow from an edgy early 2000’s comic series “Suppose I realize I’m insane, but I’m constantly shifting between different ‘realities’ that I can’t tell which is real.”

outstanding clip. didnt know this game existed. looks like an amazingly written game. deserves a remake, surely. or a movie xD

SUPER underrated game, we need more games like these in TODAYS times. The combat and story telling are SO GOOD, thank you so much for going over this game!

The theme music for this game always gave me a feeling of dredd and i absolutely loved it!!

this game is always going to be in my heart

I have just completed this game today. It took me around 13 hours. I played the PS2 version of the game on my PC using PCSX2, as the PC version which one can buy from Steam has some issues as I have seen from the game reviews on Steam. After completing the game, I needed a total rundown of the game. Thanks a lot Bro, for making this video, and explaining everything about this masterpiece of a game.

This was one of two psychic-themed games that came out around the same time (the other being Psi Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy). I played both and this is the one I remember most fondly. The story was well crafted, and I loved the twist at the end. I only wish it was possible for this game to get a remastering at some point, as the game I feel could still perform well today. My only complaint was the lack of control configuration options, as the stick layout for me was not good. Thank you for taking the time to cover this old favourite of mind.

i remember playing this as a demo and i loved it

John almost goes through a breaking bad transformation. This would make a really good Netflix series.

I miss Free Radical, man. We need more games like Second Sight.

Nice work on one of my favorite games on the PS2 (still need to replace the copy my cousin stole).

Omg I didn't even know it was you making this video when I clicked on it! Man every game you loved as a child.. I LOVED AS A CHILD!

i remember this game from my early years on the xbox original, i remembered it so fondly that i ended up trying to find it again and i've replayed this gem of a game.

This game was amazing!!!!!🙂👍 excellent video as always thanks dude 👍

Your analysis of this psychological and magical wonder of a game is spot on. Also absolutely love the music that compliments the mindful depths of the writing, dialogue and environments. And tell you what, if this was made into a film or short series on Netflix by the right sort of people, it would become as classic as the game is. It's bonkers how unknown this gem still is though. But hey, you know what they say about treasures.... 😉😊

I think I was a bit young for it when I played it at ~14-15. What I've wondered since is, how John would ever be able to trust his perception of reality ever again? The twist is incredible for the story, but John's entire personality was obliterated due to his precognition and he had to build it back up from scratch. He lives in his horrible precognition as if it was his current life, and experiences his actual life in snippets of "memory". And what happens if he has another precognition? Does his mind fling itself/himself into another, terrible, experienced reality again? How could he ever tell? With his memory and experience locked away during a precognition (or at least this precognition), how would John know he's having a vision? He's only able to fully reckon with the implications of his power by the very end of the game, when he interrogates Grienko about Hansen, and the Zener children help him understand. John might very well be inside another precognition, even in the Dubrensk setting. How would he know? What kind of life would it be, not being able to trust if your reality is objectively real? That sort of fridge horror hasn't occurred much in videogames since Second Sight. The closest I've come to it has been SOMA, which features another protagonist who has to grapple with a disconnect between past and present, and perception vs. reality. I'd love to see where the original teams at Free Radical and Codemasters were going with Second Sight. The story and revelation, while chilling, were spectacularly presented, and well worth experiencing. And the fact that you could find a floppy disc to play Asteroids on the PCs in some levels was fantastic.

Great analysis. This was probably my favorite game as a kid, it was the first T rated game my parents got me. Cheers!

the best story game I ever played

crazy, I've been streaming this lately. found it long ago when I was looking for something like psi-ops: the mindgate conspiracy

One of my favorite games when I was a teenager

I remember seeing this game in Nintendo Power but never getting a chance to see it anywhere. I would've loved this because I had another similar game called Geist and I STILL love that game.

One of those games I really wish I could have played back in the day. I did however play Psi-Ops the Mindgate conspiracy which was something.

Your channel is so underrated! Started watching because of the legacy of kain videos then i just started binging a lot of your videos! Quality stuff man

I played this when I was a kid, it made me realize I love games with deep stories, it was the first time I beat a game for the story rather than its gameplay. Amazing.

I don't know why I did not finish this game as a kid, despite loving it But I don't regret looking back on it, great gameplay, mechanics and lovely fitting soundtrack

Damm I remember playing that game on the Game Cube, even if I am not generally into fps I still freaking love that game

Totaly agree, this is a timeless storytelling gem with a plot twist that is a bomb. Games that allowed for a similar twist due to immersion is the oroginal Bioshock and of course Soul Reaver 2. Great video!

I loved this game although I have never deeply analyzed it before. I went "oooh, so the past was the present all along and the present was the future!!" And that was a shocking plot twist for me. Also what I liked about the story was its rhythm. Each level ends with some sort of cliffhanger and you just want to know the rest. The game is short and efficient.

Very underrated game

Great vid man, very interesting 👍

idk if this game was super popular when it came out because i was just a kid when i played it on gamecube,, but i didn't see much about it when i asked ppl if they knew what this game was or anything online i feel like this game would do really well today if they made a remaster or something, bring it back to the public eye kinda idea

great video! thank you for analyzing classics like this

I always remember seeing images of this game and always thought it looked really good, then looking at this video I wonder why it looked so familiar then I realised its made by the folks who made TimeSplitters so no wonder it not only looks good but probably played good too

I love this game

It was one of my favorite games, the old days...

God Damn game companies can yall not just give us remaster for every cool ps2/Xbox title? Why not??? You need to spend $3,000,000 on the graphics and all star casting for a game that'll have bugs regardless and to forgotten after 1 year? Yeah save some money and get us these titles back.

an amazing game that has been mostly forgotten.

i hope one day free radical comes back again and makes a sequel to this, hopefully they could get the voice actor of john back as i cant imagine a different voice actor playing him

An amazing video breaking down one of my favourite games x Thank you

The stuff you said about the morality system of the game reminds me of Deus Ex, the very first one. (SPOILERS BELOW) In the game you can go non lethal on all npcs or full lethal, even on the kids. You can rob atms and sometimes you'll read a datalog about the people you're robbing. In the first level you can read about a couple about to get married and they're going out tonight for drinks and that's followed by their atm info. You can rob them blind and never think about the consequences cause you'll never see it but if you do think about it you're robbing a young couple and killing their fun night out. Much later in the game you meet the family of one of the enemy soldiers. You'll never know which soldier is their son but his mom begs you not to kill him. (MAJOR END OF GAME SPOILERS) at the very end of the game one ending choice sees you becoming a genuine, man-made god of the world. With control over the entire world. But who did you just make god? Who are you as a player? Did you kill everyone in your way or did sneak past them? Did you rob people of their money because you wanted cash for more equipment and upgrades? Did you help people who were desperate or did kill you butcher them because they were in your way? The game doesn't punish you for your actions, in fact the ending is the same regardless. But you, the player, you know. You know how much blood is on your hands. You know how you got to end of the game. What kind of person are you in the game? The game doesn't ask these questions. But i do. I think about that every time I play the game and every time i finish it.

Great game. Loved Second Sight. Huge nostalgia factor for me

I love Free Radical's cartoony and yet gritty aesthetics especially in Second Sight, this could probably have been their magnum opus in terms of plot, soundtrack and atmosphere

Legacy of Kain and second sight??? Subscribed

I never got to actually play this game until much later but I really enjoyed it

I played this countless times and didn’t know about the machine gun or tranquilizer allergy

Can't wait until this game gets recognition out of nowhere Played it back in the day on me gamecubers

I loved this game as a kid im really happy you covered it

I think you might have missed part of the game where the kids actually gave Vattick the powers, so he never had them for all of his life. From what I remember, they even tell him this near the end of the Siberia missions and Jayne is there with him, or comforting him afterwards. It makes it an even better twist in my mind, since he gets temporary powers from the children, who are saved by him only because he learns to use them in the outcomes of the possible futures (and like you said becomes more confident overall). But, it is also implied that the big bad gave him the powers, so actually the kids probably just give him a taste of the precog skills, and his mind then gains the rest through the experiments AND THEN comes back to the present to kick ass and Jayne realises the kids did this knowing that it would help them escape at the end. There are also the parts of seeing the projected children in the earlier levels with the colonel, and later they reveal that they also gave you the precog powers. Something interesting is they redo the "trick" of having an asylum inmate unlock the padded cell door if you somehow get shut in later in the game, which is something the children did to get you out, so it's also hinted that they are sometimes stepping into the futures and possessing the inmates to let you back out.

man i had forgotten this game. i know i played it loooong ago but gave up at some street level where there was never ending npc coming for me no matte rif a snuck or went invisible or tried to kill all so i just gave up atthat part. watching this makes me wanna give it a second try. but update fuck me ps2 dead so screw it i just stay with this video

21:38 i'm not sure if it's entirely right to say he doesn't show any sense of having precognition in the Siberia sections. We don't see the same headache leading to the scenes, but you're right he's already confused by that point, but we hear his thinking and he thinks its his past and he has this additional information. I last played the game on the ps2, so it's been a while, but a few times you have "video game logic" play out as normal and Jayne is the one saying how weird it is. I think one example is either an avalanche that separates you and Jayne, or saving people from an explosive gone wrong before it's properly planted. He knows who's going to die in WinterICE in advance and how some events play out, but since John belives he is Future John, he doesn't place as much importance on failing or not even with the extra ending scenes.

I found my people , I’m so happy I’m not the only one who played this game and was obsessed with it ❤❤

So the main story is when Vatic was still in the army? Wow okay that's very mindblowing

The games animation and art style reminds me of the time splinter games. Is there a relationship?

An absolute Gem

should have fed the children.

The ending was a banger!! Love this game, might get it again.

This game and The Suffering are two games I would pay some gooood money for a remake before they're lost to time forever

Great video

This game was amazing!

Speaking of great game twists, I actually really liked F.E.A.R and Silent Hill 2's twists but this is up there. Edit: also F.E.A.R was about psychics too and the the dark reality of it along with human experimentation. Also they sought to create super soldiers in both F.E.A.R and this.

Agent 47 is a busy man.

I'm so sorry that I never played this when I had a Gamecube.

Am I the only one who has missed such a hidden gem --_-- ?

Could you please do a video about KOTOR 2's Kreia?

Huh?! There were bad endings?! I need to replay.

So played Psi Ops before this and hated it, this game was much more cerebral and while you get "power fantasy" level abilities, they're implemented creatively and used in puzzles. Also gotta love that art style, I'd love a new Timesplitters game

Your own words: "an exceptional" story... Great game. Probable the best along with Shadow Man. I watched another video right before this one about this game. It was frustrating and full of miserable little American dad jokes. Your rendition of the topic was most refreshing: a serious narrative that shows you liked the game as much as your viewers. Commendable work, Sir.

Loved this game. When I bring it up people say "You mean PsyOps?"...you sweet summer child.

In Siberia you say? Changing the past? Sounds like it's connected to Timesplitters in some way.

Isnt this game getting remastered? There was news about this around 4 years ago it would be amazing if they do.

This game is a gem. I remember the mental roller coaster through the end.

What other video games explore insanity like this?

Nice

I love this game I've beaten it five times on my GameCube

Ganhou + um inscrito 😊 apartir de Angola 🇦🇴 😊

Eu amava esse jogo 🥵 espero que algum dia alguém faça um remake

BRO the rights to the Legacy of Kain series has been bought for 300 million!!! we might see something done with it!!!

Kinda reminds me of Galerians.

This game is almost what you get if the crazy stuff in Metal Gear Solid actually served the narrative rather than being stupid and weird for the sake of being stupid and weird.

always felt like an inferior version of galerians when I played it

Art🤌🏼

I still find Psi-Ops better both have a similar story

i love whoever made this thank u ily i hope your pillow is always cold