Yeah, ESPionage is the games working title, and a way better name at that.
The idea for these two reviews did start as a direct comparison between Second Sight and Psi-Ops, so here is an abridged version.
from a distance, the two of them do have quite a few similarities. Both have an amnesiac protagonist who uses a mixture of guns and psychic powers.
Second Sight has a conspiracy in the plot, Psi-Ops has the word conspiracy in the title.
They're both third person that have both stealth and action mechanics. They have a similar set up, but they take them in very different directions in gameplay and tone.
Second Sight is the slower of the two titles, the psychic powers are slow and considered. It's a stealth game with large, winding yet linear stages.
Psi-ops is an action game, the psychic powers come out in full force and when the game attempts to limit them it ultimately suffers for it. The stages are again ultimately linear, but tries to disguise it with backtracking.
Second Sight is a downbeat story with well placed moments of levity within the gameplay. It's well written and well acted.
Psi-ops is confused, it feels half like a straight faced b-move thriller that you'd laugh at with your friends, and half like a saturday morning cartoon. It jumps between them with seemingly no self awareness, and this is a game with a giant black man who changes hair styles in the flashbacks.
I am infinitely more welcoming to the puzzles in Second Sight, as they are generally better designed and mesh well in a slow paced stealth title. When solving a puzzle in Second Sight, you are doing it while trying to avoid detection, it heightens the challenge.
In Psi-Ops the puzzles come after you kill every enemy in an area and feel like the game putting on the brakes rather than flowing from point A to B.
Second Sight runs out of steam near the finale.
Psi-ops runs face first into a sheer cliff, blames you for it, then asks you to scale it for it's appeasement. My personal pick between between the two would be Second Sight, it comes down a lot to what you want however. If you want slow paced stealth, go with Second Sight, if you want bombastic action, go with Psi-Ops.
10 апр 2015
