Second Sight
Posted July 2, 2005
In a trend that happens when movies are released, Free Radical and Codemasters come out with a game that at first glace is very similar to another psychic thriller game that Midway released, but manages to stand out on it's own with an interesting story and the gameplay to back it up. Second Sight is the story of John Vattic, a MIT researcher who is called to work on a squad dubbed WinterICE, with no details on why he is there except for the cryptic words of Jayne Wilde who tells Vattic that he's the only one who can save them. Sounds like a common enough story right?
Gameplay:
Well, the game starts with Vattic on a gurney with no recollection of how he got to the hospital he is in, or even his name. He is trapped in an observation room with no way to get out, except for the button to open the door on the other side of a wall, and in the first of many very cool ways in showing how Vattic comes to realize his special psychic powers, he wills the door open and you learn your first power, telekinesis. As the story moves forward, Vattic remembers who he is by means of flashbacks to a mere six months prior that are all playable. In these flashbacks we see the when Vattic joins and fights along with the rest of the WinterICE team, and eventually we find out why he's been contained and has become a criminal in the mind of the military machine that is holding him hostage.
As the "present time" scenes progress, Vattic gets into situations where he'll be trapped and only one thing can save him, and he realizes that he more than likely does possess the ability that he needs to escape a certain situation. Other psi-powers he reveals to himself include a psi-blast which sends forth an explosion of psychic energy, the ability to heal himself (comes in very handy), the ability to project his mind out of his body to perform other actions, possession of other bodies, and the ability to charm which can mean calm his squad or become invisible to the enemy. As mentioned the method in which these are exposed to the player are actually quite interesting and compared to Midway's Psi-Ops, this method was much more engrossing.
One cool side feature that the game has is that it tracks a lot of statistics through the game, like the amount of enemy blood that you caused to be shed, the amount of blood you lost, and even the number of "mucky footprints" you left. Mucky footprints are left when you walk through blood or another messy substance which leaves your tracks for a short period of time. Not that the stats are extremely useful, but they still added some interesting information into the game.
I'm not normally much of an action PC gamer, and prefer to play the slower paced and more mouse driven RTS and RPG games, so adapting to the quicker pace of a third person shooter was slightly tricky, but the controls were actually quite intuitive once I figured them out. The standard WASD configuration was used for movement, and in a nice implementation of the scroll wheel on the mouse, you selected both your psychic powers and your current weapon of choice using the up/down scrolling. It didn't take too long to become quite adept at using this setup, and I soon found it to be as natural as using a controller for console gaming.
Graphics:
The graphics are very well done in the easily recognizable cartoon-ish yet realistic method that Free Radical has been known for their titles the Timesplitters series. They do a very good job making the characters come to life and have personality within the animation, even the narration is synced with Vattic's mouth, which adds another layer of depth and immersion to the game. As mentioned before, the game takes place in multiple locations through a time period, so you'll be alternating between some closed in laboratory areas, and open air scenes. In all cases the graphics held up quite nicely and I didn't notice any slowdown on my PC which more than supported the minimal requirements this game needs (1Ghz, 256mB Ram)
Some very cool effects along the lines of white noise onscreen occurred when you drained your psi power bar. This helped make the game a little disorienting and put you more in the shoes of Vattic.
Audio:
To go along with the engrossing graphics, the voice acting in Second Sight was top notch, and I never once found myself cringing when there was dialog.
Sound effects were more than adequate as well, and I actually found myself wishing that I had turned up my subwoofer to help pack more punch when explosions took place, or even to feel the impact of a Psi-Blast that I threw out at the enemies.
Conclusion:
In my opinion, this was the better of the games that involved essentially the same basic storyline and theme, a guy wakes up with some crazy powers he didn't realize he has. What really helped set this game apart from Psi-Ops(which is a very good game mind you), was definitely the way the story was told and the depth at which is was presented from the cut scenes to the great voice acting, it was all top tier. Sadly the one downside about Second Sight is the lack of replay, as I found that after playing through once, I probably had had enough and don't really see a reason to play through it again. That being said, based on the play though that I did and for the price, I Highly Recommend Second Sight.
Gameplay:
Well, the game starts with Vattic on a gurney with no recollection of how he got to the hospital he is in, or even his name. He is trapped in an observation room with no way to get out, except for the button to open the door on the other side of a wall, and in the first of many very cool ways in showing how Vattic comes to realize his special psychic powers, he wills the door open and you learn your first power, telekinesis. As the story moves forward, Vattic remembers who he is by means of flashbacks to a mere six months prior that are all playable. In these flashbacks we see the when Vattic joins and fights along with the rest of the WinterICE team, and eventually we find out why he's been contained and has become a criminal in the mind of the military machine that is holding him hostage.
As the "present time" scenes progress, Vattic gets into situations where he'll be trapped and only one thing can save him, and he realizes that he more than likely does possess the ability that he needs to escape a certain situation. Other psi-powers he reveals to himself include a psi-blast which sends forth an explosion of psychic energy, the ability to heal himself (comes in very handy), the ability to project his mind out of his body to perform other actions, possession of other bodies, and the ability to charm which can mean calm his squad or become invisible to the enemy. As mentioned the method in which these are exposed to the player are actually quite interesting and compared to Midway's Psi-Ops, this method was much more engrossing.
One cool side feature that the game has is that it tracks a lot of statistics through the game, like the amount of enemy blood that you caused to be shed, the amount of blood you lost, and even the number of "mucky footprints" you left. Mucky footprints are left when you walk through blood or another messy substance which leaves your tracks for a short period of time. Not that the stats are extremely useful, but they still added some interesting information into the game.
I'm not normally much of an action PC gamer, and prefer to play the slower paced and more mouse driven RTS and RPG games, so adapting to the quicker pace of a third person shooter was slightly tricky, but the controls were actually quite intuitive once I figured them out. The standard WASD configuration was used for movement, and in a nice implementation of the scroll wheel on the mouse, you selected both your psychic powers and your current weapon of choice using the up/down scrolling. It didn't take too long to become quite adept at using this setup, and I soon found it to be as natural as using a controller for console gaming.
Graphics:
The graphics are very well done in the easily recognizable cartoon-ish yet realistic method that Free Radical has been known for their titles the Timesplitters series. They do a very good job making the characters come to life and have personality within the animation, even the narration is synced with Vattic's mouth, which adds another layer of depth and immersion to the game. As mentioned before, the game takes place in multiple locations through a time period, so you'll be alternating between some closed in laboratory areas, and open air scenes. In all cases the graphics held up quite nicely and I didn't notice any slowdown on my PC which more than supported the minimal requirements this game needs (1Ghz, 256mB Ram)
Some very cool effects along the lines of white noise onscreen occurred when you drained your psi power bar. This helped make the game a little disorienting and put you more in the shoes of Vattic.
Audio:
To go along with the engrossing graphics, the voice acting in Second Sight was top notch, and I never once found myself cringing when there was dialog.
Sound effects were more than adequate as well, and I actually found myself wishing that I had turned up my subwoofer to help pack more punch when explosions took place, or even to feel the impact of a Psi-Blast that I threw out at the enemies.
Conclusion:
In my opinion, this was the better of the games that involved essentially the same basic storyline and theme, a guy wakes up with some crazy powers he didn't realize he has. What really helped set this game apart from Psi-Ops(which is a very good game mind you), was definitely the way the story was told and the depth at which is was presented from the cut scenes to the great voice acting, it was all top tier. Sadly the one downside about Second Sight is the lack of replay, as I found that after playing through once, I probably had had enough and don't really see a reason to play through it again. That being said, based on the play though that I did and for the price, I Highly Recommend Second Sight.