Second Sight (Gamecube) Review
Introduction
If you dont already own this game and live in Australia then good luck. At time of Writing DVD Crave was the only store in Australia where I could find a copy of the game. Electronics Boutique, Games Warehouse, had nothing. The online stores did have stock but by the time I had enough money to buy it they had gone. EB and other Stores on the other hand first had a release date of September 3rd, which was then pushed back to September 10th then September 17th and then finally discontinued. So basically the stores never received stock and now cant order it at all. Of course this only applied to the Gamecube Version.
But enough of that. If you can get the game great and if you got the game even better. However if you cant get the game then read on and see what a great game you a missing out on. Second Sight puts you in control of John Vattic, amnesiac (someone who had lost there memory der) After a waking up from a coma John finds himself waking up in a building, covered in blood and bandages. He does not have any idea what has happened to him all he knows is he has to get out. The first Psychic ability John learns is Telekinesis, his powers seem to be given to him by a need to have basis. The second move is healing which heals you up. A full Psi Bar will equal to one health bar so if you are in a battle, and have been using your Psi powers, it may not always heal you fully.
The game starts off in the Government Building but will eventually take you back in flashbacks to Syberia where you will learn the basics of the game (a tutorial if you will) and once you start you will fight your way through 100’s of government type people and find out what happened to John.
Graphics
Played Timesplitters 2? Like there graphics? Well if you didnt you wouldnt like Second Sight’s. There not bad in no way what so ever the textures and character models and the world in which it represents is awesome. The characters also animated realistically which makes the game seem all that more real. When the action heats up and things start flying (and things will) Desk, Chairs, Bins and even dead bodies start getting knocked around and the room doesnt look the same as it started.
However a gripe with the Telekinesis and how it looks. When you pick up a Bodies Ala Darth Vader style and start to throw him around it looks like he is floating and when you through him up against a wall there just arent that “woomp” mainly due to the fact he’s not moving fast but also all other objects move at the same speed.
To top the graphics off there is nice effects through-out the game such as glare, detailed shadows and dynamic lighting through out. However you cant shoot the lights out unlike Perfect Dark.
Sounds
Gun… why is alway developers make the crappiest pop-gun noises for guns, we dont want like crap we want gun that when you fire your sub woofer goes nut (thats if you have a sub and all good home theatres and gaming areas should) Ok there not that bad but I would really like some deep bass from my Shotgun.The music in SS is exlenet and sounds like it was written by the same kind of people who know how sci-fi should sound, What Im trying to get at is that Second Sight has music on par with the X-files and Stargate. Really Moody, Deep and Meaningful stuff.
Gameplay
Unlike some other reviewers Im not going to compare this game to Psi-Op’s (PS2) for the simple fact thats it’s not the same game or same type of game. Second Sight aims to be different and it achieves that.
Lets run through the controls quickly, Controlling John throughout the game very simple Control Stick to move him, X is Punch, Y is to change to one of the 3 camera angles (one of the basically useless but cool) A is for using with the context sensitive items around John’s World. B is to reload your weapon. The left Trigger is used for locking on to your enemies, dead body, guns, tables, chairs basically anything that can be picked up. Once you have picked it up using the left button depending on what psychic power your using the R trigger activates it and throws, levitates, chokes, blasts whatever is selected by your sights. You can change what you are locked onto by using the C-Stick to look around and it will pick the nearest object. The C-Stick is also used to move stuff around while you are levitating.
You select your powers and/or guns by using the D-Pad, Up and Down for the Guns and Right and left for the Psi Powers. There is nothing wrong with what this but when you do press those buttons it pauses the game and just seems to break up the actions some times.
Also straight out of Doom 3 is computer you can use. You can use PC’s and look around them using the Control Stick and click on files, search for stuff, find password and key codes out. I thought this was a rather good addition and make looking for things not so straight forward.
Difficulty/Value
Having only played through 7 levels of the game so far and on the Easy mode I havent had the chance to try out the Challenging mode, one can only assume that by calling it Challenging it mode it should be hard. This is a good reason to play through game once you finish it on easy (and you will) There is no multi-player but I dont see that as bad because its better to have no mutli-player and not a half arsed multiplayer (*cough* Doom 3 *cough*).
Overall
If you can get you hands on a copy of this game then pick it up, Second Sight is a good Romp and its good to see something different on the market AND thats not a sequel.
