
Nick’s Mind Drain replenishes his psychic energy at the expense of whoever he’s using it on, and if you can catch a target unaware, you can make his head explode Scanners-style. Your other powers are unlocked naturally as you progress through the game. If there’s a way for someone to get minced in an industrial accident, you can make it happen to someone in Psi-Ops. Since the Movement has carelessly left volatile chemicals lying all over the place, you can also use giant explosive oil drums or oxygen tanks as makeshift grenades.

You can also slam enemy soldiers into walls, toss them over ledges, fry them on exposed wiring, slam a loose wall panel on their heads, fling them into a running ventilation fan, or, in one particularly memorable moment, chuck them into an open and working crematorium. In the first level, when all you have is telekinesis, you can knock someone’s teeth out by throwing a crate at them, or suspend them in mid-air while you shoot them to death, but that’s just the beginning. If you try to rely on your guns, then Psi-Ops gets dull in a hurry, but once you start tormenting every poor bastard who so much as looks at you funny, Psi-Ops becomes entertaining in the sort of way that makes you ask hard questions about yourself. It all comes down to doing horrible things to people with your amazing psychic abilities. If you stick it out, you’ll find that the further you go, the more fun Psi-Ops is. Nick’s not the most powerful psion to come out of Mindgate, but he’s got more powers than most of them.Īt the start of the game, you’ll find Psi-Ops to be an unremarkable shooter, with blah music, okay controls, a poorly-implemented stealth system, and graphics that are just above decent.

Over the course of the game, after he’s given the antidote, those powers will slowly return.

Since the game features a non-linear design, players can accomplish objectives in any manner of their choosing, whether it's through physical force and nimble acrobatics or by using the distinctive powers of the mind.To get past the Movement’s telepaths, Nick’s been given drugs to block his memories and his powers. Psi-Ops has players traveling across the world to infiltrate four of the Movement's high-security compounds and advance through seven fully interactive levels. Tying the action sequences together is a storyline that sheds light on the mystery surrounding Scryer's unique gifts and murky past. In addition to psychic powers, Nick Scryer can use "traditional" means of control by acquiring handguns and automatic weapons. Players can use psychic powers to lift and throw objects (or people) anywhere within the environments, temporarily leave their character's body to scout ahead, drain an enemy's psychic ability in a battle of wills, create a wall of fire to set things ablaze, see objects invisible to the naked eye, and take control of weak-willed characters. In the not-so-distant future a terrorist group called the Movement, led by an elite army of psychic soldiers, has designs on world conquest.Ī key component in Psi-Ops is the ability to complete missions in a variety of ways.

Cast in the role of American Psi-Operative Nick Scryer, players must tap into their character's unique talents for telekinesis, pyrokinesis, remote viewing, mind draining, aura seeing, and mind control. Midway's Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy offers a new twist on the burgeoning stealth genre by emphasizing psychic powers as a means to achieve objectives, in addition to the use of weapons and agility.
