Why Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy is one of my favourite PS2 era games – Reader’s Feature

A reader plays retro game Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy and finds an unusually inventive third person shooter with some very unique psychic powers.

Over two decades ago a cool game came out. Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy was published by Midway. It was a single-player action adventure with a rather unique selling point; this game lets you fight with your head as well as your hands.

You play as Nick Scryer, a rather gruff UN soldier who is captured during a terrorist attack. I must admit to having not much patience or interest in the game’s plot. As far as I could tell Nick used to be a PSI agent – PSI is short for psionics – in an organisation called Mindgate and had his memory wiped for the purposes of infiltrating the terrorist organisation that captures him, which is called The Movement.

The B-movie plot of the game really isn’t important. The fun that you can have with Psi-Ops is what counts. Gradually, as you make your way through the game’s levels, Nick regains his memory and his PSI powers. Each power is awarded after a nifty training flashback that lets you practice and understand the benefits of your newly remembered skill.

The powers you get while you play through the game are Telekinesis (TK), which is the ability to levitate objects and people. Remote Viewing (RV) effectively allows the player to explore their current whereabouts with a free-floating camera to detect any threats or challenges ahead.

Mind Drain (MD) my favourite ability and enables you to recharge your PSI power by leeching off living or dead enemies. The coolest aspect of Mind Drain is that by catching an enemy unawares you can drain someone’s brain until their head explodes, which never gets old.

With Mind Control (MC) you can possess enemy operatives and therefore make them turn rogue or completely abandon their personal safety. Pyrokinesis (PK) is fairly cool, but you only get this mind power fairly late in the game. PK gives you the ability to shoot fire out of your hands.

Lastly, you are awarded Aura View (AV) which is a sort of blacklight/ultraviolet vision which shows aspects of the environment that you wouldn’t otherwise see, for instance secret codes and footprints that you can follow.

Using your PSI abilities in combat and to solve environmental puzzles is the proper way to play this game. There are guns but play Psi-Ops as a conventional shooter and it will swiftly kill you. The enemy soldiers called meat puppets are numerous and often strategically placed to make your life extremely difficult. Snipers are initially hard to see and can cause you repeated damage.

Later on, the game unleashes PSI resistant heavily armoured meat puppets with rocket launchers. But by literally using your head there’s always a way through. Scan a level first with Remote Viewing. Spot a sniper, possess him with Mind Control and use his hijacked physical self to take out his buddies before you make him give up on life entirely and step off a ledge. Alternatively, chuck flammable drums or canisters at the meat puppets or drop big stone blocks on their heads with Telekinesis.

You can also fight with a variety of guns. Your weapons of choice, conventional or psionic, are really up to you. The multifaceted high jinks of this game really are the main reason to play it. One downside to Psi-Ops is that its levels are consistently drab. Military bases, docksides, warehouses. All the usual stuff that you’ve seen a hundred times before.

The game does change its scenery near the end, by sending you to the Himalayas. Visually dull as they are the game’s levels do offer up some fun, if sadistic, opportunities. Psi-Ops gives you the chance to chuck your enemies into furnaces, high voltage electrical arrays, and gigantic fans. In one especially cool level Nick has to navigate a deadly corridor that features pulsing bands of energy.

Psi-Ops is very much a traditional video game with checkpoints, health packs, and end of level bosses. Overall, I liked the bosses in this game, because they are a colourful and entertaining bunch. I especially liked the fire lady, Marlena Kessler, who sadly you hardly see until you end up fighting her. Marlena really lights up the room, quite literally, in one of the game’s most impressive visual flourishes.

Now that I’ve beaten the General, the top tier baddy and end of game boss, I’m glad I went back and finished Psi-Ops. As far as I can recall I gave up on the game due to a difficulty spike when it first came out. Even though Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy is over 20 years old it’s still great fun and well worth revisiting. This game has also inspired me to rewatch films with mind powers, namely David Cronenberg’s Scanners and the slightly more recent movie Chronicle.

I replayed Psi-Ops on the original Xbox but it’s also available on the PlayStation 2 and I believe the PC.

By reader Michael Veal (X/Twitter)

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.

MORE: Why my first go on an Xbox 360 become a cherished gaming memory – Reader’s Feature

MORE: Team Cherry has put me off Silksong with the way they act – Reader’s Feature

MORE: I can no longer afford to play video games the way I want to – Reader’s Feature