10 Overlooked Video Games That Were WAY Ahead Of Their Time
4. Psychonauts
It will forever be a shame that poor project management caused Psychonauts to miss its shot at the big leagues.
What put Psychonauts ahead of its time, rather than simply being an exemplary early-2000s platformer, was its black-as-pitch humor and its portrayal and exploration of mental health as a central gameplay gimmick. Granted, the former often kneecapped the latter, but the fact that it was sincerely attempted in such an adolescent stage of the gaming industry was really something.
The gameplay itself, while dragging heavily in spots and suffering from the kind of roadblocking that plagues a lot of 3D platformers of this era, is a certified classic in the history of platformers. The characters are all memorably unhinged, from Raz's psychotic grudge against all squirrel-kind, to the various campers, all of whom are different flavors of crazy. If you haven't played Psychonauts already, fix that as soon as humanly possible. And then after that, play the sequel, because it's somehow even better.