by:	October 26, 2004

Second Sight is TimeSplitters creators’ Free Radical, latest creation. It has a distinct style to it that you could only associate with Free Radical, but some inconsistencies, and lack of polish keep it from the greatness of their previous titles. The game has you take the role of John Vattic, a scientist who awakens in a laboratory, beaten to hell and with newfound psychic powers. As you progress, you will learn more and more about how you got to where you are. The story is interesting and told in a clear, concise manner. The only bad part about the story telling is that in order to progress you must take on “flashback levels” and this sort of disrupts the flow since in the past you have no psychic powers.

The gameplay may take some getting used to. There are an array of buttons just to do one simple thing like hug a wall, peak behind it and shoot. It took me four hours into the game before I realized all you had to do to switch from your psychic power, and your firearm was to simply press in the right analog stick. It would of also been great if you could use your psychic powers and your firearm at the same time, sort of like hold a guard up in the air and shoot at him or something. The actual feel of Second Sight is also hard to realize. In a training session level it feels like they were trying to make a stealthy “Metal Gear-esque” title. Yet, when you go through the actual game stealth isn’t critically needed unless you want an alarm to shutdown so that you can be free to walk around safely again. In a way this can work to the player’s advantage though, so if you want to make it harder on yourself and look cool sneaking around go ahead, but if you want to just run, gun, and mess people up with your psychic powers feel free to do that also.

They psychic powers are reminisce of Jedi powers you might find in a Star Wars game. You can pick objects up and throw them into people, or eventually pick the people up with you powers and kill them. Your psychic powers are limited by how much energy you have in your psychic power bar under your health meter. When you reach your limit a psychedelic effect happens to signal you ran out. The novelty of using your psychic powers runs thin eventually because it just becomes so easy to pick a guard up and throw them off a balcony to avoid them. There are other problems with the gameplay besides the simple opponents in the game. There just isn’t a huge amount of strategy that goes into getting from one point to another. It is all a matter of triggering a simple event or making sure you scaled the entire area. Also, the physics in the game can be strange at times; bumping into a computer may totally knock it over, and the “rag-doll effect” with bodies can get a bit over the top. The best incentive to playing the title is however the story, and your curiosity of wanting to reveal what exactly happened.

Visually Second Sight is a mixed bag. I will be the first to say I have never liked Free Radical’s graphic style and I found it them to often be uninspired, and what would have been impressive back in the days of Nintendo 64. The presentation of the characters is very animated but they are trying to create a serious engaging game, so, for me it doesn’t add up. For what it is worth though, while the characters only have a PlayStation 2 height of detail, they are still colorful, and the clothes are well drawn. The facial expressions in the game though are deeply exaggerated, but are still probably the most visually impressive thing in the game. The faces are very believable despite the exaggeration and there emotions can be read perfectly even with the sound muted. The backgrounds have a good amount of detail in them with the amount of moveable objects, dirt, grime, and atmosphere. The backgrounds still feel static in some areas however, especially in the outdoors levels but then again, Second Sight really wasn’t changed much from its PlayStation 2 counterpart.

The soundtrack in the game is actually very basic and like a lot of the rest of the game seems recycled. You will probably hear a lot of familiar army, and stealth melodies within the title, and while they suit the game sometimes it is better to just not play with the music on. The voice acting in the game is perfect and matches with the characters colorful expressions. The game emphasizes emotion when needed, and just goes straight through the talking when necessary. The sound effects in the game are dead-on and help add more depth to Vattic’s psychic powers. When he uses his psychic powers there are all kinds of strange “voomp” and “boom” noises that are extremely hard to describe but a joy to listen to.

Share this:

7 8 7 6 3 7.3

Second Sight is great to play in the beginning, and the novelty of the psychic powers is a joy for anyone. Two hours straight I couldn’t get over picking people up with my mind and tossing them off a balcony, or making myself invisible, just to then use a psychic push to throw a guard into a collection of computers. In the end though you get over the gimmicks and realize that this is a fine title to play for ten hours out of a weekend then it is time to move on.

Discuss this in the forums!