03/03/2020

Second Sight

Are you getting a sense of deja vu?




The PlayStation 2 had a little bit of everything, and third-person action-adventures were everywhere. But not all of them involved a protagonist with psychic powers to manipulate their surroundings. At least two of them had that, one of which being Second Sight, from the minds behind the TimeSplitters series.

It was an intriguing idea, but despite my gaming life being dominated by the Sony console back then, I didn't ever come across Second Sight, and my interest was only really a passing one. It wasn't on my radar, and it's time to see what we're missing.

We're going to really need our brains for this one.




Fun Times


Second Sight kicks off with a familiar tune to TimeSplitters fans (or at least it's familiar to me, and I don't know where from, but highly suspect it to be one of the TimeSplitters titles), and a familiar look to its characters.

The exaggerated cartoony look is perhaps a little out of place in what I assume to be a somewhat serious game, a departure from previously developed titles, but in truth, I've no idea what Second Sight will turn out to be. Is it a humourous game? I never thought it to be. Is it super serious? A game about psychic powers? Probably not.




After having some senses about us to eavesdrop on a tiny bit of backstory - we're a psycho killer of some sort - we wake up strapped to a bed in an unknown room. It's not long before those straps disappear as if by magic, raising a good few questions.




Well, it's quite simple, JV-034. You're on the wrong side of the door to push the button. Not the Crouch button. You can do that easily enough. The Press button button. You can't do that from where you are. You'll need to think outside the box. Outside this room. You'll need to think long and hard.




Attaboy, JV. Who knew psychic abilities were as easy to pull off as pressing and holding some shoulder buttons? Now we're free, we probably have some sort of desire to get out of here. That's how games usually work. Let's get moving.




As you'd expect, the first areas of Second Sight are devoid of threats for you to play around with your telekinesis. Holding L2 shows you what you can interact with, and once you point yourself in the direction you want, you can press R2 to lift up an object and move it around a little with the right analogue stick.

It's a little cumbersome, but we're just getting used to what I assume are our new abilities. We'll need some practice. We also can't do these things indefinitely, a psychic bar slowly emptying the more we exert ourselves, but recovering on its own if we give ourselves a rest.




Walking - or stumbling - through a door gives us a second power, that of healing. Simply stop, switch powers with the D-pad, and overcharge your brain to the point where your body starts to heal. I'm sure that'll be used often.




Heading out of these rooms, we're introduced to the camera options, which are fixed or free, essentially, and I've no idea why the 360 camera isn't the default, on account of how useful it is - how would I have seen these guards if the camera was pointing in the wrong direction?




We're a weak, unarmed mental health patient. We should probably think about how best to deal with this obstacle.




Of course, all I saw in my panic was 'Press Circle to attack', so I kept pressing that until they were both on the floor. I guess I was supposed to fling the bin down the corridor and spook them, using the distraction to head down a different path. Oh well.




The staff in here aren't accommodating, but their computer systems are interactable to quite a large degree. It's the closest thing to Doom 3 that consoles can get, perhaps. Either way, we can finally see a map and learn the code to the elevator so we can get out of here.




The elevator allows us to have a flashback. We learn our name, John Vattic, and a cutscene informs us that we're a doctor, seemingly out of place at a military base in Germany.




Frustrations


What follows are lots of tutorials. Moving, climbing, crouching, sneaking, and a couple of rounds of firearms training too. We're roped into a mission we know nothing about yet and have to go through basic training to prove ourselves. It's simple enough, necessary to the game, I guess, but still a little tedious. After dropping us into the thick of things in a weird hospital or something, we're suddenly in a different country climbing ledges and shooting pistols.




After getting to grips with all the controls - square to crouch, R1 to stick to walls, fine-tuning our autotargeting with the right stick and so on - we're finally briefed on our mission. There's a guy called Grienko, and he's researching something shady. He needs to be dealt with. But why are we here?




Oh. So we're the scientist, dragged along because this research is psychic in nature. It's a setup you've seen in stories before, but at least it feels like it stands out. Perhaps it's the presentation, with all these caricatures around the table.




I forget who this is, but we've got some history together. I forget what that history is, too, but I'm sure it'll come to the forefront of the plot at some point. Why introduce her in this way otherwise? So, we're all set to go to Siberia and pick this guy up, right?




Further Fun Times


Back in the present, we learn more skills in the heat of the moment, rather than in a bland military training course. Threatened and pressured, we can't help but send out a burst of energy, knocking the guard out cold, or worse - I didn't stop to check.




I did stop at the nearest computer, though. This one had a chat app, complete with the last few lines of conversation between that guard and his missus. Worldbuilding, that. Fleshing out our surroundings in little details that a great many players probably skim right over.

Like me. Can't stop to chat. Must escape.




As you might imagine, a mostly naked patient isn't much of a match for infinitely respawning policemen ready and willing to shoot on sight. Even after chucking some psychic bolts in their direction, we were no match, so let's instead run off and look for our patient records.




Further Frustrations


If there's one thing I can say about Second Sight, it's that all the tools are there for you to use, you've just got to get a handle on them. I couldn't. Even with a 360-degree camera to look around corners, I'd be spotted, and the alarms would raise. Even with psychic defences, I'd have to resort to punching armed guards, because it was quicker than pressing the shoulder buttons in the right way.

I was the definition of a blithering idiot, but I was at least enjoying the game so far.




We find the patient records room locked, and an easy to miss note stuck to the wall says that the key holder in the primate research lab. I'm pretty sure we're not in a hospital any more. I've also not come across that on the maps, so let's check in with a computer and see where to head to next.




Another door, another psychic ability, this time 'Charm'. It's the ability to turn invisible, but probably not literally, just suggestively invisible. A Jedi Mind Trick to say "I'm not even here" whenever the need arises - and whenever you remember that you've got to select it from the psychic ability menu. 

It's a shame your powers aren't split up into the rest of the controls somehow. The menu at least pauses the gameplay to let you decide what you need, but it's a little clunky. It probably isn't, in the hands of the competent, but I'm not there yet.




I am at the primate lab, however, and it seems walking in and angering all the apes wasn't the greatest of ideas. I can't pass this door while they're angry (that's a weird way to lock a door), and I probably can't calm them down while guards are streaming into the room.




I'd like to say I put up a fight, but I probably didn't. A couple of psychic blasts here, a lot of punches there... I'm going to need to actually use my brain to approach Second Sight, but that'll have to happen on a second attempt.


Final Word


I know a tiny bit more about Second Sight than I did a decade and a half ago, and it's enough to know that I want to see much more of it. I'm not sure why I wasn't interested in it all those years ago, especially given how much TimeSplitters I played. Maybe something else was out and taking up all my attention.

I can't say it's a perfect game, but it plays surprisingly well. I didn't know what to expect, to be fair, so it's easy to surprise, but the point is that this looks like something I should have paid way more attention to, but just didn't.

Struggling with the stealth and trying to run through the level is causing me more than a few problems, so I'll need to get on top of that next time around, and I look forward to that next time around. I've absolutely no idea where the plot will take me, but I really want to find out - after I play something else. Something I'm reminded of...


Fun Facts


Second Sight was included as one of the titles in 1001 Video Games Yo-wait, I know that.

Second Sight, developed by Free Radical, first released in 2004.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2004, via emulation.