Raz is a young kid of about 9 or 10 years old. He has run away from home to attend a summer camp out in the middle of nowhere. The game begins as he sneaks into camp and soon thereafter whisked away on an adventure only he can handle. With that description, it sounds pretty typical. How about if the camp is actually the training ground for kids to learn how to tap into and hone their psychic abilities, the characters look like they're designed by the same folks who did The Nightmare Before Christmas and most of the game takes place in the twisted nether regions of the mind? Throw in some of the most original characters and dialogue to be found in a game in a very long time and you've got an inkling of what Psychonauts is all about.

One thing Psychonauts does not do is lay out the story right in front of you at the beginning. The player is brought in mid-stream, without exposition. When a game delivers a story this way, it has to be done right. It has to be interesting and entertaining enough to peak your interest without leaving room for getting bored or frustrated because of your lack of familiarity. Psychonauts hits precisely the right cord. You have no idea why there's a grizzled drill sergeant hazing youths in a backwoods camp or why Boris and Natasha knockoffs are slinking around the background. But they're all engaging and real, and that makes you want to see what they do and say next.

In this case, Raz gets thrown into an obstacle course inside the instructor's mind. The idea of exploring the human mind from the inside might not be a new one, but here it's treated with just the right mixture of Dr. Seuss and the aforementioned Tim Burton weirdness. The game doesn't take the cheap way out, either, by simply stating that you're in the mind of someone else and leaving the theme at the door. While exploring, you'll run across old memories, baggage, suppressed alternate personalities and other clever references. On top of that, each human mind is unique, and so is each level in the game. Some people see the world as a battlefield, others see it as a giant board game. No two people see the world the same way, so your experiences within their minds are each a new adventure.

Perhaps the most refreshing thing about the game is that it takes so long to realize you're playing a platformer. The story and characters are interesting enough to force the traditional conventions into the background (collecting things, jumping, puzzles, navigating hazards, etc.). It's no secret you're playing a platform game, but the gameplay is an integral part of the experience. Instead of the usual pacing of cutscene - game - cutscene - game, you get to be part of a story the whole time. That might sound like an obvious goal for any game, but rarely does it happen.

But all the immersion in the world does not necessarily make any game fun. Thankfully, Psychonauts teams a thoroughly implemented style with mostly traditional platformer gameplay. The refinement of the gameplay is what seals the deal. Hit detection is spot on. Detail and design in the landscape make the game just interesting enough to not be blatantly on rails while not giving you a feeling of utter confinement even though that's largely the case. Form and function exist together, without one overpowering the other.

While at camp and on his adventures, Raz learns new psychic powers (telekinesis, levitation, pyrokinesis, etc) which expand your arsenal of moves and abilities every time you collect enough of this or that. The collection of these things isn't the chore you'll find in so many other games. You'll rarely spend time looking behind every nook and cranny unless you really want to.

Bottom line, Psychonauts is as entertaining as it gets. It's not revolutionary, it's exceptionally refined. The story takes plenty of twists, and with the cast of characters being as genuinely funny as they are, it's the kind of game that leaves you wanting more. Playing through a second time is repetitive, of course, but so is re-watching a favorite movie over and over - it's worth it.