“Mmmm… Bacon!” If that doesn’t ring a bell in your ear, you may have a gaming nutrient deficiency. Previous sources of this vitamin include the Monkey Island games and Grim Fandango. The most potent of Tim Schafer games, however, is the mind-blowing Psychonauts, released by Double Fine Productions in 2005. Initially overlooked by most gamers (except maybe the color blind), Psychonauts went on to garner Gamespot’s “Best Game No One Played” award among numerous other commendations for writing and voice acting.

The story begins with Raz sneaking into summer camp. You know, the one where it’s actually a secret government training ground for psychic soldiers, also known as Psychonauts. Consequently, his dad is called to pick him up, so Raz is determined to train as much as possible before that happens. What Raz doesn’t know yet is that he’s more special than the other kids at the camp (and trust me, there’s some “special” kids there). What’s more, it’s the start of an adventure only a madman like Tim Schafer could produce.
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The first episode of the Call of Cthulhu Backlog is now available over at Eat Sleep Game under its new title “Rebel FM Game Club”. It’s looking like this segment will be releasing on Mondays as a file separate from the main podcast, but still distributed through the Rebel FM podcast feed. Be sure to set your podcast grabber to keep the latest two episodes in the feed.

I am playing along, though I waited to start until the first episode was out so that I could find out how far they played. Thankfully it was mentioned early on that they played up to “the sewers”, which during my gameplay was about two and a half hours in. I still haven’t encountered combat, which is surprising since I have gathered quite a bit of ammo. There’s also more stealth sections than I was expecting, much of which is very reminiscent of Thief. That is to say, it works well.

I’m going to try to continue following along, though Left 4 Dead and the Grand Theft Auto IV: Lost & Damned expansion have been eating up most of my non-portable gaming time this week.