My brothers came home for Thanksgiving

And Josh brought his X-Box home with him, like I asked him to. Guess what that means.

I played Psychonauts. At last.

A couple of days ago I was doing errands with my mom* and I asked her since we were in the area, if we could go to the Gamestop at the mall to see if they had Psychonauts. They didn't. We checked the EB Games near the mall. They didn't have it either.

However, the Gamestop near Noodles and Company did have Psychonauts for the X-Box. It's still completely beyond me why Brookfield has three used game shops in pretty much the same area, but, hey, I got my game, so I'm not complaining.

The game I bought is in excellent condition as well! Absolutely no scratches, there were only some fingerprints.

So, when I got to start playing it yesterday, when Josh came home, I was thrilled. So thrilled that from the time he came home I didn't stop playing until around 12:30 AM (I didn't realize it was so late, and I was in the middle of a level that I wanted to finish before I stopped).

This morning I woke up at around 7:50 to watch the Angry Beavers on Nickelodeon. I was recording it via DVR, but I don't think that gets counted in the ratings? Anyway, I wanted to support the first time the beavers have been on Nickelodeon in years.

Pretty much after that, I was back to playing Psychonauts again. It's such a fun game, I could hardly put it down. And, despite the fact that I was well aware that Richard Horvitz did the voice of Raz, I still got immersed in his character and story.

Because, you know, sometimes when people are fans of actors they tend to watch something just because that particular actor is doing something in it, even if the story is mediocre. However, I'm glad to say that Psychonaut's story, characters, art, and acting blend so well together that I couldn't imagine it being described as mediocre.

Yeah, the game was sort of short. I didn't get everything, since I have no patience to track down every single last figment in the game, but I completed the game in about 15 hours. I think that's about three hours more than what most gaming websites average the playtime, but eh. That's just me.

For the record, since I am a pathetic human girl, I nearly cried twice out of frustration from playing Psychonauts. Saving Li'l Oly from the mutuant rabbits was horrible and Raz's nightmare acrobatic regimen of DOOM was frustrating as well. Once I got past those (and both times it was pretty much a case of "UGH! You're doing it all WRONG, Acey! Suck less, please!"), it was smoother.

Uh, but I also did snap at my brother a little when I was facing the final boss...I pretty much was like, "Tim, would you stop talking to me?" I apologized, but, geez, I'm facing a two-headed freak of nature boss, and my brother is asking me tons of questions. If I did that to him, I'm pretty sure he would've done a little more than a slight snap at me.

Yeah. The game is fun, amusing, though preposterously difficult at the end. I find I must echo what I read from other players of the game: It's got a really, really weird difficulty curve.

So, I would say, if you get easily pissed off by frustrating video games or frustrating video games might make you cry, but you still want to try Psychonauts...

Take a break. If you're sick and tired of failing at that one part and having to start over and over again, pause, wipe your sweaty palms on your pants, walk away from the game, and breathe. Drink some water, clear your head. Once you're a little more mentally stable and less like Boyd, return to your console and try again. Rinse and repeat until you pass that hard part.

I mean, the game is pretty easy up until the final level. Some of the parts before that can get annoying, but not the "I-want-to-destroy-my-console" kind.

So the overall verdict is:

Yes; I do obsessively play video games until I beat them. Thank you for noticing.

((*by the way, Mom and I haven't had any huge depressing discussions since the 16th. Yay!))