MindsEye

Jacob Diaz is not having an easy time of it. His years as a special forces soldier have taken their toll, and in addition to total amnesia, he has a mysterious AI chip implanted in his neck. When Las Vegas (Redrock) Mayor Shiva Vega and power-hungry tech billionaire and CEO of Silva Industries, Marco Silva, clash - a violent battle for Redrock's future begins and entangled in various interests we find poor Jacob, without memory and with reasonable amounts of PTSD to fit the role of tormented underdog hero who stumbles upon a giant conspiracy that threatens the future of humanity.

The premise of Mindseye is not original. It is not unique or interesting. Quite the contrary. We've seen this story and these characters in 100s of games before, and it's clear that Build A Rocket Boy has kept it simple in terms of synopsis and narrative structure. There's the Isu portion of Assassin's Creed, the hacking/AI part from Watch Dogs, the mission structure from Mafia II and small parts of GTA V mixed into a compote that feels flabby but not bad. Exhausting but not uninteresting. For the first big game from GTA producer Leslie Benzies, I was definitely expecting more. More nerve, more humour, more original characters and above all: more attitude. Mindseye feels like a generic middle-of-the-road game from the start and for the few hours that it lasts, and probably fits better in the sale bin than at the top of the full-price shelf, if I'm being completely honest.

Unlike GTA IV and GTA V (which Leslie produced and was thus a super important part of), there is no direct dynamic mission structure here and just like in Mafia II, for example, the open world is more about a backdrop to give a sense of total freedom, rather than giving the player a completely free hand with everything that exists in Redrock. Mindseye is thus relatively linear and it never manages to surprise or shake the old concepts that this kind of setup comes with, and I find that sad. Beyond that, the storytelling is nothing to cheer about, unfortunately. The dialogue is predictable and bland and although there are voice actors who do quite well, there is nothing here that engages or creates any kind of excitement or curiosity, which of course means that most of the ten hours it took me to reach the end - felt like a regular transport stretch. The little bit of social criticism that is embedded in the way Mindseye paints a future surveillance society has already been seen in 100 other productions and, as I said, I would have liked something more unique with its own twist.

In terms of game mechanics, it is of course clear that parts of the team behind Mindseye come from Rockstar and worked on both GTA IV and V. Jacob moves like Michael in Grand Theft Auto V, he shoots like Michael and takes cover during firefights - like Michael. The driving also feels very much like it does in GTA V and that's a good thing. There are things in the mechanics that need to be tightened and polished up but it's not bad here either. The cars are fun to drive and I think there are flashes of brilliance in the firefights in terms of how Jacob moves. Picking off enemies (in droves) comes down to the fact that Mindseye is incredibly easy, even on 'Hard'. The enemies are certainly more finicky than if you play on 'Normal' but Jacob's health recharges (automatically) so quickly after being hit that there is almost never any real danger, and this together with lousy artificial intelligence makes the battles feel like the story - boring.

There are plenty of NPCs in this game who are so clueless and who obviously run along marked paths rather than reacting to their surroundings that on several occasions I stopped, watched them in motion and laughed so hard my nostrils flared. It is so incredibly clear that Leslie & Co have not had time to finish the very pillars of Mindseye and, like so many others, have thrown out a game that perhaps should have been baked in the oven for about six more months, at least. In this way, and given how desolate and hollow the game city of Redrock feels, with stupid cops and spawning civilian cars, this is at times almost eerily reminiscent of Cyberpunk 2077 at release. On top of that, this game is riddled with bugs that, as I said, should never have been released in this state. The cutscenes stutter and stall, the car chases cough and sputter, and on PC, Mindseye has crashed four times in ten hours. On a maxed out Omen 16 Max from HP, this game has often dipped down to an absurd 10-15 frames per second which is of course completely unacceptable and the amount of things in the game world that disappear and then pop up, again, is way beyond what can be forgiven.

If there was one thing I never thought I'd write about Leslie Benzie's first self-directed game, it was that it would be perceived as unimaginative and generic. At least I thought that originality and attitude would be present here, even if it looked unfinished beforehand. That didn't happen, and it's easy to see that Mindseye was not only released about six months too early, but that it also resembles a ten-year-old GTA copy with most of its elements under-recognised.