MindsEye

MindsEye is a title with a lot of promise that stutters a bit when trying to deliver, but there is a fun game here if you’re willing to get past the initial slowness.

Its world feels considered. There are decent performances from its cast among the graphical artefacts, and zippy pacing that respects your time and conjures a sense of playing the Schwarzenegger role that never was. But it's been released in a technical state that makes it impossible to enjoy its ideas, with core components of its action left underdeveloped. For the player, that's frustrating. For those who made it, surely, it's heartbreaking. [Issue#413, p.112]

MindsEye offers an original narrative and a powerful level creator tool within a dystopian open world, but it suffers from repetitive, uninspired gameplay and poor technical performance, especially on mid-range PCs and Steam Deck. Despite well-crafted cutscenes and a promising concept, the lack of polish, outdated design choices, and insufficient support for the creation system greatly limit its appeal.

MindsEye is as beautiful as it is broken, vacillating between promise and problematic. With design choices rooted in the distant past and an infestation of bugs, it’s held back by an unforced error – releasing far too early.

MindsEye intrigues with its cyber-noir atmospheres but stumbles on many, too many of its promises. Everywhere you look while walking through Redrock City, you see an ambitious action game that shoots for the stars but ends up crashing to the ground.

MindsEye might have been a good game if it had launched complete, with more systems and activities, but it’s clear it wasn’t ready for release. It’s the kind of game worth picking up only during a deep discount and several months down the line, once the development team makes it at least minimally playable — though even then, it will likely remain rough around the edges.

MindsEye is a lesson for present and future game designers on everything not to do in a videogame: this game and it's making need to be studied tu understand how so many things can go wrong in one place.

Even if you manage to achieve a stable experience, MindsEye still commits the cardinal sin of being mind-numbingly boring. More than anything, it feels like a game firmly trapped in the past. It wouldn't have been good 15 years ago, either, but perhaps some of its design choices would have made more sense. As it is, issues like broken AI and uneven car physics simply exacerbate the problems with its archaic and insipid design. Impressive visuals can't compensate for a lack of substance, whether that comes from its pointless world, tedious combat, or any number of other egregious shortcomings. If you're looking for quality, cast your mind's eye elsewhere.

Although it shows some early promise, MindsEye is sunk by a ridiculous story, inconsistent writing, poorly designed mission scenarios, and utterly atrocious combat.

With a mediocre story and lackluster gameplay that wastes the potential of its sci-fi premise of big tech and AI, MindsEye is a resoundingly disappointing action-adventure that's neither satisfying as an old genre throwback nor presents a confident foundation for others to build upon.

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 being undercooked.

When its performance is stable and you’re explosively blasting your way through robots, MindsEye can masquerade as a serviceable action shooter for a few minutes at a time. Its near-future setting and driving feel also impress. However, its flashy graphics and cinematics can’t otherwise hide its distinct lack of substance. High on ambition but low on original ideas, MindsEye’s rigid mission design renders its open world largely pointless – and it’s consistently undermined by vanilla combat, janky AI enemies, and its sloppy frame rate and bugs. Throw in its insultingly unfinished free roaming component and it’s clear it was simply not ready to be released. If you had your sights set on MindsEye, think again.

MindsEye is an oddity. For all its failings, I rarely disliked playing it, and yet it’s also difficult to sincerely recommend. Its ideas, its moment-to-moment action and narrative are so thinly conceived that it barely exists. And yet: I’m kind of happy that it does.

Functional third-person shooter with neat-looking story sequences, but not much more.