MindsEye from Build A Rocket Boy and a former Grand Theft Auto producer has launched. The game is semi-open-world and has a science fiction theme. Firstly, I have spent quite 14 hours of play time in the game, as me and my friend played through the entire campaign. Sitting here, I’m trying to think about who this game could be the target audience for. MindsEye is an expensive experiment that fails to be anything, thanks to its mixture of conflicting ideas and sloppy execution.
Neither Fast-Paced Action nor Rich Open World
MindsEye seems to combine two very different types of video games: the openness of an open-world video games along with the focused trajectories of a linear-action gaming title. Unfortunately, it succeeds at neither. The open world feels empty, while the linear portion of the game suffers from a drawn-out and tedious exposition. The outcome of this hybrid is that it fails to take gamers anywhere in depth, with little reason to stay.
A Plot Full of Potential That Quickly Fizzles
The main idea of the story revolves around jacob diaz, a former soldier whose cybernetic malfunction left him permanently disfigured. Years after a calamitous incident related to this implant, Diaz spends his days working at Silva Corp — the firm whose technology resides in his head. The colourful disco town of Redrock City — a fictionalised Las Vegas complete with casinos and hotels — forms the setting for a convoluted story about AIs, corrupt generals and peanut green men from alternate dimensions who turn up in a riotously-coloured, whirling and exploding distillation of assorted sci-fi, horror and crime tropes.
Despite sounding good on paper, the story becomes a boring exercise quickly. Unnecessary use of all outlandish elements in a game which spends a majority of the time either listening to never-ending dialogues on phone calls or driving for long distances.
Gameplay That Rarely Sparks Excitement
MindsEye does not overwhelm players with extravagant missions or vibrant battles, but rather relies heavily on routines. The cover-based shooting system feels dated, borrowing from older games without bringing anything new. Driving takes up so much time in the game that it becomes repetitive in design. For instance, players cannot hijack most vehicles even on missions which means they get stuck with the default vehicle that is neither varied nor exciting.
Visuals Shine but Cannot Save the Experience
Redrock City certainly is eye-pleasing. The polished look comes from high-quality character models, detailed environments, and eye-catching lighting. Although the game can look amazing, issues with performance often ruin things. Frame drops, stuttering and many other bugs persist throughout the campaign and mainly during sequences with multiple vehicles as well as explosions.
The city’s beauty offers little incentive to visit and explore. Gamers can’t do anything meaningful with the world. Shooting police won’t get a reaction, and exploring the town is unrewarding. It seems like a wallpaper with super high resolution or something like that.
Missions That Feel Like Busywork
The core missions are formulaic and repetitive. You will spend most of your time driving from point A to B and engaging in boring conversations that don’t add much to the story. The action sequences that are present feel gimmicky and are somewhat upsetting in design, and their uniqueness is waning.
Players are taken to user-created missions made with MindsEye’s toolset during sections of game play. While this might mean that there’s potential for some community creativity, the default missions don’t have the depth or quality for us to be optimistic about what players are going to create.
Endgame Content Offers Little Reward
Once players finish the campaign, they gain access to an open-world mode. However, this too feels underdeveloped. Players are in control of a faceless protagonist wearing a gas mask whose job is to complete generic side missions. The challenges are the races and driving and basic shooting challenges, they do not have unique voice lines, no map support and reused assets. There’s no prize, no forward movement—nothing but more of the same unworthy stuff.
The post-game mode appears to have been included for the sake of open-world players, as it doesn’t offer much in terms of gameplay.
A Game That Misses Every Opportunity
Patching up technical issues by adding new content and other updates in the future won’t solve these essential issues. There isn’t a clear sense of direction in the plot, nor is there much energy in the gameplay and the world is also uninteractive. MindsEye tries to do a lot but fails to do any one thing right.
Any end-credit scene that hints at a sequel may be unreasonably optimistic, given the base game. Even if the community missions idea gets some occasional sparks, the basic platform will need improvement to get anything lasting.
Final Thoughts: Not Worth All the Hype
MindsEye has been made a cautionary tale of ambition gone wrong. It’s not just a flawed game—it’s a lifeless one. While the game looks quite pretty, it isn’t enough to cover for the rest of the experience. MindsEye has no interesting plot, no innovative gameplay, and no worthwhile reward. It’ll likely be forgotten shortly after its release. When it comes to creating a semi-open-world game, this title will serve as an example of “How Not To”, unless any miracle unfurls in future updates.