Second Sight Diaries Part Ten

This is my exploration of Second Sight, where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. Now let’s finish…

After following a trail, John Vattic had broken into the National Security Executive building to put a stop to their experiments, but upon being unsuccessful, decided to try and change the past…

Redemption began on 22nd February at 1205hrs in Dubrensk, Siberia, almost two hours since I had entered the church. I demanded that Professor Grienko leave all of the paperwork that he was gathering and tell me where Director Hanson was. I hadn’t known who that was on my last visit to the past…

Grienko didn’t believe that Hanson was in the process of killing the psychic children and taking tissue samples… until I said that I’d seen it happen. This piqued his interest, so he acquiesced and told me to go to the lower level. So, I stepped aside and watched while a special forces soldier casually killed Grienko, then turned on me.

He wasn’t alone, so I killed the two, then headed back to the elevator that I’d seen near to the turbine room. As I had guessed, it was now on my level, so I got in and headed down. I saw what I assumed was one of the mutated children that I had read about, but they hurried away.

Following the direction they went, I found a soldier threatening a scientist, so I hit them with a Psi Bolt and shot him. The scientist, like Grienko, thought that they were all going to America, so was upset to learn that he was going to get shot if I hadn’t stepped in. After looking at a poster on the three types of mutations that they had, I activated a hand scanner on the wall to open a door further along the corridor, then checked it out with Projection.

There were four special forces soldiers inside, so I possessed one and shot the rest, leaving the survivor for my own bullets. A closed door opened for me, revealing the mutant from earlier, who had used the hand scanner. He ran away when I thanked him, and then I had a migraine, suddenly appearing in the interrogation room at the Osiris Medical Research facility?

Shooting the mirrors didn’t help me, but suddenly the door opened, and Vattic called out to himself, though I didn’t see what he did. Taking him at his word, I returned to the room where I first woke up (or would eventually wake up?), passing by some semi-transparent figures of the guards and a doctor.

I found a semi-transparent Vattic on the bed, who sat up and told me that I wasn’t really there, and this wasn’t the present. It was a possible future — I was under Dubrensk in the Zener Base, and I had to stop Hanson. Another migraine returned me to the corridor in Dubrensk, and scouting ahead with my Projection, I decided to sneak through using Charm to avoid the five special forces inside.

Once through the door on the other side, I had another migraine, this one taking me back to the Penfold Asylum. It was in the maximum security area, where I found Jayne Wilde, so I headed for her cell. Unlike the research centre, the people were physically there and willing to attack me, but luckily, some Projections of the children opened some cells, letting violent patients out to distract the guards.

Jayne’s voice told me that the children were the reason that I had been on the mission, as they knew I would be able to help. I managed to Charm past all of the guards and slip through the gate as it opened, then once my Psi Power had recharged, I used it again to get past the twin-armed guards at Jayne’s door. However, once I went inside, the room was empty…

The door closed behind me, and I had another migraine, once more returning to where I’d come from. At the end of the corridor was a large shaft filled with scaffolding and some special forces. I attempted to Charm my way past them, but ran out of psi power before reaching the bottom! They opened fire, but I kept going and as I reached a closed door, yet another migraine hit!

This one took me back to outside Hanson’s office, where Jayne’s voice informed me that my final power was unlocked — Precognition. I healed before I went forwards, figuring that a fight was coming, but upon entering the office, I found only semi-transparent figures. Hanson repeated the fact that I couldn’t alter the past — which finally made Vattic realise, as a final migraine brought him back, Dubrensk in February was the present!

I ventured forward into a cavern filled with canisters, crates, and a room surrounded by bulletproof glass, containing Hanson by himself. He was impressed to hear that I knew his name, and that was one of the reasons he thought that I was more interesting than the children. He summoned some soldiers, who attacked from behind as I ducked into cover.

One of the children said that they could help if I let them out of the cells they were currently trapped in. Once I had killed the first wave of enemies, I checked where I needed to go, and fought a second wave as I went over to press a wall panel. The cell opened, letting the first child out, who then freed the second. As we all fought, I opened a third cell, finding only weapons inside, which came in handy as special forces began to join the ordinary soldiers.

Eventually, Hanson ran out of men, so the children surrounded the “psi proof” room and tore the windows open! Hanson, understandably, freaked out as he was attacked, bitten, and I assume eaten? Vattic just stood and watched, whatever actually happened.

A helicopter landed outside as more choppers flew over, letting three soldiers off before me, Jayne and Col. Joshua Starke climbed aboard. The mission now complete, the helicopter took off and flew into the distance…

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve quite enjoyed revisiting Second Sight. It certainly differed from my recollections in some good ways, though I do wish the Telekinesis allowed more throwing objects than I could manage here. Perhaps it’s the keyboard and mouse controls, or the manual not explaining it properly, but I got through without it.

Something that surprised me were the different things that could happen. For instance, if you cross the scaffolding at the asylum without tranq’ing the patient looking out of the window, his shout will startle Jayne who almost falls to her doom. In either case, the scaffold collapses, but using one tranqulliser on a random NPC means that you don’t have to calm down a terrified Jayne, saving you 10–15 seconds on the level time.

My main issue with the game is the music — it occasionally drowns out the voices, but not often enough that I wanted to mess around with the audio settings. Oh, and the dates — we’re told over and over again that the present is February, and the past is October, which was six months ago. No, it wasn’t. Even swapping them around is still not six months! Developers, talk to your co-workers!

The writing was a little off-kilter in a few places, like Vattic being aghast that he accidentally killed someone in self-defense, only to then be happy mowing down dozens of people. And twice a character says they don’t know something, then moments later Vattic says he doesn’t know something and they have a go at him!

I did really like the sniper rifle; I just wish that I got to use it more. The picture-in-picture mode of the zoom was great, though it probably doesn’t make sense for Vattic, who’s never fired a gun, to be able to utilise it so well.

Also, the computers requiring you to actually use them was great. You don’t click on the computer and it just does what you need, you need to open emails, move the mouse to deactivate cameras… it’s great.

The in-game stats say that it took me 6:01:46 to complete and I travelled 24.1km, spilling 628.3 units of my blood and 1465.9 of theirs. It doesn’t define the blood units (litres, millilitres, pints…), but that seems like a lot…

You know… It’s kind of funny how many of these diaries end with my character escaping in a helicopter…

Well, that’s Second Sight finished. While the camera and controls haven’t aged as well as I’d have liked, it’s still perfectly playable. As I mentioned in the first part, the Steam version requires some tweaks compared to the GOG one, but if you’re after a six-hour game with psychic powers, I recommend this one.