PC Critic Reviews

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.

Months after MindsEye’s first came out, it’s hard not to think that it was the victim of a pile-on that was only partially justified by the hubris that surrounded its release. If you can find it on sale for a deep discount and don’t mind playing a generic action game, you may find it perfectly acceptable.

MindsEye is an excellent example of style over substance, a game that falls apart the moment you start playing.

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

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.