While this review may be horribly late, please do not take that to mean that Second Sight is a poor game. In fact, short of a few issues, Second Sight is a quality title with a unique and compelling storyline almost worthy of a big name motion picture.

John Vattic is a doctor of the paranormal sort, although he doesn’t believe that such things exist. He’s on the other end, trying to disprove the work of others. Vattic’s been hired to accompany the WinterICE special forces team into Russia, to help them investigate the work of one Dr. Grienko. The not-so-good doctor’s experiments revolve around releasing the untapped psychic powers latent in most humans. Obviously, the military is involved. What better use could be made from this type of research?

Second Sight takes place in two time periods. In the first, Vattic finds himself in a hospital, with no memory of what has happened to him. What he does know is that something in him has changed. His psychic potential has been unlocked, proving his own research dead wrong. Vattic is on a mission to uncover what happened in Russia and how he ended up where he is now. Throughout this journey, Vattic will occasionally flashback to the incident in Russia. The game’s narrative is delivered through these two settings, and slowly but surely things start to make sense. The game ends with a nice little twist before everything is resolved.

As a whole, the story works very well. Much of it feels like it could have come right out of any number of episodes of The X-Files or other similar sci-fi mystery stories. The game effortlessly flows between the two time periods as both Vattic and the player piece things together. The story is also aided by some excellent voice acting. All of the voice actors emote very well. Each line of dialogue is spoken clearly and feels real. Much of the realism comes from the chatter between various characters during the game itself. It’s much better than getting all the dialogue through cutscenes, although nothing important to the plot is revealed during gameplay chatter.

The game itself is mostly well designed. Perhaps it makes sense that John Vattic can overpower most everyone he encounters, thanks to his psychic powers, but this doesn’t lend itself well to the difficulty of the game. Things amp up towards the end of the game, when he starts encountering enemies with similar powers. However, there are very few moments where Vattic fears for his life, due mostly to the fact that he can heal himself whenever he gets a free moment.

Vattic has an array of psychic powers, which he will acquire at different points during his journey. Among them are telekinesis, invisibility, psychic attack, self-projection, and the aforementioned healing power. Some of these abilities can be upgraded to cause even more devastating effects. The progression of powering up keeps the game fresh and also creates a slight difficulty curve. Because they take place before Vattic uncovers his powers, he is unaided by his abilities in the Russian segments.

In addition to his psychic powers, Vattic can employ the use of traditional weapons and stealth to best his foes. He’s always equipped with a tranquilizer gun (which has unlimited ammo). In addition to the Tranq pistol, there are regular pistols, sub-machine guns, and a snipe rifle available. Since the action is presented in the third person, the aiming is automatic. Holding the L trigger targets a foe and pressing R will fire (this setup also works with psychic powers). Shooting in first person is possible, but unwieldy seeing as movement is not possible in first person. Taking out bad guys is easy unless there are tons of them. While blasting everything away may seem like fun, it’s an easy way to run out of ammunition and leave yourself for dead. Instead of going Rambo-style, it might be a better idea to sneak around.

Second Sight’s stealth elements, while well done, aren’t overly useful. John can crouch and press up against walls. These techniques are useful when you don’t want to be seen. However, if staying invisible if your goal it’s much better to actually be invisible. Once acquired, the psychic charm power allows Vattic to do just that. Unfortunately, this removes much of the challenge and skill from being sneaky. If Vattic is going to go invisible, he must be out of sight first. If a guard sees him, trying to turn on the charm will empty Vattic’s psychic reserves in an instant. While hiding behind corners and short walls, Vattic can pop out from the side (or top) to fire off a few rounds. This feature works amazingly well and is really enjoyable. With all these options, it would seem that being stealthy is a useful strategy. Unfortunately, it is ultimately undermined by the fact that John Vattic is so overpowered its often simpler to quickly take out every enemy with some sort of psychic attack.

There is only one major issue with the design of the game, being that there is no way to invert the vertical controls on the C-Stick. Those who are used to this setting are going to take a little extra time to get used to the controls in Second Sight. Apart from this problem, the game controls well. Switching between guns and powers is easy, although it would be cooler if Vattic were able to use both at the same time. Switching targets is easy, and taking on foes from behind cover works extremely well.

Second Sight is definitely a sleeper hit. The game tells a very engaging story through a pretty good game. It can be found for around twenty dollars or less in most stores and is definitely worth it.