So the good folks over at Double Fine released their new project, Majesco's Psychonauts. Originally to be distributed by a certain company in a certain suburb of a certain city north of here (we're not naming names) but allegedly dropped due to concerns about the quality of the gameplay, it has taken years of development and weathered repeated delays but finally landed on store shelves just last Tuesday. Says GamePro:

Each year, there are a few games so off-the-wall and quirky that they make their own success, thanks to unique gameplay and word-of-mouth kudos from fans. Last year, Namco's Katamari Damacy was probably at the head of the pack. Though it's still relatively early in 2005, we may already have a winner in the wacky-game race: Majesco's Psychonauts.

SFist love our games full of guns, drugs and hookers, but we also love games that are goofy, creative and visually inspired -- and Psychonauts looks to be all three. It's been a long seven years since Tim Schafer's last project, Grim Fandango, which was a critical hit for LucasArts. Psychonauts, for PC, PS2 and Xbox, is a console action game (think Sonic the Hedgehog -- say goodbye to getting any work done) with the heart of a classic adventure game (think Scott Adams -- click here and you will probably lose your job in a few months) -- something that Tim says is hard to make these days because of the development costs.

As Joystiq points out, "Psychonauts will remind you how important presentation and story are to video games." We're off to EB Games, or GameSpot, or whatever it is they're calling it these days.