The story is quite unique (at least in the many games I have so far played). The playable character is John Vattic. From the get-go he's a psychiatric patient being wheeled in for experimentation at a science facility. Heavily sedated and bounded the players are introduced immediately that he is gifted with telekinetic abilities which release him from his imprisonment. Players must now navigate John through his escape. As he progresses through the first chapters of the game story he flashes back and forth between what players perceive is the present where John is escaping the science facility to a past 6 years before where players learn that he was part of a special ops military operation to investigate a research facility in Siberia. At their command is what ever weapons John finds lying around and (depending where in the story the players are) a selection of psychic abilities that range from telekinesis to psychic attacks.
Probably what I find most fascinating about the game is the story and the twist (which I must spoil here because I felt it was so original so be warned) when you realize that what John believes at first to be his present frame of reference is really not. In the early flashbacks of his days in the covert operations players learn John is a doctor of psychiatry whose main obsessions included debunking claims of psychic phenomenon. To his surprise during the progress of the covert operations he finds out that he has dormant with in him advanced psychic abilities that he quickly implores to survive what he vaguely remembers to be a failed military operation in Siberia. As players navigate John through stealth like game play in both life times players realize that John's most powerful gift is his precognitive ability and that what they first perceive to be John's present is in fact John's probable future if he does not succeed in the true present which is his progression through the covert operation. Sadly from the reviews I have read this original concept in the game's story did not receive the praise I thought it should have gotten (but that's just me).
Now for its negatives. The game is slightly buggy especially in some of the camera modes. I have not quite figured out what it is exactly. But I feel sometimes I get the screen locked in a certain perspective that I can not readjust and and in turn become frantically frustrated since the whole point of stealth games is to out manoeuvre your targets. I did not really like the random mob mechanisms. At certain points there are cameras that can be taken out and if left unattended only spawn sets of three guards until they can no longer track you. That style of mechanism works for games where you are expected to run through to get to the next check point but become annoyingly unrealistic in a game about exploration, studying your targets, and stealthing around. I in fact came to certain points where for some odd reason guards were spawning because I was in the proximity of some alarm zone inside a vent and out of sight at which a ludicrous number of security guards were spawning in a room I had not even encountered. If it is suppose to be a heavily guarded compound then put more guards but make the number finite and realistic.
Other than the minor glitches in game play the game does offer some re-playability since in a game like this there is often more than one way to approach each level and to get to checkpoints in the game. Second Sight unlocks each story episode for replay upon reaching the next story marker. For people like me it's added value to be able to try different tactics with every scenario. Though very rare I'm hoping the developers of Second Sight think about updating this game with a better production quality and a rethought random mob AI because it is really that close to being a top ten game for me. You can find Second Sight on Steam for $9 USD.
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