Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy is a video game developed by Midway Games for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and PC. It was released in North America on June 14, 2004, and in Europe on October 1, 2004. Psi-Ops is a traditional third-person shooter, based on Ragdoll physics and some other psychic abilities that set it apart from others. In Japan and East and Southeast Asia, the game was marketed by Capcom as Psi-Ops: Psychic Operation. The player controls the main character Nick Scream, a supernatural being who has had his mind erased in order to infiltrate a terrorist organization. Nick is later captured by the organization, and must fight his way out with the help of Sarah. During his escape, Nick begins to regain his PSI abilities. On June 9, 2009, a full version of the game was made available for free via the FilePlanet server developed by GameSpy. The free version of the game contained in-game advertisements with the option to purchase the game to remove the advertisements. A FilePlanet membership was required to obtain the game for free. When the story begins, Nick Schrier has completely lost his memory and does not know who he is, as his mind was erased to infiltrate the terrorist organization known as . After being captured by the organization, Sarah frees him and gives him a drug that helps him regain his lost memory and abilities. From here, the game begins with the most prominent mental power in the game, which is telekinesis. Nick encounters a large number of former PSI agents who have defected with their leader, who previously led the PSI-Ops project. Each of these defected agents has a special ability in a specific area of psychic abilities, where their abilities and strength in this area exceed Nick's. Nick defeats them one by one, usually using a combination of his weaker but more varied psychic abilities. While Nick is on his way out of the organization, he discovers mysterious artifacts based on the idea of PSI, which has been the focus of wars in the past century. At the same time, Nick begins to notice strange behavior from Sarah, who sometimes seems like a friend and sometimes seems like an enemy for no apparent reason. Eventually, he discovers that Sarah has a twin, who is killed near the end of the game by Sarah. As the game nears its end, all the artifacts are collected into a single device that, if combined with another special device, gives its user unlimited psychic ability. While Nick tries to stop that device, he regains his full memory. The leader of the defected agents uses that device on himself, and is quickly defeated by Nick. Defeating the leader in the game is the same regardless of the method the player does, as the goal of the confrontation is to give Nick a special weapon to use against the leader, in addition to an advantage in terms of the chances available to defeat the leader even if the player misses some of them. After defeating the leader, the device disintegrates, leaving each artifact as it was, and two helicopters rush to retrieve the artifacts, unconcerned about Nick and Sarah's lives. In the final scene of the game, Nick crashes one of the helicopters using one of his psychic abilities, telekinesis, after which a black screen appears with the words "To be continued...". The gameplay of PSI-Ops focuses heavily on using Nick's various psychic abilities, which become available one by one as the game progresses. Additionally, there is a wide variety of weapons that can be used in the game, as the player can only carry two weapons at a time, one of which is non-replaceable: Nick's silenced pistol. The weapons become useless towards the later stages of the game, especially against large groups of armored enemies. The lack of ammo available for each weapon forces the player to rely on Nick's psychic abilities, which are actually more effective with practice. The player is provided with a meter that determines the amount of energy that can be used at each point in the game, a meter like other meters where energy can be refilled using a variety of methods. Unlike other competing games where the player is only able to use a single PSI power, Nick is distinguished by his ability to use a variety of powers and abilities, despite being somewhat limited compared to specialists with a specific power. In addition to his psychic abilities and various weapons, Nick can attack with his fists. At first, Nick does not have any psychic abilities, but begins to regain his memory of how to use them one by one in certain areas of the game. With each memorable incident that happens to Nick, a training level follows where the player is instructed on how to use each power. The powers are listed in the order they were learned in the game. The game was also in development for the Nintendo GameCube under the name Espionage, but was later cancelled. On February 20, 2007, William Crawford filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Midway Games, alleging that Crawford had written a script titled "PSI-Ops" that bore similarities to the themes and events in the game, including some of the characters and their psychic abilities, and that Midway Games had appropriated and used his work without his permission. Midway Games stated at the time that it would not comment on legal matters. On December 8, 2008, a California state court granted summary judgment in favor of Midway Games on all counts, finding no evidence of copyright infringement. In 2009, GamesRadar included PSI-Ops in its list of "Untapped Games" and commented: "Midway's 2004 combat game combined conventional weapons with psychic abilities, and the game received positive reviews from critics and players, even better than its counterpart Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, but so far we have not seen a sequel." In 2010, UGO Network ranked the game 21st on its list of games that needed a sequel. That same year, it was included in the book "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die".