Second Sight (video game)

The game takes place in a world in which parapsychology exists, and secret research projects on the subject were conducted during the Soviet era after World War II and uncovered proof that powerful psychic abilities could be transferred genetically into other subjects. The events of the story take place across locations within the United States and Siberia, as well as a training base in Germany, between two different points in the same year within the late 1990s. The game's main antagonist is a fictional US agency called the National Security Executive (NSE), which seeks for its own ends the parapsychology research that was conducted.

American parapsychology researcher John Vattic awakens inside an isolation cell of a medical facility in Virginia, with no recollection of his past or identity. Discovering he possess powerful psychic abilities of unknown origin, Vattic uses them to break free and explore the facility. While riding down in an elevator, he experiences a flashback that allows him to recover his identity.

The flashback makes him recall that he was recruited by the Pentagon six months ago to assist in an important mission being conducted by WinterICE - a special taskforce of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Joshua Starke, and his psychic adviser Jayne Wilde. The taskforce had been given orders to travel to Siberia to recover Victor Grienko, a renowned Russian scientist seeking political asylum with the United States, who had conducted extensive research into parapsychology. Back in the present, Vattic gains access to the facility's patient records, only to learn Wilde died during the mission in an ambush by Russian troops.

Experiencing another flashback in which he prevents Wilde's death, Vattic is shocked to find her records changed in the present. Learning that her survival only led to her being incarcerated at a mental asylum in Vermont upon returning to the United States, Vattic works to escape the facility in order to rescue Wilde. Traveling to the asylum, Vattic finds her in a cell, having suffered trauma that had left her mentally frail, Vattic works to break her out, bringing her to the sewers beneath the asylum.

Upon returning to her senses, Wilde recognizes Vattic and tells him how he and Starke were ambushed the first night on the mission, resulting in Starke's death. Recalling the incident in a flashback, Vattic and Starke investigated the area after countering the ambush, whereupon Vattic encountered a psychic projection from one of Grienko's child subjects in a disused rail tunnel. The child helps to awakens his dormant psychic abilities in the past, allowing him to save Starke. After the fight, both men discover the troops they fought were actually US Special Forces.

Returning to the present, Wilde reveals to Vattic that Starke survived, but was court-martialed after the mission and went into hiding. Escaping pursuit by NSE agents, Vattic has Wilde bring him to Starke's hideout in Queens, New York. Vattic meets with Starke, who reveals the rest of the WinterICE team did not survive the mission. Vattic recalls in another flashback how WinterICE tracked down Grienko to a village called Dubrensk, and how he prevented the deaths of the team, only to discover the villagers slaughtered. A lone survivor, mortally wounded, pleaded with the group for their help to save a group of children, but insisted on Vattic handling the task alone, as only he could approach the children safely. In the present, Starke reveals the massacre in Dubrensk was conducted by Silas Hanson, the director of the NSE, who sought to steal Grienko's work, dubbed the "Zener Project", from a hidden research facility under the village, and used the surviving WinterICE team as scapegoats. Learning that the NSE covered up the incident and theft of the Zener Project, Vattic heads to the agency's headquarters in New Jersey for answers.

Vattic soon discovers that Hanson used the Zener Project to create a global army of psychic super soldiers, and has another flashback where he ventures into the research facility under Dubrensk. Rescuing some of the children, Vattic is led by them to Grienko, who mistakes him for one of Hanson's men and reveals he contacted Hanson in hopes of taking his research and children to the United States and continue his work with new funding. In the present, Vattic confronts Hanson, but finds himself powerless to stop him, as he holds Wilde hostage. Deciding to use his flashbacks to change the past and prevent Hanson from using the Zener Project, Vattic returns to the past and, knowing the truth, convinces Grienko that Hanson seeks only to take tissue samples before killing everyone on the project, moments before Grienko is murdered by Hanson's men. Proceeding to the lower levels, Vattic begins experiencing hallucinations of the present and the locations he visited.

Eventually, through hearing Wilde's voice, Vattic realizes that his perception of time is wrong, and that the present is actually a possible future being shown to him by his final psychic ability, precognition. Unbeknownst to him, the ability had been active the whole time and what he thought was the "past" was really the present. Wilde explains that Grienko's children had foreseen what Hanson planned to do and knew that only Vattic could stop him.

Now fully aware of the truth, Vattic confronts Hanson in Grienko's lab but finds him sealed behind a window impervious to bullets and psychic powers. Slowly overwhelmed by Hanson's men, Vattic releases the project's other children to help him, who then promptly use their powerful telekinesis abilities to reach Hanson and kill him. Returning to the surface, Vattic reunites with Starke and Wilde, who help him onto a helicopter leaving the area, while WinterICE and American troops arrive to secure the facility.

In 2006, Free Radical Design made the Second Sight soundtrack available for download on the company website, including printable album artwork.[6]

In 2012, Graeme Norgate made the soundtrack available on his personal Bandcamp page.[7]