GhostHunter
I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost
Tags: GhostHunter Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 6th, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| GhostHunter (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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I was totally caught off-guard by SCEE and Namco’s Ghost Hunter, a game that actually slipped under my radar. Oh, I’d heard of it, to be sure. However, with the market full of horror-themed titles and miscellaneous shooters, a Capcom game coming out around the same time called Monster Hunter, and a holiday season full of two holiday seasons worth of big-hitters, I totally lost track of this one.
Ghost Hunter has been compared to the Ghostbusters movies, and this comparison is both right and wrong. The game obviously has a modern setting with a hero that uses sci-fi gizmos to catch ghosts. It also tries to strike the same balance between spooky, funny, and cool. However, these two traits aside, Ghost Hunter is quite different from the comedy classic, forging its own unique path, and mostly doing a pretty good job of it, too.
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Ghost Hunter places you in the role of Lazarus Jones, a rookie cop being taken on his first assignment by senior officer Anna Steele. They’re responding to yet another seemingly pointless call regarding noises coming from the local “haunted house” (err… In this case, a school). The place was the scene of multiple grisly murders years back and has since been the focus of the area’s superstitious, and the subject of numerous prank calls.
However, when Jones stumbles upon an odd piece of machinery in the basement and inadvertently activates it, he sets loose a multitude of ghosts, resulting in all-out chaos. While one of the ghosts (a dude with his face sliced down the middle) kidnaps Steele, another named Astral fuses with Jones, giving him the ability to see the spooks, and later on granting him other abilities as well.
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Upon regaining consciousness and repairing the machine, he’s greeted by a apathetic and sarcastic AI program that enlists him (largely against his will) to catch the ghosts. He’ll do this by jumping through various portals leading to an assortment of odd locales. To combat the ghosts, he’ll use a variety of weapons both realistic (pistol, shotgun, etc) and sci-fi-esque (pulse cannons and the like).
The presentation in this game is outright top-notch. The voice-acting is outstanding, the direction (with the exception of “jokes” too cheesy to be funny) is fantastic, and the game often uses subtle effects to enhance a scene, like distant voices moaning in agony to set the mood, or a slowly tilting camera and blurred vision when your character is disoriented.
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It should be noted that this game does a great job showing the PS2’s strengths as well as its weaknesses graphically. The game has many stunningly beautiful environments, great character design, and the lighting effects are absolutely phenomenal, warping light and truly going great distances to sell the ghostliness of the game’s monsters. On the other hand, the real-time lighting is sorely lacking, framerates occasionally suffer, and the characters and some indoor locales are too low-poly. Sad as it is, this game is one that would have obviously benefitted from the extra graphical prowess of the Xbox or GameCube, and that’s a shame considering how frequently the title graphically wowed me, despite the PS2’s limitations.
The gameplay itself has some fairly unique elements that really went a long way towards making this More than just your average action game. Essentially, to catch a ghost, you must anchor them to reality by using a “grenade”, which isn’t a grenade at all but more like one of those throwing disks from Tron. Once the disk lodges into a ghost, you have a breif period of time to blast away with your weapon of choice, and if you deal enough damage, the ghost will dissapear in an awesome bubble-warp effect, followed by the disk returning and Jones snatching it out of the air right as it returns. This is really cool to watch, and is done with a style and grace usually reserved for characters like Devil May Cry’s Dante.
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In addition to his ever-growing arsenal, Jones has a trumpcard up his sleeve in the form of Astral. At certain points, Astral can separate from Jones and go exploring, something she has far more freedom to do, given she can fly pretty much anywhere. As you catch more and more ghosts, Astral gains new abilities, which are largely used to solve the game’s puzzles.
The first Astral puzzle, for example, has her using an ability gained from one of the larger monsters to weigh down an elevator and get it unstuck. Puzzles like these are generally inventive and interesting enough to break up the monotony of the game, along with other tasks, like stealth sections, such as one where you must remain hidden while a “friendly” ghost clears a path for you through an abandoned ruin.
Unfortunately, while this game has an awesome premise and wonderful presentation, some of the gameplay flaws really detract from how enjoyable it is. High on this list are the game’s controls and camera.
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At any given time, the player can switch between 3 points of view: a traditional third-person point of view, an over-the-shoulder third-person point of view, and a first-person point of view. The traditionall third-person view is mostly adequate, although at times the camera can get too close to the character to be useful. Unfortunately, you cannot attack in this mode, which brings us to the over-the shoulder view.
Switching to over-the-shoulder view slows Jones’ speed to a crawl, and while this may help you to aim, it makes dodging enemies unnecessarily difficult, and often impossible. Furthermore, some ghosts move so fast or are so far away that third-person aiming just isn’t sufficient enough, which means we have to switch to first-person view.
You will hardly ever use the game’s first-person view mode. While the over-the-shoulder view slows you to a crawl, the first-person view stops you in your tracks. That’s right: you cannot move at all in first-person mode. At one point in the game you exchae sniper fire with ghosts ducking in and out of buildings, and if you want to snipe back, well, you’ll have to do it in the open. Hope you like taking fire while lining up a shot.
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So, essentially, while the game has three camera modes, all of them are flawed. The sad part is, I can totally see this game working beautifully with a lock-on first-person, like Metroid Prime has. Hell, the “grenade” would have functioned as a great way of doing that, too. Sadly, that isn’t the direction SCEE decided to go.
Also frustrating are some of the game’s puzzles, which give you no clue how to proceed. You get to the town hall, and there’s some barred doors, some overturned bookcases, a balcony above a lower floor, and an attic with a cracked bell. What are you supposed to do? Did you Miss something outside? Did you go the wrong way? Are you missing an item you need? No! You just need to shoot the bell! That make any sense to you?
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Sadly, these flaws mar what could have otherwise been one of the best and most original games on the PS2. While you’ll want to press on to see more atmosphere and story, after getting stuck in yet another area without a clue what to do, or take damage from the umpteenth cheap shot, you’ll find yourself wondering if it’s worth it.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Inventive premise + Great atmosphere + Good story + Occasionally impressive graphics |
7.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Occasionally underwhelming graphics - Flawed controls - Camera issues - Sometimes unclear goals |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Ghost Hunter's story and atmosphere might propel you to overlook its gameplay flaws, but not for too long. | |
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Tags: GhostHunter
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 6th, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
