Ghost Squad
4:25pm Monday 4th February 2008
Ghost Squad Wii Sega
In a time when games were sparse and gamers were easy to please Sega and Nintendo brought us its new babies, The light phaser for the Master System and the NES Zapper (for NES somewhat obviously) and spawned a completely new genre for home console gaming, the light gun game.
Both companies built on the success of the new genre with the release of Sega's Menacer(Mega Drive) and Nintendo's Super Scope(SNES) both having some ground breaking home console titles the former including a game called Snatcher by a certain Mr Hideo Kojima with the main boss a somewhat now better known Metal Gear.
And now 23 years on from being responsible for the birth of the genre the two join forces to bring us the home version of Ghost Squad the legendary, arm aching, pound muching, arcade cabinet.
In Ghost Squad you play a member of the United Nations elite special forces unit the 'Global Humanitarian Operation + Special Tactics'. This unit is responsible for sensitve missions that are out of the conventional armed forcees realm. All of their missions must be quickly completed without leaving a trace. They are unsung,unseen warriors who fight in the shadows to defend world peace.
Although to be honest the story is not at all important, Ghost Squad is all about reflexes and skill, specifically with your 'itchy' trigger finger. Ghost Squad is a on rails light gun game (a'la virtua cop, time crisis) and your only concern while playing is shooting the bad guys on the screen with your Wii remote/Zapper.
There are no prickly moral dilemmas or intricate character development options, although you do get to choose which route to take through each of the game's three levels and you can unlock a wide variety of weapons (which don't really the alter gameplay in a radical way). It's mostly just point 'n shoot.
I know your probably thinking '3 levels thats not much bang for my buck' and usually I would agree but Ghost Squad manages to cram each level full of replayability by offering multiple paths to take and more that unlock as your character levels up,each level has about 8-10 different paths to take and you can mix and match these to try and get onto the European scoreboard via WiiFi there realy is a lot more depth on offer here than would appear at first glance.
The control system with the Wii remote (B being used as a trigger) feels like using a phaser from Star Trek a little odd but perfectly playable, but add the Wii Zapper(sold seperately) and it feels sublime, the aim is calerbratable and is so accurate when calibrated that you can play without an aiming reticule and still pick off head shots with ease.
Two of my favourite unlockables I must mention are the Ninja mode and the Beach mode, in Nija mode you take the role of a ninja and fire shuriken at reskinned ninja enemies with all the backgrounds taking an oriental theme, I leave the beach mode to your imagination I wont spoil the suprise.
While it may not have the depth or the longevity that some 'serious gamers' look for this is still gaming at its finest with hundreds of unlockables to aim for driven on by the easy to play hard to master gameplay.Those of us who fed pound after pound into the arcade cabinet will not be disappointed it is a perfect coin-op conversion.And retailing at £29.99 (I've seen it as low as £22.99) its fantastic value for money. Thoroughly reccomended.