Ghosthunter(video game) Thoughts

I only played Ghosthunter at all because it's an Sony Compter Entertainment Cambridge game and it came to the Playstation Premium service recently where you can purchase it as a separate download, and all I got to say is, this game is a mess. If you ignore the impressive production values with pretty detailed environment and character models for the time and solid voice acting, the game is just a mess to play on all fronts.

The game makes an okay first impression, the character models, cutscene composition, voice acting and even the way it opens makes you think you are for a good adventure and a good time.

First thing I notice that felt off about the game is that the combat lacks any kind of stimulus. What do I mean by this? One big example is that the guns don't have at least a little bit of recoil and the biggest problem is that the gun barrel doesn't even move upon firing the weapon, so you will fire a gun and there is no bullet coming out of the chamber or any form of barrel movement. This might not sound like a big deal but it goes to show how important details like this are because the guns don't feel very powerful, the lack of weapon kickback makes the guns feel like toys rather than geniune firearms.

Due to this combat "feels" off. Then there is of course the fact that you are primarily fighting ghosts in the games through riddling them with bullets or throwing your grenade and then riddling them with plasma. Fighting ghosts means there is no stimulus for killing enemies unlike say killing humans, aliens, monsters and robots.

This is where Ghostbusters the game improved where Ghosthunter fails. In the former, it's not about killing ghosts and defeating them conventionally, it's about finding their weaknesses with the PKE meter and then weaken them enough to trap them. In Ghosthunter, you either kill enemies by just shooting them, or just spamming the grenade and then defeating them.

I'll complement SCE Cambridge for the fact that the game is pretty innovating with it's controls, it has over the shoulder aiming in an action game context before Resident Evil 4 did and unlike RE4 2005, you can move while shooting, a drawback to this is that you can over the shoulder aiming is a button toggle rather than a hold which can make the aiming feel a little clunky since you can't stop aiming as fast when you press a button by comparison to holding it. There is also the fact this is yet another 00s TPS with a first person aim mode that I rarely used and why couldn't they just make this a dodge roll button instead? Since you can aim in third person and first person aiming is rarely required.

Then there is level design and progression which isn't very good either, at first I didn't mind it that much since the game seems to know combat isn't it's strong suit so it gives you a fair number of "quiet moments" where you are exploring using the contextual x button to climb and clambor up things and solving puzzles, there is also some stealth sections here and there too. All of this isn't too bad at first but it all comes fall apart when it comes to fact that the game's attempt at giving hints to the player is inconsistent and unhelpful at best. One minute, the game will give you written hints and there are other times where Lazarous will just give you hints through voice lines but the thing is the latter can outright lie to you. For example, there was a section in the swamp level where he will constantly say, "I can't reach that or wish I can swim" and I assumed I couldn't get to the cabin where the dynamite was but it turns out YOU CAN get to the cabin but only specific parts of the water Lazarous can in fact walk on and he will walk on them while saying, "I wish I took swimming lessons".

The Swamp level just goes on for ages and there is barely any plot progression or story for a while, and for a game that sells itself on story and production values and the gameplay just seems to be a means to an end, that is a no no. The level just goes on for so long that I wish would end, there is just such little plot movement.

However, the straw that broke the cammel's back for me is when you get back to the school and you can run past much of the content the school has to offer, I activated a plot progressing cutscene and thought I can continue on with the main story, just to find out that I need to go to an earlier part of the school to get the smoke bombs to defeat the poltergiest ghosts and continue onwards. Why wasn't this in my notes or Lazarous saying, "I need a smoke bomb for this" or better yet, lock off my progression untill I got the smoke bombs? Design like this annoyed me so I dropped the game.

Overall, I'd say avoid this game and play Ghostbusters the game instead, try Ghosthunter out at your discretion but I won't be surprised if the production values and all the effort put into the game outside of the gameplay fooled you into thinking you are playing a good or even decent game.