Geist

"I can see right through you..."

Being a ghost has been a fantasy of many people. Slipping through walls, possessing things, and observing the world in secrecy have all been dreams that everybody has probably imagined at one point in their life. Geist, an innovative first person shooter made by developer n-Space, tried to emulate that feeling into Geist, succeeding on some occasions but failing at others.

In Geist, you assume the role of John Raimi, a specialist in chemical and biological threats. You, along with counter terrorism group CR-2, have been sent to investigate an organization called the Volks Corporation, which is said to be producing dangerous biological weapons and selling them to the highest bidder. While you are there, you are also sent to extract a man named Thomas Bryson, an old friend of Raimi's who was undercover in the Volks Corporation, uncovering their secrets.

You enter into the facility, meeting up with your friend and ultimately make it to the extraction point. However, just before you and Bryson can leave the facility, you are both captured. You are soon put through a shocking experiment that rips his spirit from his body. Now, as a man without a body, you must rescue your friend, regain your body, find out what the Volks Corporation is up to, and stop them for good.

Although Geist's plot is original, it's not that interesting. There are a few plot twists in the game, but for the most part they are all pretty absurd and a little strange. Geist is definitely not a game you will play for the story, but there is enough plot here so that you might actually be mildly curious about what is going to happen next.

Geist could be considered a first person shooter. However, there isn't too much shooting involved in it. Instead, throughout the majority of the game you play as a ghost who cannot attack anybody. While a ghost, everything around you moves in slow motion, and everything seems to have sort of a dreamlike quality to it. As a ghost, you can slip through some walls, float, and travel through cracks. You can also possess objects, such as cans and crates, or possess people and animals.

Unfortunately, you cannot go around possessing any creature you see. The game does a good job of making sure you only possess the hosts they want you to control by making it so that you have to scare an animal or person before you can actually take command of their bodies.

This is where the puzzle aspects of Geist come to play. Many parts of the game involve you having to figure out the right way to scare a person or animal so you can use their bodies. Most of the scares involve you doing a sequence of events to make a creature go from normal to uneasy to frightened out of their minds. For example, in one scare, you might have to possess an explosive crate and then explode it to make a guard come over to investigate the explosion. Then, while he is seeing what happened, you would possess a trashcan and make it shoot garbage at him, successfully terrifying the guard.

Puzzles like those are fun, but since most of the scares in the game are compromised of sequences like that, they eventually get repetitive. The scaring puzzles are also generally pretty easy, and it won't take too long to figure out even the toughest ones. Since you simply have to possess and utilize a few objects in a certain order, often the puzzles become more of trial and error and less of discovery and logic.

The scaring method also makes Geist very linear. Because you can only possess creatures and animals that you can scare, you can only use hosts that the game tells you to. This makes Geist feel more like it is on rails and less of a sandbox type game, a game where you could do anything you want. The scares feel very scripted, which leaves very little room in Geist to just fool around and experiment. Still, although pretty monotonous, you will get some entertainment out of Geist's frequent puzzle solving, and they are some of the game's best features.

However, it is when your character gets control of a host with a gun that the game starts to really show its biggest flaws. Between moments of puzzle solving, there are often a few big firefights, which pit you against other guards or the occasional boss battle.

Characters control sluggishly, and during many firefights the frame rate will drop considerably. It also doesn't help that the enemy AI in Geist isn't very smart. They will simply stand and shoot, regardless of whether they are getting hit or if a grenade was just thrown in their face. I have actually seen instances where an enemy will be seen running into walls, or where an enemy will not notice you when you are behind them, even if you are touching them. Although some firefights were actually a bit fun, most just seem to be filler, something to go in between the puzzle solving.

Geist is not an incredibly long game. Most gamers will be able to complete Geist in less than ten hours. Since Geist is incredibly linear, there isn't much of a reason to replay it, either, other than to go back to some levels and collect a few items that unlock multiplayer features.

Geist's multiplayer is a nice touch, though. It features three original multiplayer modes, as well as computer controlled bots to fight, who actually pose more of a threat than the enemies in Geist's single player thanks to the multiplayer bots having adjustable difficulty levels. In Possession Deathmatch, you have a normal deathmatch, but unlike most FPS games, rather than pick up guns, you possess hosts with guns. Geist also has a mode called Capture the Host, which plays a little bit like capture the flag, where you have to possess hosts and drop them off at certain points. However, the most interesting and innovative multiplayer mode is a mode called The Hunt. In The Hunt, there are two teams, the ghosts and the humans. The ghosts must attempt to possess the humans and make them kill themselves by walking into numerous hazards like pools of acid or giant fans. The humans, on the other hand, must attempt to kill the ghosts using anti ghost guns and special grenades, all while trying not to be possessed.

Visually, Geist is pretty good looking. As a ghost, everything has a kind of blurry effect, making you feel as if you really are just a phantom. Character models are pretty solid, and environments are pretty well detailed. The few cutscenes in Geist also look fairly well made. At times, though, Geist can be quite choppy, making it look like it's a very dated game. Still, on the whole it's not a bad looking game at all.

Unfortunately, Geist's sound isn't as good as its graphics. Guns sound very quite and weak, making whatever weapon you fire seem unexciting. Even the heaviest machine gun still sounds like it's silenced. There isn't much music in Geist either, and when music does cue up (such as in a boss battle or a sequence with lots of action) it's also quite and forgettable. On the plus side, there is some decent voice acting, but there isn't too much spoken dialogue in Geist to begin with.

Overall, Geist is a solid game, but it suffers from some big flaws that keep it from being a great game. Although Geist is an innovative and overall fun twist on the first person shooter, its short, easy, linear single player and poor shooter portions make this a game that just doesn't deliver the best experience it could.

Overall: 6

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/06