Geist

"A great idea for an okay game"

Since Nintendo Power first advertised Geist, It immediately grabbed my attention, and I had to see a trailer. Seeing those first trailers only made me want this game more, and have been waiting patiently ever since. Geist incorporates one of the most genius ideas ever, playing as a Ghost, and being able to possess people and objects in order to figure out an assortment of puzzles. Please note in this review that I have not played Multi-player, because I am the only person in the area that I know who likes gamecube over the other systems, but I hear it has really good gameplay, and the bots are fun as well. Also note that this is my FIRST review, so I hope that I covered all the sections.

Story
6/10

So, you play as Raimi, a character who seems to suffer the same disease that Link, Samus, and Gordon Freeman have, imparing his speech. You are part of a special ops team sent into a complex to research a virus being produced. When you discover its existence, and flee the facility, one of your teammates gets possessed, and opens fire on your team. You wake up to find yourself being ripped from your physical body. And thats where the fun begins. I'm not going to spoil the main plot of the game, but overall, the plot after the beginning isn't spectacular.

Gameplay
7/10

Well, I have to admit, I DID have fun playing the game all the way through, but after a certain point, it gets repetitive and eventually somewhat boring. Now the concept of possessing people, animals, and occasionally objects is awesome, but sometimes the game gives it away too much, other times, not nearly enough. I've walked into a room and known EXACTLY what to do simply because it shows a cutseen of what I need to possess in order to scare the person, or other times, Ive wondered around for 20+ minuets trying to find some small random object that ends up blowing up. Now, I mentioned scaring in the last sentence, that is one of the most fun things ever, you get to use lamps, bats, and in one case, cells. now, possessing is only half the game, the other half is guns, First Person Shooting. t3h h0L3e Cr@P! Nintendo has a true FPS! that portion of the game is good, but not great. You were granted with the gift of unlimited ammunition, which is hard to believe with some of the guns that hold +80 per clip. I beat the game in less than 2 days, but I'm a REALLY avid gamer, and gaming is generally my life, so it will probably take more normal people to beat it in 4-5 days. In Conclusion, single player of the game is FAIR, but not great.

Sound
9/10

This game does a fine job with the sound, and oddly it reminded me of Goldeneye (?). Isnt much to say except that the sound suits every scene almost perfectly. The music suits the boss fights nicely, the combat scenes nicely, the haunted-like scenes perfectly. now what prevents this from being a 10 is that the sound some guns make are ridiculously quiet. guns are like, 120 decibels, and some of the guns here you can barely hear. no they arn't silenced.

Graph-X
5/10

Three years and this is all you can do? shaaame. Thats where this game fall down. Ever play the PC game Aliens Vs. Predator 2? its a bit better than that game. I was soo disappointed, and actually wouldn't have minded a delay to improve graphics. But the special effects are very well done, I though that some of them were really cool. This section deserves a flat out 5, -3 for crap-graphics, -2 for three years of development.

Controls
7/10

Well, the controls are fair, not great, not horrible. But fair. there are two methods of control that I'm not going to go into detail with because it will take too long, and the manuel for the game will do that for you. Or you could check an FAQ when an FAQ is up. Generally the default controls are generic to a FPS, and slightly change depending on what you currently are. It can get confusing when you first start, but you get used to it.

CONCLUSION

In Conc. and putting the whole thing into a nutshell, Geist Is definitely worth renting, but not worth buying unless you have a big family that loves first person shooter-adventure, and enjoy playing multi-player alot. If you can't finish the game in the time your renting it, or dont think you can, just wait for it to go to a full-week rental. The game is Fair, and gets the following in these catagories.

Story------6
Gameplay--7
Sound------8
Graphics---5
Controls---7

MAXIMUM-8 (SOUND)
MINIMUM-5 (GRAPHICS)
TOTAL----33/50 = 66% (passing grade)
GRADE----C
AVERAGE- 6.5

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/26/05