Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

"Better than I expected."

There was not too many reviews available for GITS:STA when I came across this game. Most of the reviews were rather unforgiving, so imagine the conflict in my mind when I held the game in my hand, wondering if spending my time playing it was worth the rental money. But curiosity took over, so I picked this title and went straight home, plugged it in my console and start messing with the controller. Turns out to be better than I expected. Strange, I mean this game has the potential. Looks like Bandai just doesn't work on problematic parts long enough to turn this into an otherwise great game.

Story: 9/10
The story is absolutely stunning, as should be expected from the infamous series based on the manga by Masamune Shirow. You play as either the femme-fatale Kusanagi Motoko or her partner Batou, members of Section 9, a public security organization which specializes in counter-terrorism and cyber-warfare. You are called in to assist a military investigation in weapon caches scheduled for scrapping which ended up in black market sales. The rest of the Section 9 supports you from faraway. Throughout the game, bits of information you collected and occasional conversation windows popping up help to conform your missions into one solid story frame with one satisfying conclusion.

The characters are good; they show unique personalities and seemingly have life on their own. The quirky AI tanks never fail to amuse me. There are zero character developments in here though, which is understandable since the characters here are not new, but a final product from the series. The plot gives you enough twists to keep you wanting more, and there are plenty of humorous moments as well, for example, just what do arms-smuggling terrorists have to do with rice?

Graphics: 7/10
Sharp and pretty good. The environment is vast and fully 3D. There is enough lighting to give you a dynamical sense, though not the kind of ground-breaking graphics you can find in other games. Explosions, fire, and smoke looks great. The sky and building designs are good. All textures are done well enough. All characters and enemy units are nicely drawn and detailed. There is occasional slowdown when you pass through heavy-graphics area, but you will hardly notice it. With no major drawbacks anywhere, Bandai has done a good job in this area.

Sound: 7/10
Voice acting is good. I was a bit skeptical at first when I noticed the voice is in English, but it turns out well. No complain here. Effects such as explosion, gunfire, bullet impact and ricochet sound fantastic. Character and enemy voices are done well. I wish the enemy has more varying sounds though. It gets tiring quickly to hear them shouting the same few short lines and similar grunts. The music is a futuristic techno genre sort. However, the tracks are lifeless, ambivalent, and serves nothing more that fill-in-the-background ambience. This makes me wonder if Bandai intentionally made the music that way or their mind just happened to slip. Overall the game sounds good, if you don't mind the uninspiring soundtracks that is.

Controls: 5/10
Controlling the characters can be frustrating if you don't exercise caution. Aiming part is difficult, because there is no auto-aim feature. Aiming with the right analog is a chore, not to mention moving while aiming. In closer range, you can die quickly if you're not dexterous enough to adjust your aim. There is an option to reduce aim sensitivity, but you need to sacrifice ability to turn fast for accuracy, which is bad either way. Dodging feature is nice theoretically, but in this game it shifts the camera in an unpredictable way, which does more to screw your angle than help. While some people might take it as annoying, I find it innovative that hanging on walls now require you to hold down the button. It's like MGS2 grip bar, but how long you can hold depends on how quickly your finger gets tired. I prefer Bandai had included an alternative tap-option though, since you can easily fall off if you forgot the button. Another shortcoming is the jumping from wall to wall. On top of being limited up to 2 jumps, your jump is sensitive to left analog and can shift forward or backward. This usually is the reason you keep falling. The fact that digital button is unavailable only makes things worse. The rest are your standard moving, firing, jumping, crouching, and they're done well. To sum it up, controls are mediocre, but without proper caution it can frustrate even the most patient gamer.

Gameplay: 7/10

This game plays as a 3rd person shooter. You make your way through enemies to reach objective points. You always start with a standard submachine-gun each mission, but you are entitled for a wider arsenal of weapons and ammo from terrorists you downed. You can expand your strategy once you have access to other weapons. Hand-to-hand combat is a unique twist where you can melee your opponents instead when they come too close. Melee has huge damage, and will bring down an enemy quickly. This provide a valuable strategy when dealing with close combat. If you bring an enemy down with melee attack, the game enters bullet-time and camera turns around to showcase the moment. Another unique twist is ghost-hacking: provided you have the code, you can try hacking a person or a machine and gain control of them. Within the time limit you can scout areas for enemy units and their positions, and launch a sneak attack, reducing enemy forces with minimal effort. Aside from enemies, you make your way through treacherous terrains by jumping, hanging, finding control panels. Basically there isn't much variety here.

Bandai seems to miss a few flaws, as evident from standing pose to crouching and vice versa. I can't see any intermediate motion. And the way your character run forward while side-stepping; it's like their feet never touched the ground. Interaction with your environment is extremely limited; only chunks of concrete and glasses fly out even if you blew a wall with a grenade launcher. Guess what: the wall stays as good as new. No debris. Not even a mark. I guess it's understandable, with Bandai trying to pump graphics, they're probably limited in memory. Another flaw is that melee attack need not connect to deal damage. This is so obviously seen during the bullet-time. Ghost-hacking should have been polished more as well. In order to ghost-hack, you need to match 2 moving gears at multiple levels. Problem is, at later stages some of the hacks require you to match the two at dizzying speed. This can be frustrating when you keep failing and failing. There is no limit to the number of tries, but most of the times I find it faster to just fight head-on than keep trying. Enemy AI is smart enough to find covers when shot at, but apparently not smart enough to run when you throws a grenade, so it's not impressive.

Replayability: 4/10
Playtime is short. There are 3 difficulty levels for you to test your skills. There are unlockables once you finished the story. The harder your difficulty level, the more you can unlock. There is a unique fan-hunting scheme which is accessible only after you finished the game. There are multiplayer modes like battle royal and team battle. However, none are compelling enough to keep you playing. You probably will want to replay the game in harder mode once to see what else you can unlock, but that's about it.

Recommendation:
Rent it. You will probably play it just to know the story. You'll have little reason to continue once you're done anyway.

Pro:
- Engaging storyline.
- Unique ghost-hack.
- Good graphics and sound effects.
- Kusanagi Motoko looks great.

Con:
- Short.
- Uninspiring soundtracks.
- Problematic controls.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/22/04