THE POWER OF THE PHANTOM: Disembodied ghost possesses people, objects and a haunting charm

August 21, 2005

BY JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS GAME MASTER

In many years of playing video games, I've taken the role of bad guy, good guy, spaceman, monster, sports hero and even the odd drunken squirrel or two. I have never played as a bunny or, for that matter, a grenade or a computer keypad.

"Geist"

THREE STARS
out of four stars
Price: $49.99
Players: 1-4
Web site: www.geist-the-game.com/launch/index.jsp
Format: GameCube
Category: Shooter
Rating: M (Mature)

"Geist" for the GameCube offers that joy, weird as it may seem. This new title is in many ways a typical shooter game, with one major deviation: You can possess living creatures and inanimate objects as you progress toward the game's goal.

You play the role of John Raimi, a federal agent specializing in disease control. But you're not Raimi -- as we know him -- for very long.

You are on a team dispatched to the Volks Corp., which operates out of a sinister industrial compound. Once inside, a teammate betrays you and you are put through a horrible experiment that separates your spirit from your physical body.

But your spirit escapes, left to roam the massive building seeking answers and, of course, your physical form. To progress you must overcome puzzles, locked doors and armed enemies, achieving this by taking many forms, haunting living creatures and possessing objects that you use to your advantage.

Let me describe how strange this can be.

Picture me about to fight a bad man who happens to be strapped to the gills and is carrying a protective shield. I have just possessed an armed guard, so I am a bit lethal, too.

My guard loses the gun battle the first go-round. Then I notice that when I stun the enemy with a barrage, he drops grenades. Aha! I figure out that I must dispossess my guard, float over to the grenade and possess it instead. Then I blow myself up in his face. In no time I am victorious.

This type of ability presents new levels of strategy that other games do not provide. At times "Geist" can be annoyingly restrictive if you can't figure out what to do next, but those are usually the times when you must employ the game's unique abilities to continue onward.

Let's say, for instance, you are trying to get to a certain room. As a specter, you can't open doors. But as a guard you can. And if the door is locked? Haunt the nearby computer to learn access codes. Still can't get there? Slip through that crack in the wall and float through the ventilation shafts.

There are things that bring this game down a notch. The driving, dramatic soundtrack works at first, but when you're stuck clueless inside a room it seems to clash. The graphics are OK, but the environments are only semi-destructible. And there's no online component, though there are some interesting twists on multiplayer battles for up to four.

I like this game simply for its twists on an old genre. I enjoy many shooter games, but the ability to change characters gives this one a real personality.

Contact JIM SCHAEFER at 313-223-4542 or schaefer@freepress.com.